10,000 Hours

I am sipping on Malcolm Gladwell’s book, the Outliers.  I get one chapter a day, read while standing at Book People.  Yesterday it explained what Bill Gates and the Beatles, two successful phenomenon have in common.  Get this:  Both spent over 10,000 hours perfecting their gifts.

Unknown to most people, seven years before the Beatles ever came to the US, they played typical one hour gigs in London.  Then they got a gig that required them to play for seven hours at a time, frequently!  This gave them an extraordinary amount of time to perfect their craft.

Bill Gates had a situation where his Mother helped to start a Computer Club in school where Bill then spent an extraordinary amount of time.

10,000 hours seems to be the magic number of mastering something.  These “overnight” successes should be called “many-years” or “manynights” successes.  Just think, there is almost a formula for success, beyond talent, circumstance and opportunity.  It’s not what you do everyday that counts, it’s what you do all day everyday that counts.