There Is More To Life Than Practice Or Is There ?

One of the most interesting articles we read about this week is the Malcom Gladwell’s 10,000 hour rule article. In this article he stated that to master a craft you have to put in 10,000 hours of practice in that subject area. He believes that talent, genetics, and luck have little to do with our success in our craft. In class we could not agree on whether this was true or not. Innate talent was one of the main points to oppose Gladwell’s theory. The problem with this theory is that mostly no one will train for 10,000 hours on something that they are not good at, so it can’t be proven. If you take Bill Gates for example, he dropped out of college because that was not what he was good at. He went to work with computers which is something that he is good at and I believe that the very notion of him knowing that he was just “naturally” good with computers proves the innate talent theory over the 10,000 hours theory.

Personally I do not agree with the 10,000 hours theory. To me you need to have the talent first and then practice at what you are good at to become a master. One classmate brought up singing as a subject where you needed to have the talent and it wasn’t just about the time you put in to become better. I do not possess a singing voice. My voice is somewhat deep and nasal and I feel that no matter how much I practice I could never be a great singer.  I think it’s a lot like playing to your strengths, I mean I could work on being a professional football player for 10,000 hours and I would probably never make it to the NFL, simply because I am 4’3, and I could never weigh 300 or more pounds and still be able to move. I do agree that you need to practice to become better, to become at master in your field, but it definitely takes a lot more than just you putting time in. Another example from our class discussion is a basketball player. To be a basketball player you have to have the height and if you end up being 4’2 like me there is no amount of practice that is going to help you. Unfortunately I do not think that anything is possible for everyone but who knows I’ve never put that much time into something that I wasn’t good at.