Malcolm Gladwell Demystifies 10,000 Hours Rule

It was tough for Heavy Chef's representatives Caley and Fred to conceal their avid fangirl / fanboy tendencies when meeting with Malcolm Gladwell, arguably the most famous non-fiction author alive today. Along with CliffCentral main dude Mr Gareth Cliff, we were allowed a private audience with the great man himself at the BCX Disrupt Summit. After the gushing formalities, however, we quickly got to work asking questions. First up, we wanted to know whether he'd evolved his thinking on perhaps his most famous hypothesis, the 10,000 hour rule, from his seminal book 'Outliers' in 2008.

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[hidalgov]

If you work 40 hours a week in your job for 5 years, that’s 10k hours, then everybody would be a master in their field. This is so much more than just time spent on an activity. It is about time doing an activity intently at your best performance, being coached and doing constant aggregated improvement for 10k hours.

[minutessmarter]

I’m a huge Malcolm Gladwell fan, so thank you for uploading!

I totally agree on focused deliberate practice. This will result in 10, 000 hours of practice rather than 1 hour of practice repeated 10, 000 times.

[theeckyman]

Get this man a more comfortable chair xD

[LucasDanielSantoro]

I'm a great Malcom Gladwell supporter so I want to state my two cents here:
> It't not that 10, 000 hours of deliberate practice will take you to world class, it's that you'll hardly find anyone world class having much less than 10, 000
> In all cases 10, 000 hours is the road to "one of the best in the field". In his examples he puts The Beatles, Bill Gates or aclaimed violinist. The book doesn't state you need 10, 000 hours to be able to do something. You may think of Messi or Federer to have 10, 000 hours of deliberate practice
> 10, 000 hours won't come from only intention, it probably comes from some kind of luck early on. He talks about Bill Gates' time and place born (where his school was the only one with access to computer at the time and he would sneak in at night, and if he was born only a couple of years later that would have already more security) and The Beatles "luck" of being hired to play in hamburg (where they had to play for 4 up to 10 hours every night and that forced them to develop a massive repertoire and even improvise as a group)

[jacobfield]

None of this takes into account the millions of people who have spent 10, 000 making music, singing, playing chess, playing sports and are not very good at it.

[KidsLearnHTML]

“The thing that distinguishes one performer from another is how hard he or she works. That’s it. What’s more, the people at the very top don’t just work much harder than everyone else. They work much, much harder.”

[lonewolf]

I do think that 10k hours is a good baseline. One thing that speeds this up or slows this down is intellectual predisposition to the task at hand. For instance, if you are naturally strong in language skills, you might learn a language faster than someone who is stronger in math skills. Richard Feynman is a good example here, where he scored extremely high in mathematics yet his spelling wasn't that great. Someone like him obviously would master a mathematical field much faster than if he were trying to become a playwright. The same goes for those with "sports intelligence": Michael Jordan was a basketball genius and likely mastered the game faster than 10k hours, whereas he might master another sport slower than he did basketball. The quality/efficiency of work put in does have an impact, as well as your interest and focus on the subject at hand. The higher you score in these attributes, the faster you will likely master something.

[irene-marivanderwalt]

The things I would give to have this kind of a conversation with Malcolm Gladwell

[rivenz]

The 10, 000 hour rule was never based on any sound science. What The data Gladwell himself presented showed, was that there is no predictable amount, or type of practice that leads to excellence.Nothing Gladwell presented indicated excellence in a given field is something anybody can achieve either. The long and the short of it is that if you are gifted enough, you can excell with a fair bit of practice, or a hell of a lot, or if you keep practicing deliberately untill you die of old age, depending on the level of inherited suitability for the task at hand.

[revolvency]

That's it. Thanks Malcolm for explaining it. The 10, 000 hours is the minimum. For reaching that minimum, you need deliberate practice. If you want deliberate practice you need a mentor.

[zadeh]

In theoretical studies, intuition is developed after a lot of time. Once your brain short-codes the easy, repetitive stuff, than it opens up computation and analysis with information that is only accessible in THOSE time-sensitive instances, which layfolk (regardless of IQ level), in principle, could not have accessed.

[betsycook]

Isn't it ten thousand hours of learning and practice....work defined

[dotsovertonesinging]

I thought so too! The lesson is: it takes thousands of hours to succeed!

[pvtejas]

One thing he failed to mention is that while 10000 hours is the minimum, the study that he sourced the numbers from has data points going to 16 years and even 22 years. The 10 years seems to be the minimum, but it's not a definite tipping point.

[cinnamongirl]

If they misunderstood it that's because they didn't want to understand it. I thought you were pretty clear.

[mr.portanova]

I always thought this was relating to physical skill sets. mental skill sets (chess) are very different.

also, practice only makes permanent. perfect practice makes perfect.

[abcd-byrw]

Cool so... has anyone tested the 10, 000 hour theory...?

[hleet]

In theses 10k hours, you shouldn't count the hours where you don't see any new results (when you are stuck). If you suck, go to school to learn basics ! If you don't want to go to school : take/pay a mentor or a coach ... Because you will never achieve anything in life without the help of friends/etc. We don't know what we don't know ; Learn -> fail a lot -> repeat 1, 2 until you get your 10k hours done ! Having said that, AI is there, we are doomed ! :/

[basick]

This 10k rule makes me not like my life it feels like I’m wasting time instead of focusing on hobbies that make me happy

[Maplefoxx-vlew]

if you practice piano 6 hours a day for 4.5 years it's around 10k hours lolol. you better be doing the right exercises tho and have the right technique. get a good teacher. so this is true for piano in this sense, and guitar or violin or any musical instrument. and there is always more to learn in and field of study