10,000 hours
So I am done reading Malcolm Gladwell’s latest book Outliers, which I highly recommend you go out and buy right now. I recommended the book back in December, and am recommending it to you again in January.
One of the major points that Malcolm makes in the book is the law of 10,000 hours. Basically in most cases it takes around 10,000 hours to become really really good at something and be considered successful in that area. I am thinking back over the last 15 years for me. I worked on a ranch in Colorado for almost 5 years right after college. I rode horses on average of 3 hrs per day for 9 months out of the year for close to 5 years. That is just over 4,000 hrs. I felt like I was really really good at riding horses, and wasn’t even halfway to the 10,000 hr mark. Man.
I’ve been doing event management, networking, producing, and content development for the last 10 years. That’s about 11,000 hours invested. Interesting.
What’s your 10,000 hour mark?
Loved the book – I was *just* calculating these numbers for myself in a really boring meeting yesterday. I think I’ve got almost 7,000 hours working with high school students in ministry teams.
Well, Ive been a campus minister for right at 5 years, so I guess I’m an expert, assuming working 40 hour weeks, which as easily been accomplished, puts me over the 10,000 hour mark. I’ll make sure and tell my mom.
I did the math and I’ve been blogging for about 5,450 hours. On some days, reaching 10,000 seems like it will never happen and on others, it seems like 10,000 is just going to be the beginning.
Jon