Malcolm Gladwell seems to have had an ideological agenda in bringing up the 10K rule, and did so without getting it right. Gladwell’s agenda, as far as I can tell, was to argue that there wasn’t such a thing as innate talent – so to take a couple of chapters from his book Bill Gates wasn’t talented, he just got into programming very early and did lots of programming through (his uncle’s) access to computers or that the reason Ashkenazi Jews started doing so well when Wall Street became somewhat more meritocratic was timing and not skill – or at least that innate talent was a lot less important than people think. Same with hockey players, etc.
The 10K rule comes from studies by Anders Ericsson and colleagues. The 10K hours were not practice, but “deliberate practice,” which is defined as “the individualized training activities specially designed by a coach or teacher to improve specific aspects of an individual’s performance through repetition and successive refinement." So merely practicing things on one’s own without systematic, outcome-oriented refinement would not be the same. When we were looking at pre-schools for ShawKids, my aunt who was an expert in early childhood education was somewhat cautious about judging based upon years of experience. She asked, “Does this person have 10 years of experience or one year of experience repeated 10 times?” The answer depends upon how thoughtful and reflective the person is in learning from his / her experience.
There are subsequent studies that suggest that neither the hours nor the deliberate practice explain as much of the variance in outcomes as suggested by Ericsson and his colleagues. Instead, individual talent differences also matter. See https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rsos.190327. [This comes from an internet search. I am not an expert in this field].
As an aside, my reading of Gladwell’s books is that he starts with the conclusion and then finds interesting social science studies to support his pre-decided conclusion. In this case, I thought his biases were pretty clear. Loved some of the studies he cites but don’t trust any of his conclusions as we don’t know which studies he chose not to cite as they didn’t support his prior conclusion.
Love this @Mumfromca . Yes, about the same here. Kids dipped into lots of things, mainly to try them and develop skills like you mentioned, eg. learning not to give up.
At this point, there’s now way I can shut the “let’s try it out” valve off. On a vacation before Covid, one tried cliff diving by getting the co-ordinates and looking for the beach. The whole family jumped in ( except me). One kid had been on a diving team, the other two are just daredevils. The cliff wasn’t high but I think it explains how they like to delve into things and egg each other on. They are the same in academia, pushing each other to try new things and think of things in new ways.
We never thought about educational constraints k-12 but have run into a few and see some ahead. The UK example is a good one.
Recognizing you say this in jest. I think there is something massively wrong with it. We spend too much of our lives at work for it to just to be about money and to lack passion/interest for what you are doing.
I feel for folks in my age bracket (mid-50s) that simply view what they do for a day job as a way to get a check.
But it does relate to the topic of the thread…do you pursue a degree in something because you can make the most money in that field, or do you pursue something you genuinely enjoy as long as you can support yourself?
Nothing is zero or one in anything.
And a lot of tastes (in the kind of work one likes arc) are acquired tastes, even if only in early child hood. It is rarely the case that one is born to be this or that.
I can’t say I’ve ever had a passion for designing sewer pipes, lol. There are things I like about my job. There are things I hate about my job. And there are many things that are just part of the job. Some days/months I don’t know how I will be able to make it to 30 years. Some days I think that was really cool. It’s all up and down. It’s just life.
I’ve been able to to pay for all of the things we need and some things we want. Of course we always want make, but in general we are lucky. And hopefully we’ve conveyed that to our kids
I completely disagree that you need to be passionate about work. That’s why it’s called work. I don’t hate my career, but I am not passionate about it. Yet I do give a hundred and fifty percent every day because that’s how I’m wired. What I’m passionate about is the lifestyle it affords me now and will in the future (early retirement, extensive travel, and generational wealth). I would say more people are like me than are truly passionate about their work. If you ask me about what my friends are passionate about, and we all have multiple things, it’s not our careers. It would be friends, family, travel, and various (expensive) hobbies and causes.
I never said it was. I just think this is another CC world rather than the real world thing where everyone is supposed to be passionate about work. It doesn’t ring true in real life in my experience.
I think as you get older you become less passionate about your job/career, and more passionate about friends, family, experiences, etc.
My kids do feel passion for their chosen fields. My older daughter holds a full time job and also creates material for therapists to use. She hasn’t made much money yet creating materials, but she loves doing it.
