Ask HN: 10k hours rule to master anything. Could I switch career when I am 43?
Throughout his book "M. Outliers: The Story of Success.", Gladwell repeatedly refers to the “10 000-hour rule,” asserting that the key to achieving true expertise in any skill is simply a matter of practicing. It could be the greatest practice myth. My american boss founded my company in Viet Nam when he was 55. I admire him a lot. Nonetheless, I am still afraid of switching to other job because time is running out when i am older. A lot of my friends who are technical guys think so. Any advice? In my admittedly still short life, I have started to notice something: you can broadly divide the world into two groups - those who do things and those who keep wondering if they should have done things. So for what’s worth, here is my advice to you: drop Gladwell and self-help books, if you want to and can switch to a new job, do it. Should it work or fail, you will have experienced trying. If you don’t feel like it or find yourself unable to because banks won’t loan to you, you can’t be hired or it’s finally not financially viable, don’t do it and rest in peace knowing it was your decision/you tried. You don’t need an external reason like being too old or outside validation, you are old enough to make your own choice. I agree with some points of it. However, some people (loosely correlated with age but not strictly) have more unavoidable responsibilities than others. For a very prosaic example, a person without mortgage and kids, all other things equal will have inherently less responsibilities than one with mortgage and kids (while both still have options in principle). Empathy is a massive skill I've been learning late in life; reluctance to embark on a change may be a factor of internal confidence, external advice or validation, but also of specific circumstances that those of us being asked opinions may or may not fully share, understand, empathize with. I've been learning to ask follow-up questions before answering very broad inquiries for thoughts and advice: What's your situation, constraints, drive, interest, priorities, goals? It doesn’t significantly change my advice and was actually already factored in my answer. Your obligations are your own. If you can’t afford to change, that answers the question. It’s not about empathy. My point is that inherently there are no advices to be had on life choices. Just do what you want to do, decide to try or decide you don’t want to. There are no right and wrong general answers here. A bunch of strangers on the internet can’t give someone permission or an excuse. >If you can’t afford to change, that answers the question. In my personal experience the greatest challenge is always oneself and not external factors. So your advice to drop all self-help is wrong in my opinion. There are people who made it against all odds and their mindset may crave the necesseary pathways in your brain as well. I would even say that the more the odds are stacked against you the more you should try because there are few things as impressive. "Sorry son, you're going to have to quit hockey because dad is having a midlife crisis and is going to switch careers" Is the problem here the external factor of my son's desires? Or is it a problem with myself, putting his desires above my own? The culture of dad having a mid life crisis being frowned upon and only seen as a means to provide for the family by placing their desires above his own could be why soccer son often ends up beng raised by single mom. Dad needs help and soccer is the most irrelevant thing in the world right now. I find the notion incredibly selfish. My family is accustomed to their lifestyle. There are certain realities that can occur that would require a reduction in that lifestyle, but I should not deliberately cause them to happen. Sometimes the right thing to do is to sacrifice your dreams for others. I absolutely agree. All I am pointing out is that mentality should be shared by the family and although it is honorable to be selfless, it is difficult to help others when one's mental state is in shambles. Take care of yourself so you can take care of others. > Sometimes the right thing to do is to sacrifice your dreams for others. Good on you for putting your family first, and total respect for parents and parenthood, but man, reading lines like that reinforce my decision to stay free of those sorts of obligations. I don't ever want to leave camp "do what you feel like doing". I think you will be a better role model if you show some courage to better your own situation. I personally suspect more people are harmed by self help books etc than helped. Which circles back to the kind of advice I would give someone. It’s easy to fall into the trap of assuming reading advice is inherently beneficial but it needs to result in some net positive behaviors or it’s just wasting time, money, and mental effort. I suspect a self help guru like Tony Robbins would have actually given similar advice to the root commenter - to consider your options and then to get off the couch and do something. Lumping all self-help resources into not being useful or even harmful doesn't help. There will always be some quacks, but there will always be some people with genuine insights and the ability to help others understand themselves better and move towards their goals. I've never paid for Tony Robbins material but would say its been helpful. In the OP's case they could use the material to understand what is behind wanting the change. Understanding their why. Is it a feeling of significance / love / variety / contribution that they're lacking? How could they go about getting what's missing? What are their options? These are the types of things that I get from Tony Robbins - almost like a problem solving framework for personal problems. All that being said, do people use self help as a form of procrastination? Yes I'd say many do. However I believe the people with all the resources that refuse to take action are no worse off than they would have been anyway. As they say, you can lead a horse to water, but you can't make it drink. I can’t tell if that was supposed to be a parody or not. Which is kind of my point. Some material may be better than placebo, but when we are talking about self help as an industry you need to consider the impact of everything from Scientology to actually lethal practices like Breatharianism. The trends within the industry seem to focus on what’s useful as a business rather than what’s helpful to it’s customers. So yes some people are helped, but some people are also financially ruined or even killed. It’s not that everyone is trying to scam others, just that the same kind of forces that cause clickbait still apply and impact what’s popular. >more people are harmed by self help books etc than helped It is certainly a business but I assume that most of these self-help gurus truly want to help. They are promoting different methods(more or less rational) but the core message is often very similar and amounts to "take action". If all roads lead to Rome you may very well get there. I think by listening to these books you are in fact priming your brain to find a way to improve your situation. My personal observation is people are generally soothing their brain into into inactivity rather than priming it for something. There is a reason get rich quick scams are so effective and so much home exercise equipment sits unused, the first step is usually the easiest. > just wasting time, money, and mental effort. I don't believe it takes effort. On the contrary, reading self-help is basically a guilty pleasure. Otherwise it wouldn't sell in such massive quantities. What else would you call all that chemical energy used up when neurons are firing etc to allow you to read and remember something if not mental effort? All things we do requires mental effort. Laying in bed and daydreaming also results in neurons firing. So, I think we're just discussing the amount of effort. My point was that self-help is usually written is such a way to make its reading very pleasant and to actually be a dopamine hit - it makes the reader imagine all the potential changes they can implement in their lives, it pumps them up with positive message etc. It feels good to read it. However, in vast majority of cases, people remember and try to apply the advice for a couple weeks at most, and after that life happens, habits take over and they're back to their default. Obligations become roadblocks due to a failure of imagination or ignorance. That sounds pejorative but it describes the common case, not the exception. If this applies to you you are normal. To overcome the belief that "my responsibilities are preventing me from doing X" you need examples of people who have those same responsibilities but are doing X, or some X-adjacent thing. Luckily there are lots of examples through interest forums, youtube, etc where people with say a mortgage and two kids are still traveling and adventuring. There are people who have built support networks so that they can still have time to learn languages while caring for an elderly parent, autistic child, sick dog, etc. The viable path to unblocking yourself starts by asking for help. Ask how others are doing it, get advice, take time off specifically to do this initial research. The thing you will likely find is that you can't go straight from A to B. You need to build a support network, tie into relevant services, improve your financial circumstances, etc. But once you know something is possible it can be sufficiently motivating to do the upfront work. And, I'd add that past experiences greatly impacts tolerance to risk. A person who had no money for food and/or was homeless as a child, and a person with a financially secure family to fall back on so there are no consequences for failure are going to have very different risk tolerance. Even when we are aware of it, fear can control us. And, previously poor people know, from experience, what the consequences of failure can be. This was demonstrated on a macro level by the generation that grew up in the Great Depression having a high savings rate (emergency fund), repairing rather than replacing things as long as they could, and being otherwise thrifty almost regardless of income. In my experience, being blunt without the sugar coat can have a massive change on people as well. Having a mortgage and kids can be seen as a reason or excuse not to embark on change/risk but it could also be seen as a great reason to do so. We decide how we want to look at it. The old saying "actions speak louder than words" will outlive any self-help new age fad. No one cares what was said or what was thought, but what was done. "I judge myself by my intentions but I judge you by your actions". The older I get the more I recognize that most of the people I've encountered, in one way or another, have a great lack of confidence and courage. Meh. You can be as confident as you like, if people won't take on staff as "juniors" who are older, then the whole process of retraining - wrt career change - has been a waste of time. I've never been involved in corporate HR, I'd want advice. Similarly, if I was doing a bungee jump for the first time I'd ask someone to check my harness ... (to spell it out, you seem to be berating someone for doing a reality check, as if reality [of the jobs market] were open to someone to define individually; ignorance and confidence can be easily confused) This is pretty much where I’m at. I’m mid 40s and been working in the marine industry for almost 30 years (yes I started that young). I’m going for a career change but I have zero experience in a corporate/modern office setting. I am also self taught. It will be a huge change, and I’m concerned that I may not be hireable. All that being said I’m still going for it as I’d like the rest of my working days actually helping society instead of old white dudes and their boats haha. I’m looking into security/osint. > I’m looking into security/osint. If you can breathe, spell cybersecurity, and have decent grooming standards, you can get hired in security. The 3rd is technically optional... Get training, then take a crappy SOC level 1 analyst job to get exposure and experience - the hiring standards aren't a lot higher than your average call center at a lot of them, as we have a ~1.5M headcount gap in the industry. You will burn out or move up in 9-12 months just like all the other L1s, but you will either figure out it's not for you or you'll be able to get a foot on the next rung of the ladder. Security/osint is very laid back. Folks coming from a different career usually have some interesting perspectives on problem solving that can be really useful. Just wanted to say, keep going, if I was a hiring manager and you showed technical chops, and a willingness to learn, be wrong, and correct yourself, I would completely hire you. my advice: look for work with startups that have under 20 on staff. you'll avoid corporate nonsense (more often than not with startups of that size), and it's likely they'll be remote so the only "modern office setting" things you'll have to pick up and master are: not being a jerk, communicating effectively asynchronously, and video call etiquette. With companies that size, and there are many out there, they'll likely be more than happy to help you figure out the remote lifestyle. Be bold In a similar boat, only I am 31. So it's been 10 years at sea. Agreed. Without courage there's not much you can do. Who's going to practice something for 10,000 hours? One who is strongly motivated to do so. Who's going to do well in school exams? One who is strongly motivated to do so (e.g. to please his parents) Being strongly motivated is about following your own bent. Which takes courage. If you lack courage you won't even be able to perceive what that bent is. But if you have courage then you'll make your mind up and get stuck in. > those who do things and those who keep wondering if they should have done things. Yea, I've realized that if I want to do something - some goal - if you don't literally _just do it_ then odds of it happening become slimmer and slimmer. To quote my old trainer, "the weight's not gonna lift itself." 