<p>Basically, are you saying the samples in the study put in a lot of effort, probably the most they can already. What distinguishes them at that point is talent/intelleigence? It looks like no brainer to me.</p>
<p>I think Pele and Michael Jordan probably practiced a lot. That’s all I’m saying.</p>
<p>The problem is when people start making claims like ‘it is all genetics’ or it is ‘all hard work’ or ‘environment’, all have factors to play and emphasizing any one of them is going to be a misstatement and also lead to false conclusions. Gladwell doesn’t say that genetics doesn’t matter, he simply says that it isn’t the only thing towards success, that a combination of factors apply and that work is still needed and so forth.</p>
<p>People are misstating when they say Gladwell is saying all it takes is hard work and so forth, that isn’t true. Gladwlell was trying to figure out what made the upper echelons tick, and the 10,000 hour figure often cited was part of it…he also talks about other factors:</p>
<p>-passion for what you are doing, if someone isn’t interested in what they are doing, don’t feel a connection to it, they aren’t going to succeed. If you are a writer at heart, you might be able to grind through a Phd in Chemistry, but will you ever succeed at it? If Gates and people like Bill Joy of Sun computing fame not been fascinated by computers, would they have done it?</p>
<p>-Support and environment. The brightest kid without support isn’t going to achieve much, and Gladwell talks about that. I believe it was in Gladwells book that he profiled two gifted kids, one from upper middle income parents, the other one from a more blue collar background, and what they found was the upper middle income kid achieved a lot more, because she had support, her parents were actively involved, encouraged her to do things and so forth, whereas the blue collar parents tended to be more of the mind “if she is good, others will make sure she does things”, the support wasn’t there (and yes, finances play a role in this as well, but there is also a mentality there that I have observed first hand as well). </p>
<p>Bill Gates and Joy both were from well off backgrounds, and Gates in particular went to a private school in the 1960’s that had timeshare access, plus he later had access to high tech companies in the area…and Joy similarly had access to computers at a time when they weren’t common. If Gates didn’t go to that expensive private school and had access to computers,he might very well have not gone on to found microsoft and such. </p>
<p>-Luck, specifically in things like being in the right time and place. If Gates or Joy were born several years earlier or later, it is likely neither one of them would have been involved in the computer revolution, or if Gates had been born lets say in the farm belt, rather then in a hub of big business and such, things would have been different.</p>
<p>Put it this way, read up on gifted kids and you see a lot of kids who never achieve much, Mensa is full of people who haven’t really done all that much with their lives versus potential, and likewise there are people who if you checked their IQ’s would be found to be relatively average, yet because they had support/mentoring, because they found something they had passion for, they were able to work towards what they wished to.</p>
<p>Likewise, the 10,000 hour thing is not a prescription to success, it is that without that it is more a prescription to not making it. McCartney and Lennon were gifted songwriters and musicians, but if you look at their story, you see something. The fact that they went to Hamburg itself was irrelevant, the fact that they went their and played their tales off was, it allowed them to develop their sound in a place where they could experiment and master their craft, and it also positioned them where they had the experience to be in place when the wave broke, to use a surfing analogy. They came from Hamburg at a time when record companies in the UK were looking for new talent with a new sound and likewise the beatles came along at a time when rock music was shifting from the 1950’s style whatever you call it music, to a different form and the Beatles hit what people were looking to listen to, and they did so because they had worked out their sound to be able to take advantage of that. They also had a passion for music, both Lennon and McCartney were incredibly musical people (which is an inate talent/passion), which led them to choose George Martin as producer, which was different (George Martin was a classical music producer, and it gave the Beatles a very unique sound). Other groups could have done what the Beatles did (many did) in terms of the hard slog, and wouldn’t make it, and that is where things like inate talent, passions and so forth come from.</p>
<p>And music is a really good example of where hard work alone won’t do it. In classical music for example, you aren’t going to see someone with ‘natural ability’ make it as a performer </p>