My younger daughter just gave up a grad school spot in an amazing program, eventually working in a health care field that would have provided steady employment and a high income. After doing a lot of soul searching and speaking with professors, she realized this was not her passion. Her interests are in direct science, as opposed to primary care.
She has regrouped, continued to interview professionals in her new field, observed, attended meetings, volunteered etc…and is all set to apply in September. Yesterday, after attending an open house, she finally exclaimed “I am in love with this field.”
The last time I saw this level of passion in her was when she helped teach review sessions on this exact subject matter in college.
I do think passion is important, but I do think it changes throughout life.
Very true. When you are young you are sheltered and don’t have to deal with the full complexity of the world. When you have greater responsibilities, both at work and in the family, aging parents etc, passion for work becomes yet another thing – nice to have, but can’t insist on it.
Moreover, passion for work is such a past 50-100 years thing. For the longest time people used to work to put food on the table – farming, industrial work etc. Once the lowest rungs of the Maslov’s need hierarchy are satisfied, you look for self actualization needs. Some would contend that work itself is overrated, suggesting that definitionally one cannot have passion for work :-).
I don’t think it is necessary to be passionate about one’s work, but it helps make the job more fun or at least more interesting. Similarly, it is not necessary to be passionate about learning, but it certainly makes school/studying a lot more fun. And it can help motivate students through the boring bits if the find school mostly interesting.
The word passionate seems like a heavy burden to me. I know some people who are passionate about their work. And at times, I feel that type of passion as well, but it does seem like a lot to ask of a job–my guess is that there are some fields more suited for “passion” than others --the arts & arts affiliated careers or anything creative. Thus, I imagine that there are “inventors” who are passionate about their work, maybe medicine, maybe teaching, religious orders, some sorts of service or social justice work, being an entrepreneur and starting a business.
But I definitely actively enjoy my job and I am almost always working on one or more individual projects that I feel passionate about. Headed into the office shortly (on a Saturday no less) because one of my colleagues and I are both so excited about our current project that we want to go in and play around/experiment today even though we don’t have to do so and we have several weeks to finish. We are having fun. Those types of projects help the parts of my job that I dislike (almost entirely paperwork-related or occasionally deadline driven). I also like the work-life balance that my job offers and I really enjoy my colleagues, many of whom are part of my social life.
All of which is to say that I would do much of my job even if I were not being paid. The pay is for the stuff that I dislike (and of course to put a roof over my head!). But if all the paperwork and deadlines (and a couple of irritating co-workers) disappeared, I might feel passionate about my job as a whole as opposed to just saying that I enjoy my job very much.
So for me, it is about finding the sweet spot between enough money to support my family and enough fulfillment that I actively enjoy the 8+ hours per day that I spend at work and away from my family.
I think that an education helps not just because it can lead to a career path and not just because I value an education in general, but also because I think getting an education can offer more choices and more freedom. My job isn’t to educate my kids in order to help them become wealthy. My job is to educate my kids in order to help them feel as if they have meaningful choices in their lives and the freedom to pursue whatever type of career they want (maybe high paying or maybe passionate or maybe just enjoyable, but if they hit the super sweet spot, maybe they’ll get all three).
I think that what I am trying to say is that if much of your “work” feels enough like “play” then perhaps you don’t need a high salary job to fund your expensive hobbies, vacations and leisure.
Obviously having both a playful job and a lot of money to play with is fantastic and perhaps that is what many people aspire to. But it might not be a realistic option for most people even people who are well-educated. But if you are lucky enough, you have the freedom and education to find a place along that spectrum feels right or at least allows you to make ends meet. In my mind, the worst case scenario is where lots of people end up, which is neither enjoying their jobs nor making enough money to feel financially secure plus fund the lifestyle they wish.
IMO this sums it up for the majority of people who have any choice at all about the work or career they do. Someone way upthread mentioned they thought the word “passion” was overused, or something to that effect. I agree. It can actually be a bit of a trap, leading one forever in search of some ideal that may not exist.
When I was in graduate school and sitting in classes, doing my internships, clinical work etc…I had an enormous amount of passion. I thoroughly enjoyed learning everything there was to learn about my field. I sought out conferences and experiences.
Once I entered the workforce and saw the huge difference between being in school versus the day-to-day stress that takes place…my passion for being at work began to dwindle…slowly. My passion for learning about the field has not dwindled at all. One of the best parts of my job is when we all sit at a table discussing specific cases and students.