100%. There are so many things that you can read or theorize about for years, in depth -- that end up still being very different once you actually do them. Just gotta try stuff. Over-analyzing has always been a huge struggle of mine, and your comment reminded me of a few times in my life where actually doing things taught me something important: 1. I thought I wanted to be a lawyer through most of college. I took tons of law-related courses, did a few internships, and then realized I strongly disliked actually doing it once I got my first job in the field. Thankfully, I figured it out before going to law school. 2. I studied abroad in Kenya basically on a whim. I realized my penultimate semester of college that I’d managed to get all my graduation requirements done a semester early and somehow not noticed, and decided I’d take the last semester to have a little adventure. It turned out to be one of the best things I’ve ever done. 3. At the start of lockdown in 2020, I took CS50 basically because I was bored and a friend was doing it. I had never even considered studying CS before that point, and now here I am getting my ducks in a row to do an OSU post-bacc. I suppose the throughline here is that life is full of unknown unknowns, and unknown unknowns, by definition, aren’t something you can think about and factor into your decision-making process. Just like you said — sometimes you just gotta try stuff. Weird and interesting parallels: I quite enjoyed law school, did a few internships and practiced for a few years before mostly realizing the same thing, and still I have no regrets because things turned out well. I took CS50 when it was probably very different (Brian Kernighan, the creator of C, teaching C) Roughly, I ended up as a Chair of a Masters in IT program. Not doing that part anymore, but still a full time non-tenure teaching professor. (What technically, as in according to the rules of academia, qualifies me for all this, is the law degree. Weird. I'll take it! > drop Gladwell and self-help books The advice I like is "read them until they all sound the same". Agree 100%. Either do it or dont’t, otherwise you’ll be wondering if it’s too late to change in another ten years. Anytime someone asks me how I made the leap to building startups the answer is pretty simple: failure doesn’t scare me that much, I have failed many times, but I’ve learned and don’t repeat (most) mistakes. That and I hate anyone telling me what to do. YMMV. Reminds me of the classic yoda quote "do or do not there is no try". Everywhere, no matter education, wealth or resources in general. DOers will always come out ahead. Not do it once but acting on your ideas regularly. Yes, some ideas will go wrong but at least you know the out come. DOers are those we read about all the time. Sometimes they are great other times they are not but at least they did something to find out. You never hear about those that did nothing. Maybe, we read their name in a grave stone. >DOers will always come out ahead. Not do it once but acting on your ideas regularly. Yes, some ideas will go wrong but at least you know the out come. Especially if they are already rich. >DOers are those we read about all the time. Because nobody wants to hear about the DOer that failed and ruined his/her life. >You never hear about those that did nothing. Maybe, we read their name in a grave stone. And maybe they had a great family and their name will be remembered in the family for generations as the "founder" of the family. Almost a mythological figure. YES!! If you have a deep interest and anything resembling the skills required, go for it. Perseverance is the most important characteristic. That said, Gladwell is completely FOS about the 10,000 hours — it bears repeating completely Full Of Sh*t. Not only is "mastery" ill-defined, but so is what counts as "practice", and it completely ignores that some people will after 10K hours fail to get to the top, and others can get to the top of other fields in less than 1000 hours (depending on how it is counted). And, while perseverance is key, dumb perseverance is not — how you learn counts for a LOT. The best key I've found is to seek out people at the top of the field and learn from them. Either direct in classes if possible, or from their books. You will eventually need to learn the best ways of thinking about whatever the field is, and it is better to learn the best way at the outset, than relearning it 5 times on the way up. The simplified approach at the outset may be initially rewarding, but it is a waste of time. Also be sure to ask all the 'dumb' questions about discrepancies or things that don't add up, or edge cases. Sometimes, those reveal the most essential elements that you need to progress. As an example of how this can work in far-flung fields of endeavor, when I was alpine ski racing, at one pre-season camp, I was flailing, skiing worse than the previous year, trying with all my might to implement what the coach was saying, but clearly not understanding. Fortunately, he was willing to put up with me as I asked in the evening what was going on, and we argued for hours, with me finally asking "where does that force come from?", and we looked a bit deeper and figured out a subtle bit of how the initiation of the term was a bit different than he described. That answer was the key, and literally from the first run the next day, I improved rapidly. In a completely different field, I went to a C++ conference class series with Bjarne Stroustrup, and in an after-session question, I asked what I thought might be a dumb question, but went ahead anyway, "was I spending too much time on naming conventions on my projects?", because I was worried that I was wasting time. I got a wonderfully detailed and concise answer that was basically "NO, it is worth all that up front-investment, especially for the way it helps you think about the structure ahead of time.". So, persevere, dig and ask those peculiar questions (obviously, not the 'dumb' ones that can be easily answered by looking it up, but the 'dumb' ones that seem like they ought to be obvious, but aren't explicit.). Go for it, and I wish you good fortune in your new endeavor. It'll probably take longer than you like, but it's likely worth it. Gladwell's english was very approachable, so outliers was an easy and enjoyable book to read. I even believed it the first time I read it. Once I read his later stuff though, I noticed a couple of things that didn't quite add up for me, and that sort of shone a light for me on the pattern he was using. I wouldn't put any more weight on his work now than I would on a random blog from the depths of the internet. He's a genius writer and we should be aware of that when reading his books. He could influence us. I think that 10000 hours means that long-term. No shortcut for master anything. I would not call him a genius writer by any stretch. The sheer number of people who consider him a complete fraud part of that reason. The rest is that I've seen enough of his material that didn't add up for me. Good advice. Thanks. I don't read self-help books. I believe in learning by practice Great answer. I realized this pretty recently that I have been thinking a lot of doing things and never getting to it. I joined a startup and seeing every having the "do things" mentality made me realize this. it is a good point to suggest to take more action. But to make significant progress, requires thinking thru the next 5-10 moves and committing to them and putting in consistent effort -- do any books discuss that? A change shouldn't be just hoping that you "end up at the right place at the right time" this time. That is rare. Words of wisdom!
I have tweeted your first paragraph. Hope you don’t mind.. This. The Gladwell book is so bad it's laughable. It's a gross misrepresentation of the work of Anders Ericsson, with completely unfounded extrapolations. So bad it prompted Ericsson to get a non-academic writer to work with him to write his own popular science version of his work, which is titled "Peak". Outliers is the worst example I know of of popular authors bending facts to make a narrative they want to tell. In a nutshell, Ericsson never said "10k hours will make you world class" or "it takes 10k hours for mastery". He said (BIG simplifying paraphrase here) "the most notable difference we saw in elite performers between sub-elites and elites was practice, with most elites having achieved roughly 10k hours, or 10 years of 3 hours a day". He also limited this to PRACTICE, a part Gladwell totally missed. (ie the Beatles example is complete bullshit, gigs are not practice). He never said it was either necessary (lots of music prodigies are world class in way less) or sufficient (literally millions of people do 10k hours and get just decent). So... throw that book in the garbage and make your decision on other criteria. There are many, many good books on learning and performance, but not by popular hacks like Gladwell. Anecdotally, I know lots of people who started new pursuits (and got very good), or successfully switched careers or started new businesses in their 40s. It's really not about age, it's about all the parameters that are typically associated with age. As in, by the time people hit their 40's, most people can no longer carve out the time to consistently spend time learning a new thing, and are way out of practice at learning. Most, not all. I know lots of professional musicians, for example, who took up some other hobby late in life and got very very good, because their entire life has been constructed around leaving time for effective learning, and they are experts at learning something on their own. If you can rearrange life to enable you to learn effectively (or found a company, or whatever), 43 is a great age. There is a much better lesson to take from practice theory, and that's the skill curve. You might see it and think "oh it takes 10,000 hours to become a master". But it only takes 10 hours of practice to become better at something than literally almost everyone at any task. And in 100 hours of practice you would be considered a worthy peer in almost any community. 