You may have heard of Malcolm Gladwell’s book Outliers, in which he asserts the idea – based on the research of Anders Ericsson – that one of the main keys to success is to simply practice a specific task for a total of around 10,000 hours. He uses this concept to explain the success of everyone from Bill Gates, to The Beatles, to Canadian hockey players. The problem? It may be wrong. There’s a fair amount of criticism of the unscientific basis of the book. But let’s be fair. Gladwell’s cachet isn’t science, it’s creating books that sell while they make people think a little. And I don’t know if he put in 10,000 hours practicing, but his ten years writing for the Washington Post probably helped develop some chops. So here’s a challenge – why don’t you set out to become an expert in FIVE thousand hours. I bet you can do it. Why not work smarter AND harder? In any case, it’s obvious that the best way to become the best at something is to KEEP DOING IT, and the only path to failure is quitting.
