THE RULE OF THE TEN THOUSAND HOURS By Malcolm Gladwell
Audio Produced by CONSEJOS PARA SER FELIZ
For more than a decade, psychologists from around the world have been passionately discussing
A question that most people would consider settled many years ago. The
Question is: is there innate talent? The obvious answer is yes. Not every player
Of hockey born in January ends up playing at the professional level. Only some
They get: the naturally talented ones. Success is talent plus preparation. The problem
From this point of view is that, the more psychologists look at the careers of
Better endowed, less seems the role of innate talent; And greater the one that plays
the preparation.
The number one test in the talent debate is an early study
Of the 1990s by the psychologist K. Anders Ericsson and two of his colleagues in the
Elitist Berlin Music Academy. With the help of Academy teachers, they divided
To the violinists in three groups. In the first group were the stars, the students
With potential to become world-class soloists. In the second, those
Judged simply "good". In the third, students who had little chance
To get to play professionally and pretend to become teachers of music in the system
Public school. All the violinists answered the following question: in the course of all
His career, since he first took a violin, how many hours has he practiced
total?
In all three groups, everyone had started playing at about the same age, around
Of the five years. At that early stage, everyone practiced about the same
Number of hours, about two or three per week. But when the students were around eight
Years, the real differences began to emerge. Students who finished
As the best of their class began by practicing more than all others: six
Hours a week at nine, eight hours a week at twelve, sixteen at fourteen,
And so on, until at twenty they practiced well above thirty
weekly hours. In fact, at the age of twenty, the elite performers had accumulated
Ten thousand hours of practice each. In contrast, good-to-dry students had added
Eight thousand hours; And future music teachers, just over four thousand.
Then Ericsson and his colleagues compared amateur pianists to professional pianists.
The same pattern was repeated: fans never practiced more than about three hours
Per week during childhood; And by the age of twenty, they had added two thousand hours of practice.
The professionals, on the other hand, had increased their practice time year after
Year, until twenty, like the violinists, had reached ten thousand hours.
Most striking in the Ericsson study is that neither he nor his colleagues found musicians
<< born »to float effortlessly to the top practicing a fraction of the time
That their peers needed. Nor did they find "blunt workers" who, working harder
That nobody, plain and simple, would lack the talent necessary to make a place in
the top. His research suggests that once a musician has demonstrated ability
Sufficient to enter a superior academy of music, which distinguishes an interpreter
Virtuoso of another mediocre is the effort that each dedicates to practice. And that's not all:
The ones at the same summit are not that they work a little or a lot more than all
others. They work much, much more.
The idea that excellence in the performance of a complex task requires a minimum
Given as a threshold value, it opens up again and again in
On mastery. In fact, researchers have decided on what they consider
Is the magic number of true mastery: ten thousand hours.
The image that emerges from such studies is that it takes ten thousand hours of practice to
Achieve the level of self-mastery of a world-class expert in the field
"Said the neurologist Daniel Levitin. Study after study, treat yourself
Of composers, basketball players, fiction writers, skaters about
Ice, piano players, chess players, high-flying or
Whatever, this number is repeated over and over again. Of course, this does not explain why
Some people take better advantage of their practical sessions than others. But nobody has found
Even a case in which true world-class mastery was achieved in less time.
It seems that the brain needs all this time to assimilate what it needs to know for
Reach a real domain.
This is even true of the emblematic cases of prodigy. Mozart, as is well known,
Began writing music at age six. But, as psychologist Michael writes
Howe in his book Fragments of Genius:
According to the parameters of the mature composers, the first Mozart works are not
Exceptional. The earliest pieces were probably written by his father, perhaps by introducing
Improvements in the process. Many of Wolfgang's childhood compositions, such as the first seven
Of their concerts for piano and orchestra, are largely works arrangements due to
Other composers. Among those concerts that only contain Mozart's original music,
The earliest of those who today are considered masterpieces did not make it up to twenty-one.
By then, Mozart had been composing concerts for ten years.
Music critic Harold Schonberg goes further: Mozart, he says, actually
<< developed belatedly », since it did not produce its best works until it took
More than twenty years composing.
Reaching Grandmaster of chess also seems to take about ten years (only
The legendary Bobby Fischer reached that elite level in less time: it cost him nine).
And how old are they? Well, it's about the time it takes to complete ten thousand
Hours of arduous practice. Ten thousand hours is the magic number of greatness.
For Ericsson and those who dispute the primacy of talent, this is not surprising at all.