<p>On the other hand, hard work alone, practicing 5 hours a day from the time they are little, doesn’t make for a musician either. By hard, rote work alone, you can achieve pretty stunning technical levels on an instrument, there is no doubt, but that isn’t all it takes to become a musician. Many of these kids stun music teachers with their technical prowess, win competitions but then fizzle out, because there is a lot more to music then just playing notes with precision. Things like musicality (which IMO is inate, you can’t teach this), stage presence, the ability to connect with an audience, musical expression and interpretation and passion all play roles in it, and all the practice in the world isn’t going to be able to get someone to do those, they come from within. A lot of the kids I am referring to basically copy what their teacher shows them and as a result they come off as boring and uninspired (and especially with soloists, or small groups like Chamber, it can’t be faked).</p>
<p>I think people do have things they are better at, and more importantly, that they feel a connection to, and my answer is to have kids try a lot of different things and find out what attracts them and support them in that. Whether it is as an athlete or as a scientist, passion plays a big role in things. Going into something that isn’t a passion doesn’t work; I recommend highly people read Michael Crichton’s book “Travels” when he describes his time at Harvard Med School and why he never became a practicing doctor, and it says a lot I think</p>
<p>Hunt wrote:</p>
<p>“thought Gladwell was really onto something with the 10,000 hours of practice, and I still do. I really couldn’t understand, though, why he couldn’t seem to see that it was the practice plus talent that resulted in the greatest success–something that seemed pretty obvious to me even in his examples.”</p>
<p>Gladwell never said that talent didn’t matter, he said that the idea that Talent alone is what drives success (call it intelligence, natural gifts, whatever), he didn’t say the Beatles were not talented, he said they became successful because whatever their gifts were, they also put the time in to master their trade, pure and simple. Bill Gates and Bill Joy are incredibly brilliant people and Gladwell isn’t saying they became successful only because they did the 10,000 hours and other things, he said it was the combination. </p>
<p>On the other hand, there are people who don’t have the intellectual gifts of Joy or Gates yet who achieved some level of success and a lot of it was through hard work and using what talents they had to the utmost. Part of the problem with the Times article is they zero in on uber academic success, like getting a PHd in science, where intelligence may play a higher role, given that to understood the complexities of physics or math on a high level requires a lot of what intelligence is about, including strong memory…but in other fields, that may not apply. In music, things like passion for the music, feeling for it, understanding of it plays a major role I believe between those who play exceedingly well and those who are musicians people would want to hear perform, so talent/inate abilities do play a role there (one of the most pathetic sights I have ever seen quite honestly has been music students trying to fake passion and musicality, they basically have been taught to move in a certain way, to use certain phrasing, to make it seem like they are musical, and if you saw them play multiple times, you would see exactly the same performance, time after time) as well, and it is a bigger one then even many music teachers seem to understand). </p>
<p>Keep in mind that Gladwell’s book doesn’t focus on any one thing, his book attempted to explain outliers, and he outlines the factors, rather then inate talent alone, that make it happen. It reminds me of claims of ‘self made people’, we have all heard people claiming how they were self made, they did it all without help, and so forth (with the obvious claim that those not so fortunate had something wrong with them), yet when you study their life story, you find out that no matter how humble the background, they had help, they had people who mentored them, supported them, gave them other kinds of support and so forth (David McCullough, the historian, made the statement that show him any so called ‘self made man’ and on investigation he will show you at least 10 people who helped the person get to where they are). It is the same with outliers, those who achieve ‘out there’, he is simply saying that inate ability isn’t the only thing, that it takes a combination of factors that include mastery of the skills required. If I take an average kid at the age of 5 and make him practice the piano 5 hours a day, by the time they are a teenager they probably will have achieved a certain level of proficiency, probably pretty high level, but it wouldn’t make them a promising pianist, either.</p>
<p>Lots of what Gladwell says isn’t wrong. Lots of it is obvious. It’s not wrong to say that the Beatles got better as they played more; it’s just obvious.</p>
<p>He does indeed cherry pick what fits his theory. Chinese are better at math because of rice paddies, but how about the Northern Chinese who grew wheat; are they then worse at math? Not that anyone has proven.</p>
<p>Early in the 10,000 hours chapter, he says that most people think “achievement is talent plus preparation” but then basically refutes that through the rest of the chapter. </p>
<p>What he says that’s right–working hard is important, some people have more opportunities than others, is obvious. </p>
<p>He’s written lots of better stuff; as someone said above, this is by far his shoddiest work.</p>
