10,000 Hours to Mastery = i(1):P (99)

How long does it take someone to master something new?

There are many views of this area. When I started practicing Aikido(a Japanese martial arts), my Sensei (Sensei Marcus) kept repeating that to master a technique you need to practice it ten thousand times. Its about practice, practice and more practice. In the area of management , many management gurus and business professors argues that it takes about 10 years for an individual to be a master or be a thought leader in their chosen area.

I saw the same message in Malcom Gadwell's latest book Outliers. In the book he reported that many studies suggested that the key to success in any field has nothing to do with talent. It's simply practice, 10,000 hours of it — 20 hours a week for 10 years. One of his example is the Beatles, which performed 1,200 times from 1960 to 1964 in Germany, and thereby clocking in more than 10,000 hours before they began creating a revolution in the music industry. If we break that down, that about practicing something 4 hours a day, five days a week for the next ten years. If you double the daily time to eight hours a day, it will take five years.

I guess there is plenty of truth in Thomas Edison's quote that genius is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration or play, practice or prototypes. I guess in the of age innovation, mastery can equate to iP or intellectual property. In this case comes from 1% i and 99% P.

The challenge that I see is to get the equation right because I've seen many people with plenty of P but lack the inspiration or insight. On the flip side I've see many people with plenty of inspiration, ideas and imagination but stop short in putting their insight into action.

In conclusion, I believe that to master something you need to get the ratio right; 1:99, in fact 0.1(i): 99.9 i (P) is still very reasonable.

Well, what are you waiting for?

Start playing, prototyping, practicing and perspiring.