Essay on Malcom Gladwell : The Truth behind the 10,000 Hour Rule

Think of something you are passionate about. Is it a skill that you are able to push yourself in? People are always told that with enough hard work you could become a master of that skill. Even without natural talent, enough hard work at a skill will eventually build up the ability. By constantly pushing oneself past their limits during practice, they can improve quicker than someone who has the natural ability and doesn’t try. However, skill doesn’t always equal success. As Malcolm Gladwell states in his book The Outliers, luck plays a large role in the ability to obtain the 10,000 hours required to become an expert in a subject. However, many studies and even the researchers of the 10,000 hour study have rejected the rule outright. I disagree with Gladwell that 10,000 hours is required to become a master, and that luck plays a much larger role than he states.

Building upon the previous chapter, we begin to understand how all the right ingredients for achievement and success can be present, and yet they may never happen without a stroke of luck. Becoming an expert at some skill is earned by putting in hard work across several hours, approximately 10,000 hours. Being born in the right year, or time

How many hours of someone’s life are necessary to perfect a skill? 300? 5000? Perhaps try 10,000 hours. In this chapter from Outliers, “The 10,000-Hour Rule”, Malcolm Gladwell argues that talent isn’t innate, but takes 10,000 hours to perfect a skill based on opportunity, talent, and practice. Throughout the chapter “The 10,000-Hour Rule”, Malcolm Gladwell effectively relies on logos--evidence from well-known figures and charts that show age similarities--to support his theory that it takes a particular window of time to offer someone the opportunity to practice for 10,000 hours to succeed at a skill. However, Gladwell ineffectively relies on repetition of evidence and failure to

Right away the readers get interested in learning what the then thousand hour rule is about. Gladwell reviews the lives of extremely successful people and how they have had success. There are many ways in which logos are used in Outliers. Gladwell viewed children in Berlin playing the violin and saw that kids having ten thousand hours of practice, were proven to be better at playing the violin, than kids with less than ten thousand hours of practice. He also took a look at Bill gates, which dropped out of college and started a very successful company, called Microsoft. Bill Gates had thousands of hours of practice in programming and other abilities learned through his short years at college. There are no shortcuts at becoming great; everything can only be achieved with lots of practice and hard work.

Furthermore, Gladwell’s tone and style of writing throughout Outliers contributes to his arguments’ effectiveness. The manner in which Gladwell tells the stories in relation to each individual claim is brilliant. Not only is the writing tone of the author informative, thoughtful, and compelling, but it is also frequently conversational. Many times in Outliers, Gladwell seems to be speaking directly to his readers. The author achieves this conversational tone primarily by asking questions within his arguments. In The 10,000-Hour Rule chapter, Gladwell applies this tone when he asks, “What’s ten years?” The author is challenging the reader to determine what significance ten years has in relation to success. Unknowingly challenged, the reader searches for an explanation within his or her own thoughts before continuing reading. The author answers his own question, “It [ten years] is roughly how long it takes to put in ten thousand hours of hard practice” (41). Gladwell also uses a conversational style of writing by including a personal touch within the epilogue, A Jamaican Story. “That is the story of my mother’s path to success,” writes the author (272). With this statement, Gladwell is opening up a personal revelation to the reader in a way

The first rhetorical device Gladwell uses in “The 10,000 Hour Rule” is imagery. His attempts at using imagery are not successful because what he proves is “The Matthew Effect,” instead of proving that it takes 10,000 hours, and more than just talent to reach mastery. Gladwell mentions the 75 richest people in the world and points out that 15 of the 75 were born in the same country around the same time. “Almost 20 percent of the names” “come from a single generation in a single country.” These people were able to achieve massive wealth, because “In the 1860s and 1870s, the American economy went through perhaps the greatest transformation in its history. This was when wall street was being built and when Wall Street emerged.”(Pg. 62) Gladwell uses no language to infer that these people practiced for 10,000 hours to achieve mastery of their jobs. Rather he proved that it is the timing, opportunities, and advantages make people successful, and not the amount of time they put in. In the 21st century world, Bill Gates is known as a pioneer in coding, and as a man who has made a lot of money off his career. Gladwell chose Bill Gates to prove his point that he was successful, because he has spent more than 10,000 hours coding, but yet again as the reader, it is quite obvious that the advantages Bill Gates had as a teenager led to his success. “Gates's father

Criminal case is always tedious when it involves little or no information about the offender, like in the 9/11 terrorist attack which annihilated most of the workers in and damaged the New York Trade Center building. However, in an attempt to identify the offenders, government officials and investigators try out different ways such as criminal profiling and others. Thus, in the New Yorker article, “Dangerous Minds” by Malcolm Gladwell; the author informs the deeper problems with FBI profiling and argues that it is ineffective. He questions the usefulness of criminal profiling, “But how useful is that profile, really?” and uses other criminal cases, group research analyses, and analogies to refute

In the book Outliers, the author Malcolm Gladwell elucidates that people have to practice for more than 10,000 hours or 10 years in order to fully become successful. People can achieve more regardless of not being financially wealthy. Even though some people that have practiced for less than 10,000 hours did achieve their goals, the majority of the successful people have practiced for more than 10,000 hours. Gladwell states that, “they work much, much harder” (39). and that they have to want to stand out from everyone else. I believe that very successful people are lucky, and have talent, and are willing to work harder than everyone else.

