Investing your 10,000 hours, the Secret to Success!

I recently read the book by Malcolm Gladwell titled, 'Outliers, the story of success' for my MBA economics class. The book discusses the cumulative factors that lead to high levels of success such as cultural upbringing, practical intelligence and even societal and external circumstances.

One point the author makes that really grabs my attention is in second chapter in which he discusses the phenomenon of the 10,000 hour rule. The author cites that "researchers have settled on what they believe is the minimum number of practice hours for acquiring expertise in any field: ten thousand hours." The author reasoned that individuals who were highly successful were the ones who spent the time and hours working to perfect a certain skill.

The author sites that contrary to popular belief, many notable individuals that receive high levels of success do not have freakishly high IQs nor do they have a supernatural talent that separates them from the rest of the human population. They are simply the individuals who were fortunate to discover their passion, what they could be best at, and dedicated the thousands of hours and hard work to becoming superior in their fields.

Too many of us waste precious time, talent and hours on activities that are non value added to us such as jobs that we dislike, spending too many hours watching television or just being lazy. These are the precious and valuable hours that we could be investing into the activities that truly drive us and can lead to profound success. Investing 10,000 hours involves hard work, persistence and drive.

The key is to discover what it is you are passion about and can be truly best at and just do it. There's no time to waste, start now investing in yourself, your life, and every day strive to engage in activities that put you steps closer to realizing your dreams.

"Don't aim for success if you want it, just do what you love and believe in, it will come naturally." ~  David Frost, British Broadcast Journalist/Producer