Outliers

[bouche]

Anyone read the book Outliers? It's very intriguing. Out of curiousity, I checked Wayne Gretkzy's birthday and sure enough he was born in the Outliers window of months...January 26.

[Hal Johnson]

I've read lots about it, and about the ten thousand hour rule. Pretty interesting stuff. Does he go so far as to say there's no such thing as talent, or does he stop at saying talent is overrated?

[Velvet]

I thought the birthday/sports thing the only valid point made in the book. There are tons of exceptions though. I was born just before NYE and sucked at all sports as a kid. Nice to find out it had nothing to do with me.

10,000 hours? Bullshit, with a capital BULLSHIT.

McCartney agreed when he was on cbc. He made a great point about lots of other bands playing 10,000 hours and more alongside the Beatles in Hamburg, and where are they now? he asks.

Five years of full-time work is 10,000 hours. Would Gladwell argue that everyone in a job for five years becomes a superstar at their tasks?

Absurd concept, but boy, a lot of people believe it. (I hear the 10,000 hours thing ALL the time at work).

Sorry Mike, but I just freakin' hate that book.

[ollie]

+1 Velvet

[Hal Johnson]

Hey Velvet, there's a lot of people in the sport world that buy it. One way of looking at it is 10k hours of deliberate practice. Meaning, 10k of giving it an honest effort, not just showing up. And yes, to answer your question, the guy who shows up to drive a fork lift every day and compiles 10k hours will undoubtedly be very good at it.

There was research done a while back on Violin experts and the common theme was 10k hours of deliberate practice. Most scholars on the subject stress the difference between "deliberate" and non deliberate. The most common defense of the theory when faced against things like "how come this band sucks so much and they've been together for 10k hours?" is that the 10k they put in was useless and without proper guidance.

If you taught someone how to play the guitar and they put in 10k, lets say "proper" hours of practice, would you not expect them to be above average by hour 10 000? I would.

[phishtaper]

i always thot that the pro sports / birthday thing was well known. i used it once in a stats course. it makes perfect sense.

[Velvet]

Certainly if you get to pick and choose the theory holds water.

That is: this person still sucks after 10,000 hours so their 10,000 hours were not spent properly. The other person is great after 10,000 hours, so the theory stands up.

That's how you get a bad theory to hold water.

There is a student at work who has been doing weekly lessons for 30 years and can't play very well, while others can play well after six months of weekly lessons.

So if Gladwell says one guys 10,000 hours was misspent then I say wtf is the use of the 10,000 hours theory? Bottom line is if you work hard you'll probably get results, if you don't, you probably won't.

Hard to sell books on commen sense that everyone knows.

[Northern Wish]

Hard to sell books on common sense that everyone knows.

This was no Secret

[Velvet]

i always thot that the pro sports / birthday thing was well known. i used it once in a stats course. it makes perfect sense.

Sure it makes sense, but how then does one make sense of the exceptions? There are pro sports players born in December.

While the stats support the idea of reorganizing how young teams are put together (which would be great), I'm afried if this concept becomes common knowledge it may discourage a lot of kids from even trying, or at least trying very hard. "Does your son play hockey?" "No, he was born in Novemeber, so he can't."

As an aside, I had a kid tell me his excuse for not improving last week was because his doctor was experimenting with different dosages, and until he gets it right there's just no sitting down and practising guitar. The kid shrugged his shoulders absolutely absolved of any blame and/or responsibility as if to say, "whattya gonna do?"

That, my friends, is a shame.

[Hal Johnson]

I'll meet you half way. It is common sense - put a lot of effort into something and it will likely pay off. But I don't think anyone would ever suck at anything after 10k hours. There are a lot of other variables at play (motivation & access to resources, for example)that seperate those who are wildly successful from those who aren't. The theory is basically saying that you won't become the world's fastest swimmer without putting in at least 10 000 hours of good hard practice. So, unless your willing to commit, don't set your goals so high.

In pop music, it works diffently, they say, because success is based on other's subjective opinions of the performer, and not the ability of the performer.

I dunno, I find this stuff really interesting. There's writers out there that believe the word "talent" is bullshit and that no one is born "bad" or "good" at anything. They've got loads of data to back it up too. Weird stuff.

[Velvet]

There's writers out there that believe the word "talent" is bullshit and that no one is born "bad" or "good" at anything.

That's basically what I believe.

[ollie]

• Hal Johnson Said:

In pop music, it works diffently, they say, because success is based on other's subjective opinions of the performer, and not the ability of the performer.

