10,000 Hour Sisters

Lately, I’ve been thinking about the incredible abilities that my sisters possess. Some of them post photos of their accomplishments on FACEBOOK or just share them with me in conversations—over lunch, on the phone, in the car on the way to San Francisco.

My oldest sister Beverly is an incredible cook and an artist at food presentation. My sister Ruth worked as a nurse for about 40 years and can talk about heart attacks, blood pressure, and strokes as if they are common knowledge. My sister Margaret makes jam, salsa, pickles, chutney and preserves almost every Saturday morning during the school year and more often during the summer.

Have you heard of the 10,000 Hour rule? Since my sisters are so good at what they love, I think this rule must apply to them.  

Anders Erickson, a Florida State psychologist came up with the concept in 1993 after he became aware of a study in Berlin. In this study, psychologists researched violin players; they found out that the best performers had practiced playing for 10,000 hours or more by the time they were 20 years old. Malcolm Gladwell made Erickson’s concept famous when he wrote his book Outliers: The Story of Success.

Whatever does this mean? Well according to Erickson, 10,000 hours is the amount of time a person must invest in an activity or skill in order to master it. To master a skill means to become proficient in it or to gain a thorough understanding of it.

Several people have been used as examples to demonstrate the credence of the 10,000 Hour Rule: Bill Gates, Paul Allen and The Beatles, for example.  By the time Bill Gates and Paul Allen graduated from high school, they had spent over 10,000 hours experimenting with developing software.

By the end of 1962, the Beatles had performed 270 nights for five hours (1,365 hours) a night in Hamburg Germany clubs. Their stint is often referred to as “The Hamburg crucible.” By February 9, 1964 when they debuted on The Ed Sullivan Show, they had performed over 1,200 times, more than most bands ever perform throughout their whole careers. These statistics don’t even include the countless hours they spent writing songs or practicing in each other’s garages.

But to be really good at something, you can’t just put in the time. They have to use what Erickson termed “deliberate practice.” This means that people who want to become experts at what they do work hard to improve their abilities. They strive to overcome weaknesses or a lack of knowledge about one specific area. For example, a cook might take a class in cutting skills to learn how different cuts enhance a variety of dishes.

When I think about my proficient sisters, I think about they spent hours and hours trying to learn what they like to do—better.

My sister Beverly has been married for 46 years and had 6 children. I think I can safely assume that she cooked dinners for at least 300 days each of those years. Let’s assume that each dinner took 2 hours to prepare. That means that she has spent at least 27,600 (46 x 300 x 2) hours cooking. Since she loves chicken, she searched for new chicken dishes all the time: oven fried chicken, Dijon-maple chicken, five-spice roasted chicken legs, chicken curry with coconut milk, slow cooker chicken cacciatore, and chicken and waffles. Now that both her and her husband are focusing on healthy choices, she reads cookbooks to find recipes low in fat, high in nutrition, and superlative in freshness. I can just see her putting down her cookbook and reaching for the mixing bowl to try out a newer, tastier, healthier meal with deliberate practice.

My sister Ruth worked in nursing full time for about 40 years. That’s 80,000 hours considering that she had two weeks of vacation a year. She had to take classes to maintain and upgrade her skills. Also, she cared tremendously for her patients, putting her heart as well as her skill into helping them get better. She too was deliberate in her quest to improve his skills. She continued sharing her nursing expertise even after she retired by administering COVID shots.

As I write this blog, my sister Margaret is making three kinds of pickles in her kitchen. For our mother’s memorial last year, she made 53 jars of jam to give to our friends. From her, I’ve received strawberry jam, lemon jar, apricot salsa, pomegranate champagne jelly, blood orange jelly, and blueberry-lime jam. She told me that this year she has already made 13 jars of apricot salsa, 8 jars of peach Bar-B-Que sauce, 8 jars of zesty salsa, 22 jars of pickles, 6 jars of fire-roasted tomato salsa—57 jars so far this year.

She’s been making jam since she was a teenager or at least 30 years. I can’t even begin to estimate the hours she has spent stirring a steaming kettle, filling jars, and sealing them. Since she works on this hobby almost every Saturday morning, she likely also has reached the magical 10,000 hours to have become an expert. She looks for new recipes, examines the quality of a jelly’s viscosity, and evaluates the color and taste of everything she puts inside a jar. Think about it. Margaret has “jammed” as much as the Beatles.

Even ordinary people can be extraordinary.

References:

Andre Bouquet. “Bill Gates on Malcolm Gladwell’s 10,000 Hour Rule.” The Talkative Man. https://www.talkativeman.com/bill -gates-10000-hour-rule/. July 13, 2022.

Angela Duckworth. Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance. Scribner. 2016.

Calvin Miller, “How Long is 10,000 Hours?” NCESC. https://www.ncesc.com/how-long-is-10000-hours?/. July 13, 2022.