Are they self-made men? No. Are they luckier than you or me? No. Are they more talented than we? Maybe. Were they in the right place at the right time? Probably. Did they put in the time required to become successful? Absolutely. The answer to these people’s “secrets of success” may be found in what Malcolm Gladwell in his book “Outliers” calls the 10,000 hour rule.
At 16, Bill Joy had the fortune of stumbling upon the University of Michigan’s new state-of-the-art computer center. In this computer center and later at UC Berkley he spent the next 10,000 hours learning and practicing computer programming. Upon graduation (10,000 hours later), he co-founded the Silicon Valley firm Sun Microsystems and the rest is history. Had it not been for those 10,000 hours of preparation, someone else would be the Sun Microsystems billionaire and Bill Joy would probably have pursued a career in biology.
As an eighth-grader in 1968, Bill Gates got to do real-time programming, which was unheard of at that time. Seven years (or more accurately 10,000 hours) later, Gates was ready to found Microsoft.
Mozart’s early works were nothing to write home about. His first masterwork was not written until he was 21 after 10 years of composing, (there is that recurring 10,000 hours again).
Then there are The Beatles. In February 1964, they burst across the United States and rewrote the music scene with a string of hit records. Were they just in the right place at the right time?
What is not widely known is that Lennon and McCartney first started playing together in 1957. In 1960, they were a struggling high school band when they were invited to play in a Hamburg strip joint. They played nonstop, hour after hour, for a total of 10,000 hours before The Beatles got “lucky.”
We think of these and other successful people as self-made men when they are not.
The self-made man is a myth. Success does not attack the successful. Those who become successful must be willing to put in the time. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow said it best in the 1880s: “The heights by great men reached and kept, were not obtained by sudden flight. But they, while their companions slept, were toiling upward in the night.”
This concept of success being a product of effort should give each of us a great deal of encouragement. To be successful in any endeavor does not require incredible brains, unusual skills, good looks, or great hair.
Success requires that we pay the price in hours of effort.
Today, I would like to think I’m a pretty good teacher, but I pity the poor students who had to endure my classes between 1985 thorough 1995. It took me 10 years, or to be more precise, 10,000 hours to develop good teaching skills.
We live in the age of the quick fix where fast food, microwaves and instant gratification are a rule rather than the exception. Each and every one of us should hang the same plaque Calvin Coolidge had over his desk as president which said: “Nothing in this world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful people with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent. The slogan ‘press on’ has solved and always will solve the problems of the human race.”
UAF teachers aren’t tenured until they have taught seven years — about 10,000 hours. The most successful politicians aren’t elected to high office until they put in their time in lower office first. Finally, successful entrepreneurs usually fail two or three times, (or more), during their first 10,000 hours of effort. Are you willing to pay the price for success? Are you willing to educate our next generation that there is no shortcut to success?
There is still time to sign up for UAF classes. School starts Thursday.
Charlie Dexter is a professor of applied business at the University of Alaska Fairbanks Community and Technical College. He can be reached at charlie.dexter@alaska.edu. This column is provided as a public service of the UAF Applied Business Department. Copies of this column can be found at http://www.AlaskaLS.com.
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