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New Research Casts Doubt On the "10,000 Hour Rule" of Expertise
First time accepted submitter Scroatzilla writes What makes someone rise to the top in music, games, sports, business, or science? This question is the subject of one of psychology's oldest debates. Malcolm Gladwell's '10,000 hours' rule probably isn't the answer. Recent research has demonstrated that deliberate practice, while undeniably important, is only one piece of the expertise puzzle—and not necessarily the biggest piece.
If you want to succeed in anything, forget practicing and start networking.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
The article had logic approximately like this:
Doing it for a long time doesn't always make you an expert.
Therefore, it's genetics that make you an expert.
All around me, I see my co-workers doing it _wrong_ for a long time. I just discovered that one guy who has been in the same job for over ten years was completely unaware of some of the most basic concepts anyone starting in the field should know. This is a database administrator and developer who didn't understand that there is a difference between the number zero, the empty string, and null. He just had never heard of null, it seems. After I explained the idea of null to him, he said our database system (DB2) doesn't support nulls. DB2 has supported nulls since it's first release in 1983. This is a guy who has spent 10-20 years as a professional DB2 developer.
He's had lots of practice, but apparently never opened a book, including the manual. So he's been practicing it wrong for 10-20 years. Surprise, he's not an expert!