Apparently if I work harder I could become a business expert in my subject. Which could be ‘garages’ or ‘female friendly businesses’ as things stand I suppose. Or both of course.
According to Malcolm Gladwell in his Outliers book that is.
According to his 10,000 hour rule (there are more reasons for success of course) a computer legend called Bill Joy (who I hadn’t heard of before), Bill Gates, and the Beatles are among those who put in 10,000 hours into their subjects and were therefore able to beat the rest of the pack in getting expert status ahead of others.
The Beatles did it by going to Hamburg in the 60s and being expected to perform live for 8 hours a day when they only expected to play for 2 hours at a time. They had to learn new songs fast; as they did this they got better and better.
Both Bill Joy and Bill Gates were in the right place at the right time in the 60s when mainframe computers allowed timesharing, a revolution apparently whereby more than one person could work on them at a time and get instant feedback/response as we know today. They both happened to have access to them whereas most of their peers didn’t. They ‘played’ by writing code overnight (often without parents or Universities knowing); by rewriting permissions to give them longer than they’d paid for and so on.
Today children happily invest their 10,000 hours in games on computers – to bring game programmers business success but the opportunity cost is theirs as they while away their brainpower…
On the other hand, many Nobel prize winners came via ‘ordinary’ Universities who spotted and cultivated talents other than just the best academic results so there’s hope for everyone to find their slot in life and be challenged in later years, if they want that.
That’s reassuring…
This book is a great read and it explains that success is not a random act. I hadn’t thought about it beforehand but it’s all to do with being in the right place at the right time whilst having the drive and the determination to succeed.
The message I am taking from this is that you should always use your time wisely in life and business. From my point of view, when business is tough I plan to feed my brain, knowing that I will be in a stronger position come the upturn.
And perhaps, one day, I might be seen as an expert in my field. Quite a few more hours to put in yet of course!
FOXY Steph
