The Stupid 365 Project, Day 15: The 10,000-Hour Rule
October 16th, 2010
Malcolm Gladwell, in his somewhat interesting new book Outliers (interesting enough for me to read some but not all of it) talks about the magical threshold of 10,000 hours that appears to be the necessary cost of genuine mastery. Ten thousand hours, he says, is the amount of practice required before an individual can aspire to master much of anything. This idea is liberally illustrated with a broad spectrum of examples, including hockey and soccer players, classical musicians, mathematical and computer programming prodigies, even the Beatles.
And that’s ten thousand hours of concentrated, focused doing whatever it is. One thousand, two hundred fifty eight-hour days of balls-to-the-wall, pedal-to-the-metal whatever it izzing. Almost four years’ worth with no weekends free.
To be candid, it actually doesn’t seem like enough. On the other hand, all the 10,000 hours really does is qualify you for possible “master” rating which, along with two dollars, will get you a cup of something really basic in a Starbucks. It’s still not the thing that makes the difference between Yo-Yo Ma and the third cello in the Seattle Philharmonic. Or between Kobe Bryant and a great pick-up player on the outdoor courts of New York City. Between Mozart and Salieri.
By the way, Gladwell goes out of his way to point out that Mozart, usually considered the greatest prodigy in musical history, got in the requisite 10,000 hours before he wrote anything really worthwhile. That stuff he cranked out when he was four and five was, well, pedestrian.
My problem with Outliers is precisely that. It skips the miracles. In attempting to explain the existence of the Yo-Yo Mas, John Lennons, and Steve Jobs of the world, Gladwell looks to nurture, coincidence, good fortune, and practice. (“How do you get to Carnegie Hall? Practice, practice, practice.”) The book seems to me to be consistent with a general trend to diminish really startling individual achievement, to say it would never have been possible without all these invisible shoulders for the achiever to stand on. And I’m sure that’s accurate, to a point. It would do no one any good to be a piano prodigy in a society that hadn’t invented the piano. But to explain the accomplishment of a Rachmaninoff, an Isaac Stern, or a Rudolf Serkin by saying, well, they were fortunate that they had access to good musical instruments at an early age and that their parents supported their study — it’s true, of course, but it doesn’t explain the only thing that really matters. Everybody’s born with ten fingers. All pianos come off the assembly line with 88 keys. All the sheet music for the “Kreutzer Sonata” is identical. Take 500 pianists and violinists who have put in their 10,000 hours, and a very small number of them will turn the fingers, the keys, and the notes, into magic, a distillation in sound of the highest and the most beautiful aspects of the human spirit. The rest of them will make pretty music.
There’s something about our age that’s uncomfortable with the idea of individual genius. Even our school system, which should be the incubator for genius, has for decades taught to the slower pupils in the class, valiantly attempting the impossible — to leave, as Bush the Lesser said, no child behind. But what about the kids at the other end of the spectrum? The kids whom, arguably, we need the most? They’ve been bored into a state resembling plant life. The minds that should have been devouring raw material in order to combine it in some startling new way have instead been diverted for stimulation to games and increasingly stupid media.
A society that sees genius as a sort of populist collaboration, a bunch of anonymous hands manipulating a single puppet, won’t give succor to its budding geniuses. A society that doesn’t provide light and heat for its geniuses isn’t going to have any. Hi, future.
As a somewhat creative person, I can measure the difference between what I — even with my ten thousand hours and plenty of good luck — am capable of producing, versus what’s produced by someone like David Mitchell or William Boyd or even Salman Rushdie, whose work I don’t even like. And it’s the difference between a good, sturdy flashlight and the northern lights. There’s magic at work in certain intellects. There’s no equality about it. And we deny that at our peril.
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10 Responses to “The Stupid 365 Project, Day 15: The 10,000-Hour Rule” -
Gary Says:
October 16th, 2010 at 7:52 am
But could “mastery” just mean that you’ll become competent at whatever skill you’re trying to master? That you can play the right notes at the right times, or sing on key with the proper phrasing and breath control, or write grammatical prose with a reasonable rhythm to it.
It doesn’t have to mean that you’ll be a genius. Because as you’ve rightly said, they’re born, not made.
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EverettK Says:
October 16th, 2010 at 8:17 am
Too true. I was thinking of Bush’s “No child left behind” about a paragraph before you mentioned it. My wife is a teacher, a good fried was a school principle, one of his daughter’s is a teacher… I’ve had a LOT of exposure to the internal workings of modern American school rooms, and “it ain’t pretty.” All too often it comes down to “lowest common denominator” and baby-sitting.
I think much of our culture’s attitude springs from the early founding days, and in particular from the phrase, “…all men are created equal.” Which is fine and dandy, except for two things: all people (nod to modern politically correct attitudes) are NOT created equal, and ‘created’ (past tense) has been perverted into ‘are’ (present tense) or “should be” (ideally). The anti-aristrocratic sneer: “You ain’t no better than me!”
