The Talent Code

Do you have 10,000 hours in yet? The 21st century is waiting…

Baby Mozart sez I got my 10,000 hours of practice in before I was five years old, suckers!

Finally got around to reading Malcolm Gladwell’s new book Outliers. I’m late to the game on this one, so I’ll skip the full review and instead point to some good summaries about the book here, here, and here. I have other fun stuff I want to cover today.

For me, this book was his best yet. Gladwell’s gift is he is an amazing storyteller, and in this book he once again takes semi-boring academic research and makes it deeply relevant and interesting by crafting a beautiful story around it.

Here’s a short synopsis of Outliers. I decided to write it in the form of a limerick. I have no idea why.

Some folks become world-class Outliers,

Achieving success we can’t help but admire,

But smarts and ambition,

Aren’t the only pre-conditions,

Great timing and practice are required.

Basically, Gladwell is saying you can be the smartest guy on Earth and achieve nothing worth mentioning. But incredible, world-class success (think Bill Gates, Mozart, the Beatles) is a mashup of being born at the right time in the right place to the right people with the right genetic makeup while having the right things occur to you at exactly the right times in your life.

Oh, and you need to get in 10,000 hours of practice to become an expert at your craft.

This last concept really got to me. The idea that in order to become an expert in your field, you need to put in 10,000 hours of practice has been covered extensively. In fact there are two other books out describing the research behind this assertion, The Talent Code by Daniel Coyle and Talent is Overrated by Geoff Colvin.

Hearing the Bill Gates and Steve Jobs stories of perfect timing and early practice in Gladwell’s book started me thinking about a few things.

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