The prodigies born "late" do not choose them for the selection when they have
Eight years because they are too small for their age; And thus no practical
Supplementary. And without this extra practice, they have no chance of having played
Ten thousand hours when professional hockey teams start looking for players. Y
Without ten thousand hours in their hands, there is no way they will master the necessary capacities
To play at the top level. Not even Mozart - the greatest musical prodigy of all
The times - caught a good streak until he had ten thousand hours to his credit. The practice
It is not what one does when it is good. It is what one does to become good.
Another interesting thing about the happy ten thousand hours, of course, is that the happy ones
Ten thousand hours is a huge amount of time. It is almost impossible to reach that figure
By yourself when you are a young adult. Parents need to be encouraged and encouraged
To one. You can not be poor, because if you have to attend a small-time job
Apart to arrive at month fm, you will not have enough time to practice during the
day. In fact, most people can only reach that figure by being part of
Some kind of special program - such as an under-16 hockey team - or accessing
Some kind of extraordinary opportunity that gives them a chance to invest so many
Hours in one thing.
So it happened to Bill Joy in 1971. Let's go back to this tall, giddy lad of sixteen
years. A lumber of mathematics, the type of student institutions such as
The MIT or Caltech or the University of Waterloo attract by hundreds.
-When Bill was a little boy, he wanted to know everything about everything long before others
Children even know they want to know something, "says his father, William. We will
We answered as we could. When we could not, we just gave her a book.
When it came time to enroll in college, Joy got a perfect grade
In the math section of the entrance exam.
"It was not particularly difficult," he says matter-of-factly. I had plenty of time to
Reread it.
Has talent for arrobas. But this is not the only consideration. It never is. The
Key to its development is that one day he stumbled upon that indescribable building
Of Beal Avenue.
In the early seventies, when Joy learned computing, computers
Were the size of a room. A single machine (perhaps with less power and memory
Than their current microwave oven) could cost more than a million dollars in 1970. The
Computers were unusual. In case of finding one, it was difficult to obtain access
to the; But even if he could get one, his rent for hours cost a fortune.
On the other hand, programming was extraordinarily tedious. At that time it was done using
Perforated cardboard cards. Each line of code was recorded on a card using
A punching machine. A complex program could include hundreds, if not thousands, of these
Cards, stacked in high heaps. Once a program was ready, the programmer
Went to the central processing unit and delivered his stacks of cards to an operator.
Since computers could handle only one task at a time, the operator asked for an hour
To launch the program and depending on how many people were ahead of the programmer
In the queue, it could well happen that the cards were not recovered for a few hours
Or an entire day. And if a single error had been committed, however slight it may seem,
The programmer had to go back with his cards, detect the error and start the
Whole process again.
In those circumstances, it was very difficult to become an expert programmer. And without
Doubt, being an expert at the age of twenty was practically impossible. If only one
Can "program" a few minutes for each hour that passes in the computer room, how
Will you ever reach the ten thousand hours of practice?
-Programming with cards, recalls a computer scientist of that era, you did not learn
To be programmed. You learned to correct and to have patience.
Until the mid-1960s, no solution was found to the problem of
programming. Then the computers finally got enough power to manage
More than one "appointment" at a time. The computer engineers
Understood that, if they rewritten the operating system
Of the computer, could be shared the time of the machine, that could prepare the computer
To handle hundreds of operations at the same time. This, in turn, meant that
Programmers no longer had to physically deliver their stack of cards to the
computer. Dozens of terminals could be built, all linked by telephone
To the central unit, which allowed the realization
Of simultaneous tasks, online.
Here is how a narrative of the time describes the advent of time-sharing:
It was more than a revolution. It was a revelation. Forget the operator, the heaps
Of cards, waits. Sharing process time, one could sit down
The teletype, put a couple of commands and get a response to the moment. Timeshare
Was interactive: a program could request a response, wait for the user to
Typing, performing the task while the user waited and displayed the result; All << in
in Real Time.
This is where Michigan comes in, for it was one of the first universities in the world to
Made the change to the timeshare regime. By 1967, it was already underway
A prototype of this system. In the early 1970s, Michigan had enough
Calculating power so that one hundred people could program simultaneously in the
Computer center
-I do not think that in the late sixties and early seventies there would be no
Site like Michigan - explains Mike Alexander, one of the pioneers of that computer system
Implanted in Michigan. Maybe MIT. Maybe Carnegie Mellon. Maybe Dartmouth.
I do not think there was any other.
This was the opportunity that welcomed Bill joy upon his arrival at the Ann Arbor campus in
The fall of 1971. Joy had not chosen Michigan for his computers. Neither had
Never done anything with computers in high school. He was interested in mathematics and engineering.
