Great posting and very thought-provoking once again. I immediately also jumped on the 10,000 hour “benchmark” and put it in a “regular Joe” context. If you work 8 hours a day, 5 days a week, and take normal holidays, its pretty much exactly 5 years. I would say that is very true. You can become competent in a year, but to master a topic, five years is a good number.

Or to put it another way, if you only do it as a hobby, and give it on average 2 hours a day – then to achieve that level of mastery, it would take 20 years toiling away, after work, in your basement etc.

Yes, the 10,000 number seems very “solid” to me..

But yes, timing is most important. And Graham’s point about sticking with it, in business that is also absolutely vital. Its almost impossible to hit a “perfect” timing spot by pure luck. So for you to arrive at the perfect timing, if you’re too early, means you have to keep at it (not give up, the remaining 70%) or if you’re too late, then to salvage anytyhing, if you weren’t able to hit the jackpot timing (and someone else obviously did) then for you to get “anything” out of it, will require a lot of perspiration, and not so much of the insipiration..

Great posting Russell, and good comment Graham

Tomi Ahonen
http://www.tomiahonen.com

Interestingly, one of Gladwell’s other case studies was The Beatles who put in about 10,000 hours of practice playing covers in The Cavern and Hamburg and before they hit the height of their fame – roughly their first tour of America. Many would also argue that their greatest work came late in their career, when they’d had more practice.

In fact, most bands, including overnight successes, put thousands of hours of practice before they make it. Just think of all those teenagers strumming moodily away in bedrooms and that’s before they form a band, start rehearsing, doing gigs and finally recording.

I guess there are some who can do it without it. There was that famous ad in NME back in 1977 promoting a tour by the Damned and the Adverts. “The Damned can now play three chords and the Adverts can play one”.

But then, you’re back to timing. Two years earlier or even two years later and it just wouldn’t have worked.

Russell

Your post made me think of Allen’s comment “70% of success is just showing up”. Yes, timing is critical – however, how many kids bought on 1st of Jan couldn’t be a**ed to haul themselves out of bed on a freezing Sunday morning to go to hockey practise? Same applies to bands and perhaps even Zagme – you saw both flips of the market but there were perhaps 1000s of entrepreneurs who didn’t even get to that funding stage.

So, my reply; timing is paramount for those who made it to the playing field in the first place. Seth Godin’s The Dip has a bunch of interesting case studies on this.