1000 hours will make you a respected professional in any trade. You can apply it to any life skill. You could learn a new musical instrument every 6 months, you could be a plumber, a carpenter, an electrician. You could make learn a new way of fabricating things. Any sport, any dance. I applied it as a programmer, dabbling in compilers, operating systems, machine learning systems, web systems, games, various languages and paradigms. Now as the CTO in a small company my "expertise" in all of these fields makes me able to talk along with every team, no matter what they're working on. You could be good enough in anything to impress a friend by practicing anything for 3 months. Not saying it's easy, real practice hurts your brain, not every day job leaves you with enough brain juice at the end of the day. But maybe you could practice in the morning. When I was in college I had been playing guitar on and off for maybe 10 years. I didn't like practicing much and was mostly just playing the same bits and riffs for fun. There was a youtube hype around a guy called Andy McKee who played technically challenging pieces with a really cool vibe. I didn't even attempt it, considering it above my skill level. My housemate who hadn't touched a guitar in all his life, bought a $30 guitar and practiced for 3 months. By the end he could play the full song good enough for it to actually sound good and impress basically anyone. I'm pretty sure he could make some money playing on a street corner just playing that 1 song over and over again. edit: the bootcamp I used to teach at trains junior developers from scratch in about 500 hours. If you pair them with a good mentor, employing them for about 500 hours more, and you'll have perfectly good software developers capable of maintaining and extending any existing product you have in your portfolio. this is on the money. How good you need to be to do a job for a career - if that career is not performing in some insanely competitive field like sports or music - is so, so, so much lower than what we are talking about when discussing the practice history of elite performers. If you learn to practice correctly, and get a good teacher, you will be amazing to most people in 2000 hours - 3 years of consistent two hours a day of good practice produces a shit ton of expertise. It brought a smile to my face seeing a completely unexpected reference to Andy McKee on Hacker News :) Here's Gladwell himself: Ah but this is him defending himself after the fact. The book most definitely does create the "sufficient" impression, and deliberately, because it's such a nice story. This is attested to by the takeaways most people have from it. If they got the wrong impression, either he wrote it wrong or he's a shit writer - or both. Now he back pedals because he got called out on the bs. Don't get me wrong, he's a very good story teller. But he's a complete crap "popular science" writer The guy is a walking TED talk. I don't hate him, but he's supremely annoying in his smug triteness. > He never said it was either necessary (lots of music prodigies are world class in way less) Gladwell: "The point is simply that natural ability requires a huge investment of time in order to be made manifest" (emphasis added) But... this is wrong. The vast majority of the time, yes, but "requires" is a simplification. The amount of work required is massively variable and Gladwell skates right over that nuance. Prodigies exist! I've met some, they can be really nauseating to the rest of us, lol. There are more of them out there than you would think because they are often so screwed up in other ways that they don't become famous. Talk to anyone who has taught hundreds of music students and they can tell you some crazy stories. However, prodigies aren't much use if you can't count on them showing up to the gig. (Some savants are fortunate enough to get the support they need to function professionally, but many aren't) > (ie the Beatles example is complete bullshit, gigs are not practice) Why doesn't that count as practice? I studied a number of books in that field last year, and much of this entire thread is missing some key points. The learning psychology field often differentiates practice from deliberate practice, where practice is just about anything and deliberate practice is focused learning. In deliberate practice, you have to work at near your skill level, you need to apply proven learning methods, it should take maximal effort, you need a feedback mechanism to course correct, etc. A great deal of focus goes into creating effective mental models and intentionally removing ineffective mental models. It requires good coaching. As you progress in expertise, your practice should involve more risks and failures. (And there's still much more to be said here) Gigging and noodling aren't going to make for efficient practice as it likely won't be full concentration, won't involve feedback, won't involve challenging material at your skill level, etc. Also, you can spend 10,000 hours jamming alone in your bedroom on same set of guitar tabs and make shockingly progress compared to someone who spends just a few hundred hours intensely studying music books with a metronome and tape recorder. Performances aren't practice. Practice is sitting down and working on what needs development, and doing self-introspection. Performances are where all of those get put together for an audience. I think that one has to define terms first. Anders Ericsson - whom Gladwell relied on so heavily - was focused almost solely on a form of practice he called "deliberate practice"; and he set about defining its characteristics. Playing a gig wouldn't meet many of Ericsson's criteria. Mainly the goal, in the moment, isn't systematic improvement. That said, if we loosen the criteria, there's no reason we _can't_ count playing a gig as practice. After all, some neuromuscular/cognitive development is taking place. Because you're doing the same thing over and over and don't have a lot of latitude to experiment. Mind you, there can be some value in repetition starting out especially if you make regular minor adjustments. But for someone already at a high skill level, just doing the same old activity probably won't help their skills much. Playing as a dance/cover band as they did (compared to, say, classical music), they had plenty of space to experiment. The critical aspect that's different from practicing with your band in a rehearsal space vs on stage is that you get to see how an audience actually responds to what you're doing, which is the whole point of the game. Every audience is different. A musician who's played 100 sets of songs alone in a room will have nowhere near the same level of insight as a musician who's played the same number of shows for an audience. As an instrumentalist, I can choose to play my part ahead of the beat, behind the beat, right on time, I can choose to embellish my part or play it as written, I can improvise a solo vs play something pre-planned, I can subtly vary the intensity of my playing, all while my bandmates are tweaking their performance in real time, too. There's also the telepathy you tend to develop with your bandmates when you're unable to stop a show and yell about mistakes or forgotten parts :) My favorite Gladwell book to rip on is Blink. It is 296 pages long and the main point was one only needs a few moments to understand complicated things. While I'm a huge Gladwell critic, I enjoyed that book quite a bit. But I disagree with your main point. I'd summarize it's conclusions as: 1. People make decisions very quickly -- like often in under a second. 2. These decisions are very powerful.
2a. Powerful in terms of accurately deducing things, and/or
2b. Powerfully emotional in how it sways you (not always in good ways!) 3. You can have some success in retraining your fast decision making. This may seem slight, but I think these three main points are not necessarily obvious and are probably true. I've taken advantage of these by, for example, researching different mobile phones a bunch but consciously not making a decision until I walked into the store and I had a powerful interest in one of them on the shelf. That turned out to be the right answer for me. I have no opinion on Gladwell, as I haven’t read any of his books, but I swear those 3 things seem to be covered in almost every “self-help” book I’ve read. I don’t want to blame the authors either… but it seems like everyone is getting their water from the same well (thinking fast and slow?). I’m always down to read an authors interpretation or experience with the concepts… but I’d be lying if I said I haven’t found it harder and harder to push through. You’re totally on point though. A lot of things are simple and obvious but only when noticed or in hindsight. I enjoyed The Tipping Point and was excited to read Blink but did not enjoy it nearly from the beginning. It was simply too much cognitive dissonance for me to continue when your point 2a kept being explained. Admittedly I did not finish the book so point 3 does seem valuable to me in a way I probably under-appreciated. I haven't read the Blink yet. I will try to read it in the near future. Thanks for mentioning it. I think you should try to not read it as it’s bogus. Picking some examples where people made split second decisions that are correct is so silly it’s weird that the book even exists much less is a bestseller. It’s basic premise is that people make split second decisions but never goes into whether these are correct or incorrect. So it boils down to “sometimes people choose right” as it that was somehow novel or useful. He’s a fun storyteller but dangerous when people believe and make decisions based on his writings. I remember Tipping Point as being mostly OK. But it really triggered Gladwell's schtick of weaving a well-written entertaining narrative whether or not it's really supported by some cherry-picked anecdotes. I suspect he was joking... If you finish it, you should probably read it again. ;) I think he was making the opposite recommendation. I like your opinion. I founded a startup at 40 as a part time job and it was a correct decision during covid19 crisis. My company is quite successful. It takes about 3000 hours to be sustainable. 10000 hours is an overrated term That’s awesome! I’d love to hear more about this. I posted about my journey in the hacker news post "A disabled 40-year-old person founded a startup and makes a living". Thanks for taking time to read my post. Have a great day Have you actually read Outliers? Gladwell was very specific about practice, and how deliberate it needs to be. He emphasized the way the Beatles used their gig time as practice. Yes I have, cover to cover. And it led me on to reading the original sources and then getting disgusted with Gladwell's shoddy job. Your example says it all.... gig time as practice is something only a non-musician and/or someone who really doesn't understand practice would say. He gives air time to the idea of deliberate practice and then uses examples that show how that he doesn't get it. AT ALL. I can only assume he came up with the Beatles example and thought it was such a compelling story that he was determined not to let the facts get in the way. Ericsson goes over his criteria for what deliberate practice is.... and nightly gigs are not it in the least! Read Ericsson and I'll be you will get disillusioned as did I. Just curious to know about the books that are you referencing here for learning and performance. I know this is just one person who was in a different time and under different circumstances, but I've found it inspirational to put age into perspective. Grace Hopper first entered computing at age 38, completed the first compiler at age 46, influenced the design of COBOL at age 53, wrote COBOL for the Navy through her 70s, retired from the Navy aged 80 and only then became a consultant for DEC. So for me, at least, I reckon I can keep going in my 40s.. :-) I don't know about this one. She got a Ph.D. in Mathematics from Yale when she was 27. This was in 1934, before Computer Science was an established academic field (it was the 60s before anybody got a "Ph.D. in Computer science"), so everybody was coming from some other academic background, often maths/engineering/physics. And honestly the idea that a PhD in Mathematics from one of the top universities in the world could easily transition into CS or software engineering is one of the least controversial ideas out there. There are two good reasons why Grace Hoppen should not be used as an example. 1. You are (likely) not Grace Hopper. 