I really mean that. If you have evidence for that belief, please share it here. The leading world expert on the subject of development of expertise, K. Anders Ericsson,
http://www.psy.fsu.edu/faculty/ericsson.dp.html
is decidedly not of that opinion, after having seen many examples of introducing systematic deliberate practice into the environments of people who formerly didn't have opportunities for such practice.
Maybe nobody introduced "systematic deliberate practice" to them? Or, you know, maybe some people are just lazier than others.
Being able to spend that much time in that focused of an effort seems like a talent or perhaps a "condition" like Asperger's.
1. Indeed, Gladwell pushes the idea of a 10,000 hour goal quite heavily to the point he seems to want to make it a mantra. 2. I understand Gladwell's point much more so now than when I wrote this piece two years ago (Jan. 6, 2009).
There was a comment last month (http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2262619) about using an annual calendar to encourage yourself to work on a task (or whatever). I went out and got one and have been using it as suggested in the Seinfeld article.
After a month, with most of the days "x'ed" out, I realized the important correlation between a dedication to routine to get better (or even the best?) at something. It's not like this is a deep revelation or anything, but the lesson is clear: do the work, and (likely) get better. And I totally agree with you're comment: "He just needs enough that he's better than everybody else."
Heck, even being better than my previous self is good to me.
Thanks for reading. Now I have to restore my database connection ...
I think the point is that 10,000 is necessary to mastering a skill; and some people who master skills will be superstars. Not 'everyone you admire is a 10,000 hour superstar, and nobody but you realizes it'.
10,000 hours is N hours daily for M years
3 hours for 10 years.
4 hours 15 min for 7 years
5 hours for 6 years
6 hours for 5 years
7 hours 30 min for 4 years
10 hours a day for 3 years
15 hours a day for 2 years
Just incase somebody wants to pick up a new skill =).
Having recently devoured a bunch of the works of Steven Pinker, I question this. If their daughter is naturally curious, it could be inherited rather than learned. In "The Blank Slate" Steven Pinker has an entire chapter on children. There he says that all studies that try to figure out what styles of parenting lead to what results, none of them control for heritability. They simply assume that the child's behavior due to styles of parenting. But what if curious parents lead to curious children because of their genes, and not their style of parenting? Pinker goes on to argue that what the evidence shows is that the style of parenting has absolutely no long-term effect on a person's behavior. Instead, what matters is genes, culture (in particular the child's peers), and chance events.
Do you still have the book at hand? I looked it up the last time there was a big thread about this on HN. Pinker bases most of that chapter on the work of Eric Turkheimer, as his bibliographic references should show. And Eric Turkheimer has substantially revised his opinion about what heritability studies mean after continuing his research and thinking about the data more. I'll recommend here two articles from Turkheimer's faculty web page
http://people.virginia.edu/~ent3c/vita1_turkheimer.htm
that more readers of Pinker's book ought to know about, to bring their understanding of human behavioral genetics up to date.
http://people.virginia.edu/~ent3c/papers2/Articles%20for%20O...
http://people.virginia.edu/~ent3c/papers2/Articles%20for%20O...