Some folks, naturally, DO win the lotto, and are born with SO much skill and talent at [name your favorite human endeavor] that there’s just no hope of mere mortals competing. Yes, to paraphrase Edison, it’s mostly perspiration with a little inspiration, but some folks can just naturally do a whole lot more inspiring with the same or lesser amount of sweat than the rest of us. That, of course, is not to say that more sweat won’t improve those lucky ones, too. 
[hmm.. reCaptcha failed. Then trying to resubmit, it said it had already been submitted. Sigh. Well, I'll add this note to change the text, and submit again. If you get this twice, please delete this second one.]
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Suzanna Says:
October 16th, 2010 at 10:52 am
Of course genius or being gifted without doing the required practice is just genius in idle but genius nonetheless is a special ingredient that no matter how hard you try you cannot duplicate.
For example, a great vocalist has probably practiced the necessary hours to perfect their instrument but the instrument they are given had a lot more to do with their particular genetics than how many voice lessons and scales they’ve performed. If the miracle of being born healthy and having all the necessary physical qualities of producing a beautiful vocal sound isn’t a miracle I don’t know that I understand what a miracle is.
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Timothy Hallinan Says:
October 16th, 2010 at 5:06 pm
Gary — Exactly. Suzanna — Exactly. Everett — Exactly, and I think it’s hilarious that reCaptcha failed on you. There was a period of time when I had to close down comments completely because it failed on everyone, every single time.
More sweat, more experience, more practice (until the artist lets it degenerate into routine) is good for everyone. It makes us more competent and more confident, which means we take more chances — pretty much the only way to grow. But real, burning talent is, I think, the sole possession of the people who have it. The rest of us can appreciate it but not claim credit for it in any way — we didn’t facilitate it, make it possible, ease its way. We’re just lucky it exists.
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Peg Brantley Says:
October 17th, 2010 at 8:47 am
I was reminded of a book I purchased, but haven’t read all the way through. (I have a lousy track record with non-fiction). TALENT IS OVERRATED by Geoff Colvin talks about “deliberate practice” separating peope who are great at something from the rest of us.
I’m guessing that “deliberate practice” is akin to 10,000 hours. But to equate that either will create genius is absurd.
One day, I hope I might be close to great. Genius? The idea (and the responsibility) makes my stomach hurt.
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Timothy Hallinan Says:
October 17th, 2010 at 1:53 pm
That’s precisely what I’m talking about, Peg — an almost Orwellian need (in the sense of Orwell’s villains, not Orwell himself) to downplay individual talent and inspiration in favor of grunt mechanics like practice.
Do I think talent can find its way out without practice? Only in very rare instances. Do I think people can practice forever without developing talent. Yes, although they can develop a kind of virtuosity that a lot of people will mistake for talent. It’s the difference between Bach and Telemann.
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Larissa Says:
October 18th, 2010 at 11:00 am
Gladwell has some interesting points but I do tend to agree with all of you that there is some sort of mojo at work in true geniuses. However, it’s sort of a dead-end argument because we can’t really prove that Rachmaninoff is higher up on the intellectual food chain than so and so-maybe with brain scans or something to see how their different neurons fire so there has to be something else…something not tangible. I had a friend who was surrounded by music and opportunities her whole life-she’s a decent singer in her adult life but there’s something missing. It could be the way she was brought up-tumultuous at best-or it could be that her vocal chord genes just aren’t as profound as Etta James.
I’m a mildly creative person-I’d like to see what would happen if I put 10,000 hours into anything. Not that I think I can reach “genius” status but the real-life comparison would be cool.
Now if I can just be bothered to focus long enough to get there…hm.
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Timothy Hallinan Says:
October 18th, 2010 at 1:41 pm
Riss, I think that talent, as opposed to virtuosity, is immediately apparent and impossible to pin down. I believe you could be a very good writer, and that’s not a term I sling around. Would you be a great writer? I have no idea. You’d have to put in the 10,000 hours and fail a few times, then recover from the setback and try to do better. And even then, you might stall out at “very good.” But very good writers have written some very good books and given a lot of pleasure to people.
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Larissa Says:
October 18th, 2010 at 2:35 pm
Well Thank You Tim. (c: And for some reason in my previous post all of my formatting was eaten…so I apologize for the very long run-on sentence hehe. (c:
Anyway-I think I’d be ok stalling out at “very good”. One thing that seems to be true of “geniuses”-they continue to return to their medium of choice again and again-as a coping mechanism, as a way to communicate, celebrate, etc.
I’m wondering if the “genius” by societal standards isn’t really just someone who found the only voice they really know how to use.
I dunno-that might be a little hokey and it’s a blatant blanket statement (say that three times fast) but maybe.
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Timothy Hallinan Says:
October 18th, 2010 at 7:29 pm
Hey, Riss, I like that idea. I’ll probably steal — I mean, use — it in the future.
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