They took a school of violinists and divided them into three groups. Teacher material,
the merely good, and world class. And they asked them the same question, "Ever since
you first picked up the violin, how many hours of practice have you put into it?" And a pattern
emerged. Teacher material had practiced about 4,000 hours, the merely good had practiced
about 8,000 hours, and the world class had practiced about 10,000 hours. In study after
study with pianists, chess players, master criminals, the same pattern emerged. And so
this became known as the 10,000 hour rule. So the conclusion was the following: As long
as you're good enough to get into the school, the number of deliberate hours of practice
would be the only thing that would really differentiate you from your competitors. Now,
Outliers is an extremely interesting book, but it doesn't really tell you how to become
an outlier. So I've picked out three huge implications of the book about success that
should help all of us. The first one, and my favorite: when you're on your first few
hours of doing something, stop expecting to be good! I remember when I put out my first
animated video, some people said, "Well, your animation sucks, your voice-over sucks." And
I took that and I said, "Oh, okay, this is great. People are telling me what I need to
improve on." But at the same time, I realized that that was completely natural, and it didn't
affect me at all. But again, what is people's though process? I've put in a few hours into
something, I'm going to be good. It's like, Oh! It's really surprising that I'm not as
good as an entire team of animators that have put in 1,000s and 1,000s of hours into their
craft. Work together, and that's literally all they do, and charge $5,000 for a single
minute of animation, and my little first animation isn't as good as their's. But that's literally
how people think. Someone starts a business, and it's like, "I've had losses in the first
few months," which is completely normal for a business! But what is going to say? "Well,
maybe I'm not so good at this business thing," and quit. You take someone to the tennis court,
and they play tennis for the first time, and they hit the ball ten times and it hits the
net every single time. And what do they say? "Oh, well, maybe this isn't really my sport."
And it's like, "Do you know how long it took me to play my first tennis game?" Took me
probably 10 hours of practice to play the most miserable tennis game ever played in
the history of mankind. And it consisted of three hits of both players back and forth,
and that was it. The second big implication is that talent is overrated. In the studies
that they did, there were no "naturals," meaning a person with only 4,000 hours of practice
that was world class. There were no "grinds" either, meaning a person with 10,000 hours
of practice and being a teacher material. And I don't have to look at those studies
to know that talent is overrated. Most of the time, what gets labeled as talent is hours
and hours of practice that isn't seen. So how do I know this? Because I've been put
on that pedestal before. When I was in college, I remember taking this slightly complicated
statistics class. And people were really struggling with it, and the average would usually be
a 50 on the exams. And I would get a 100 basically every single time. Now at the same time, all
I did in those classes was sleep. That's it. I just went there and slept. While people
sitting next to me would sit there and take notes and try to work really hard. Now, when
the exams would come back, they would look at me and they would say, "You're a genius!
Okay, you're a GOD!" Basically, I became this god. How do you do this? All you do is sleep,
and look, you got a 100, I got a 50. But again, what was the reality? And the reality isn't
going to be disclosed because the person with success has way too many things that are cool
going on in his life. So I had a great social circle, I was doing great things, I wasn't
going to sit there and explain what happend. But what happened? Well, here's the actual
truth. So when we'd go back, I would spend hours and hours every night doing every single
problem. That's by the way why I was so tired the next day in class. What they did was they
would take those notes, those mediocre notes the took in class and maybe spend 30 minutes
or an hour in their room. And that's really where the difference came from. Now, not only
was it that, but it was accumulated advantage. Even if we had gone years back, when we were
in middle school, I would've been the one putting in the hours and they wouldn't. And
over time, it's 100s and 1,000 of hours of advantage. But again, in college, what is
it? Some people are good at math, some people aren't good at math. The third big implication:
as long as you're good enough, deliberate practice is what will set you apart. Now,
let's break down that "as long as you're good enough" part. I think if you're 40 years old,
have never kicked a ball in your life, and you say, "Well, I want to be a professional
soccer player," that's not going to work. But I think most of us have realistic goals.
I think most of us are good enough. But, what we're lacking is the deliberate practice.
Again, if I go back to the college example, what those people would do when they would
come into class would be, "Oh, I studied all night last night..." And again, what did they
mean? Out of every hour, I spent 50 minutes eating, talking to my roommate, being on Facebook,
and then 5 to 10 minutes actually doing the work. You have to put in that deliberate amount
of hours of practice where you're solely focusing on getting better at your craft, and if you
do that, that is what is going to set you apart.