Some people are amazed at my ability to speak "live" on Radio and TV and able to answer "Live" questions from listeners and viewers on Personal Finance.
Well, I spend at least 2 hours per day reading/learning about Finance since year 2000 when I resigned from the bank and struck out on my own, that works out to about 7,300 hours in total.....but if 10,000 hours is needed (as mentioned in the Book entitled "Outliers", then I actually need another 2,700 hours or about 1.5 years more to become even better at handling "Live" questions.
What I observed from most "overnight success stories" is that many years and hours of hardwork have been put in before a person achieves recognition for what he/she does......the recognition may seem overnight, but typically behind the recognition, there have been many, many hours put in before that.
What enabled me to "persevere" especially when in the first 5 years after I left the bank I suffered a drop in income? I realised it is the Passion to pursue my Personal Life Mission (helping others raise Financial Literacy level) that enabled me to continue despite the sacrifice in income...so ask yourself, is there anything you are willing to devote 10,000 hours to "practising" and doing before seeing any Tangible Success?
That might be what you should focus on doing, as success is just a matter of Time then.
Cheers!
Dennis Ng
The 10,000-Hour Rule
Elim Chew, Founder and Owner, 77th Street
Dec 23, 2009 Wednesday, 02:31 PM
77th Street's Elim Chew talks about not giving up in order to succeed.
I WAS truly excited when I heard about a new Book titled "Outliers" by Malcolm Gladwell. In this book, he studied on successful people to find out how they arrived where they now are.
One of the important conclusions he made is the principle of the 10,000-Hour rule illustrated in Chapter 2. Although natural talents and gifting are necessary but these are not key factors to success.
Rather, it is about mixing talents with a lot of practice and hard work, repetitively doing the same tasks over and over again until one becomes professional in their skills.
Based on a study done in the early 1990s by the psychologist K. Anders Ericsson and two colleagues at Berlin's elite Academy of music, they found out that the group of school's violinists who eventually became elite performers by the age of twenty had each totaled 10,000 hours of practice.
Ericsson then compared with a group of pianists and the same pattern emerged.
In fact, researchers have concluded that the true expertise requires 10,000 hours for anything. Neurologist Daniel Levitin said that study after study of composers, basketball players, fiction writers, ice skaters, concert pianists, chess players and many other professions revealed the same pattern.
This is interesting as it made it possible for most people to achieve success if they focus on doing what they do best for 10,000 hours.
I love the Principle of it as it exemplifies discipline and hard work to achieve success which means most people have the chance to make it in life. It is about ordinary people putting in that extra hours and working hard to become professional in what they do most.
Having been in the business for 21 years, I would have clocked 10,000 hours for 77th Street. That looks like an enormous amount of time! But is it really "Mission Impossible"? How do we break down the figures?
Simply spend about 4 hours x 5 days x 52 weeks x 10 years and you will achieve it.
It is good to start early so that you can reach 10,000 hours at an early age to truly experience the peak of your career.
Two examples of success quoted in this book are the Beatles, one of the most famous rock bands ever and Bill Gates, one of the world's richest men.
Before the Beatles reached the United States, John Lennon and Paul McCartney had been playing together for seven years. They were once a struggling high school rock band in 1960. At Hamburg, Germany where they were invited to play in a club called Indra, they had to perform eight hours a day, seven days a week.
When interviewed, John Lennon said this, "We got better and got more confidence. We couldn't help it with all the experience playing all night long. We had to try even harder, put our heart and soul into it, to get ourselves over."
All in all, they performed a total of 270 nights with 5 hours or more each night in Hamburg. By 1964 when they had their first burst of success, they already performed live an estimated 1200 times! Most bands today do not perform that many times throughout their entire career.
Again, it is about becoming better and better as you keep on working on the same skills for extraordinary hours.
In 1968, Bill Gates got to do real-time programming as an eighth-grader when his school at Lakeside started a computer club. From that moment forward, he lived in the computer room. Then a group of programmers at the University of Washington formed an outfit called Computer Centre Corporation (or C-Cubed), which leased computer time to local companies.
One of the founders of the firm, Monique Rona had a son at Lakeside and Bill Gates was given the opportunity to test out computer software programs in exchange for free programming time. After school, Gates took the bus to the C-Cubed offices and programmed for many long hours.
By the time Gates dropped out of Harvard after his sophomore year to try his hand at his own software company, he had been programming practically nonstop for consecutive seven years. He had truly been working hard and practiced way beyond 10,000 hours.