2. Computer science was, in a way, much easier back then. At least very different. Listen to the Brian Kernighan being interviewed by Lex Fridman; he keeps repeating that you didn't have to be as awesome back in his days, using himself as an example. Saying "If Grace hopper can do it, then so can I" is like saying "If John Carmack can repeatedly write a AAA game (basically) by himself then so can I"[1]. Not only are you not John Carmack, but this is also not the 1990s. Hell, "throwing triangles at the problem" is just not as hard as it used to be. Marie Curie got the Nobel prize in two disciplines. That's amazing. But doing it in 2022 would be 100x as amazing, making it basically undoable. [1] Simplifying a lot. I'm aware of the story but I think my point is valid still, since it's "true enough" when measuring Carmack's coding impact. Even beyond Grace Hopper being an outlier, software/computer science is probably something of an outlier more broadly. You can find a ton of people in their 50s through 70s today who ended up in some flavor of computers and software even though they barely touched a (non-typewriter) keyboard until college or even later. But at least part of the reason they were able to do so was that a lot of computer science was still relatively young and, even if you majored in CS undergrad, what you got was probably more of a mix of math and electrical engineering than what a lot of people learn today. (Or, for that matter, what a lot of programs expect someone to already know before showing up to their first CS class. And then, on the other side, a lot of people jumped onto the first dot-com bubble when a front-end web designer didn't really need to know much. (And arguably the situation is somewhat in play today--at least for the time being--with bootcamps etc.) Which is a long-winded way of saying, I'm not sure how applicable the situation in the software industry is applicable to technical fields more broadly. I totally agree, hence my preface. I don't believe that to be inspired by great people and their situations means one has to expect to repeat their feats in full. I'm not a Chinese military general but I have been inspired by Sun Tzu ;-) That she contributed so much with such energy from her 40s through to her 80s inspires me to not see my age as a downside. Am I ever going to be 1/100th as smart or consequential as Hopper? Ha, of course not! The good news is Quake was an exception to game develop experiences (in many ways!), not the rule. So the mindset “If Carmack can make Quake, then I can QA Subway Surfers for iOS” seems imminently reasonable. Not just Quake, though. I remember it as first there was Wolfenstein 3D, and people went crazy not believing their eyes. Then they learn about the technology, and go "ok, well that's cool, but can't do real 3D". Then that cycle repeats for Doom. And then Quake, except this time it really was 3D. Quake didn't even really have load times! Ok, so these people can be inspirations. But probably should not be used as an example that should be expected to be followable. But (1) is suggesting only a woman at that age with those life experiences could have done what she did. I don’t see why that has to be empirically true It's not how I meant it. She had the experience, education, skill, and drive to succeed when she was put in the right place at the right time. I was with (1) mostly referring to education, skill, and drive. But also If you were a PhD in math in 1934 and wanted to switch to computers, then you were not "competing" with a bunch of people who'd been doing computers since they were 5, because nobody had. Parent post said she went to computers in ~1945, which is just two years after "I think there's a world market for maybe five computers". None of that is transferrable to just anybody's career change decision. With (1) I could have also said that Ricky Gervais went into comedy at close to 40 years old. But you're not Ricky Gervais, so it's not likely to work out for you. It's partly a lottery win, too, where you don't need certain life experiences to win. And to continue the Grace Hopper example... Remember that she transitioned to computing from being a Mathematics professor at Yale, so she was able to leverage her previous training into the new career. Try and do the same if you can. Leverage what skills you've already gained to switch into a career where they are a big advantage. Then you are starting nearer to those already in the field, not the beginning. >Leverage what skills you've already gained to switch into a career where they are a big advantage. Absolutely. In many cases, there are often a wide range of related/adjacent jobs that are significantly different in various ways but can nonetheless be a fairly natural transition. (Though key word can. I've seen examples that worked and examples that didn't.) On the other hand, I'll go back to school and get a Masters degree in this very tangentially related STEM field is probably going to be a lot harder. Harder, how so? And even if harder, wouldn’t it still be a productive means towards the end of moving into that field? If I go from product management into software development into some sort of technical marketing or sales role or even to certain types of consulting, there's a fair bit of overlap in the IT industry related to general knowledge of the market, practices, etc. I've changed jobs substantially twice and significant training to transition was never needed at all. And, sure, if you want to change to a completely different area with much less overlap, that's not to say you shouldn't do so. But I certainly couldn't walk right into an unrelated engineering job at this point even if it were related to undergraduate coursework. In fact, it would be probably be easier for me to do a software job today even though I did essentially no programming in school. Thanks for mentioning in this, which I hadn't seen before. I collect stories of successful aging because I am now 66 and hope to keep creating software, and ideas that can be implemented in it, for some time to come! I admire you. I hope that I could be healthy to code at 66. Wish you all the best Just eat well and exercise! Exercise is hugely important for maintaining cognitive health. As is eating well. Beyond those things you don't have to do much else! he's a genious. I live in Viet Nam and the unemployment benefit is not good so I'm cautious to switch career. That's why i founded a company and be a founder and CEO as a part time job. Grace Hopper had a PhD in Mathematics from Yale. Thank you, didn't know about her. My opinion: * The 10000 hour rule is nonsense. There are skills that require very much practice, and a lot of those are unattainable for most people. You could practice 10,000 hours on the violin or playing chess without reaching the lofty heights of Hahn or Magnusson. That does require some kind of "talent". * Many other skills can be acquired in much less time, certainly if you don't start from scratch. E.g., learning a 2nd programming language takes much less time than the 1st. * I've been switching jobs all my life; on average after about 5 years. 43 isn't very old to switch, IMO. * Think about what is important to you: Money? Stability? Job satisfaction? Can you find a new job that gives you what you want and need? Mastering a skill doesn't imply being in the top 10 or even 100. It simply means acquiring expertise to a point of diminishing returns and being recognized by your peers as very skilled. It's perfectly possible to become really good at chess and at the violin after a lot of practice. Good enough to impress a beginner. Learning a second programming language isn't really learning a new skill, it's maybe more like learning a new genre of music if you already play the violin well, or learning how to play speed chess once you're already a master. > You could practice 10,000 hours on the violin or playing chess without reaching the lofty heights of Hahn or Magnusson. Without commenting on whether the 10k rule was reasonable, you're shifting goalposts. It was never the claim that it only took 10k hours to be the best in the world. >The 10000 hour rule is nonsense You should probably read a bit about the "rule" before calling it nonsense. It's vague, flexible, and refers to attaining mastery in some skill. Nowhere is it implied you'll be a world champion chess player after 10,000 hours. It says practice will make you better at something. That's hard to dismiss. Agreed. Bobby Fisher got there in less than 10 years. https://problogservice.com/2012/03/15/what-malcolm-gladwell-... The problem is, Gladwell never said you needed 10,000 hours to be an expert, you need 10,000 hours to be a phenom. To be so freakishly awesome, to be such a standout among your peers, that sometimes your first name is enough to tell people who you are: Peyton. Tiger. Venus. Kobe. Oprah. But in the meantime, here’s what Malcolm Gladwell said about the 10,000 hour rule and being an outlier: “In fact, by the age of twenty, the elite performers (violinists) had each totaled ten thousand hours of practice.” — p. 38 “The emerging picture from such studies is that ten thousand hours of practice is required to achieve the level of mastery associated with being a world-class expert—in anything,” writes the neurologist Daniel Levitin. — p. 40 “To become a chess grandmaster also seems to take about ten years. (Only the legendary Bobby Fisher got to that elite level in less than that amount of time: it took him nine years.) And what’s ten years? Well, it’s roughly how long it takes to put in ten thousand hours of hard practice. Ten thousand hours is the magic number of greatness.” — p. 41 I need 500g of flour to make bread. That doesn't mean I can make bread with just 500g of flour. You are trying to say that someone claiming 500g being necessary to making bread is hogwash because it doesn't also talk about the salt and water (etc). Why is everyone so pessimistic? I believe that if you, sophacles, had the time, the determination, the money for 10 000 hours of tutoring of a grandmaster, and the mental/emotional/physical okay-being for the time, you could reach a grandmaster level in chess in 10 000 hours. Same for many many areas. (Polgar tried it, for a time his 3 daughters were the 3 best woman chess players, but this doesn't really count since they started very young.) I'm not disagreeing with you. In fact I'm pretty much agreeing -I'm saying 10Kh is necessary but not sufficient. You are saying:
10Kh of practice + tutoring costs + (implicitly) not having other responsibilities to block the learning either directly via work or whatnot or indirectly via emotional stress. That 10Kh is in your equation, but isn't the only part of the equation. That is it's necessary but not sufficient. I didn't mention any baking concepts. I quoted Malcolm Gladwell -- who was the originator of the "10,000 hours" rule (remark?) in popular culture. Let me spell out the analogy: Gladwell says you need practice 10,000 hours. In my analogy of the situation, I claim I need 500g of flour. You complain that there may be other things needed in addition to practice therefore the need for practice is bullshit. This is analogized by "you" saying that the need for other ingredients in bread somehow invalidates that the flour is needed. The point I'm trying to make is this: Stating that something is necessary but not sufficient, does not invalidate claims about what is necessary. In the quotes, I saw no claim that only 10k hours of practice was required, just that they were necessary. Don't get hung up on the number. I've always taken Gladwell's writing to mean lots of deliberate practice (on the order of a decade) is necessary, but maybe not sufficient, to master something difficult. I believe in talent to a limited degree. It governs the floor, ceiling and learning curve's slope. Kind of like the parameters to a sigmoid function. Magnus Carlsen's very first chess match was likely much better than most other people's/kids', he learned at a breakneck pace and obviously, possesses a high skill ceiling. However, there is a huge and dynamic middle ground that can be conquered by anyone through nothing but work and dedication. > The 10000 hour rule is nonsense Even if there is some merit to the "rule", the intent behind it is you'll master something in that amount of time. You can become good at something with far less time. You just need to be good to earn a living. I think of all the jobs I've worked and the slackers and incompetence I've seen. I think with some education about a job and decent intelligence most people can put in the effort, learn on the job and become good - if they want to. 10k hours is roughly 5 working years of experience with no nights+weekends extra time so if OP switches careers now, they could be mastering something by the time they're 48. I've seen people switch careers into software, and go from junior to mid level up to senior in that time. Do it. It also depends what you mean by "switching jobs." I've had three distinctly different jobs/careers over the past 30 years or so (with some moving around within those careers). However, they were all sufficiently adjacent that there was quite a bit of knowledge transfer and the transitions were very logical as a result. (And, in fact, in all cases I was hired by someone I knew from the prior job.) He means no shortcuts for master anything. It takes time, 2000 or 3000 hours or any numbers. People tends to find a shortcut for anything, fox example, buying crypto to get rich quick. I agree that 10000 hours rule is a myth. 10,000 hours of chess as a kid is different to 10,000 as an adult. 