<p>This is such an interesting topic, because it certainly has come up a lot in our township high school, and I imagine in other high schools across the country. The dilemma comes up when gifted children benefit from “ability grouping” but it is seen as somehow elitist because it presumably excludes other hard-working kids who lack the same natural ability. </p>
<p>Unless you have been around a gifted child (e.g., taught one, have one of you own), it is hard to appreciate that these children grasp information at a different pace, with a different level of complexity, with a different range and breadth of understanding than others. They often languish in classrooms that claim to differentiate instruction, but let them do busywork or read novels to keep them occupied. </p>
<p>In my opinion, it takes three factors to achieve amazing results: natural talent, passion and hard work. If any of these three are lacking, the final result will not be stellar. This is true for music, athletics, and astrophysics. Yes, mitigating circumstances can interfere, such as a poor environment, poverty, family problems, depression, etc. However, as long as there is some reasonable amount of opportunity, all things being equal, I believe that these three factors are necessary conditions for outstanding achievement.</p>
<p>Just my two cents.</p>
<p>Malcolm Gladwell is a fine and interesting writer, but some of the nuances of the research performed by K. Anders Ericsson and his colleagues are often overlooked. They discovered that it is not 10,000 hours of repetitive practice that does it, but 10,000 hours of guided, deliberate practice. It involves systematically changing practice goals to push one’s self even further, and it involves finding high quality coaching and mentoring to guide the practice. In their research they have actually taught ordinary students to do extraordinary, savant-like memory, etc. performances. There simply is no evidence for natural talent as much as we might want to believe in it, or have this or that personal anecdote.</p>
<p>For those interested in this topic, I recommend: <a href=“http://www.amazon.com/Cambridge-Expertise-Performance-Handbooks-Psychology/dp/0521600812[/url]”>http://www.amazon.com/Cambridge-Expertise-Performance-Handbooks-Psychology/dp/0521600812</a></p>
<p>this is a pretty interesting discussion…just to throw in my two cents.</p>
<p>I think there are many fields where you can only achieve massive success by having both innate ability and a strong work ethich (and obviously a little luck) - namely sports, music, academics, etc. </p>
<p>That said, in most professional fields such as business and law* I think that innate intelligence only takes you so far. I firmly believe that, as was quoted in the article, as long of hit a certain level of intelligence (120 IQ or whatever they quoted) having additional IQ doesn’t translate to more success. Success in most professional fields comes from a combination of having this baseline intelligence, plus a strong work ethic, a high EQ (social / people skills), and a strong network, etc. If I remember correctly from the book “The Millionaire Mind” the average multi-millionaire had an average SAT score of ~1280 / 1600 but most where able to succeed because they had these other factors. </p>
<p>*I did not include the world of academics as I think that here the intelligence quotient, in addition to hard work, definitely plays a role in your ability to be a successful researcher, innovator, etc.</p>
<p>
Have they taught any ordinary students to write “Eleanor Rigby?”</p>
<p>No, but the Beatles, as a group, actually did have the 10,000 hours of deliberate practice!</p>
<p>Yes, and like all boy bands ever since, the matching outfits and haircuts, too.</p>
<p>Don’t dis my Beatles, please. But if you want to be intellectually honest, it was Paul who was the perfectionist and behind all the practicing, and was the slave driver behind a lot of their music. John, may he RIP, was more of the goof-off and “that’s good enough.” Having said that, garland’s absolutely right - they were who they were because both were musical geniuses, and that simply had to be inborn.</p>
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<p>I don’t know. Do you really think the Beatles would be considered “geniuses” if they had not found each other and had not been born in the right place at the right time? I don’t. There was a lot of luck and drive involved in getting them where they ended up.</p>
<p>Btw, I think the Beatles’ popularity is a generational thing. I know my Dad never listened to them and still does not, and I just asked my D if she thinks they are the best band ever, and she said, “We like their music when it comes on, but we don’t generally choose to listen to them.”</p>
<p>Lennon/McCartney were geniuses–Lennon and McCartney, not so much. I think they are a really good example of inborn talent, hard work, and luck. They were lucky enough to find each other, and their inborn talents meshed very well.</p>
<p>The Beatles as a group may not have had 10,000 hrs if you are including the time in Hamburg. They had a different drummer then. I saw Ringo in a performance without the other Beatles a few years ago, not as a drummer, and he was excellent.</p>
<p>^It is part of being “genius” to be at the right time/place. It is part of being 'genius", for example, to drop out of college to get to the right time/place or seek collaboration form “right” people who would assist you to be at the right time/place…etc.
