The 10,000-hour rule

Short piece here by Malcolm Gladwell in which he does some clarifying of his famous "10,000-hour rule" from "Outliers." Essentially, if you've been living in a cave, the 10,000-hour rule is a general rule of thumb that experts at complex tasks - like chess or playing a musical instrument - typically put in a minimum of 10,000 hours of practice to achieve elite status:

http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/sportingscene/2013/08/psychology-ten-thousand-hour-rule-complexity.html

This column is spurred by David Epstein's new book "The Sports Gene," which I want to badly read but it has to get in line right now. Gladwell feels like a lot of people are misinterpreting his initial hypothesis, and makes two major clarifications here:

(1) Natural talent is important; and

(2) The 10,000-hour rule applies to complex tasks - chess, musicianship, golf, surgery, etc. Not to simple tasks like sprinting.

I think a great example from the current sports world of this rule in action is Cubs pitcher Jeff Samardzija. I recall that when he was drafted as a highly sought-after prospect, one of the big selling points was that he was relatively inexperienced as a pitcher because he spent most of his offseason playing football. In 2007, he struck out 65 people in 140-plus innings at Class A and Class AA, and I remember there being a lot of worry that he was a bust because he wasn't missing bats. Now, he strikes out about a batter an inning at the major league level.

It's not breaking news that "practice makes perfect." But I think it's interesting to see that old aphorism clarified and quantified and studied.

 

Michael Jordan was only 2000 hours away from making it to the big show.

Makes you appreciate more what Bo Jackson was able to accomplish.

 

There's a scene in Californication where Charlie is getting a BJ from a hooker and he says, "Wow... Have you read Outliers?"

 

A lot of comedians talk about it a lot because the belief is that to get really good at standup, you need to hone your craft for about 10 years...

 

I listened to this author speak on Steve Czaban's morning show last week, and the author pretty much backed away from the 10,000 hour theory.

I was driving, I don't have details, sorry. But the 10,000 hour rule is for one small, almost minute aspect.

 

Now I definitely want to go back and re-read that chapter of "Outliers" and see how much he actually did equivocate. (In this case, equivocating being a good thing.)

 

Allen Iverson scoffs.

 

Whether or not the specifics of the rule are that precise, I find it heartening to hear that it exists - that, basically, it takes a long time to get good at something. Sometimes, I feel like an utter moron when I've tried to learn chess or guitar, and I struggle with it. I don't know why, but it feels like the people who are good at things like that just pick it up one day and "get it."

 

Oh, that still exists. You're talking about something completely different (general inherent knowledge and the basic "gift") than the 10,000 Hour Rule is (the most intricate levels of the skill, the kind of thing that makes a person stand out even among the best in the world).

 

That's eight hours a day, every day for almost three and a half years.

Fuck that.

 

He likes to pull bullshit theories out of his ass with arbitrary constraints and dress them up as tested truths, but he never walks them back. Maybe even he knows he's full of crap.

 

Yeah. Fuck. That.
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