10k hours as an adult in violin is not the same as 10k hours at chess. Nor is the same at a young age, but possibly differenly not the same. You don't have to master anything to switch careers. I switched careers from marketing to software development at 37 yo. It took me 8 months of full-time study (I had the privilege to be able to quit my job to do that) to get my first job as a front-end developer. Now, 5 years later, I think it was the best professional decision I have ever made in my life. I am much happier doing daily work than before and, now, I earn much more than I used to (despite a significant salary cut for my first dev job). To put in hours, I would say 8 months averaging 7 hours of dedication on week days is about 1232 hours. And I am no master, far from it. I am a competent, mediocre, regular 1x web developer. Some weeks I am 0.5x, some weeks I am 2x. Hey rodrigo - randomly dropping by to say that your post inspired to go after a remote job and don't quit at the first attempts. ("Look wife, this guy sent many applications and he writes super well, I must keep trying and it will work out...") Well after a few months, a company made a job offer and I'm very happy. Thank you! I’d love to hear more about this switch as a family member is considering something similar as a 42 y/o. If you don’t mind, was it long ago that you made this switch? Was there anything that you’d do differently in retrospect? The big one I guess: do you feel that not having gone the “traditional” route made it more difficult to find roles in the early days? Feel free not to answer if too invasive but I’d find any info really helpful. It was in 2017. I wrote a lot about it at the time: https://rodrigohgpontes.github.io/ It was a different moment, not sure if better or worse for junior developers getting a first job. It was before companies were “desperate” to hire software developers, like about a couple of years ago, which made them hire more junior devs. But, it was also before the current hiring market contraction (as a proxy see a post mentioning the low number of posts in Who is Hiring thread). But, it was also before remote work was more common (it was effectively impossible to be hired remotely as a junior back then, now it is just hard). Not sure how all of this balances out. I wouldn’t do anything different. I still vouch for not paying anything to learn to code. I used freeCodeCamp and it only got better since then. To see how I did it, the blog is a good source. About not having a traditional background it both hurt and helped me. I just reread this passage on my blog that I had forgotten: ”People will undervalue you. Chances are not all interviewers will be nice. On a promising application for a cool job, I got a call from the founder. He said something in the lines of "You know, you have to understand that you are competing with a lot of young guys who are coding since they are twelve. You have a lot of catch up to do. You have to expect an intern salary and even so work harder to show you can become a good developer. Because I'm not sure you can." Maybe he was just using some shitty negotiation technique to hire me on a low salary, maybe it was ageism, maybe he thought I was delusional on my aspirations and decided to give me a lecture to be more down to earth. Whether he was stingy, mean or patronizing, it was definitely a place that I wanted distance.” So it hurted in this case. I also read some discouraging comments here on HN on a thread where I said I want to go from scratch to hired in 4 months. But, it also helped get my first job. I was hired to work a small team that one senior developer that was only 20 years old at the time. He was technically worth of being considered a senior, but had to improve in other areas. They saw me being a 37yo junior developer with a lot of professional experience and good communication skills a good match for him. Also, they valued my diligence and dedication on changing careers. Saw that as evidence that I would be continuously learning. So, my advice is to be able to demonstrate in an interview that previous professional experience will be useful in the new technical job. How do, depends on the background and strengths of each one. I do think my blog has useful advice still in general. I do think it is a good career change and possible at 42yo, and I would encourage them. The only small caveat is that they need to realize early if they “enjoy” coding. It is important. Few people are capable of committing to the continuous learning demanded to have a good career in software development “only” for the money. Good luck to them! I found a great article searching through Hacker News the other day - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32497780 It's appropriately called "There’s no speed limit". A lot of rules from there apply here as well. It's about a guy who finished college in 2 years, if I remember correctly. I've written it down on my white-board and remind myself about it everyday. Thought you might find it useful. P.S. I'm working on believing in myself and shamelessly plugging my weekly newsletter for remote working parents everywhere - check it out. https://thursdaydigest.com/ Love Derek and his aphorisms and came here to share the same. Btw Any take on this? https://sive.rs/h Just discovered it. Love this quote and it seems fitting here - "Many books believe they know how you should live. But each book disagrees with the next. In “How to Live”, each chapter believes it knows how you should live. And each chapter disagrees with the next." Yup, good one for a light read and thinking about the world It depends on why you want to switch. If you want to switch because you love the new line of work then go for it but understand that you will start as junior and most likely make less money than you do currently for several years. But if you like your new line of work then you will get good at it and make more money in a few years. If you want to switch for any other reason, think hard about it. It may not be worth it. Often grass seems greener on the other side but when you get into the weeds, you realize it's all, well, weeds. (I fantasize about becoming physicist, rancher etc. but I am gonna stick to writing CRUD apps. Those jobs are way harder and pay way less.) wow, so succinct. I think the answer is "yes", but you should be aware that Malcolm Gladwell is a bullshitter. https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2017/08/the-dan-p...
https://archive.ph/yPd3R Yes, but is he a talented bullshitter or an accomplished one? both Many people here are saying the "10,000 hours rule" is a myth, and while I wouldn't disagree with them it's a little more nuanced than that. Gladwell is a populariser, and simplified the research of Anders Ericsson [1] into a catchy soundbite. Ericsson describes "deliberate practice". That is, to become an expert you must "work on high specific tasks assigned to overcome weaknesses, and you would have your performance monitored carefully for further improvement" [2] [1] https://psycnet.apa.org/record/1993-40718-001 [2] https://www.ysamphy.com/anders-ericsson-deliberate-practice/ It's a rule. If you have practiced for only 9,999 hours, 59 minutes, 59 seconds, 999 milliseconds you suck. Deliberate practice is a craft, not art. I understand 10000 hours in a simpler manner. We need to do our homework, get shi*t done. In the long term, we could get the positive result 1) The first bit of advice is to recognize that you, like almost everyone else who discusses "the 10,000 hour rule" (and what it means regarding "practice" and "mastery") have completely failed to understand what the actual author meant, so you do yourself and everyone else a favor by dropping the subject. 2) The second bit of advice is to examine this "reality" thing. You can, obviously, switch careers anytime you want. Only you can define what "success" in that career will mean for you, what investments will be required in order to achieve it, whether you will enjoy the process, whether you are asking the impossible of reality (a very short, sedentary, middle aged person just isn't going to switch into the "Professional NBA Superstar" career), and so on. 3) Your life expectancy is, what, roughly 80 years now? You've spent maybe 20 or so on your current career. You've got twice that remaining, theoretically, and you're concerned about time having run out already? All this is a roundabout way of saying your own attitudes toward all of this are the main, though not the only, challenge you'll need to address provided you are not asking to violate physiology/etc. > The first bit of advice is to recognize that you, like almost everyone else who discusses "the 10,000 hour rule" (and what it means regarding "practice" and "mastery") have completely failed to understand what the actual author meant, so you do yourself and everyone else a favor by dropping the subject. It would be helpful if you can explain why people misunderstand this rule or at least point to somewhere that does rather than essentially saying, "you don't know what the 10k rule is". Thanks for your feedback. Because i'm a disabled person and financial recession is coming so i am very careful to switch career. If you're healthy and are willing to take the risk the answer is yes. Everything else is in your head. When I worked in China I talked to people who grew up during the Cultural Revolution and lost everything, then lost everything again during the turbulent years of the 80s and 90s, and rebuilt their life entirely again. They always used to say that when you're younger than 50 you can just start over and laughed at younger workers who were anxious in their 20s or 30s. In many places people have started over four or five times, not once. And by the way you don't need 10k hours or be a master-anything to have a viable career in a field, just enough experience to get a foot in the door. Thanks for sharing. Loosing everything looks daunting but you are alive. Get up and keep moving forward. I read (and liked) Gladwell's book, but the point of it was really just that no matter what your natural talent for something, it takes the opportunity to do a lot of focused practice to become good at it. This is to debunk the idea that the wealthy are all members of a meritocracy; even if they do have some talent at whatever they are doing, they were lucky enough to get born into circumstances such that they were allowed to do whatever-it-was for long enough to become expert. Also, just because you're not great at something initially, doesn't mean you cannot become great, because it takes many thousands of hours of practice to become great. No doubt the 10k rule varies according to field, because some fields are new, and no one has 10k hours yet. There are programmers with 10k hours, but most of the professionals in the field do not have 10k hours yet, for example. The definition of "great" (and therefore the # of hours required) is relative to others in that field. I switched into programming in my 30's, when many programmers start to rotate out of it because they believe they are too old. I probably am not as good at certain things as others, but I also bring experience from previous careers to improve the odds that I am programming the right thing in the first place. If you switch careers, it will take time to become good at the new one, and you (and your finances) need to be able to accommodate that. But it definitely happens. I'm 60. I've probably done my most meaningful work, in the last 15 years. I feel that I learn more quickly -and better- than I ever did, when I was younger. It's hard to get 10K hours into anything, these days, as tech is a moving target, but it's doable. Being OCD (like me) is helpful. These days, I specialize in Swift programming, for Apple devices. I'm really obsessive about it (My GH Activity Graph is solid green, and it's pretty much all Swift[0]). Even with writing Swift, every day (since the day it was announced), I feel as if I'm just barely keeping up. Great job. Congratulations. Besides G Suite Workspace addons, I also work on some QR Code, Barcode IOS apps. I love Swift. Malcolm Gladwell oversimplifies things. There's nothing magical about spending 10,000 hours practicing a skill, but you'll obviously get better at anything you spend a lot of time on. To answer your question: it depends on your specific context. At 43, you could theoretically still gain the required qualifications for most careers and work for ~ 20 years (ex. you'd be 67/68 after 4 years spent earning a new degree + 20 years working). The more relevant consideration is will you actually be able to do that as a working 43-year-old with normal responsibilities? Another question you seem to allude to is "will ageism be a limiting factor?" That answer is also context-dependent. At a lot of trendy companies mentioned here