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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: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 14 2017, @04:07PM
10000 hours is a huge time investment. If you play the piano for an hour every single day, that takes close to 30 years to reach 10000 hours. If you actually did that then you would almost certainly be able to perform at a high level.
The thing is that playing an instrument for an hour every day for 30 years takes an awful lot of dedication. When you are wondering "What should I do on this lovely day?" the answer has to almost always be "I think I shall play the piano." So there is a lot of self selection going on: the only people who will actually reach 10,000 hours of playing time are those who are maybe kind of good at the piano in the first place.