How long does it
take to become elite at your craft? And what do the people who master their
goals do differently than the rest of us?
That’s what John Hayes, a cognitive psychology professor
at Carnegie Mellon University, wanted to know.
For decades, Hayes has been investigating the role of
effort, practice, and knowledge in top performers. He has studied the most
talented creators in history — people like Mozart and Picasso — to determine
how long it took them to become world class at their craft. Furthermore, he has
investigated the choices and experiences that have led to their success.
Let’s talk about what Hayes has discovered about world
class performers. And more importantly, let’s discuss how you can use these
insights to achieve your goals and become your best.
“10 Years of Silence”
Hayes started his research by examining successful
composers. He analyzed thousands of musical pieces produced between the years
of 1685 to 1900. The central question that drove his work was, “How long after
one becomes interested in music is it that one becomes world class?”
Eventually, Hayes developed a list of 500 pieces that
were played frequently by symphonies around the world and were considered to be
the “masterworks” in the field. These 500 popular pieces were created by a
total of 76 composers.
Next, Hayes mapped out the timeline of each composer’s
career and calculated how long they had been working before they created their
popular works. What he discovered was that virtually every single “masterwork”
was written after year ten of the composer’s career. (Out of 500 pieces there
were only three exceptions, which were written in years eight and nine.)
Not a single person produced incredible work without
putting in a decade of practice first. Even a genius like Mozart had to work
for at least ten years before he produced something that became popular.
Professor Hayes began to refer to this period, which was filled with hard work
and little recognition, as the “ten years of silence.”
In followup studies, Hayes found similar patterns among
famous painters and popular poets. These findings have been further confirmed
by research from professors like K. Anders Ericsson, who produced research that
revealed that you needed to put in “10,000 hours” to become an expert in your
field. (This idea was later popularized by Malcolm Gladwell.)
However, as Hayes, Ericsson, and other researchers
started digging deeper, they discovered that time was merely one part of the
equation. Success wasn’t simply a product of 10 years of practice or 10,000
hours of work. To understand exactly what was required to maximize your
potential and master your craft, you had to look at how the best
people practice.
From Robert, trainer for
Team USA:
I was invited to Las Vegas
to help Team USA with their conditioning before they headed off to London. I’ve
had the opportunity to work with Carmelo Anthony and Dwyane Wade in the past,
but this would be my first interaction with Kobe.
The night before the first
scrimmage, I had just watched “Casablanca” for the first time and it was about
3:30 AM.
A few minutes later, I was
in bed, slowly fading away, when I heard my cell ring. It was Kobe. I nervously
picked up.
“Hey, uhh, Rob, I hope I’m
not disturbing anything right?”
“Uhh, no. What’s up Kob?”
“Just wondering if you
could help me out with some conditioning work, that’s all.”
I checked my clock. 4:15
AM.
“Yeah sure, I’ll see you in
the facility in a bit.”
It took me about twenty
minutes to get my gear and get out of the hotel. When I arrived and opened the
room to the main practice floor, I saw Kobe. Alone. He was drenched in sweat as
if he had just taken a swim. It wasn’t even 5:00 AM.
We did some conditioning
work for the next hour and fifteen minutes. Then, we entered the weight room,
where he would do a multitude of strength training exercises for the next 45
minutes. After that, we parted ways. He went back to the practice floor to
shoot. I went back to the hotel and crashed. Wow.
I was expected to be at the
floor again at about 11:00 AM.
I woke up feeling sleepy,
drowsy, and pretty much every side effect of sleep deprivation. (Thanks, Kobe.)
I had a bagel and headed to the practice facility.
This next part I remember
very vividly. All of the Team USA players were there. LeBron was talking to Carmelo
and Coach Krzyzewski was trying to explain something to Kevin Durant. On the
right side of the practice facility Kobe was by himself shooting jumpers.
I went over to him, patted
him on the back and said, “Good work this morning.”
“Huh?”
“Like, the conditioning.
Good work.”
“Oh. Yeah, thanks Rob. I
really appreciate it.”
“So when did you finish?”
“Finish what?”
“Getting your shots up.
What time did you leave the facility?”
“Oh, just now. I wanted 800 makes. So yeah, just now.”
For those of you keeping track at home, Kobe
Bryant started his conditioning work around 4:30am, continued to run and sprint
until 6am, lifted weights from 6am to 7am, and finally proceeded to make 800
jump shots between 7am and 11am.
Oh yeah, and then Team USA had practice.
It’s obvious that Kobe is getting his 10,000
hours in, but there is another part of his story that is even more important.
The Importance Deliberate Practice
Kobe isn’t merely showing up and practicing a
lot. He is practicing with purpose.
Kobe had a very clear goal at practice: 800 made
jump shots. He was deliberately focused on developing the skill of making
baskets. The time he spent doing it was almost an after thought. That sounds
simple, but it’s very different from how most of us approach our work each day.
When most people talk about working hard, they
use the amount of time they worked as an indicator of how hard they worked.
(i.e. “I worked 60 hours this week!”)
Putting in a lot of time might make you tired,
but simply working a lot (even if it’s 10,000 hours over the course of your
career) isn’t enough to make you a top performer. It’s not the same thing as
practicing deliberately. Most people who think they are working hard are merely
developing the skill of being in the gym, not the skill of making baskets.
To keep this basketball analogy going, consider
this quote about deliberate practice…
Consider the activity of two basketball players practicing free
throws for one hour. Player A shoots 200 practice shots, Player B shoots 50.
The Player B retrieves his own shots, dribbles leisurely and takes several
breaks to talk to friends. Player A has a colleague who retrieves the ball
after each attempt. The colleague keeps a record of shots made. If the shot is
missed the colleague records whether the miss was short, long, left or right
and the shooter reviews the results after every 10 minutes of practice. To
characterize their hour of practice as equal would hardly be accurate. Assuming
this is typical of their practice routine and they are equally skilled at the
start, which would you predict would be the better shooter after only 100 hours
of practice?
—Aubrey Daniels
—Aubrey Daniels
Each player in the example above could brag
about practicing for one hour, but only one of them is practicing deliberately.
Researchers have noted that top performers in
every industry are committed to deliberate practice. The best artists,
musicians, athletes, CEOs, and entrepreneurs don’t merely work a lot, they work
a lot on developing specific skills. For example, Jerry Seinfeld’s “don’t break the chain” strategy is
all about deliberately practicing the skill of writing jokes.
Applying This to Your Life
Mozart has been called the “genius of geniuses”
and even he toiled away for 10 years before producing popular work. I don’t
know about you, but I find this inspiring.
I don’t have the natural talent of Kobe Bryant
or the sheer brilliance of Mozart, but I’m willing to put in my “10 years of
silence.” I’ve only been writing on this site for 9 months, but I see this as
the beginning of a 30–year project for me. And because I’m in this for good, I
can win with commitment, grit, and unwavering consistency.
You can take the same approach to your work, to
your goals, and to your legacy. By combining these two ideas — the consistency
of “10 years of silence” and the focus of “deliberate practice” — you can blow
past most people.
On a daily basis, this doesn’t have to look big
or impressive. And that’s good, because it will often feel like you’re failing.
What feels like struggle and frustration is often skill development and growth.
What looks like little pay and no recognition is often the price you have to
pay to discover your best work. In other words, what looks like failure is
often the foundation of success.
Thankfully, just one hour of focus and
deliberate practice each day can deliver incredible results over the long–run.
And that brings us to the most important questions of all:
Are you working toward your 10 years of silence
today? Are you deliberately focused on developing your skills? Or are you
simply “putting in your time” and hoping for the best?