This rule well-illustrates Thomas Edison's famous saying: A 'genius' is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration. Accordingly, a 'genius' is often merely a talented person who has done all of his or her homework.
What Seems Impossible is Now I M Possible. It is all about doing it again and again for 10,000 Hours. But most people give up during 5,000 hours.
Today, success is truly in your commitment. Are you ready for it? It is in your hands!
The 10,000 hour rule
Moderators: alvin, learner, Dennis Ng
The 10,000 hour rule
Cheers!
Dennis Ng - When You Master Your Finances, You Master Your Destiny
Note: I'm just sharing my personal comments, not giving you investment advice nor stock investment tips.
Dennis Ng - When You Master Your Finances, You Master Your Destiny
Note: I'm just sharing my personal comments, not giving you investment advice nor stock investment tips.
The 10,000 hour is taken from "Outliers" and here is the book summary that I have done to make it complete:
Outliers is about studying how people become successful. However, do not expect it to be any other “feel good” success story, as the book itself is an outlier. It does not pay so much tribute to successful people, but rather to the opportunities that were given to them. Successful people are after all humans, just like you and me.
The book is divided into 2 parts, Opportunity and Legacy. These are the 2 main factors of success that the author is conveying.
PART I – OPPORTUNITY
Opportunity I
Gladwell started the book on the commonly overlooked pattern about the players’ birth dates in sports teams. He noticed that members of a young talent team tend to be born at the beginning of the year. The author believes that the cut-off date for different age groups created this pattern.
For example, let’s take an under-17 (of age) team with a cut-off birth date on 1st Jan. If you are born on 31 Dec, the last day before the cut-off date, you will be playing against physically stronger players that are born at the beginning of the year. You can be as much as 1 year younger and it would make a good deal of physical difference in the growing up years. Hence, the physically strong older players are able to perform and “shine” as compared to the younger ones, are selected for prestigious “talent” grooming team. This will further create an “accumulated advantage” for the “talents” by having more and better training. Overtime, these “talents” indeed became better than the younger peers who were not given the opportunity.
Thus, the author is arguing that the way we perceive “talents” are actually flawed and it is inherent in our selection system.
The 10,000 hours pre-requisite
Our perspective of success is that you must first have the potential and thereafter, preparation is needed to realize your potential. Gladwell argues that preparation plays a bigger role than one’s innate ability. He draws a study on violinists from the Berlin’s elite Academy’s of Music. The researchers found that the difference between the players start to form at the age of 8, and it coincided with the amount of time they practise their instruments. Eventually, the elite performers had an average of 10,000 hours of practice, the good ones had 8,000 hours, while the future music teachers had 4,000 hours.
The following is an extract from the book by neurologist Daniel Levitin:
“The emerging picture from such studies is that 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. Of course, this doesn’t address why some people get more out of their practice sessions than others do. But no one has yet found a case in which true worldclass 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.”
This also applies to Bill Gates and Beatles. Bill Gates started programming when he was only an eighth grader. Beatles performed live extensively in Hamburg, as much as 8 hours a night, 7 days a week. By first shot of fame, they had 1200 performances under their belt.
Opportunity II
To further illustrate his point on opportunity, Gladwell mentioned that even preparation chances need to be given. Bill Gates was sent to a private school, Lakeside, which bought a computer that connected to a mainframe. It was a time where most schools do not have computers. It was indeed a rare opportunity given to Gates. As for Beatles, if they were not invited to Hamburg, they would not have so many live performances to hone their skills.
The era that you are born may also mean how big opportunities are. 1830s was the period where many great American business leaders were born. This is because due to a enormous change in American economy – the embarkation of industrial manufacturing and creation of Wall Street. Another golden era in American economy was for those born in 1950s. They are the one that led the IT revolutions – Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Bill Joy and many others.
Opportunity III
In the middle of the book, Gladwell began to analyse the “talent” at its purest sense – a high IQ person – a genius, and see whether all geniuses can succeed in life.
He draws attention to one particular genius, Chris Langan, who has an IQ higher than Einstein’s. But why aren’t he successful as compared to another genius, Robert Oppenheimer? Shockingly, the answer can well be how rich their family is. It was apparent that Chris has lots of “analytical intelligence” but lacked “practical intelligence” (or you may call it social skills, street smartness), while Robert had both. It was through the upbringing in their families which is linked to how much money the family have.
Middle-class and wealthier families often schedule their kids with lots of activities where they are able to learn how to interact with others. The parents encourage the kids to reason with them and question authority. The poorer families on the other hand give more freedom to their kids, allowing them to grow in a natural way. The poorer children raised in such environment tend to be more quiet and submissive, lacking “practical intelligence”.
