In his book Outliers (one of my favorites!), Malcolm Gladwell famously popularized what is now simply known as the 10,000 hour rule. This rule has since become a favorite of seemingly every productivity guru, coach, teacher, parent, and over achiever in the world. And I'll admit, it's had its talons in me a bit as well.
The reason is because it just seems like it should be true. It makes intuitive sense when you think about it. Plus it validates and provides rationalization to a lot of things we see in the real world as well as long held beliefs.
But, turns out, it could also just be a bunch of manure. So what are we really to believe?
Let's explore some of the grey areas of the 10,000 hour rule.
What is the 10,000 hour rule?
The 10,000 hour rule posits that in order to become an expert at something, and it really could be anything, you have to spend at least 10,000 hours practicing that thing.
Want to be an expert surgeon? You need to operate for 10,000 hours. Want to be an expert swimmer? Swim for 10,000 hours. You get the point.
And Gladwell didn't come up with this hypothesis out of thin air. It's based on a key study by Anders Ericsson on violinists at Berlin’s Academy of Music. In his study, he followed students who had begun playing at around 5 years of age, all putting in similar practice times. However, by age eight, the practice times began to diverge as some practiced more than others. By age 20, the elite performers totaled 10,000 hours of practice each, while the merely good students had totaled 8,000 hours, and the lesser-able performers had just over 4,000 hours of practice.
Add this with other anecdotes including Bill Gates and his early coding experience as well as the Beatles perfecting their performances in Hamburg before hitting the bigger stages and you have a unifying theory of success that is very tempting to buy into hook, line, and sinker.
Problems with the 10,000 hour rule
However, when you look a bit closer, some imperfections start to appear in the diamond facade of this rule.
First, there really isn't a time frame placed on when or how soon this critical hour barrier must be reached. Do you need to reach it by a certain age? Or can I pick up the cello, put in some crazy hours and still become a virtuoso? Even more, does it matter if you put in the 10,000 hours within a certain time period, say 10 years? Or can you do it over 60 years, becoming a master later in life?
That is probably my biggest issue. But there are many others:
- Quality of practice is completely ignored. Can you practice poorly for 10,000 hours and still become an expert? Is 5,000 hours of really great intentional practice the same as 10,000 regular practice hours?
- It doesn't apply equally to all fields. Some fields like musical instruments or chess likely better adhere to this rule than say entrepreneurship.
- The “nature” aspect of the equation goes out the window. Sure, experience and practice help but are there no innate talents or gifts that play a role. And what about genetics? Could any amount of basketball practice make up for what I lack in height to lead me to the NBA?
- Is the 10,000 hour rule discriminatory? Could it discourage those who lack early access to the requisite resources, money, or coaches from trying?
- There is a likely survivorship bias. Studies don't account for those who practiced a ton but dropped out due to burnout or other confounding factors.
And last but not least, these studies ultimately show a correlation, albeit a very compelling one, rather than a causation. Definitive scientific conclusions cannot be drawn on such data.
So where does this leave us? I guess the real question is…
Does the 10,000 hour rule have any value?
Despite spending the last few paragraphs roughing up this rule, I do think that it still carries some important value.
My main takeaways from it are:
- Hard work pays off
- Working hard is at least important, if not more important, than natural ability in most of life's endeavors
- It's safe to ignore anyone who says they are an expert but objectively or subjectively has not put in the work
Questions of exactly how many hours or in what time frame those hours of practice are needed become relatively inconsequential when you take a bird's eye view of this theory.
Its real value is in helping to answer a very basic question fundamental to success in any field for any one: If I want to achieve this goal, what do I need to do?
The answer: Keep working and don't stop until you reach it.
What do you think? Do you like the 10,000 hour rule? Or is it a bunch of garbage? If so, why? Is there any saving grace to it? How do you apply it in your life? Let me know in the comments below!
