1 00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:02,700 Page 13. Reading 2. 2 00:00:04,040 --> 00:00:07,560 Ten Thousand Hours to Mastery by Harvey McKay 3 00:00:07,560 --> 00:00:13,760 For years, I have preached the importance of hard work, determination, persistence, 4 00:00:14,220 --> 00:00:20,980 and practice—make that perfect practice as key ingredients of success. A nifty new book 5 00:00:20,980 --> 00:00:26,660 seems to support my theory. Malcolm Gladwell has written a fascinating study, 6 00:00:26,660 --> 00:00:32,940 Outliers, The Story of Success, Little Brown and Company, which should make a lot of people 7 00:00:32,940 --> 00:00:39,480 feel much better about not achieving instant success. In fact, he says it takes about ten 8 00:00:39,480 --> 00:00:48,440 years or ten thousand hours of practice to attain true expertise. The people at the very top don't 9 00:00:48,440 --> 00:00:55,500 just work harder or even much harder than everyone else, Gladwell writes. They work much, much harder. 10 00:00:55,900 --> 00:00:56,640 A 11 00:00:56,640 --> 00:01:18,740 lot of time playing in strip clubs in Hamburg, Germany, sometimes for as long as eight hours a 12 00:01:18,740 --> 00:01:26,620 night. Overnight sensation? Not exactly. Estimates are the band performed 1,200 times, 13 00:01:26,640 --> 00:01:35,480 before their big success in 1964. By comparison, most bands don't perform 1,200 times in their 14 00:01:35,480 --> 00:01:42,540 careers. Neurologist Daniel Levitin has studied the formula for success extensively and shares 15 00:01:42,540 --> 00:01:48,600 this finding. The emerging picture from such studies is that ten thousand hours of practice 16 00:01:48,600 --> 00:01:53,920 is required to achieve the level of mastery associated with being a world-class expert 17 00:01:53,920 --> 00:01:56,620 in anything. In study, he says, 18 00:01:56,640 --> 00:02:03,680 study of composers, basketball players, fiction writers, ice skaters, concert pianists, chess 19 00:02:03,680 --> 00:02:10,200 players, master criminals, and what have you, the number comes up again and again. Of course, 20 00:02:10,420 --> 00:02:15,000 this doesn't address why some people get more out of their practice sessions than others do. 21 00:02:15,480 --> 00:02:20,660 But no one has yet found a case in which true world-class expertise was accomplished 22 00:02:20,660 --> 00:02:26,620 in less time. It seems it takes the brain this long to assimilate all that it needs to accomplish. 23 00:02:26,640 --> 00:02:37,220 To computer giants, Bill Joy, who co-founded Sun Microsystems, and Bill Gates, co-founder 24 00:02:37,220 --> 00:02:43,580 of Microsoft, also were proof of the ten-thousand-hour theory. As Gladwell puts it, 25 00:02:43,840 --> 00:02:49,000 practice isn't the thing you do once you're good. It's the thing you do that makes you good. 26 00:02:49,880 --> 00:02:56,620 Consider these thoughts from successful folks in all walks of life. No one can arrive from 27 00:02:56,620 --> 00:03:03,020 being talented alone. God gives talent. Work transforms talent into genius. 28 00:03:03,640 --> 00:03:05,720 Anna Pavlova, ballerina. 29 00:03:06,300 --> 00:03:13,280 I know the price of success. Dedication, hard work, and an unremitting devotion to the things 30 00:03:13,280 --> 00:03:17,180 you want to see happen. Frank Lloyd Wright, architect. 31 00:03:17,900 --> 00:03:23,880 The way to learn to do things is to do things. The way to learn a trade is to work at it. 32 00:03:24,400 --> 00:03:26,600 Success teaches how to succeed. 33 00:03:26,620 --> 00:03:32,460 Begin with the determination to succeed, and the work is half done already. 34 00:03:33,160 --> 00:03:35,720 Mark Twain, writer and humorist. 35 00:03:36,300 --> 00:03:42,180 Do you detect a theme here? The abilities these people possessed were far-ranging. 36 00:03:42,780 --> 00:03:49,620 Yet the formula for success was the same. Hard work, and lots of it. I don't know anyone who 37 00:03:49,620 --> 00:03:56,280 has succeeded any other way. Some people just make it look easy. Of course, you probably didn't see 38 00:03:56,280 --> 00:04:04,360 the first 9,999 hours of hard work. And you don't just have to work hard. You have to work smart, 39 00:04:04,360 --> 00:04:13,800 too. McKay's Moral. Some people dream about success, and others wake up and do something about it.