Unlike Robert who came from a wealthy family with all the opportunities to pick up practical intelligence, Chris came from a poor family with a drunken stepfather, who only gave him resentment. He has no major achievements yet given his high IQ. He is a talent, but when opportunities are not given, success is beyond reach.
PART II – LEGACY
The legacy that Gladwell was referring to our culture, practiced by our ancestors and predecessors but still have significant influence to us in the present day. In the early days of Korean Air, the airline suffered a series of accident. Gladwell brought us through on of the crashes, analysizing the communication in the cockpit, minutes before the disaster. It was apparent that the way that the more junior pilot sounded very reserved and respectful despite the criticality of the event. It is a Korean culture that juniors should always show respect to the seniors and not question authority outright. It is also an Asian culture to observe a large power distance, using indirect speech most of the time. These cultural behaviour are actually detrimental to flying planes! The junior officer knowing that things aren’t right did not have the courage to point out to the captain. He was also submissive to the air traffic controller, and not able to influence him that the plane need to land as soon as possible. After the series of accident, Korean Air removed this cultural effect and eventually became one of the safest airlines to fly in the world.
The next culture effect was with regards to math, Asians are generally good at math due to their culture.numbers are shorter in Mandarin than in English, and the number and fraction system aids processing in the brains. Secondly, it is the hardworking attitude the Chinese developed when working in the rice paddies, where they applied it naturally in whatever they do, including math. It was also found in a test, TIMSS, that those testees who spent most effort and patience to approach the questions, were the ones that excel in math. Again, the author tries to play down innate abilities of successful people.
Conclusion
I felt the conclusion was more heartfelt as the author wanted his proposition from the book to influence more people. To change people’s perspective that success requires innate ability. It isn’t, as he argued throughout the entire book, trying to highlight innate ability is not crucial for success with numerous real life examples. All he wants us to do is to provide more opportunities to as many people as possible, such that all humans are given the fair chance to succeed. In this way, the world can be a much better place and with greater development.
Outliers is about studying how people become successful. However, do not expect it to be any other “feel good” success story, as the book itself is an outlier. It does not pay so much tribute to successful people, but rather to the opportunities that were given to them. Successful people are after all humans, just like you and me.
The book is divided into 2 parts, Opportunity and Legacy. These are the 2 main factors of success that the author is conveying.
PART I – OPPORTUNITY
Opportunity I
Gladwell started the book on the commonly overlooked pattern about the players’ birth dates in sports teams. He noticed that members of a young talent team tend to be born at the beginning of the year. The author believes that the cut-off date for different age groups created this pattern.
For example, let’s take an under-17 (of age) team with a cut-off birth date on 1st Jan. If you are born on 31 Dec, the last day before the cut-off date, you will be playing against physically stronger players that are born at the beginning of the year. You can be as much as 1 year younger and it would make a good deal of physical difference in the growing up years. Hence, the physically strong older players are able to perform and “shine” as compared to the younger ones, are selected for prestigious “talent” grooming team. This will further create an “accumulated advantage” for the “talents” by having more and better training. Overtime, these “talents” indeed became better than the younger peers who were not given the opportunity.
Thus, the author is arguing that the way we perceive “talents” are actually flawed and it is inherent in our selection system.
The 10,000 hours pre-requisite
Our perspective of success is that you must first have the potential and thereafter, preparation is needed to realize your potential. Gladwell argues that preparation plays a bigger role than one’s innate ability. He draws a study on violinists from the Berlin’s elite Academy’s of Music. The researchers found that the difference between the players start to form at the age of 8, and it coincided with the amount of time they practise their instruments. Eventually, the elite performers had an average of 10,000 hours of practice, the good ones had 8,000 hours, while the future music teachers had 4,000 hours.
The following is an extract from the book by neurologist Daniel Levitin:
“The emerging picture from such studies is that 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. Of course, this doesn’t address why some people get more out of their practice sessions than others do. But no one has yet found a case in which true worldclass 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.”
This also applies to Bill Gates and Beatles. Bill Gates started programming when he was only an eighth grader. Beatles performed live extensively in Hamburg, as much as 8 hours a night, 7 days a week. By first shot of fame, they had 1200 performances under their belt.
