MESSAGE #440 - THE 10,000 TEST

Tiger Woods passed the test.
David Copperfield passed the test.
Linda Eder passed the test.
Steven King passed the test.
Михаил Николаевич Барышников passed the test.
So did Mia Hamm, Joan Rivers, Dr. Paul Hartunian,
Adina Aaron, and Dr. Arthur Benjamin . . .

Have you???

If you want to be really, really, really
good at something: 10,000 hours.

. . . ten thousand hours of practice is required
to achieve the level of mastery associated
with being a 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.

Ten thousand hours is the equivalent to roughly
three hours per day, or twenty hours per week,
of practice over ten years.

Of course, this doesn't address why some people
don't seem to get anywhere when they practice,
and why some people get more out of their practice
sessions than others.

But no one has yet found a case in which true
world-class expertise was accomplished in less time.

It seems that it takes the brain this long to assimilate
all that it needs to know to achieve true mastery.

Source
Book: “This Is Your Brain on Music: The Science of a Human Obsession”
Author: Dr. Daniel J. Levitin

So . . . if you think it’s going to be difficult
to devote 10,000 hours – imagine how difficult
it will be to compete against someone who has
devoted the 10,000 hours if you haven’t.