But when he was bitten by the programming worm in his first year of university student,
Was - thanks to the happiest of coincidences - in one of the few places
Of the world where a boy of seventeen could program as much as he wanted.
-What is the difference between punch cards and time share? Commented
Joy. For the same thing that exists between playing chess by mail and throwing a game
Fast. Suddenly, scheduling stopped being a frustrating exercise, to become
In something fun.
"I lived on the north campus," continues Joy, "where the computer center was.
How much time was there? Well a phenomenal amount of time. Was opened
Twenty-four hours. Many times I would spend all night there. On average, in those
Years spent more time in the computer center than in the classroom. All that we programmed
There we had the same recurring nightmare in which we completely forgot about
Going to class or even that we were enrolled in college.
"The challenge was that they assigned an account to each student with a fixed amount of money,
So the time was running out. When you pointed, you had to indicate how much
Time you wanted to spend with the computer. Let's say they gave you an hour of time and you had
To make do with it. "He laughs at the memory. But someone noticed that indicating
"Time equal to" followed by "computers" finally gathered sufficient power to
Managing more than one letter, eg t equal to k, the counter would stop. Was a
Software failure One wrote t = ky stayed there for life.
It is necessary to see the stream of opportunities that were presented to Bill Joy: first had
The fate of choosing such a far-sighted institution as the University of Michigan,
He was able to benefit from a timeshare system instead of throwing punch cards
And as it turned out that the Michigan system had some cracks, it was able to program everything
What he wanted; And how the university was willing to spend the money on maintaining
The computer center open twenty-four hours, he could stay all night;
And since he could invest so many hours, when he had the opportunity to rewrite
UNIX, was ready for the task. Bill Joy was brilliant. I wanted to learn. All
This forms much of the success. But before he could become an expert, someone had
That give you the opportunity to learn to be an expert.
"If I was scheduling eight or ten hours a day in Michigan," Joy continues, "when I arrived
To Berkeley I began to work day and night. I already had a terminal at home. Me
It was until two or three in the morning, watching old movies and programming. TO
Sometimes I would fall asleep on the keyboard and then I would wake up the system beep.
After this has happened to you three times, you have to go to bed. I was still relatively
Incompetent even after arriving in Berkeley. But for my second year there,
You can say he was an expert. That's when I wrote programs that still
Are used today, thirty years later. "He paused a moment to do mental calculation,
What for someone like him does not take long: Michigan in 1971; Programming in
Serious since the second course; Summers, plus the days and nights of his first year
In Berkeley. Come out ... I think it's ten thousand hours? There you will walk.
Is this ten thousand hour rule a general rule for success? If we scratch
Beneath the surface of every great triumph, do we always find an equivalent to that
Michigan computer center or that youthful hockey team, some kind
Of special opportunity for practice?
Let's try the idea with two examples; And to simplify, let's choose them so familiar
As we can: The Beatles, one of the most famous rock groups of all time.
time; And Bill Gates, one of the richest men in the world.
The Beatles - John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr - arrived
To the United States in February 1964, beginning the so-called British invasion of the scene
American musical and recording a string of hits with recordings that changed the
History of popular music.
The first thing that interests us of the Beatles for our purposes is how much they carried
Together when they arrived in the United States. Lennon and McCartney began to play together in 1957,
Seven years before landing in America (by the way: the time that elapsed
Between the foundation of the band and those that are possibly its major artistic achievements
Is ten years); And if one looks more closely at those long formative years,
You will find an experience that, in the context of hockey players and Bill Joy,
Or in the world-class violinists, it is tremendously familiar. In 1960, when
They were nothing more than a rock band from an institute struggling to break through, they were invited
To play in Hamburg (Germany).
-In Hamburg then there were no rock and roll music clubs, but
"Said Philip Norman, a Beatles biographer. One of the owners
Of these bad clubs, called Bruno, had started as a park entrepreneur
Of attractions. He came up with the idea of bringing rock bands to play in various clubs.
They had this formula. It was a huge uninterrupted show, with many people coming in and
Going out at all hours. And the bands played all the time to attract that human flow.
In a red neighborhood in the United States they would have called it non-stop strip-tease.
"Many of the groups that played in Hamburg were from Liverpool," continued Nonnan. This
it was a coincidence. Bruno went to look for groups in London. And in Soho he came across a
Businessman from Liverpool who was in London by pure chance. This promoter sent
The first bands to Germany; And that is how the connection was established. From this
The Beatles came into contact not only with Bruno, but also with other owners.
