10,000 Hours to Genius?

By Dave Newton

They're saying the notion of God-given genius is bunk. When remarkable achievers like Mozart or Tiger Woods or Bill Gates are studied, they are found to be the product of unique opportunities, super-pushy parents, and early starts. The analysts are throwing around a number: 10,000 hours — the amount of practice it takes to become a renowned practitioner of your chosen skill.

David Brooks has written the most recent and succinct presentation of this finding in the New York Times. His sources are a couple of recent books referenced in the article. Malcolm Gladwell undoubtedly read them, too, for his new best-seller.

Let's say the new, analytical view of genius is true. Sounds logical. But, do you need to practice for all 10,000 hours to master your craft and, maybe, produce a breakthrough product — a best-seller, a cure for cancer, a multi-billion-dollar company?

Let's see...10,000 hours breaks down to 417 twenty-four-hour days. Or, think of it as 1,250 eight-hour days. Which adds up to about three and a half years.

If you practice diligently for 10,000 hours will you automatically turn into Meryl Streep, Barack Obama, Yo Yo Ma, John Grisham, or Steve Jobs? Maybe not. You've got a better chance, is what they're just sayin'.

Or, as my friend, Louise Marley, the folk thrush cum opera mezzo soprano cum fantasy writer put it to me, success requires the ninety-nine percent perspiration, but that remaining one percent counts more. If you're well-practiced when you get your break, and you've got natural ability, then, maybe.... I mean, look at Susan Boyle.

Louise Marley is a great example of a multi-discipline shape-shifter. The question that arises for me: Did she have to spend 10,000 hours practicing for each of her productive careers to date? Maybe. More likely, once she'd mastered the shift from folksinger to diva, she didn't need another whole 10,000 to transfer her imagination and story sensitivities to literature.

Allow me a little splurge of self-reference. At six, I knew I loved radio. I started practicing right then. I started my own radio network in my head, The Globe Broadcasting Company (GBC). I talked to myself a lot, always in the voice of an announcer. In grade school, I play-by-played recess softball games from the first base line with a folded-paper microphone, on GBC, of course. The other kids wouldn't start the game without me.

I got my first real radio job at 17. I burned out on radio at 37, discovered my creative ad libbing could be expressed as writing, transferred my skills to advertising, burned out on that at 50.

Except for a backslide into radio marketing, I've been a writer of some kind ever since. Now, I'm working on a novel and running this Website. I haven't become John Updike. Yet. Life is messy.

Should I consider everything I've spent my time on my 10,000 hours, or four runs of, like, 6,000 each? Does the ten thou only count if it's applied to one pure, focused specialty? Or can I believe that my cumulative practice will someday pay off in some exceptional way?

What if I decide I want to become a psychologist, or a politician, a doctor, or a sculptor? Do none of the previous 25 or 50 thousand hours apply? Why shouldn't I head up one of these paths? There's time for several 10,000's. Hell, I'm only 70.

Semi-sorta-scientific studies are great. They give us food for thought. My digestion of this new insight into success and accomplishment: It's more ammo for my war on the discouraging environment people over 50 must overcome in America.

10,000 hours. Is that all it takes?

What do you think?