10,000 Hours

There’s this theory about talent that's been floating through every academic field for the last few decades. It’s colloquially called the theory of 10,000 hours. In This Is Your Brain on Music author Daniel Levitin talks about this theory, “world-class expert — in anything. In study after study, of composers, basketball players, fiction writers, ice skaters, concert pianists, chess players, master criminals, and what have you, this number comes up again and again.”

It’s an interesting thing to ponder, the intersection of practice and perfection. For me, there was always the exception of genius. Virtuosos and prodigies, people who just seem gifted at what they do. I always assumed the inspirational icons were just “born to do it”. That there was something unattainably exceptional inherently in them.

A lot of it I attribute to the biographers. They seem preoccupied with reporting the destination rather than the many journeys taken to get there. When you really delve deeper into these icons’ lives, you see the setbacks they had. The tiny tragedies that history foolishly seems to forget.

Before Bill Gates was a titan of technology, he was a teenager in high school like the rest of us. A lot of his success could be explained by circumstance. His school had one of the only computers in the district that could be used to code. Gates would spend every space second at that computer. And when school shutdown at night, fifteen-year-old Gates would bike to the library to use their computer, which was only open to the public from 2am to 6am. So Gates would set his alarm and log his hours while other adolescent slumbered.

Gates isn’t the only one who’s practice time seems to go uncelebrated. Before they were “bigger than Jesus”, the Beatles spent 12 hours a night playing sets at German clubs. It applies to any type of talent. I’m told Tiger Woods picked up his first golf club when he was here. Hendrix plucked his first guitar at thirteen. Parents are placing their children in prestigious programs at younger and younger ages. Violin virtuoso Hillary Hahn, who recently performed at Emory, entered Curtis’ conservatory at 10. Lady Gaga went to Tisch at fifteen. There’s an entire culture geared towards cultivating genius.

Still, if all it takes to create icons is nurture, why aren’t we seeing an exponential growth in genius? It’s because there really is something unique about the unmimicable overachievers. But I’ve come to realize it’s not some inherent natural talent, but the desire to devote your entire existence to your aspirations. So maybe the secret to success isn’t just practice. It’s figuring out what you can stand spending that much time studying. Find the subject that excites you rather than exhausts you. When you really sink your soul into something, ten thousand hours can tick by quite quickly.