Of clubs. They always came back, because they gave them alcohol and sex to spare.
And what did Hamburg have that made it so special? It was not that they paid well. They paid
wrong. Or that the acoustics were amazing. It was not. Not that the public was sensitive
And understood. Quite the opposite. It was simply the amount of time the group had
That touch.
Let's hear John Lennon, interviewed after the Beatles dissolve, talking
About the band's performances at a Hamburg strip club, Indra:
-We were improving and winning in confidence. It was inevitable, with all the experience
It played all night. And being foreigners, we had to work even harder, to put
The whole heart and soul to hear us.
In Liverpool, the sessions lasted only an hour, so we played only the best
Songs, always the same. In Hamburg we had to play eight hours, so we did not
We had no choice but to find another way to play.
Eight hours ? Let's listen to Pete Best, battery of
The Beatles in those times:
- When the voice of the actions that we did, the club began to program
Many in a row. We were acting seven nights a week. At first we played almost without
Stop until 12.30, when the club closed; But as we were improving, people
He stayed until two almost every night.
Seven days a week?
In the end, the Beatles traveled to Hamburg five times between 1960 and the end of 1962.
On their first trip, they played 106 nights at a rate of five hours or more a night. In
His second trip, acted 92 times; And in the third, 48, with a total of 172 hours
on stage. His last two passes through Hamburg in November and December
1962, involved another 90 hours of performance. In just over a year and a half they had acted
270 nights. In fact, when they had their first success in 1964, they had performed live
Some twelve hundred times. To understand how extraordinary this is, it is important to know
That most groups today do not act twelve hundred times or in the course of their
Whole careers. The Hamburg melting pot is one of the things that make the
Beatles.
"When they got there, they were useless on the stage; But they were again
Very good, "Norman says. They not only gained in stamina. They had to learn one
Huge amount of songs and make versions of everything imaginable, not just rock and
Roll also something of jazz Before going to Germany, they lacked all scenic discipline. But
When they returned, they sounded like no one. That's what gave them their seal.
But back to the story of Bill Gates, almost as well known as the Beatles:
A young and brilliant mathematician who discovers programming. Leave Harvard. Cover with
His friends a small computer company called Microsoft, and by pure brilliance,
Ambition and rennet, turns it into a giant of the software sector So far, the profile
In the broad sense. But let's dig a little deeper.
Gates's father was a wealthy lawyer from Seattle; And his mother, the daughter of a wealthy banker.
As a child, Bill revealed himself as a precocious talent, easily bored by studies;
So his parents took him out of public school, and when he was about to start the seventh
Course, he was sent to Lakeside, a private school to which elite families
Of Seattle sent their children. In the middle of Gates' second year at Lakeside, the institution
He created a computer club.
- Every year, the Mothers Club of the school organized an article market
Used; And there was always the question of where the money would go, "Gates recalls. Sometimes
Was intended for the summer program, which allowed the city boys to spend it on campus.
It was also aimed at the needs of teachers. That year they were invested
Three thousand dollars in a computer terminal located in a small room from which we proceeded
To take over. It seemed an amazing thing to us.
And so much, because it was 1968. And in the sixties not even the universities had clubs
Computer systems. But even more amazing was the kind of computer that Lakeside acquired.
This school did not make programming its students through the laborious system
Of perforated cards, as practically all the others did in the sixties. Conversely,
Lakeside installed the so-called ASR-33 Teletype, a time-sharing terminal with connection
Direct to a central computer in the city of Seattle. Bearing in mind that the idea
Same process time was not conceived until 1965, someone was taking
The front: if Bill Joy had an extraordinarily early opportunity to learn programming
With a time-sharing system in his first university year, 1971, in 1968,
Bill Gates was able to schedule in real time while attending eighth of basic education.
From that year, Gates lived in the computer room. He and others began to
Teach themselves how to use that strange new device. Needless to say if you have to
Renting a terminal then leading ASR was expensive even for an institution
As rich as the Lakeside, so the $ 3,000 raised by the Mothers Club
They soon became exhausted.
Parents raised more money. The students spent it. Then a group of programmers
Of the University of Washington formed a team called Computer Center Corporation
(Or C to Cube), which leased computer hours to local businesses. I wanted the luck that one
Of the founders of the firm, Monique Rona, had a son in Lakeside, a year ahead
Of Gates. And to the Lakeside computer club, Roña wondered, would not you like to try
The company's software programs on weekends in exchange for
Free programming? Well, there was no more! After school, Gates was taking
The bus to the offices from C to Cube and scheduled until well into the night.