on HN, I'd suspect that it would be. That said, those companies are only a fraction of the job market and I'm not sure more "boring" companies would be as concerned with age as with your skills. Outside of tech and some competitive (+ conservative) industries like finance or consulting, I don't think it would be as big of a deal. There have been studies that have contradicted the 10,000 hour rule. However, my understanding is that the rule is about attaining mastery through effective practice. You don't need to reach mastery level in order to be make a valuable contribution in a new job. Obviously it really depends on what sort of career change you are contemplating. If it is to become an international concert pianist and you have never studied music or played any musical instrument, then it is most likely a stretch goal. However, if you are a competent programmer with one language or environment, then changing to a different language, etc will probably see you being quite good after a year, i.e. 2000 hours. With more effort you can only improve. First of all the 10K-hour rule is pretty bullshit. Not all hours are equal. It's all a sliding scale with diminishing returns. Also there's no minimum level of expertise to reach your career goals. Like in body-building, the initial efforts for an untrained person pays off dramatically more than later effort. See the 80/20 rule. You can definitely switch careers at any age. But you also should think about it in terms of both personal satisfaction and opportunity costs. There's a tendency to think the grass will be greener in the new career. That may not be true, most generally available work has large unsatisfying components - otherwise you wouldn't need to pay people to do it. The other thing is opportunity costs. If your new career requires losing 4 years of income while you do an undergraduate degree, plus paying for said degree, then you're 48 and have maybe 17 working years left until retirement (varies, but just an example) then you have to think if you wouldn't just make more money in your existing career, with less risk. Money might not be your primary objective here, but it often is. Also could your family afford for you to be earning negative income (paying for training) while retraining, for the duration required? There's no one-size fits all advice. Just don't rule it out because of your age. Do the math and be logical, not emotional, about it. Get some friends to check your math, because they will be more impartial than you. Short answer is yes. My wife is an RN. She went to nursing school in her 40's and became a nurse. I have a coworker who was a teacher in their 20's, went to school again, and is now a software developer. I have a coworker who as a Civil engineer, went to school again and is also a software developer. It can be done. What will you do with your one wild and precious life? good examples. Thanks. Recession is looming so i keep both full time developer and startu's CEO as a part time job. We automate most tasks so it's feasible. I wouldn't say switching career exactly. I'd worked with asset management software for utilities and telecoms a good twenty years, it used a propriatory language no one outside the industry recognised. I got made redundant from my company, and getting another job in the field would have required moving country. TBH, I was thoroughly bored of the field anywsy, and was starting to see my career ending as some aging beardy in a server room looking after a valuable database no one could upgrade anymore. I switched to mobile dev, although still in a related field. Well, I didn't just start out that way, to keep myself occupied during redundancy, i developed some fun stuff I was doing on MacOS, someone liked it and wondered if they could do the same on their iPhone, so I worked out how to do that. I put several years of time into it, it wasn't a very successful project for making money, but it gave me something to demonstrate when applying for mobile jobs at the age of 43, and eventually landed me a job. I had plenty of related experience I suppose and soon started making an impression in my new line, now I work on an app I developed and proposed myself to the company. I feel happier I work with more modern languages, that I can come up with an app a company thought had enough potential to invest time and money in, and is slowly starting to get successful and has an impact in my industry. There are so many follow up books about the subject, you could read one of them and learn more. Anders Ericsson, the source of the rule, has a popular science book called "Peak: Secrets from the New Science of Expertise" but also "Talent is Overrated" is a great book on the subject. The problem though is all these books are about well understood domains with a pedagogical framework you can grind thru. There is nobody saying this works in a field like 'entrepreneurship'. All the evidence is in things like chess or playing the violin where the path is well worn and a coach or mentor can keep you on the right path. In those fields, yes, deliberate practise works. https://www.amazon.ca/Peak-Secrets-New-Science-Expertise-ebo... https://www.amazon.ca/Talent-Overrated-Separates-World-Class... The programs described in "Peak" required a coach. Coaches play an integral role in the subject's road to mastery. Yet more evidence we cannot lift easy ideas like "mastery in just 10K hours" from psych research. Malcolm Gladwell never claimed you could mastery anything in 10k hours. That is just what people thought he said. But yes, the research is all around defined fields with expert coaches guiding the way. The rule is bullshit and the truth at the same time. Just imagine playing guitar from the beginning until you reach 10000 h of physical practice. Just say.. 10h a day ..that would mean 3 years of extensive training. You for sure will be a Master after that. Or, just assume everyday 1h of practicing. That's 10000 days.. something like 30 years.. So this rule doesn't mean you can't be a Master if you didn't invest 10k h of practicing, but rather, no matter what you do,if you do it for 3 +x years, you sure will be a Master at that. Bullshit truth! Go for it, if it's something you can enjoy. Go for it, if you can use your aforequainted knowledge. Go for it, if you see some chances for being able to say "it enables me to work more for myself and less for one another". Go for it, if your life needs a complete change. But keep in mind, that you may need to lower your spendings. If you can't lower your spendings for some reason - then, think twice about switching careers. It's up to you, whether you can cope with
possibly lower income. Keep us informed:) > if it's something you can enjoy. This is the most important things regardless of 10kh and how someone gets there. If someone doesn't enjoy what they are doing, they won't practice and they won't get better. 43 years old is only as limiting as you believe it to be. There are plenty of people who are experiencing the most fruitful, expansive, creative time of their lives at that age, and they're not "special" in some way you aren't. If you tell yourself you're too old to make a change or learn new things, you'll find it harder to make a change and learn new things. If you tell yourself you're going to meet challenges, as everybody does, but you're better equipped to solve them now than you ever have been, you'll be able to handle whatever comes your way. I'm not always a "mindset is everything" person, but when it comes to believing you can or can't do something really important to you that's well within the scope of what ordinary people do all the time (i.e., you're unlikely to be able to pivot to an elite athletics role), believing you can do it too makes a big difference. As someone who is a coder: My "career" switches with each job. I go from Defense, to Logistics, to Mathematics, to Systems Software, to now Databases. I'm not trained in all these to 10,000 hours. I have 25+ years at this, and I still have to learn at every job when I start. So, the most important thing is the core. The very core competencies of a programmer: - Rigor - You must be willing to rigorously think things through. - Mathematics - With the above, most of what a computer does is... math in the end. Algerbra is probably the most essential, ironically. Followed by Discrete Math. The rest is all nice to have. - A bit of "Computer Science". Learning algorithms, what O(n) means, etc. This helps you understand how to think. Note: I never mentioned a computer language. A computer language is how you take all the above and turn it into something. You should work on learning a few. But honestly, one you know 2 languages, you know 90% of all languages, and can read most code. The languages I'd suggest: Python, and C. People will curse me for C. But honestly for understanding how a computer works at a low level, there is no better language, it strips away the bullshit and leaves you to deal with the machine, but it doesn't force your nose into assembly, which is probably a bit much for a young programmer. Python, is what you learn to do "real work". I interview in Python, Python and Python... and maybe a bit of Python. There's a reason. It is a language that you can really get things done in quickly, and manipulate things easily. It is the "anti-C" in many ways :). One can argue for Java also. But really, Java is miserable without an IDE, and the machine does so much coding for you, I think it is a bad early language. Once you know the first two... I think it is a great one to pick up. > But really, Java is miserable without an IDE Very true. It's also miserable with an IDE. Eh, It is usable with an IDE. Also it forces OO and interfaces down your throat, which is important when picking up other languages. The other languages you'd choose to learn in the "Java" slot are: - C++. I like new programmers too much to suggest this. Even if they know C. - golang - Not a bad choice, but forced OO is a good thing to learn. - C# - I haven't done enough of it, but it felt like Java on the CLR to me. Maybe with some warts moved around. - Common Lisp: Too obscure, too alien to read. - rust - No... just no. Too early. - ML, Haskell and friends - Yes, I love you all. But... Understanding a simple type systems is important before taking on Hindley-Milner type system language. So I'm kinda stuck with Java. It sucks the least. :) The hours rule is nonsense. You can of course change career at 43. However, while we are all born with relative potential, intellectual capacity and more importantly, personality play significant factors. Intellectual capacity doesnt change much until past about 70 and it's tied to long term diet, lifestyle and external factors. Personality is also largely plastic past the age of 6. It can shift over time, and this is one of the advantages of youth, you are still malleable. Age beings to rob this from you as routine and habit starts to build up parts of your brain. Change takes time. 43 is still young in the grand scheme of things, particularly in 2022, but you must question if the change you want is simply your personality being novelty-seeking or the grass being greener elsewhere. One good reason is if your personality fit has been bad to your current work. I believe there is a genetic maximum capability by age (GMCA) for any given endeavour. Certain categories of endeavours require significant time spent in youth (early teens to mid twenties) in order to reach GMCA - let's call these type 1 endeavours. For others, you can start later in life and still nearly reach GMCA (type 2). Other endeavours are more heavily skewed to genetics and may not require a significant time investment (type 3). Examples of type 1 endeavours are violin, guitar, chess, skateboarding, gymnastics, hockey, soccer, competitive programming and slope style mountain biking. Examples of type 2 endeavours are cycling and long distance running. Examples of type 3 endeavours are sprinting, poetry and power lifting This is a bit of a strawman, but I think it has the potential to be more accurate than GMCA can be achieved simply in 10K hours. Thank you for a rarely heard voice of reason among the sea of self-help-inspired virtue signaling. I find this culture of explicit expectation of anyone being able to become anything at any age deeply depressing - not just for myself, but for society as a whole. It’s not hard to see the rising depression rates and the obvious relevant pathway towards it - society producing unrealistic expectations in the individual only to be shattered by uncaring reality X years later. This extreme blank slate-ism is simply inhumane at this point. We should acknowledge your simple model of individual