10,000 Hours and Justin Bieber’s New Movie
This afternoon I went and watched Justin Bieber’s documentary: “Never Say Never.” I must admit, I enjoyed it. The kid is very talented and he goes for it when he performs. He puts on a good show and his story was inspirational: unknown kid in small town gets discovered on Youtube and is now selling out Madison Square Garden. Awesome story.
But that wasn’t what struck me the most.
There’s a scene where he’s sitting in front of a theater playing his guitar before he’s discovered. His mom said he would sit out there and just sing and play for people walking by, FOR HOURS. This scene reminded me of the 10,000 hour rule in Malcolm Gladwell’s book, Outliers. The rule is basically this: if you want to become great at something, practice it for 10,000 hours. Sounds simple on the surface but imagine the power in practicing something, ANYTHING for 10,000 hours.
To put this in perspective, if you work a 40 hour week for a year and take 2 weeks of vacation, you will work 2,000 hours. If you do this for 5 years straight, you’ll hit that 10,000 hours. Now imagine that instead of working a job for all that time you:
- Played your guitar
- Practiced singing
- Practiced public speaking
- Worked on math
- Shot free-throws
- Programmed computers
- Perfected your cooking
- Studied and practiced whatever it is that you love to do… for 10,000 hours.
“Oh, Angel, I couldn’t ever make time to work on that, I’m too busy.” I know, I know. That’s why there are only a few Justin Biebers, because only a few people are willing to put everything into their craft, into their calling. I say: No more excuses. Just get going on your 10,000 hours.
