practice isn't the thing that you do once you're good is to think that you do that makes you good
this is a line out of the book outliers the story of success by Malcolm Gladwell it's a book that
I highly recommend and one of the most famous things in this book is the 10 000 hour rule in
which Gladwell describes the story of The Beatles where between 1960 and 1964 in Hamburg Germany The
Beatles played a tremendous amount of Music at local bars in front of a very small audience and
they accumulated 10 000 hours of practice during that time and Gladwell recognizes that period of
time as the most important element in the success that the Beatles had in future years so the 10
000 hour rule doesn't only apply to the Beatles it applies especially to sports and when we're
talking about tennis it makes a lot of sense so let's just take a junior who trains four
hours per day it would take the junior 7.4 years to accumulate 10 000 hours of practice in other
words seven and a half years to get 10 1000 hours it makes sense that for example a nine-year-old
that practices four hours per day by the time the seven and a half years are over the player will be
around 16 years old and it's highly likely that that player could be a high level tennis player
now something that Gladwell talks about in his book is the fact that the ten thousand
hours of practice have to be the correct practice and when we apply this to tennis
it has to be the correct practice if you practice the wrong Strokes for ten thousand hours you're
only gonna get better at hitting the wrong stroke so you are gonna have to practice the correct way
now I'm going to add from my personal experience that the 10 000 hour rule is by no means a
guarantee that a tennis player will have success at the professional level even if they start very
young the tennis is such a complex game that it's not all about the amount of hours you put into the
game there's a lot of other factors that will come into play in whether a specific player can make it
on the professional tour but generally I do think the statement is correct that if you put in ten
thousand dollars of the correct practice you have a very good chance to become a high-level tennis
player and how does this information benefit you as a recreational player well I'm gonna
tell you a story which is going to make a lot of sense to you because you're probably thinking
ten thousand hours that sounds like a lot Nick and I can tell you it is so the student of mine
asked me whether I've read the book by Malcolm Gladwell and if I've heard about the rule of ten
thousand hours and I said yes of course I read the book and this student of mine who's a 4.0 level
recreational player who's been playing seriously for the last two years who's addicted to tennis
and enjoys the game a tremendous amount and he told me that he did the math and calculated how
long it would take him to accumulate 10 000 hours of play with his current practice schedule which
is four hours per week which by the way that's a lot of hours for the recreational level and he
did the math and it would take him 52 years to accumulate 10 000 hours of practice by playing
four hours per week and I can tell you that this student of mine was completely depressed
about telling me how long it would take him to accumulate 10 000 hours and I'm going to tell
you what I told him and this goes back to all the videos that I made in the past where I talk about
goal setting and tennis and it has to be done in a step-by-step gradual way you cannot have
the goal of playing 10 000 hours of tennis that is an unrealistic goal if you play four hours a
week it's going to take you 52 years so just that in itself will make you want to quit and not do
it at all and that's what happened to my student he was completely disappointed and felt like not
practicing at all so the way you have to approach goal setting is tennis is not think about 10
000 hours think about the next hour and focus on what you're going to do in that next hour what
things you are going to improve in your game then once that hour is over you go on to the next hour
so I decided to make a different ending of the video that you just watched you can
still watch the original version on my website intuitivetennis.com and there I said what I've
been saying all along that goal setting in tennis should be done step by step because that way your
goal is going to be graspable achievable right in front of you and you're going to have a happy
feeling about your progress and you can go on to the next goal that's basically what I said
in the video and I've been saying this before but despite the fact that I made several videos
on goal setting antennas the number one question that I get on social media is the following one
is it too late for me to turn pro so the reason why I'm making an alternate ending to this video
is because I recently had an epiphany I want to share it with you but first I want to tell you
what I answer all those people that ask me whether it's too late for them to turn pro I don't say yes
or no I tell them exactly what I've been telling you guys to go step by step and to get the Reps
in to practice as much as possible and the reason why I don't say yes or no because both of those
answers are bad if I say yes this is going to be unethical in a certain context let's say somebody
does of an older age ask me if they can turn pro and I say yes and maybe proceed to take money for
them for coaching this would be highly unethical I don't want to mislead anyone and give them false
hope but I also don't say no I don't want to crush anybody's dreams so I'm very vague in
my answers I just tell everyone to work as hard as possible get as many reps in as possible and
have gradual step-by-step goal setting but here's the Epiphany I had recently and this is something
that's so simple and relates to the topic of this video which is the 10 000 hour rule the number one
question everybody has to ask themselves if they like this thing do they like hitting this yellow
fuzzy ball if the answer is yes then the 10 000 hours are going to come naturally if you love
the game of tennis if you love hitting the ball you are going to want to be out here every day
and the 10 000 hours is going to be no problem whatsoever I've been playing tennis my whole
life I probably have 50 000 hours plus and I'm a older guy now I'm 46 and I'm still going out
on the tennis court and hitting balls on a daily basis why do I have any aspirations not at all I
don't plan to play a tournament ever again in my life but I love hitting the ball this is by
far the biggest passion in my life and if you are the same way if you love tennis then the 10
000 hours are going to come natural to you however if you don't like tennis and if you are
maybe picking up tennis for other reasons because you like the idea of being a professional player
and being on TV it is only a matter of time until you quit because as soon as you realize that this
this goal is too unrealistic too far away you're going to end up quitting and this is something
that I see down here in southeast Florida all the time the amount of Junior players that end
up quitting tennis because they play tennis for the wrong reasons it's crazy I could tell
you one story after the next so from now on if somebody asked me is it too late for them
to turn pro I'm going to ask them a simple question do you like hitting the tennis ball