All You Need is 10,000 Hours

I envy the younger generation, not so much for their youth, but for the time that they have. In recent years I've come to realize how little I know, and how much more I want to know, about everything. Time is not on my side.

Another observation has been that the vast majority of us learn quickly when we're young, reach a certain comfort zone, and the learning slows down. We end up with one or two years experience 30 years in a row. In other words, when our earnings from work exceed our expenses most months, we are happy and can become content and complacent.

This theory has been well documented and expanded upon by Malcolm Gladwell in his book "The Outliers." In the book, Mr.Gladwell studied the habits and life styles of highly successful people, and one of his conclusions was they got that way by a lot of practice and hard work. There were some other circumstances, but for the most part people achieve extraordinary success by continuous learning, and never giving up. Their dreams become a reality by following the 10,000 hour rule.

Of course not everyone will find a MicroSoft in their life, no matter how hard they work. But everything is relevant. If you run a pizza shop and follow the rule, how could you not become a better pizza maker? You won't just get good at building pizza. You will learn how to sell more of them, make them cheaper, deliver them faster, deal with your competition more effectively, and the result of doing all those things will combine to elevate your success

How long is 10,000 hours? At 8 hours a day, 5 days a week, times 50 weeks a year, it will take about 5 years to achieve. Working 2000 hours a year at something you love doing, that adds value to your knowledge and experience, and that is measureable in some sort of tangible way will lead to a higher station in life. Your personal ambition and goals are your decision, but no matter what you do, something will be achieved.

Success is different things to different people. We measure by money, by house size, car size, job status, clothes style, and hair colour to name a few. Some of us measure by happiness, personal satisfaction, accomplishment and how well we treat others. How ever we measure, our achievements will impact how we live one way or another.

Take a dream, apply 10,000 honest hours of learning and steady practice, and see what happens. Your life will be changed forever.