This Is Your Brain On Music (which I recently finished reading) mentioned something called the “10,000 hour rule” which I first came across while reading Outliers by Malcom Gladwell. What is this “10,000 hour rule”? The idea behind it is that it takes 10,000 hours of practice to become a true expert at anything (anything that requires a great deal of skill that is, I don’t think anyone would claim it takes 10,000 hours to master tic-tac-toe.)

In This Is Your Brain On Music, the author (Daniel J. Levitin) references this rule when talking about people’s perception of “talent.” When most people see someone performing with a great deal of skill (example: Eddie Van Halen playing a guitar solo) they think “wow, that guy is so incredibly talented, I could never do that.”

People seem to want to think that people are born with such skills but the truth is that kind of skill comes from long hours of practice. There is no one who has that level of skill without putting in the hard work.

This is not to discount genetic factors entirely. Certainly there may be some people who are more predisposed to certain types of skills, but all of the scientific evidence (read these two books for the details) shows that time spent practicing is far more important than genetic factors.

Sadly, it’s doesn’t seem to be the case that all practice is created equal. The general rule is that the earlier you start practicing the more effective it seems to be. When people think of a young person as being extremely “talented” at something it’s really because they started practicing at a very young age (because they have an adult mentor, consider that Mozart’s father was considered to be the best music teacher around.) Children can often pick up new skills with more ease than adults.

That said, regardless of your age I believe that if you really want to be great at something, then it’s very likely that you can be. There’s probably nothing stopping you but your own lack of resolve (aka laziness.)

It’s this resolve that really what sets the “talented” apart from the rest of us. They have a true dedication that has pushed them to practice until they become a master.

Finally I want to leave you with this nugget of wisdom I took from This Is Your Brain On Music: Successful people tend to fail far more often than unsuccessful people. I think when you consider this in light of what it takes to become a true master then it becomes clear that failure is really just a lack of trying.