I'm sitting here waiting for the final episode of Battlestar Galactia to air (I've got about 27 minutes), and decided I should let the world know that we're all still alive. The trip to New York, then San Francisco, left us swamped with things to do. Reports to assemble, people to talk to, things to present. This weekend is the first weekend since New York that the entire office hasn't worked at least two full work days on Saturday and Sunday. Before we went full time, Paul and I calculated that we were working an average of 52 hours a week on Novel Projects, and 25 hours a week on outside contracts to keep ourselves alive. Now that we don't have outside contracts, I think we've just shifted the entire focus over. 70 hour weeks are not uncommon. I've been using a time tracker called T-Sheets to track my day to day time; once on the other side, good or bad, I think it will be interesting too see what sort of time commitment starting a company like this really takes.
So I've been reading a bit lately. Reading, and researching. Next post, I might focus a bit on what I think has failed in the Wheel of Time series by Robert Jordan. There's some very interesting trends in his writing that fits well with the general decline in his book's user rating on Amazon.com. But not right at the moment (can't fit it all in 27 minutes... 22, now.)
But let me talk about 10,000 hours.
I'm a great fan of books like Freakonomics and The Tipping Point. These books look at conventional wisdom and apply abnormal logic to them. I don't always agree with their conclusions, but I find that they feed lines of thought that I wouldn't otherwise have on my own. One I'm reading right now is called Outliers: The Story of Success by Malcom Gladwell, which is a book that Dr. Jockers mentioned the last time I was at Stanford. In it, Gladwell presents the number of 10,000 hours. Apparently, research has found that it requires at least 10,000 hours of practice to really achieve mastery of a skill or subject; if you look at what separates true masters in things like computer programming or playing a musical instrument from the rest of us, the true masters have almost always clocked at least that number of hours in practice. That equates to roughly 4 hours of practice per day, five days a week, for 10 years.
In fact, Gladwell basically says that - based on research by others - what separates a good musician from a musical prodigy is simply that the musical prodigy has had both the opportunity and the motivation to practice 10,000 hours early on in life, thus getting better, faster than those around them.
It made me think a bit. Is there anything in my life that I've practiced 10,000 hours at? Or failing that, what am I closest to at putting in that sort of time commitment?
At 27 years old, I've had plenty of time to put 10 years worth of energy towards something, if I had wanted or decided to. The question is: Did I?
I ran through the obvious interests that I've held consistently so far in my life. Writing. Computers. Gaming. Girls - at least since I was about 12, or so. I figure these are the top candidates, if there are any, for the 10,000 hours of my life. But none of them really qualify. Writing? I love writing, have some skill at it, and have written an awful lot. But have I spent four hours a day over 10 years writing? Probably not. I'd guess I've probably spent about 6 or 7 hours a week since I was 12 years old writing, either reports or stories in school, or working as a game journalist in college and after graduation. I'd guess I'm probably up to around 5,000 hours worth of writing, maybe more. So I'm halfway to prodigy level. A fair start, I guess, but not 10,000.
Computers probably have more than 10,000 hours of my life. For one thing, every hour that I've ever written, even when young, was on a computer. And I'd guess that I've easily spent several times the hours doing other things on a computer than I've spent writing. So, yes, computers - but that's hardly a skill that improves, because I haven't done 10,000 hours of any one thing on the computer. Not programming, or graphics, or e-mails, or even gaming. Just thousands of hours doing any one of a hundred things.
So that doesn't count. Gaming? Not a chance. Girls? Don't make me laugh. By the time I figured out that talking to girls was not the most terrifying thing in the universe, I was way past the age I'd have to have been to even make a dent on 10,000 hours by now.
So am I doomed to be average in many things, master of nothing? I don't think so. After a while, I figured out what I've spent a great many hours doing, consistently and every day of my life.
Talking.
I talk a lot. If you knew me in person, you'd agree.
Now, don't laugh, because what I really mean is that I tell stories. I do a fair job of conveying a particular meaning, feeling, or image - I've gotten fairly good at picking the right analogies, antidotes, and comparisons to get my meaning across. And I've also spent a great number of hours thinking creatively. So my most practiced skill - as far as I can tell - is coming up with creative ideas, and then sharing them effectively.
What this means, I decided - perhaps to keep from concluding that I'm without any skills - is that I've practiced the exact combination of skills needed to start, fund, and build a start-up company. What I mean by this is not that I'm capable unto myself of starting and running a start-up, but simply that my skills - if I have any - are at recruiting people that are capable of those things. Paul, Tony, Eileen, Dustin, Dan, and the original team like Brandon, Matt, and Evan - all these people are better than I am at many, many things. My only skill is creatively thinking and business strategy, and then in convincing those people that I was worth hanging out with.
Or they're simply insane. In which case I'm grateful to higher powers.
I just think that's an interesting realization. Without meaning to, the one job I'm qualified for is the one I naturally fell into doing.
I don't really have a conclusion to that - not in time for BSG, at least - but I think it's an interesting realization. I'll have to contemplate it more. It makes me wonder, though - how many people in life actually have their "master skill"? Do you? Is there something you've done for 10,000 hours?
Aside from watching TV.
Now, if you excuse me, I have to go watch humanity get destroyed by some cylons. We'll be rolling out the new CGHM blog and branching the posts out from just me, to the team. And the flickr feeds are being fairly steadily updated. Talk soon.
