The ten year rule

Summary: Some people seem so incredibly good at their field, that one can understand why the Romans attributed outstanding performance to a 'genius', a spirit sent by the Gods to inspire the fortunate individual. However, when studying the lives of prodigies and eminent persons, it becomes clear that eminence in any field takes lots of practice for even the most 'talented' - at least 10 years. Unless you're a painter...


'What nonsense is that?' Tom Poes exclaimed. You gave Sir Oliver the recipe for making gold, which involved molten lead, that needed to be stirred...'
'With a stone', the other added. 'Stirring and stirring, around and around and around. 123,456,789 times; for it is not the formula that is hard, it is the work! After stirring 123,456,789 times the stone has become the philosopher's stone, and only then the lead it touches turns into gold.'
Tom Poes and Roerik Omenom, 'The lead reformer', Marten Toonder

When watching or hearing prodigies or world class experts, it can sometimes be hard to believe that those people are mere humans. How can those people create the most wonderful music, hit the impossible ball, develop such simple yet marvelous theories? It is no wonder the Romans explained extremely high ability with the concept 'genius', denoting that there must have been a special spirit, the genius, instilled by the gods at birth into the fortunate individual.

The existence of prodigies like Mozart, Tiger Woods, or for example Bobby Fischer in chess seems to lend extra credence to the 'genius' idea. However, one should remember that prodigies are called prodigies because they perform much better in a certain field than other children. For example, Tiger Woods won his first golf competition at age 2 (the Under Age 10 section of the Drive, Pitch, and Putt competition at the Navy Golf Course in Cypress, California). However, he was not able to beat his father, who was merely a good amateur golfer, until age 11. So while the golfing skill of Woods was extraordinary for a child his age, in absolute terms Woods was by far not yet good enough to take a serious shot at the world championships: he won his first major trophy in the adult competition at age 21, at which time he had been golfing for more than 19 years. Similarly, Mozart was indeed a child prodigy, but his first composition that is still regarded as a masterwork (instead of a pretty good work – for a 10 year old) was the Piano Concerto no. 9, written when Mozart was 21 years old. By that time, he had had composition lessons for at least 10 years. Bobby Fischer, who was not yet quite an adult when he became a chess grand master at age 15, had nevertheless been practicing chess for 9 years already.

In conclusion, even prodigies apparently need to put in time to reach an (adult) world-class level in their chosen field.

Researchers who looked at prodigies as well as people who were not considered prodigies but nevertheless reached great eminence in their field (for example Einstein, Darwin, Marie Curie, Picasso), discovered that all of them had spent at least 10 years (or estimated to about 10,000 hours) mastering their field before they produced their first masterpiece. This finding has been so consistent, that it has been dubbed the '10 year rule': over a decade of practice is needed to excel in any field.

Now, the exact number of 10 years is not entirely accurate or absolute: it depends on the field. If a field is relatively young, competition is relatively low or the knowledge required is relatively limited, it seems to be easier to reach world-class levels. Examples are the World Memory Championships (very recently instated), painting (where the rule is rather a six-year rule than a 10 year rule, probably since there may be relatively fewer active painters and hence less competition than in other fields; or would there be less knowledge required to produce novel and high-quality works?), and physics/maths, especially in the past (winners of Nobel prizes in physics tended to be younger than chemists and biologists/doctors – perhaps because one needs relatively less knowledge to succeed in maths).

On the other hand, if competition is fierce, and performance does not greatly depend on being in one's physical prime (as is the case in tennis), the ten-year rule can become a 15-year rule or even a 20-year rule, which is the direction performers of classical music seem to be moving.

So, the first rule of talent is that whatever the field is, and no matter how smart or talented you are, you still need quite some years of hard work to get to the top of your chosen field. However, that begs the question: if only ten years of effort are required to excel in a certain field, why aren't there more people excelling? Why isn't the world rife with Einstein-class physicists and Rembrandt-eclipsing painters? Must we not conclude that the real talents have a certain gift that allows them to soar to great heights while the rest of us is still plodding along, even after ten, fifteen or twenty years? Actually, the answer seems to be 'no', and that is what I intend to talk about next time.