Opportunity II
To further illustrate his point on opportunity, Gladwell mentioned that even preparation chances need to be given. Bill Gates was sent to a private school, Lakeside, which bought a computer that connected to a mainframe. It was a time where most schools do not have computers. It was indeed a rare opportunity given to Gates. As for Beatles, if they were not invited to Hamburg, they would not have so many live performances to hone their skills.
The era that you are born may also mean how big opportunities are. 1830s was the period where many great American business leaders were born. This is because due to a enormous change in American economy – the embarkation of industrial manufacturing and creation of Wall Street. Another golden era in American economy was for those born in 1950s. They are the one that led the IT revolutions – Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Bill Joy and many others.
Opportunity III
In the middle of the book, Gladwell began to analyse the “talent” at its purest sense – a high IQ person – a genius, and see whether all geniuses can succeed in life.
He draws attention to one particular genius, Chris Langan, who has an IQ higher than Einstein’s. But why aren’t he successful as compared to another genius, Robert Oppenheimer? Shockingly, the answer can well be how rich their family is. It was apparent that Chris has lots of “analytical intelligence” but lacked “practical intelligence” (or you may call it social skills, street smartness), while Robert had both. It was through the upbringing in their families which is linked to how much money the family have.
Middle-class and wealthier families often schedule their kids with lots of activities where they are able to learn how to interact with others. The parents encourage the kids to reason with them and question authority. The poorer families on the other hand give more freedom to their kids, allowing them to grow in a natural way. The poorer children raised in such environment tend to be more quiet and submissive, lacking “practical intelligence”.
Unlike Robert who came from a wealthy family with all the opportunities to pick up practical intelligence, Chris came from a poor family with a drunken stepfather, who only gave him resentment. He has no major achievements yet given his high IQ. He is a talent, but when opportunities are not given, success is beyond reach.
PART II – LEGACY
The legacy that Gladwell was referring to our culture, practiced by our ancestors and predecessors but still have significant influence to us in the present day. In the early days of Korean Air, the airline suffered a series of accident. Gladwell brought us through on of the crashes, analysizing the communication in the cockpit, minutes before the disaster. It was apparent that the way that the more junior pilot sounded very reserved and respectful despite the criticality of the event. It is a Korean culture that juniors should always show respect to the seniors and not question authority outright. It is also an Asian culture to observe a large power distance, using indirect speech most of the time. These cultural behaviour are actually detrimental to flying planes! The junior officer knowing that things aren’t right did not have the courage to point out to the captain. He was also submissive to the air traffic controller, and not able to influence him that the plane need to land as soon as possible. After the series of accident, Korean Air removed this cultural effect and eventually became one of the safest airlines to fly in the world.
The next culture effect was with regards to math, Asians are generally good at math due to their culture.numbers are shorter in Mandarin than in English, and the number and fraction system aids processing in the brains. Secondly, it is the hardworking attitude the Chinese developed when working in the rice paddies, where they applied it naturally in whatever they do, including math. It was also found in a test, TIMSS, that those testees who spent most effort and patience to approach the questions, were the ones that excel in math. Again, the author tries to play down innate abilities of successful people.
Conclusion
I felt the conclusion was more heartfelt as the author wanted his proposition from the book to influence more people. To change people’s perspective that success requires innate ability. It isn’t, as he argued throughout the entire book, trying to highlight innate ability is not crucial for success with numerous real life examples. All he wants us to do is to provide more opportunities to as many people as possible, such that all humans are given the fair chance to succeed. In this way, the world can be a much better place and with greater development.
www.bigfatpurse.com - Living a Life of Abundance
-
wemakebread
- Investing Mentor
- Posts: 297
- Joined: Tue Oct 06, 2009 2:07 pm
- Location: Singapore
Thanks Alvin for your sharing.
Malcome Gladwell, author of The Tipping Point, Blink and Outliers, will be speaking in Singapore on 20 Aug 2010, 9am-530pm @ Singapore Expo.
For more info, please take a look at http://citus2010.com.sg
(Early Bird Discount before 30 Jun)
Malcome Gladwell, author of The Tipping Point, Blink and Outliers, will be speaking in Singapore on 20 Aug 2010, 9am-530pm @ Singapore Expo.
For more info, please take a look at http://citus2010.com.sg
(Early Bird Discount before 30 Jun)
.alvin wrote:The 10,000 hour is taken from "Outliers" and here is the book summary that I have done to make it complete:
Outliers is about studying how people become successful. However, do not expect it to be any other “feel good” success story, as the book itself is an outlier. It does not pay so much tribute to successful people, but rather to the opportunities that were given to them. Successful people are after all humans, just like you and me