C the Cube eventually broke, leaving Gates and his friends hanging around
Of the University of Washington computer center. They soon found another
Company, ISI (Information Sciences Inc.), which gave them free computer hours
In exchange for his work on software to automate payrolls. During a
Period of 1971, Gates and his cohorts totaled 1,575
Programming with the ISI central unit, which makes an average of eight hours a day,
Seven days a week.
"It was my obsession," Gates says of his early years in high school.
I skipped PE. I went there for
the nights. We programmed during the weekends.
Rare was the week we did not throw twenty or thirty hours. There was a period when Paul
Alien and I got into trouble for stealing a bunch of passwords and blocking the system.
They threw us out. All summer I could not use the computer. This was when I had
Fifteen or sixteen years. I then found out that Paul had found a free computer
At the University of Washington. They had these machines in the medical center and the department
Of Physics. They worked on a 24-hour program, but with long inactive periods,
So that between three and six o'clock in the morning there was a gap of three hours-laughs
Gates-. I went out at night, after my bedtime. The stretch from my house to the
Washington University could be covered on foot. I also took the bus. Because
I am always so generous with the University of Washington because he let me steal so many
Computer hours.
Years later, Gates's mother said, "We were always wondering why
It was so hard to get up in the morning.
Then one of the founders of ISI, Bud Pembroke, received a call from the company
TRW technology, which had just signed a contract to infonnatize the huge
Power station in Bonneville, south of Washington state. TRW desperately needed
Programmers familiar with the specific software used by the plant. In those
Days of the computer revolution, it was difficult to find
Class of specialized experience. But Pembroke knew exactly who to call: those
Lakeside guys who had been on the ISI host for thousands of hours. Gates
He was already in his final year of high school; And somehow managed to convince
His teachers to let him move to Bonneville, on the occasion of an independent project
of studies. There he spent the spring writing codes, under the supervision of a man
Named John Norton, who in Gates's words taught him more programming than any
Another person I had met before.
Those five years that go from eighth grade to the end of high school were Hamburg
Of Bill Gates, who, however you look, took advantage of a number of opportunities
Even more extraordinary than the one enjoyed Biil joy.
The number one opportunity was that Gates was enamored of Lakeside. How many institutes
In the world had access to a time-share terminal in 1968? The opportunity
Number two was that the mothers of Lakeside had enough money to pay
The rates of the school computer. Number three: When that money ran out, it turned out
That one of the mothers worked in C to the Cube, which in turn needed someone to prove
Their software codes during the weekends, regardless of the purpose
Week will be spent on weekdays. Number four: Gates discovered little ISI
Before this company needed someone to computerize their payrolls. Number five:
Gates lived a short distance from the University of Washington. Six: the university had
A free computer three hours a day. Seven: TRW called Bud Pembroke. Eight: the best
Programmers that Pembroke knew for a given task turned out to be two high school chavs.
Nine: Lakeside was willing to let these guys spend the spring writing
Codes elsewhere.
And what did all those opportunities have in common? What did they give
Bill Gates extra time to practice. When Gates left Harvard after his
Second year as a student to try his luck with his own software company, he was
Seven consecutive years programming almost non-stop. He had far surpassed the
Ten thousand hours. How many teenagers in the world were the kind of
Had gates
"I would be very surprised there had been fifty in the whole world," he says.
There was C to Cube and that payroll software we did; And then came TRW, all those
Things came together. I think I had better access to software development at an age
Than any other person in that period of time, and all because of a series of
Incredibly fortunate event.
If we put together the stories of hockey players and the Beatles with those of Bill Joy
And Bill Gates, I think we'll get a better idea of the road to success. So much
Joy as Gates or the Beatles were undoubtedly talented people. Lennon and McCartney
They shared a musical gift of those given once each generation; And Bill Joy, do not
Forget, had a mind so fast that was able to formulate on the fly a complicated
Algorithm that overwhelmed its teachers. All this is obvious.
But what really distinguishes their stories is not their wonderful talent, but the extraordinary ones
Opportunities they enjoyed. The Beatles invited them, by the most arbitrary of the
To Hamburg. Without Hamburg, the Beatles may well have followed a very
different. "I was very lucky," Bill Gates said at the beginning of our interview.
This does not mean that he is not brilliant or an extraordinary businessman; Only comprising
How incredibly lucky he was to be at Lakeside in 1968.
All the series we have seen are beneficiaries of some kind of opportunity
Unusual Lucky streaks do not seem to be exceptional among millionaire
Software, sports idols and rock ensembles. They seem to be the norm.
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