human potential dependent on genetics, age and early learning. We should accept the fact that human neuroplasticity is a rapidly falling curve when plotted by age. With these truths in place we could develop objective evidence-based models of human potential and derive solid advice from these. Only such advice I would consider humane, while feel-good verbalizing should be considered abuse. If you think about it, professional sports training is structured not unlike this scheme. I wonder why we can’t accept this method for broader and more important sections of society. You can switch careers many times and at any age , you can even take up a new job without making a career out of it, simply to experience the work and to either get some insight (if, say, you're designing an app) or to help out some people who are short handed. That said, there are really only two criteria for sliding into a new job area: * people that will actually hire you | allow you to work along side them, * your ability to not be a dead weight and to assist in at least the TA | fetching food and drink | cleaning away tools and cables | etc dogsbody roles. It takes a long time to master many trades, it takes far less time to take part at the lowest levels and to start learning. My background is folk that take pride in being jack of all trades master of none, I've specialised a little and can count myself jack of many trades, 'master' of a few. I know people that were programmers or in the IT branch, now are pilots. Also know pilots (extremely good ones) that left, and started doing different things, from having a shop, to selling land (real state). It is never late! Just try. Failure is not trying. Btw no sure if that is your case, but this remembers me of the story: One guy was in a train visibly uncomfortable. At every stop, he was totally annoyed, and each stop worst. Other guy ask him why is he in such discomfort. “You see, I bought the ticket wrong, I’m going in the wrong direction. At each stop I think of stepping out, but that would mean losing the ticket completely!” If you are doing something not fulfilling, doesn’t matter how much you have invested. Stop and take the right direction. Assuming you live a lucky, healthy, full life with access to healthcare, you can live until your 80s. You will have at least another 25 years left to work in good health. There are some physically demanding jobs that you won't qualify for, but aside from those you've got plenty of options as to what you can do in the next 25 years. I think the real challenge is seeing a vast region of mountains ahead and mustering the willpower and focus necessary to traverse them. You have to want it and will it into reality. The journey begins with the next step. The 10,000 hour is bunk, by the way. Not even Gladwell will defend it. It was an interesting story about peak performance, but not scientifically valid. > The journey begins with the next step. Am I reading a quote from The Stormlight Archive? Life before death, journey before destination. I will ignore the speculation about how hard it will be, and just recommend Anki and spaced repetition to make it easier. You're almost as old as me, so there's a ton of old crap filling your head and it's harder to remember new things than it was when everything was new to you. Anki will help. I'm also trying to actively forget song lyrics, but that probably doesn't help. I do hate that probably 5% of my brain is filled with lyrics, and probably 1% is filled with the lyrics of songs that I don't even like. I hope they invent a plasticity drug that I can inject directly into the song lyrics center of my brain ("Bowie's Area," maybe?) There's an obvious elephant in the room here which is not discussed. 10k hours might let you master something (and even that claim is questionable like others have mentioned) but why do you need to be a "master" to switch careers? Being better at (say) web development than all the other people in your company that have other skills immediately makes you valuable in a specific way and starts your career shift. You can build up on that over the years. There are ways to reconfigure your life other than by "Switching". More gradual ways to ease into another career exist and can be worthwhile. Everything comes with a cost though so make sure you're willing to pay it. I haven't read the Gladwell book but I believe most or a lot of the examples used to prove the 10,1000 hour rule have been debunked. Very often the reason people will continue practicing for 10,000 hours is they've got some skill in it, or are getting a benefit from doing the skill before becoming an expert and hence continue to do it. Having said that there are many things you can be good at, make a living at, and enjoy doing before becoming a true expert. Or that your existing skills will transfer too. The important thing is to see (as much as you can) if you will enjoy doing and working hard at the "other job" before you make the leap I knew a guy who used to install metal roofs in farm country. In his late 30s he got a nasty job site injury and his boss screwed him out of workers comp. He'd always had a passive interest in computers and decided to get some certs at the local community college and start his career in IT. Messing around with scripting at his first job as a Junior Sys Admin he decided he liked coding more and became a software engineer. He's now in his 50s and a staff engineer at a unicorn. It can be done. I would focus less on hours and more on just finding something you can stick with and develop professionally. Forget about the 10k myth. I think it's absolutely feasible to switch careers at your age, and I assume it's software development you're thinking of. I think half a year to a year of intense study and practice should be enough to make you employable. But first, figure out if this is something you would like doing. Take a course like e.g. this https://www.coursera.org/learn/python for a month (you can audit it for free) and see if you actually like programming. If you do, carry on. Whether you can successfully switch career is up to you and how you define "career". I think the most underestimated "hard part" of mastering something new is that the path to mastery often looks like one failure after another. A long string of incompetence that makes one appear like a cargo-culting dilettante who keeps trying even as it appears they aren't getting anywhere. This is hard for folks to take, especially later in their careers. One has to have a thick skin to get through it. This resonates with me on a deeper level. You have one life. That's it. You have 3 choices: 1- You succeeded trying it. 2- Neutral outcome (still a win). 3- You fail. Failing at something will only teach you how to do it better or at its worst, leave you at the bottom of the barrel. The only thing you have after that is to get up and keep moving forward. The other side of that would be regret. Regret has to be the worst feeling in the world. The "why I didn't do it" thought will hunt you for the rest of your life. Could I switch career when I am 43? <grin> I switched wives at age 42. That was my biggest life-change ever. That old saying "Life begins at 40" is so very true. Here's the thing: "YOU CAN SWITCH CAREERS NO MATTER WHAT AGE YOU ARE." Most of us have opportunities to switch careers many times during our lives. Some of us take one or more of those opportunities as they arise, and some of us don't. It's your choice. Some of us are forced into different careers, because of external factors. That can be at any age. I was forced to take over the family property-rental business when I was 62. Yes I'm still 'working' a decade or so later, if you call working one to two hours a month 'working'. Money ceases to be a factor in your life when you have more money available than you can reasonably expect to spend in the years you have left. In my forties, I passed up an opportunity to become a computer programmer in the medical field when my first wife declined to move to a larger city. Five or so years later, I qualified as a commercial pilot, but the aviation downturn in the early nineties meant I earned more in my normal career as pharmacist at that time, then later on I was no longer able to pass the Aviation Medical. 10,000 hours may be a vague rule of thumb, but it says nothing about what is going on, and it's not just a matter of practicing. Learning, knowledge, wisdom, etc. all come from neural growth over time - your brain responds to thinking/concentrating/practicing by growing in the areas of the brain that were used, and this growth accumulates over time. Even in much older people the brain is plastic and is producing new neurons in addition to growing existing synapses, albeit at a gradually slowing pace. A corollary to this is, don't expect to understand things immediately - keep working at new concepts and skills. If you persevere, over time you will understand them and become proficient. It's important to note that "practice" can't be something like, for example, simply taking tennis lessons - you must be challenged and struggle for it to have an impact. I would also include desire as being essential - it must be something you truly want to do, not something you just go through the motions for. Also consider that your physical health, regular exercise, diet and quality of sleep are intimately tied to cognitive growth. I switched from a career in software development to creative producing in films and television. I make less pay and I am not the most skilled compared to others in the industry. I have some knowledge but I have lots to learn. Thanks to Covid none of the projects I have worked on have gone into production. But they will next year and I will have opportunities to learn then. I am no master. But I enjoy the job and I am happier. I made the switch at 36. The 10 000 hour rule is bullshit. But you're right that you can switch career and with enough practice (of the dedicated kind) you can indeed acquire proficiency in any skill. Gladwell is a soldier in the imperial arsenal. His books are disgusting because they mislead and confuse. I promise you it doesn’t take 10k hours to achieve whatever he thinks. It might take that long if you are going in alone with no mentor. But if you are then yes it’s too late. To become an expert. But who cares about being expert? Being good at your job doesn’t matter as much as being courteous and becoming friends with the people you interact with. Job proficiency just proves you don’t know anybody so you have to try and compensate by being an expert. You can only be an expert in games like basketball and chess. They wont divulge their secrets that they worked hard for unless you’re their son. Our system is a long drawn out affair filled with time eating classes and training that isn’t necessary. The European gentry planned it this way so that they could come over and take jobs quickly while we spent our time in school or stupid jobs like healthcare. They do this in all areas of the economy. At the end of the day a job is a job is a job. I would suggest you look at your current work and see if there's a sideways step you can get that keeps your current skills relevant but also gives you different exposure. I work in software, a sideways step for me would be to go towards admin / networky stuff, or to start doing BA style work. Fresh starts are hard only if you have existing commitments. Other posters have commented about the validity of the 10k hours rule. I actually think even more radically - career, or success in general, is not necessarily a matter of mastery, and thinking in terms of technical skills, may lead to failure, because the requirements for success may be other ones. In particular, successfully founding a company may require many qualities (and acts) that have nothing to do with technical skills, rather, with human ones. I'm not familiar with your boss, but it's possible that they just found a market need, and dedicated themselves to solving it, even with mediocre skills, but with the right human skillset (creative ideas, understanding of the market, orientation to get things done, effectively communicating, and a myriad of other things). There are certain fields where technical accomplishments is the main drive (Doom ;)), but in such cases, the answer whether that's possible or not is very obvious. I stress: it may seem paradoxical, but a strictly technical vision can be counterproductive even in a technical field. Tim Ferris' thoughts on the 10k rule (https://genius.com/Tim-ferriss-what-about-the-10000-hour-rul...), including "how do you define mastery?" and "are there ways to more efficiently master something?" How much of what you currently know can you relate and apply to becoming an expert in your new career? There might be more than you expect. As far as being more efficient, learning from someone who has the experience you seek can make a huge difference. I'm a mainly self-taught guitar player, and I spend a lot of time identifying problems with my technique and inventing little practice routines to work on correcting them. I enjoy this process, but I know I'd save a lot of time if I worked more with people who could easily identify issues with my playing and already know best practice routines to correct 'em. I started programming (intermittently because wife/kids and fulltime job) at ~37, got my first coding job at ~40. Do it. Use time management practices for max effect. I'm currently listening to Cal Newports' "Deep Questions" podcast, and even the first few eps (go back and listen from the start) have been tremendously helpful. Gladwell's 10k hours rule is disputed.