They took a school of violinists and divided
them into three groups. Teacher material, the merely good, and world class. And they
asked them the same question, "Ever since you first picked up the violin, how many hours
of practice have you put into it?" And a pattern emerged. Teacher material had practiced about
4,000 hours, the merely good had practiced about 8,000 hours, and the world class had
practiced about 10,000 hours. In study after study with pianists, chess players, master
criminals, the same pattern emerged. And so this became known as the 10,000 hour rule.
So the conclusion was the following: As long as you're good enough to get into the school,
the number of deliberate hours of practice would be the only thing that would really
differentiate you from your competitors. Now, Outliers is an extremely interesting book,
but it doesn't really tell you how to become an outlier. So I've picked out three huge
implications of the book about success that should help all of us. The first one, and
my favorite: when you're on your first few hours of doing something, stop expecting to
be good! I remember when I put out my first animated video, some people said, "Well, your
animation sucks, your voice-over sucks." And I took that and I said, "Oh, okay, this is
great. People are telling me what I need to improve on." But at the same time, I realized
that that was completely natural, and it didn't affect me at all. But again, what is people's
though process? I've put in a few hours into something, I'm going to be good. It's like,
Oh! It's really surprising that I'm not as good as an entire team of animators that have
put in 1,000s and 1,000s of hours into their craft. Work together, and that's literally
all they do, and charge $5,000 for a single minute of animation, and my little first animation
isn't as good as their's. But that's literally how people think. Someone starts a business,
and it's like, "I've had losses in the first few months," which is completely normal for
a business! But what is going to say? "Well, maybe I'm not so good at this business thing,"
and quit. You take someone to the tennis court, and they play tennis for the first time, and
they hit the ball ten times and it hits the net every single time. And what do they say?
"Oh, well, maybe this isn't really my sport." And it's like, "Do you know how long it took
me to play my first tennis game?" Took me probably 10 hours of practice to play the
most miserable tennis game ever played in the history of mankind. And it consisted of
three hits of both players back and forth, and that was it. The second big implication
is that talent is overrated. In the studies that they did, there were no "naturals," meaning
a person with only 4,000 hours of practice that was world class. There were no "grinds"
either, meaning a person with 10,000 hours of practice and being a teacher material.
And I don't have to look at those studies to know that talent is overrated. Most of
the time, what gets labeled as talent is hours and hours of practice that isn't seen. So
how do I know this? Because I've been put on that pedestal before. When I was in college,
I remember taking this slightly complicated statistics class. And people were really struggling
with it, and the average would usually be a 50 on the exams. And I would get a 100 basically
every single time. Now at the same time, all I did in those classes was sleep. That's it.
I just went there and slept. While people sitting next to me would sit there and take
notes and try to work really hard. Now, when the exams would come back, they would look
at me and they would say, "You're a genius! Okay, you're a GOD!" Basically, I became this
god. How do you do this? All you do is sleep, and look, you got a 100, I got a 50. But again,
what was the reality? And the reality isn't going to be disclosed because the person with
success has way too many things that are cool going on in his life. So I had a great social
circle, I was doing great things, I wasn't going to sit there and explain what happend.
But what happened? Well, here's the actual truth. So when we'd go back, I would spend
hours and hours every night doing every single problem. That's by the way why I was so tired
the next day in class. What they did was they would take those notes, those mediocre notes
the took in class and maybe spend 30 minutes or an hour in their room. And that's really
where the difference came from. Now, not only was it that, but it was accumulated advantage.
Even if we had gone years back, when we were in middle school, I would've been the one
putting in the hours and they wouldn't. And over time, it's 100s and 1,000 of hours of
advantage. But again, in college, what is it? Some people are good at math, some people
aren't good at math. The third big implication: as long as you're good enough, deliberate
practice is what will set you apart. Now, let's break down that "as long as you're good
enough" part. I think if you're 40 years old, have never kicked a ball in your life, and
you say, "Well, I want to be a professional soccer player," that's not going to work.
But I think most of us have realistic goals. I think most of us are good enough. But, what
we're lacking is the deliberate practice. Again, if I go back to the college example,
what those people would do when they would come into class would be, "Oh, I studied all
night last night..." And again, what did they mean? Out of every hour, I spent 50 minutes
eating, talking to my roommate, being on Facebook, and then 5 to 10 minutes actually doing the
work. You have to put in that deliberate amount of hours of practice where you're solely focusing
on getting better at your craft, and if you do that, that is what is going to set you
apart.
