Why I don’t quite agree with the 10,000-hour rule

If I were to get a dollar every time someone brings the 10,000-hour rule up in an effort to convince me to not start a new career or not to try out so many things at the same time, I would be sooooo rich.

The 10,000-hour rule is simple. It basically means when you spend time on something for 10,000 hours, you most likely will become an expert in that skill. One of my all-time favorite writers and thinkers Malcolm Gladwell coined this concept in his most popular book, The Outliers.

I think Gladwell is very much right on this, but I don’t quite agree with how some people interpret it.

If I don’t sleep, eat or do anything else, 10,000 hours is a year-ish. Obviously, that’s not feasible. Let’s just say…if I spend 3 hours developing a new skill every day. It will take 3,333 days to reach 10,000 hours. So that’s close to 10 years. This then means that it will take 10 years for me to be fantastic in something.

Some people, as a result, take this as, the sooner you specialize in something, the more time you will have to spend on it and the more success to follow.

I don’t think this is quite right or is the answer.

A Ted Talk by David Epstein Why doesn’t specialize early doesn’t always mean career success made me realize the importance of a “sampling period”, where you learn a wide variety of new skills to test out your interest aka stretching out your 10,000 hours.

He found a lot of research showing that athletes, musicians and scholars who chose to specialize after a sampling period become as successful as those who got ahead earlier in the same amount of time. He suggests this most likely is the positive impact of all kinds of other skills these people got to learn while “sampling” making them more well-rounded — ironically distinguishing themselves in their highly specialized world. In other words, these people who took the time to find what they really love have shown to take not all that much longer and in some cases the same to succeed.

I may be agreeing with what Epstein tries to communicate to us through his Ted Talk and book only because I am literally living in what he calls a “sampling period”…Maybe his findings make me feel like there is a bright light at the end of this tunnel and it’s giving some hope to this humble, high-achiever?

We will not be finding that out soon, but what I want you to take away from this the most is that those who did not rush into a specialization reported feeling more fulfilled.

Success is important to me, but the promise of fulfillment is for sure beyond appetizing.