Ten Thousand Hours.
This week, the clever Malcolm Gladwell is releasing his latest book, Outliers. Gladwell tackles the subject of “success,” looking for commonalities between the extraordinary. It appears to be as engaging as his previous bestsellers, Blink and Tipping Point.
The Guardian has an excerpt from the book about the 10,000 Hour Phenomenon–the commonly recurring statistic hypothesizing that the truly great masters of any discipline have in common, around 10,000 banked hours of practice. That is roughly 3 hours a day for a decade. According to Gladwell, there are other contributing factors, but it’s the sheer discipline that separates an “outlier” from the rest of the pack.
I’ve yet to pick up a copy of the book, but I’m already considering how I’ve spent my last 10,000 hours, and how I plan to spend my next. Right now, I’d have to say it wasn’t the most terribly focused time spent on one particular discipline. But if you could figure it all out, I’d say it was spent mostly on a Mac, probably working in Final Cut Pro, Photoshop, or on web stuff. Basically, that would mean I’m an ‘expert’ at Multimedia Production, generally.
And though I make a living with those skills, I don’t consider myself an expert. The rabbit holes are DEEP. I’ve had to do what I’ve had to do to earn a living in multimedia with an emphasis on video production.
So. I’m going to work on a plan for my NEXT 10K Hours. I’m confident I have plenty of equity to bring forward. But I’m also convinced I need to sharpen it up and make some commitment to a specific role.
