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from the he'll-never-make-it-to-Carnegie-Hall dept.
The Atlantic has an article on Dan McLaughlin, the "average guy" who spent six thousand hours working on becoming a professional golfer
Seven-plus years ago, aged 30 and unsure even of which hand to grip a golf club in, McLaughlin quit his job as a commercial photographer, took in lodgers to cover the mortgage, husbanded his savings for green fees, and set out to make the PGA Tour, home to the world's elite golfers.
He created a catchily named blog to document his quest, and in short order the Dan Plan commanded magazines spreads and TV spots. Along the way, it drew an avid community of followers riveted by the spectacle of a regular Joe living out an everyman fantasy. No less captivated: a salon of leading figures from the science of learning and human performance.
What could you achieve if you committed to something completely, all-in, no excuses? How far could you go? For five years, McLaughlin cast everything else aside—career, money, even relationships—to put this to the test. But then his back gave out. He pushed himself to the limit and still came up short.
The article follows Dan's attempt to follow the idea, popularised in Malcolm Gladwell's book Outliers, that 10,000 hours of practice is the main factor in developing any skill to world class expertise.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by andersjm on Monday August 14 2017, @07:00PM
I expect McLaughlin has actually become an expert. And that would have been great, if only he had studied carpentry or computer programming, because then he would have a marketable skill. But in a competitive sport you can't make a living from just being an expert: You have to be elite, which means being a nosehair better than most of the regular experts.
The "10,000 hours" thing would be a lot less harmful, if people only understood that "expert" doesn't mean "elite". To be an expert is to know a craft in and out, but it doesn't mean you'll be at the level of the world's foremost experts as you see them on TV. If the craft is useful, then being an expert at it is useful regardless. Golf isn't useful, it's a zero sum game, and even experts can lose at that.