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His research is often cited as the origin of the “10,000 Hour Rule”, which has since been popularised in Malcolm Gladwell’s book Outliers.
About two decades ago, Ericsson published a paper called The Role of Deliberate Practice in the Acquisition of Expert Performance.
In a quest to understand what creates world-class expertise, he found that people were completing 10 years or roughly on average (not a total of) 10,000 hours of "deliberate practice" to achieve a level of brilliance in their field. This is what separates the amateurs from the virtuosos.
According to Ericsson, deliberate practice or the act of rehearsing an action over and over again, should not be “fun”, but the desire to improve should motivate one to complete it. He concluded that practice, not genetics, is the key to success.
“We’ve been looking at things that would make it impossible to reach the very highest level of performance, and we’ve been unable to find any. Obviously if you are born blind you’re not going to play soccer, but if we exclude height, which we know is genetically determined, we’re yet to find any attribute that you really can’t change by the best, most appropriate type of training,” he said.
One man who has now devoted his life to test this theory is 34-year-old American Dan McLaughlin, an ex-photographer turned wannabe pro golfer.
McLaughlin felt that golf was the ideal sport for him because not only was there no specific age limit or body type required, it was easily measurable.
“I decided at the age of 30 that I was ready to transition in life and I was interested in human potential so more or less on a whim I picked up golf and decided that I would quit my career, pick up some golf clubs and practice for 10,000 hours to reach the highest level in that sport,” he said.
“For me when somebody asks me about talent, I just say talent is the ability to stay passionate over a long period of time and it’s the ability to stay engaged and really just want something. Don’t let anything tell you no, because everybody along the way there’s going to be people who support you and people who say that it’s impossible.”
Four years into his experiment, a.k.a “The Dan Plan”, McLaughlin said his handicap is now hovering between a two and a four. For a comparison, McLaughlin estimates the top six percent of the golfers would have a handicap in the mid twos.
Does Ericsson think McLaughlin is going to achieve his goal? He certainly hopes so.
“I think there’s very few people who are willing to dedicate themselves to really try something to the highest level … I’m more interested in will he ever find any attribute that he can’t conquer with the right type of training, with the right type of training you can basically do incredible things,” Ericsson said.
Tonight on Insight, host Jenny Brockie speaks to those who believe they only have achieved greatness through hard work and dedication, and child prodigies who all but came out of the womb toting a paintbrush or swinging a tennis racket. So do you think we have innate talent? Or is everyone capable of greatness equally? Share your thoughts below.
