The 10,000 Hour Rule

Out of the nine chapters within Outliers: The Story of Success, the chapter that I found held the most truth to what I believe in was chapter 2, "The 10,000 Hour Rule". Gladwell discusses the importance of putting in tremendous amounts of time and effort to achieve success, and that based on scientific studies it takes 10,000 hours of practice for someone to truly achieve mastery in any career. He uses several success stories including The Beatles, Bill Joy, and Bill Gates to prove that "Practice isn't the thing you do once you're good. It's the thing you do that makes you good." (Gladwell 42) I am a firm believer that it is not just luck that gets most people by when it comes to success. In most cases, success comes with long hours, lots of hard work, and surely what my fellow peers can relate to, very little sleep. I also agree with what Gladwell said that it is opportunity in addition to hard work that allows for people to be successful. It is about the opportunities people get and a matter of whether or not they take them. And while this may be true, we must also ask ourselves: what about the people who get less opportunities than others or those who do not get any at all? What do we do for those who may be what Gladwell calls in the book "grinds", people who no matter how hard they try, they can't seem to break the glass ceiling above them?