Mastery, Just 10,000 Hours Away (Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell)

At the spurring of some of my business colleagues, I recently read Outliers, by Malcolm Gladwell. Marc S. pointed to the headlined article on WSJ which keyed in on one of the most intriguing concepts illustrated, that of the statistical significance of time spent training/studying/perfecting for an individual to become a master, maestro, or statistical out-performer.

No surprise here, but Gladwell's "10,000-hour rule" applied to potential virtuosos rated by a study done at Berlin's elite Academy of Music. Of the top third, all had played 10,000 or more hours at that point in their career. Perhaps more surprisingly, for those rated in the middle and least-talented, none of them had. There was almost a direct correlation between hours invested and talent.

What about innate talent? Gladwell doesn't dismiss that. His observation that at least in music, computer programming, hockey, chess, and elsewhere, talent requires practice--and a lot of it.

Another key: practice is not idle pastime, but rather "purposefully and single-mindedly playing their instruments with the intent to get better."

Thanks to Eddie D. for noticing Gladwell's interview on Colbert Nation. You can also check out the Malcom Gladwell video on Amazon.

Q. How will I purposefully and single-mindedly spend my next 10,000 hours?