However, I disagree that genius would have everything fall onto their laps for whatever. Nope, most of them work hours and hours that we, oridinary nobodies, just do not see/consider. We think of them as brilliant, while “brillince” will be nowhere at all without hard work acquiring certain skills or developing something new. The point is though, that sometime they do not need to push themselves, but opposite, they cannot get away from working hard on whatever their call. Another point is that some of these geniuses were pushed extremely hard by their very driven parents in very early ages of their lives to work so hard and focus so narrow at whatever that this whatever became integral part of their identity to the point that they could not stop doing it.
Frnakly, I do not see how genius could become one without working extremely hard. While very hard working person can achieve a lot without brilliant mind. Lots of discoveries happened because of diligent and persistant work, not because person was brilliant.</p>
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This cuts against the 10,000 hours theory, because the Beatles hired Ringo because he was a better drummer.</p>
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</p>
<p>While certainly there were stars that aligned, I think that in an alternate universe where McCartney and Lennon didn’t meet one another at the Woolton Fete one summer day, I think Lennon would have probably not become a professional musician and McCartney might very well still have (though maybe he would have just become a professional local musician, or done something else but played music on the side for recreation, much as his father did). Lennon was kind of a goof-off rebel / Teddy Boy who didn’t apply himself, and McCartney was very much the strong-work-ethic-give-the-ladies-what-they-want type. This is not to dis either of their musical talents at all, as both are / were prodigiously talented. But I think *that piece of it comes straight from their backgrounds – Lennon from a broken home with a lot of childhood ghosts involving his mother and father and being raised by his aunt, whereas McCartney had a very stereotypically happy and warm childhood even after the passing of his mother.</p>
<p>Bay - re parents / children listening to the Beatles - my kids really don’t, but my mother was pregnant with me in the summer of 1964 when the Beatles played Atlantic City (where I was born), and she hung around the hotel, stomach and all to try to get a glimpse of them along with all the teenyboppers. She went with me to see McCartney this summer at Wrigley, and there were all ages there … from teens / twenty somethings up to mid-sixties (my mother’s age). There’s a great video on YouTube about some girl, I’m guessing early twenties, who got a Hofner bass tattoeed on her back and then at the concert, Paul signed it (which she then got tattooed as well). It’s really cute. I have gotten majorly back into the Beatles after seeing McCartney, and I continue to be blown away by the depth of their catalog. I admit I’m more of a Paul/George fan than a John fan, personally, as I think drugs did a lot of harm to him in the mid-60’s and I don’t like the nastiness of things like “How Do You Sleep.” But I can’t deny that both McC and Lennon were musical geniuses. Indeed, I think in any other band Harrison would have been considered a musical genius, but he had the misfortune to be stacked up against two of the very best and was therefore in their shadow.</p>
<p>Hunt - re what the Beatles did individually afterwards … I have to say I was never very impressed by what Lennon did solo (obviously, his life was tragically cut short). The only songs I tend to like from that are “Instant Karma,” “Whatever Gets You Through the Night,” and “Working Class Hero.” A lot of the Yoko/alternative mewling stuff really is garbage. </p>
<p>I think “Imagine” turned into an anthem / tribute because of Lennon’s horrible death, but as a song it’s overrated. It’s also very hard for me to swallow a lot of the adoration of the song “Imagine” when at the time, Lennon had basically abandoned his oldest son, Julian, even after he himself had been abandoned as a child and knew that hurt, and Lennon was also absolutely publicly vicious to McCartney and Harrison after their breakup. I don’t demand that my music idols be saints, but the hypocrisy of pretending that Lennon was all about extending peace and goodwill to people when he wasn’t is just something that personally gets to me. Give the saint award to George instead. I think a lot of history got rewritten after Lennon died and he became beatified and the other members didn’t get credit for their innovation. It was Paul who was behind all the avant-garde experimentation, the musique concrete, Sgt Pepper, and the hard rock of Helter Skelter, and it was George who was behind all the sitar / Indian music stuff, while John basically dropped LSD and wrote toss-away songs for a few years. John was far more prolific and at his best, IMO, in the earlier Beatle years.</p>
<p>I never liked “Imagine,” either. I will say, though, that I never thought anything Pail did post-Beatles was anywhere as good as the Beatles material. Most of it was just too slight and poppy. Maybe John contributed a critical reaction that pushed Paul to write better stuff.</p>