I arrived home Sunday, exhausted from a two and half week, whirlwind tour around the globe, only to find myself on another plane Monday afternoon from San Diego to Orlando.
As I sat on the plane, trying to muster the strength to open my laptop and get some work done, an article in Southwest’s The Magazine caught my eye.
Years ago K. Anders Ericsson proposed a theory that Malcom Gladwell popularized in his book Outliers. That theory states that it takes 10,000 to become true expert at anything.
The article that caught my eye was about Dan McLaughlin, a 30-something year old guy who decided to quit his job to run a six year test to determine if the 10,000 hour theory is actually true.
He hadn’t golfed much in his life up until that point, but he decided to spend the next 6 years putting 10,000 hours into his golf game to determine if he could become an expert at golf.
The article was written a few years into his quest and IT’S WORKING! He’s becoming a very good golfer. Will he become a world-class expert by the time he’s completed his 10,000 hours? Only time will tell.
But it got me thinking. Most of my clients are experts. Most of them have put in 10,000 hours or more at their craft. Yet, today’s world requires more of us. The competitive nature of a global economy requires us to also become experts at Marketing & Sales. You can even make an argument that it’s a good idea to become an expert at Infusionsoft.
But I’d counter both of those arguments. You can spend 6-10 years becoming an expert at Marketing & Sales. And you can spend another 6-10 years becoming an expert at Infusionsoft. But, by then it’s too late.
A better choice is to find people who are already there and leverage them for what you need.
It’s kind of a fun exercise to do the math and determine how many actual hours you’ve put into your craft. Are you truly an expert? If not, what more will it take to get you there?
I did some tallying and determined that, with very conservative estimates I’ve got well over 10,000 hours working in Infusionsoft and well over 10,000 hours doing Marketing and Sales. I’ve spent the better part of the last two decades focused on those things.
The amazing thing is, there’s always more to learn. I’m continually learning, progressing, seeking advice from others. That’s one of the things I love about this life – the opportunity we have to continually get better and what we are and who we are.
My challenge to you is to figure out what you want to be an expert at and then dedicate yourself to it continually. Then find others who are experts in the areas you lack and leverage them to get where you need to go.
P.S. If you’re interested in reading the Southwest article, check it out here.
Hey Tyler,
Interesting post. The challenging thing about becoming an expert in certain things today is that sometimes the field and practice evolves as you’re logging your hours. The software changes(legacy to CB), or the marketing mediums evolve(offline to online), and the things we knew and trusted dissipate, some of the experience we collect over our years becomes obsolete. It would seem that our expertise has an expiration, to some extent, right?
I remember Malcolm Gladwell’s book well, and some of the things he talked about were programming, piano, cello, etc. Piano I understand, you put in enough hours at playing the piano, and you’ll be good. An expert even. Because while you’re practicing, the piano doesn’t change. But how do we become an expert at something when we have a moving target? Or really, I think the better question is how do we maintain our expertise at the rate things are changing? I’d love to hear your thoughts, or a post on that.
Best,
GJ
Great thoughts Greg. I believe it takes somewhere around 10,000 hours to master something. But I also believe that to remain and expert, you’ve got to keep at it. The rate at which the expertise expires is in relationship to the rate of change of the industry or area. If the industry is rapidly changing, then your expertise will expire faster. On the contrary, those that can keep a rapid learning pace will stay ahead of the pack once there. Good food for thought Greg. Thanks for chiming in.
“Practice does not make perfect. Perfect practice makes perfect.” – said some “expert”.
Entrepreneurs implementing marketing automation like Infusionsoft fall somewhere between ‘you set it so it runs’ and ‘I want to learn how to run it’. Training solutions need to distinguish between ‘this is what can be done/automated’ and ‘this is how you do it’ so that the trainee chooses the pathway that suits their learning and implementation style. I’ve found that ‘deep immersion training’ can be overwhelming and lead to frustration and getting caught between current systems and automated systems = stagnating sales. For many like me, small incremental lessons and implementation wins with frequent (at least weekly) coaching is the go. Each week, nothing should be added to a campaign that is not fully understood and able to be implemented that week. I believe that to become a marketing automation ‘expert’ of your business, the snail often beats the tortoise, otherwise some failing tortoises won’t stick around for 10,000 hours.
Tyler, interesting piece. I agree the 10,000 hrs of experting rings true for me in the flower business, but I also believe that the 10,000 hrs that it took previously for me to become the expert requires continual top up hours to stay even where I am now, let alone become better. Thanks for the blog piece. It certainly stimulated the thought process. Glad you got back to the US safe and sound. It was great to see you out here. N
Awesome man! Best of luck for you 🙂