For the sake of making himself appear more credible, Gladwell cohesively uses anecdotes of incredibly successful people such as: Bill Joy, Bill Gates, and the Beatles. These anecdotes allow him to prove to the reader that he has done a great deal of research on the topic of the 10,000 hour rule. Gladwell tells the story about how a 16 year old Bill Joy discovered the University of Michigan’s computer center and decided to pursue computer science. Ultimately Joy “buried himself even deeper in the world of computer software” (36). Gladwell also talks about Bill Gates’ life and how opportunities appeared into Gates’ life out of the blue. This is singled out by the anaphora of the

10,000 hours is equivalent to 14 months, 60 weeks, 417 days, and success. Bill Joy, one of the founders of Sun Microsystems, is an example of this, as he began programming his sophomore year of high school and continued in the “summers then the day and nights at his first year at Berkeley,” totaling about ten thousand hours (Gladwell 47). Bill Joy played an integral part in the creation of multiple computer programs still used today, and to get to that point he practiced programming. BIll Joy’s dedication to mastering his craft led him to work hard,

In Outliers, Gladwell discusses a theory named “The 10,000-Hour Rule” that proposes the 10,000 hours is the specific amount it time it takes for someone to become a master at a skill. The quote “Practice isn’t the thing you do once you’re good. It’s the thing that makes you good” (Gladwell, p.42) exemplifies how Karp came to becoming a computer genius. David Karp had access to extended advantages not offered to other high school students by being homeschooled at a young age. Encouraged by his mother, Karp dropped out of school at age 14 to be homeschooled with an emphasis on computers, coding and Japanese (Cooper). The addition time allowed Karp to

In Outliers, Gladwell describes the “10,000” hour rule, stating that it takes approximately 10,000 hours of practice to become an expert at something. Jeanette Walls becomes successful largely through her writing. First, she worked on her high school’s newspaper for 5 years, first as editor and eventually as the main reporter and editor-in-chief. This provided her with the basis of her many hours of practice. When she moves to New York, she gets to do an internship at a small news outpost during her senior year of high school. After graduating, she lands a job there. She spends countless hours writing to add to her preexisting experience with her high school newspaper. By the time she reaches college, she has been writing for thousands of hours, gaining the priceless experience that Gladwell would say helped her towards her success.

The secret to success is arguably one of the most sought-after pieces of advice worldwide. According to Malcom Gladwell’s book Outliers, the “10,000 hour rule” is a technique that has been practiced by many professionals in their respective areas. However, some authors, such as Jared Sandman and David Bradley, disagree with the notion that 10,000 hours of practice will make you a professional. Both authors present valid points in their respective arguments, yet Sandman’s argument comes across as clearer, more decisive, more down to earth, and therefore more effective. Sandman has credibility as a published author, he is constant with his

In order to pursue what one wish to be, one must fully understand what they wish to be. As human beings, we desire to become better and achiever greater amounts. In simple words, we want to become an expert of some sort. According to the Oxford Dictionary, an expert is a person who is very knowledgeable about or skillful in a particular area. But with this simple description of an ‘expert’, what does it truly mean? Malcolm Gladwell, a famous writer and speaker, with 10, 000 hours one could succeed to become an expert in a certain area. Gladwell explains his theory of 10, 000 hours in his book, “The Outliers,” with various examples of not only talented but also respected figures such as an European Violinist, Bill Gates, and even the Beatles. In the book, these figures explain similar yet different situation where after a certain amount of practice or effort, approximately 10, 000 hours, they began to excel in their area of interest. Furthermore, Gladwell explains that there are none naturally talented or ‘gifted’ people who reach the level of expertise without a significant input of hours. In order to improve or master in an area, all individuals must contribute the minimum of 10, 000 hours. It is true, through practice and effort one could reach a level of expertise. However, there are different circumstances that oppose this theory, such as the continuously growing information, one’s passion, and the way of learning.

Malcolm Gladwell supports his claim that in cognitively demanding fields there are no naturals, by writing interesting anecdotes that show examples. For example, the article contains an anecdote in talking about how Mozart’s earliest works were not outstanding; his earliest masterwork was created when he was twenty one years old, showing he had already been practicing for ten years and he had to practice to create his masterwork. Gladwell argues that even Mozart was not a natural. According to Gladwell’s article, he shares a story about the Beatles and how they played eight hours every day for two hundred seventy nights over the course of a year and a half. This evidence shows that they practiced long hours, and when they got to the United States they