Ten Years of Silence

Lately, my personal library has made a pretty dramatic shift in composition. A year ago my shelves were completely stocked with books only covering training, physiology, chemistry, and even a few left-over biology texts from my undergrad days (don't ever pick a major out of high school and then just go through the motions for 3 1/2 years before deciding what you want to do). Now, it's almost an even split between training and personal development/success type books. I strongly suggest you add this type of literature to your collection if you haven't already.

I've read several of these books lately and one of my favorites was Outliers, by Malcolm Gladwell. I've referenced this book before, and one of the points I took from Gladwell was the efficacy of the 10,000-hour rule. In a nutshell, research has shown that no "elite" level performer/businessman/entrepreneur/professional has ever reached their status without investing at least 10,000 hours of "practice" to their craft.

This led me to search out a book titled Talent is Overrated by Goeff Colvin. 90% of this book really bored me to death, but I did take a few quotes and principles that piggy-back Gladwells' findings in Outliers that I want to share.




Colvin mirrors many points by Gladwell and points out a principle he called (or quoted) the Ten Years of Silence. In the research he examined all high-quality performers had put in at least 10 years of deliberate practice before perfecting their craft. This included such "child prodigies" as Tiger Woods and Mozart.

My favorite example/anecdote Colvin uses is of Jerry Rice. Colvin says, "Of all the work Rice did to make himself a great player, practically none of it was playing football games." When it came down to numbers, less than 1% of Rice's entire career was spent on the field, in games, yet he is regarded as the best wide receiver, and possibly best football player overall, in history.

But how is this so? In our culture we have decided that exposing kids to as many off-season leagues and games as we can possibly fit in is the only way to get to the "next-level," whatever that level may be.

As defined by Colvin, deliberate practice is a very stringent routine where kids practice by having a coach "choose a comparison that stretches you just beyond your current limits." I love this definition, as this is the key to training kids in a strength and conditioning sense as well. Make a drill/exercise too difficult and the athlete either gets hurt or frustrated, and too easy and they get bored and don't improve.

But now, we are intentionally taking away this type of productive practice time for our kids to expose them to countless games and competitions to get them in front of college coaches at younger and younger ages. While playing AAU, summer baseball, off-season elite level club soccer, and the likes can be fun at times, they eventually become so competitive that they are added stressors to the athletes and at the same time they prevent them from actually practicing.

I hope there is a shift in the trend sometime soon, although it doesn't seem likely, where parents will start to follow examples like Rice, to help set their kids up for success down the road.