TITLE: The Most Important Thing About the "10,000-Hour Rule"
AUTHOR: Eugene Wallingford
DATE: June 23, 2016  2:29 PM
DESC: 
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BODY:
This:

<BLOCKQUOTE><EM>
 But we see the core message as something else altogether:
 In pretty much any area of human endeavor, people have a
 tremendous capacity to improve their performance, as long
 as they train in the right way.  If you practice something
 for a few hundred hours, you will almost certainly see
 great improvement ... but you have only scratched the
 surface.  You can keep going and going and going, getting
 better and better and better.  How much you improve is up
 to you.
</EM></BLOCKQUOTE>

... courtesy of Anders Ericsson himself, in
<A HREF="http://www.salon.com/2016/04/10/malcolm_gladwell_got_us_wrong_our_research_was_key_to_the_10000_hour_rule_but_heres_what_got_oversimplified/">
   a <EM>Salon</EM> piece</A>
adapted from his new book, <EM>Peak</EM>, (written with
Robert Pool).  Ericsson himself, author of the oft-cited
paper at the source of the rule, which was made famous by
Malcolm Gladwell.

I've seen this dynamic play out over the years for many
students.  They claimed not to be able any good at math
or programming, but then they decided to do the work.
And they kept getting better.  Some ended up with graduate
degrees, and most ended up with surprising success in
industry.

Looked at from one perspective, the so-called 10,000 Hour
Rule is daunting.  "Look how far I am from being really
good at this..."  Many people shrink in the face of this
mountain, willing to settle for limits placed on them by
their supposed talents.  But, as my friend Richard Gabriel
often says, talent doesn't determine good you get, only
how fast you get good.  As I quoted from
<EM>Art and Fear</EM>
<A HREF="http://www.cs.uni.edu/~wallingf/blog/archives/monthly/2004-11.html#e2004-11-19T10_10_14.htm">
   long ago</A>,
"talent is rarely distinguishable, over the long run,
from perseverance and lots of hard work".

That's the most important lesson behind Ericsson's research.
If we practice right, we will get better and, with even more
of the right kind of training, we will keep getting better.
Our limits usually lie much farther away than we think.
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