How to have fun with 10k (and become an expert in the meantime)

Imagine the fun you could have with 10k. For sheer fun, just take a moment and think about what you would do with 10k.

Take your time…I’ll be waiting right here.

…
…

Done?
Had fun?

Imagined yourself on a white sandy beach on a tropical island? Or skiing down a slope under a clear blue sky? Or did you imagine starting your own company?

No matter what you fantasized about I’m willing to bet that you translated the 10k into dollars (or maybe euros). Now what if I told you I was talking about hours.

Hours?!

Yes…you can have 10,000 hours of fun and become an expert in the meantime!
Oh wait…no, no I’m sure you didn’t think you could buy expert status, now did you? (hint: you can’t)

The 10,000 hours is not a random number, it’s a common estimate for the amount of hours you need to spend to even be considered an expert on a subject. And 10,000 hours is a whole lotta time I can tell ya!

Ten thousand hours!
10,000 days or 1429 weeks or 333 months or 27.4 years at 1 hour a day.
5,000 days or 714 weeks or 167 months or 13.7 years at 2 hours a day.
3,333 days or 476 weeks or 111 months or 9.1 years at 3 hours a day.
2,500 days or 357 weeks or 83 months or 6.8 years at 4 hours a day.
2,000 days or 286 weeks or 67 months or 5.5 years at 5 hours a day.
1,667 days or 238 weeks or 56 months or 4.6 years at 6 hours a day.
1,428 days or 204 weeks or 48 months or 3.9 years at 7 hours a day.
1,250 days or 179 weeks or 42 months or 3.4 years at 8 hours a day.

And to make all these comparisons complete, an entire year contains (only) 8,760 hours.

Looking back on my life I’ve spent enough hours to be eligible as an expert in the following areas:

• Sleeping (got 60,000+ hours down already!)
• Walking (est. 11,000 hours)
• Talking (est. 22,000 hours)
• Eating and Drinking (est. 11,000 hours)
• Being an employee (est. 16,000 hours)
• Being a spouse (131,000+ hours)
• Being a father (19,000+ hours)

And I’m not even close in these areas (although I thought I would be for some of them):

• Driving a car (est. 2,000 hours)
• Bathing (est. 3,000 hours)
• Gaming (est. 2,000 hours)
• Taekwondo (est. 1,000 hours)
• Doing DIY work (est. 1,900 hours)
• Reading, thinking, writing, learning about personal development (est. 2,600 hours)
• Reading, learning, visualising, practicing public speaking (est. 400 hours)
• … a vast array of other activities

I was quite startled by the enormous amount of hours I have spent as employee already. And even though I’ve spent many hours in that role, I’m sure that there’s not a single topic or a single activity that I have spent 10,000 hours on. (Or ever will.) Since I’m changing over to being an entrepreneur (not even close to 10,000 hours in that role!).

This exercise is interesting because people are very very bad at making accurate estimations. So sitting down, thinking about it with a calculator will give you insight in the amount of time you have put in some of these topics. And you probably will still be making bad estimations, but they’ll be less bad because of the time you spent on thinking about them for a while.

What’s an expert anyway?

According to the dictionary an expert is someone with extensive knowledge or ability in a given subject. If I take this definition and look through my list, there are a lot of areas I have spent the hours on, but I wouldn’t say that I have extensive knowledge or ability in that topic. I’m not an expert on sleeping for instance, even though I’ve got 60,000 hours down already.

Extensive knowledge or ability requires more than ‘just grinding through the hours’. It requires an interest in the topic, and learning, growing, experiencing, failing, experimenting, discussing and so on. It’s about going in depth on the subject or ability, or climbing to the higher levels in the learning curve.

Examples of famous people who have done so are:

• Tiger Woods – started playing golf at 2, won amateur championship at 15, went pro at 21. At 2 hours a day, starting at 2 years of age, you’ll be an expert by 15 years of age.
• Richard Branson – started his first business venture in high school, and never stopped after that. In his autobiography you can read that doing business was his way of living.
• Eddie van Halen – started playing the guitar as a teenager. In an interview when asked how he learned to play he answered:
  

  “Practice. I used to sit on the edge of my bed with a six-pack of Schlitz Malt talls. My brother would go out at 7pm to party and get laid, and when he’d come back at 3am, I would still be sitting in the same place, playing guitar. I did that for years — I still do that.”

• Stephen King – Started writing for fun in school, even sold short stories to friends at the time. King has a very simple formula for learning to write well.
  

  “Read and write four to six hours a day. If you cannot find the time for that, you can’t expect to become a good writer.”

If you put in the hours, and are willing to learn, you’ll get to the higher grounds of expertise.

10,000 hours of fun

Now all of these people have spent many many hours on a single subject, and many did so from a very young age already. The fact that they’re talented is helpful, but putting a lot of hard work into their talent is what made them successful and experts in their field.

But 10,000 hours is a very, very long time. So there’s got to be a secret to get through them right? And there is! You have to make sure that you have fun most of the time. You know how the saying goes: “Time flies when you’re having fun.” Make sure you have fun doing what you do, and you’ll be an expert in no time (it’ll feel like that anyway).

The best way to ensure you have fun working is to follow your passion. What are the things you can spend hours and hours on because you love to do them so much? These activities hold the seed for a profession in which you can excel and become an expert.

Make a list of what you LOVE to do

Now go make a list of things you LOVE to do. I’m not talking about things you like, but things you LOVE to do and have a special interest in. I like to watch movies every now and then for example, but I don’t LOVE to watch movies. I couldn’t watch movies 6 hours straight. On the other hand I love learning about human behavior and self improvement. I can read books for hours, days in a row on that topic.

In what area do you want to be an expert?
Or did you just find out that you already are well on your way to expert levels?

Should you have difficulty with coming up with ways to turn your passion into a profession, share your passion in the comments and I’ll help you come up with ideas (and everybody’s free to pitch in their ideas of course!).

Photo by Joe Shlabotnik

Posted in spilling beans on Fri 2009.01.23