[Booche]

John Lennon was once asked how the Beatles acheived so much success. His reply?

"If I knew that I'd bottle it and sell it."

Apparently the answer is in another one of these flavour du jour books. Yay for new age religion!

[Hal Johnson]

Or maybe its more boring than religion and just based on numbers.

[phishtaper]

i always thot that the pro sports / birthday thing was well known. i used it once in a stats course. it makes perfect sense.

Sure it makes sense' date=' but how then does one make sense of the exceptions? There are pro sports players born in December.[/quote']

huh? are you suggesting that the world is made up of perfect correlations always? of course there are exceptions to generalities.

am i not getting something here?

[bouche]

For the record, i'm on chapter 2! Thanks for ruining the book everyone!

Five years of full-time work is 10,000 hours. Would Gladwell argue that everyone in a job for five years becomes a superstar at their tasks?

I think the point about 10,000 hours is FOCUSED practice and rehearsal. People working at most jobs get really good a procrastinating so it still holds water.

[Booche]

You're wasting your time bouche.

[Dr_Evil_Mouse]

For the record, i'm on chapter 2! Thanks for ruining the book everyone!

Five years of full-time work is 10,000 hours. Would Gladwell argue that everyone in a job for five years becomes a superstar at their tasks?

I think the point about 10,000 hours is FOCUSED practice and rehearsal. People working at most jobs get really good a procrastinating so it still holds water.

I'd buy that. It's one thing to do 10k hours at something half-assed, but another to do it out of an deep sense of passion and commitment. As for "success", especially in the arts, that's bound to be determined by other, much more capricious factors (how much time and energy does the average consumer put into paying critical attention to what they endorse/support?).

Gladwell's a good conversation-starter, if nothing else, like the Freakonomics guys.

[phorbesie]

totally agree with velvet...if you're going to judge the hours qualitatively then the number doesn't mean anything.

[Hal Johnson]

Well, of course if you put in ten thousand hours picking your nose your not gonna get very good at the violin. Again, the point to all this is that anything is acheivable, but to become an expert at something, you need to put in roughly 10K hours (Im sure you'd be pretty good at hour 9467 though). Everyone who is at the top of their game (in the sports world at least) has put in that time. Its not some ridiculous number someone just came up with out of thin air to piss people off and sell books...it's based on eveidence. Obviously, you have to take it with a grain of salt, but to call it bullshit flat out isn't entirely fair.

The theory is open to variations too. For instance, they found that children who spent 10k hours playing serious competition from a young age, say 6 in only one sport had significantly less chance (far less) to make it to the professional levels as opposed to children who played many different sportsup until the age of 15. Even more, pro athletes were found to have played a substantial amount of pick-up/informal sports before the age of 15 than those who specialized at an early age. Also, kids who specialized early were found to burn out more easily and suffer from injury. Thus is the danger of uninformed parents getting a hold of the "rule" - they think that tossing their kid into intense hockey camps at the age of 6 is good for their kid, but the evidence proves otherwise.

[bouche]

totally agree with velvet...if you're going to judge the hours qualitatively then the number doesn't mean anything.

huh? that's the point I thought. from what I'm getting out of Outliers, the opportunities presented for quality of practice come to just a few.

[phorbesie]

well i thought it was common sense that kids should play a variety of sports, not just one sport. to get proper strength training and avoid injury you are not supposed to have them play one sport year round.

[Hal Johnson]

well i thought it was common sense that kids should play a variety of sports, not just one sport. to get proper strength training and avoid injury you are not supposed to have them play one sport year round.

Unfortunately, you'd be surprised to find out what a lot of parents think.

(www.totalsoccersystems.com) Player Development Program is a unique year round training environment for the serious and committed soccer player...

The TSS Academy program is designed for self-motivated, determined, active, and very competitive players. The Academy works with many of the most competitive and motivated players in the province. TSS player groups start as young as 7, and TSS has training groups of players in every age group up to grade 12 (some University players and senior players still train in the Academy).

Edited June 16, 2011 by Guest

[phorbesie]

anything involving parents is usually suspect to me

[Booche]

Awesome. Thanks Hal. I am totally signing my kid up for that.

You'll dig this buddy. Think I made him into a lefthander. I punished him whenever he used his right hand and gave him positive reinforcement whenever he used his left. All that hard work seems to be paying off. Next up? Baseball pitching. If I play my cards right, by the time he is 25 he should be making 40 million a season in MLB.....hopefully with a team from Cali.