

Beyond the 10,000 Hour Rule: Richard Hamming and the Messy Art of Becoming Great - bumbledraven
http://calnewport.com/blog/2010/08/09/beyond-the-10000-hour-rule-richard-hamming-and-the-messy-art-of-becoming-great

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tome
It's curious to see someone who describes himself as "over a decade into my
training as a professional scientist" commit the most basic of logical
fallacies:

 _Gladwell: When we look at any kind of cognitively complex field ... you are
unlikely to master it unless you have practiced for 10,000 hours._

 _Author: This rule reduces achievement to quantity: the secret to becoming
great is to do a great amount of work_

Err no. Gladwell says that to be great (A), you must have done 10,000 hours
(B), i.e. A implies B.

The author then restates this as _if you've done a great amount of work,
you'll become great_ , i.e. B implies A. This is not a valid deduction!

~~~
kylemathews
Perhaps Gladwell never said 10,000 hours = mastery but plenty of other people
have made that leap of logic so I think we can forgive the OP his mistake.

Logical mistake or not, it shouldn't detract from what IMO is a great article
with important, little discussed, insights.

~~~
pchristensen
Gladwell says that people _who have mastery_ all put in at least 10,000 hours
to get there, not that everyone who spends 10,000 will be a master.

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fmora
This supports my thesis that all human population has the potential to be as
smart as any phd graduate. All you need is to put the work required to get
there. i.e. put thousands of hours into it and you will become a master of
your field. For whatever reason a lot of people have been down voting me for
saying this. They believe that not everybody can obtain a phd. That only some
people are capable of becoming educated to the level of a phd. I wonder if it
is because hacker news is filled with elitists. Am I offending egos by saying
that a person in a hot dog stand has the same potential to get a phd as a
person that currently has a phd? Is it that educated people like to believe
that they somehow are special and separate from people that did not go to
college? Granted that if you went to college you will be more educated than a
person that did not. But that uneducated person can reach the same level of
intellect as you if he wants to, as long as he/she decides to invest the
amount of work required. We are all stupid monkeys. Pretty much all of us have
the same potential to learn.

Frankly it completely stomps me that people would think otherwise. I took it
as universal knowledge that all humans have almost the same potential to
learn. Yes there will be variations but all in all they will be statistically
insignificant. Apparently I was wrong in my belief and some people think that
only a chosen few can become as highly educated as a phd.

~~~
fmora
This my response to all the people that have disagreed with me and have asked
me for proof. There have been studies like "The Bell Curve" book were they
attempt to demonstrate how intelligence varies among people. You can read more
about the book here:

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Bell_Curve>

Basically it supports the view of many people here that there are great
variations of intelligence among people. An article that counteracts this type
of belief to some degree is this one:

[http://minority-
health.pitt.edu/archive/00000515/01/Intellig...](http://minority-
health.pitt.edu/archive/00000515/01/Intelligence,_Race,_and_Genetics.pdf)

I'm not trying to make this a talk about race but unfortunately these are the
closest things I could find that talk about human intelligence overall.

As a young person I used to believe that some students in my class were really
indeed smarter than most of us. They always seemed to get good grades. I used
to think that you were either smart or not and that there was nothing you
could do about it. As a young mind thinking like this was very destructive.
Who knows how I got out of it but I finally discovered in high school that
just by studying regularly I could achieve good grades even if I were not
smart. That I could get as good grades as the smartest kids in class and that
sometimes I was "the smart kid". Though I knew that it was only because of the
hard work I put in. I've seen a lot of friends doing really bad at school and
that once they started putting some real work their grades started to improve.
The only time that I've seen work made no difference was with kids that had
mental disabilities.

Eventually by reading the biographies of several successful people like
Buffet, Edison, Einstein, Newton, Trump, Galileo and books like "All The Money
In The World" by Peter W. Bernstein And Annalyn Swan I came to the conclusion
that what really makes the difference is hard work. All of the successful
people that I read about had one thing in common, they worked really hard to
become successful.

I have to admit that I'm still highly surprised that people would disagree
with me on this one. I'm still in shock. I know I'm going to get down voted
for this but I'm highly suspicious that a lot of people like to believe that
some people are smarter than others to make themselves feel special. Honestly
I think is complete B.S. and I'm calling you guys out on this one. You guys
are all full of B.S. Most human beings posses the same level of intelligence.

Thinking that only some people are smart enough to do certain things is like
poison. I certainly do not want to be around people that think like that since
if you do they will poison you too. And yes, I won't let let door hit me on
the way out.

~~~
rimantas
You did not read all the books not written about millions of people who did
hard work and were not successful anyway. You are also mixing different things
there — success ant intelligence. Do you feel you are smarter than us saying
we are full of BS? Is that the best argument to support your point of view you
can get?

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agentultra
Becoming great is a process. It's different for everyone who's interested in
being great. I think that's the driving point behind the article. There is no
formula or magic number. You just have to work at it.

I keep notebooks for every subject I study. I have a shelf that is practically
falling over with notebooks, looseleaf, and sticky notes. My wife hates it. I
also keep journals of my overall progress where I can examine my thoughts and
feelings on my process and successes.

10 000 hours? I don't know. Minor footnote in the article I think. Maybe
certain skills requiring strong dexterity will require this magic number of
hours of practice. But then again there's probably some Johnny out there who
can do it naturally and with little effort.

Personally I don't think greatness can ever be achieved, only struggled for
and sought after.

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matrix
Sigh. People keep missing he most important aspects of the so-called 10,000
hour rule.

It's not 10,000 hours of practice. It's 10,000 hours of a certain type of
practice. The practice must be directed, with feedback from coaches. The
original paper this came from also mentioned that the experts practiced
differently: They often spend a lot of time doing drills and focusing on
individual skills. It's a very focused, methodological approach.

~~~
harscoat
"deliberate practice" K Anders Ericsson
[http://projects.ict.usc.edu/itw/gel/EricssonDeliberatePracti...](http://projects.ict.usc.edu/itw/gel/EricssonDeliberatePracticePR93.pdf)

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Aaronontheweb
"there is a pretty good correlation between those who work with the doors open
and those who ultimately do important things, although people who work with
doors closed often work harder."

This rings absolutely true for me - my best work comes when after I've spent a
moderate amount of time discussing and sharing the idea(s) with other people,
and it's usually far better than things I cook up and develop in total
isolation.

~~~
akkartik
The author of _Flow_ found that successful people tend to alternate between
periods in 'open' and 'closed' mode.

~~~
kylemathews
Absolutely. I find it really helpful as a technical founder to alternate
between product mode and customer developer mode.

Tearing myself from the one context to the other is hard at times but
generates a lot of insights.

