After reading "Outliers" and "Tallent is Overrated", I am wondering what ifs about the future with all of this grad school I am putting myself through. I am also wondering how I can tweak how I was raised for my kids so they can really thrive.
This Harvard Business article gives a quick overview of the thought on 10,000 hours of deliberate practice without going into the research on how different kids were raised to be dropouts or thriving that "Outliers" goes into:
http://blogs.hbr.org/cs/2010/08/six_keys_to.html
I suppose it all depends on what your consider excellence. The guy who wrote this little article apparantly has spent a tremendous amount of time improving his tennis game. He claims that he has reached a relative level of excellence. I have to asked the question, "according to whom"? Sure, he might be beating the socks off of the other almost retired guys at the country club, but I would bet just about any college tennis player would make him look like bum.
Practice can certainly make you better at something, but it won't make you great. I bet if you take a good luck at yourself, and those that have been around you, you will see that the vast majority of those that are "excellent" at something were born with something that allowed them to be.
In terms of you, or your kids, in regard to his 6 guidelines, there is one very important point that I believe to be 100% true. You have to be passionate about what you are doing in order to achieve at a high level. If you want your kids to be great ball players, or whatever, making them pracitce for 80 hours a week isn't going to do it. They have to want to practice for 80 hours a week.
In general, I guess, this study/article sounds like another B.S. human resources ploy. Some corporation got this guy to do some make believe study so that HR can tell everyone they should be achieving at a high level. Then, when it isn't happening, they can tell you that you aren't working hard enough, you don't care, you haven't bought into the culture, etc., and then limit your pay and benefits, or just send you packing.
In my opinion, if you're not good at something, drop it. You will eventually find something you were meant to be good at.