[1] Assuming it were true, for sake of argument, it's not 10,000 hours to get good at something. The difference between bad and good is much, much smaller than the difference between being good and great at something. Josh Kaufman argues that 20 hours could be enough.[2] All things being equal, make a change. I did this more or less accidentally (applied for programming, got turned into a systems engineer) and it was terrific. Feeling stupid is awful, but it's pretty good for you in the end. [1] https://www.goodlifeproject.com/podcast/anders-ericsson/1 The 10,000 hours thing is A) probably more workforce folklore than fact, and B) about becoming an expert, but you don't need to be an expert to switch careers. Hell, you don't even need to be an expert to be highly successful. I'm in my 40s also and one of the things I've become certain about over the years is actual competency is depressingly low on the list of traits you need to have a successful career. Far more important are traits like confidence, charisma, the ability to bullshit (I hate this), and soft skills. Don't sweat the 10,000 hours. It's probably not true and you don't need to be an expert anyway. I'd say if you really want to switch careers, go for it. Worst case scenario is it doesn't work out and you can come back to your current field. That's a far better outcome than spending the remainder of your life wondering if you could have done it. The 10k thing is ridiculous for anyone who understands basic pedagogy and, as you mention, actually pays attention the competency of their peers across their life. Most individuals are stuck doing the same challenges over and over very early in their trajectory. It is not at all efficient for learning, but it is the safest bet for employers to ensure consistent production (in their minds anyway). The main benefit is having any kind of positive coefficient in a world where you have to work to pay your bills anyway. Do you know the difference between an expert and a non-expert? An expert knows more than you about something. Well, it's not quite that simple of course. But the point stands. You can do a lot of good well before that 10,000 hour mark. Think about dedicating just 1 hour to something. How much more will you know about it than your peers? I think it's a mistake to divide the world into pre-10,000 hours and post-10,000 hours. Mastery does take time. But you can do a lot for yourself by first becoming more knowledgeable and then becoming more practiced at something. You don't need to be a master before your life improves noticeably. > Any advice? What were you put on this planet to do? If you've already done it, then great. No need to change course. If not and it doesn't sit right, why wouldn't you change course? Time is always "running out" and it won't be any better at 53. 1. Gladwell has a difficult relationship with truth and reality. 10,000h rule is utter nonsense and has been debunked many times since. 2. You don't need to master anything to switch careers. You just need to be useful and productive. Many employers will value your experience, work ethic, knowledge and will trust you to learn on the go. You will definitely be an expert when you spend on something 10,000 hours. However, to change a career, you need much less. To get a very junior tech/programming job I would say it's something like 500-1000 hours. That's about the same as most coding bootcamps. And a lot of people who went through a coding bootcamp were able to get a job in tech. You sure can, but depends on people you need to support, and some luck. As to the rule, a few observations: - you don't need to become an expert to be in a certain career.
- Pareto rule applies. You can learn 80% of the job in 20% of the time. After that, it is diminishing returns, in which case you can be average and have a career. The 10,000 Hour Rule is misnamed. It's not a rule. It's a rough estimate. Also, when you read the small print, it does not guarantee success. It simply say that *if* you aim to achieve mastery - to be towards to the top of your given field - then expect to put in *at least* 10,000 hrs. It's a generalization and will vary from individual to individual and skill to skill. As a side note, I recently started reading "The Are of Possibility" by Zander and Zander. If your considering a career / life pivot then this book might be for you. https://www.thriftbooks.com/w/the-art-of-possibility-transfo... Rules are rough estimates. Do this and this could happen or not. Roughly stating a generalization of consequences. Every rule breaker does not get punished and vice versa. Just do it. I'm planning to switch jobs from Software Engineer to General Contractor, just working on saving up capital for heavy equipment and materials. I took a great training course and now just have to pass the licensing exam. If your passion changes, just change fields, life is short. I think this comment gets to the essence better than anything else: passion. Something is going to need to motivate you through the process of learning, failing, and growing in a new field. If your motivation is primarily based in getting away from what you are doing now then I suspect you have a difficult road ahead regardless of whether you change or not. But if you have some kind of passion about what you'd like to be doing instead then you've got the most valuable compass and sail you can ask for. This is cool. In construction? Do you plan on doing residential, industrial, or commercial? Do you have previous experience?I would love to build physical things for a living. Yeah going to do some even smaller projects first like retaining walls and building driveways. There are different license levels and they require different levels of capital. The lowest level mainly lets you build residential and has a limit on the number of stories for buildings and the full price of the project. One cool thing I've learned so far is how complex concrete is. Eventually will ramp up to commercial after things are running smoothly but the first thing I'm learning how to run a small business and it's new and exciting just doing that stuff. Cool, thx for the info. Best of luck with your venture! I'm sure being a technical person will come in extremely handy over and over again. The vaunted 10,000 hours are necessary to become globally competitive at some rivalrous activity where others are striving to be the best. It's woefully insufficient for such success, one also needs 'talent', which is a fuzzy but real measure of the inherent ability one has. So it's probably too late for golf and concert piano, these might make great hobbies, but you won't be playing the Masters or Carnegie Hall. Very likely, it wouldn't have mattered when you started, or how hard you worked, for those goals. Maybe you've got what it takes, but most people don't, so it's accordingly unlikely. That leaves almost everything else. If you're in good health, have the hustle and drive, why not? 43 is about median for successful new business founders, YN demographics notwithstanding. First, the 10k hour rule doesn't mean people are terrible and then suddenly become experts. They are getting better the entire time. I would argue the large majority of working professionals are nowhere near experts at their jobs for the simple fact if someone is any good they tend to get promoted to a new job. Second, I know many people who switched careers. You have plenty of time at nearly any age if you are willing to be humble and learn. I have found that it's not that older people can't learn, it's often they are unwilling. At someone who just turned 45, I make it a point to practice humble learning daily. Finally, think about what you can uniquely bring over from your old career to your new career. People skills transfer very well, but also industry knowledge and general business. >for the simple fact if someone is any good they tend to get promoted to a new job It's nowhere near that simple. "Too good at x in X to promote to y in X, where X is a career path and y is a stage above x" is fairly common. Two additions to the many comments saying the 10k rule is bullsh*t: 1. To quote one of my favourite coaches: "Practice doesn't make you perfect. _Perfect practice_ makes you perfect." 2. It can save you enormous amounts of time if you find the right teacher and teaching resources (eg. books, courses, etc.). But how do you know which ones are the right ones - for you? Also, note that you can certainly reach a fairly high level in almost anything you want, but it is much harder to improve on that. Unless you have talent or you started learning the thing in your childhood, there is definitely a glass ceiling, and it may be lower than you think. But then again it may as well be higher, and you don't know which until you try it. But then, of course, it is too late :) You don't need to master it to change career, just do it. You can always go back if you need to There is a distinction in paid work between the skill components and the social components. Very often seemingly high skill positions turn out to be given to/occupied by someone who only has social components- dresses well, is young, demonstrates aggressive behaviors, etc. Though his 10k hours for mastery of skillset thesis has been disproven- in the context that there does seem to be "talent" that cannot be "practiced"- I believe it myself and have observed substantial learning at older ages. However, for yourself I would question whether learning the skills is really what is required or are expectations and social components the more difficult obstacle to overcome. Good luck. > Could I switch career when I am 43? You can do anything you want. I switched at 27, with 5 years experience teaching at college and a masters degree in Biology/Chemistry. I jumped into computers. If I get sick of computers I'll do something else. I switched from System Engineer to Software Developer when I was 40. I need to make another jump now when I'm 50. You should be fine when you're 43. Just try to keep a lid on the imposter syndrome for a few years. Try not to be inflexible as well. And change up little things that you do from time to time. Try programming in an IDE if you've never done it. Try a new programming language. Change the shell you use. Whatever. Don't necessarily hop on the latest greatest trends on HN headlines since that can be exhausting, but there's lots of well worn technologies out there to stretch yourself with. I have spent far more time programming than I have in management, roughly 25 years in near full time versus 18 years part time. I now have the confidence to refactor people/departments the way I do functional programming. I am not sure how close to 10000 hours either of those skills are. If I had the freedom to start over right now (also 43) I would get into experimental horticulture. I think there are a lot of missed opportunities to improve macronutrient quality and water resource management with lower pesticide requirements for commercial agricultural in developing economies that wealthier economies frequently ignore. I think you first need to be honest with yourself about a few things, at least these: A) What does being a master really means to me? Others respect? Peer recognition? Work autonomy?
B) Am I willing to change careers knowing I will never be a master in it?
C) Does the trade-off of changing from a career that I master to a career that I will never master worth it? In your question there's already an implied NO, do not change, because being a master seems important to you. Regarding mastery, it's always difficult to achieve it, starting at 20 years old or starting at 50 years old. Most people don't achieve it, they just feel comfortable after a while. "mastery, it's always difficult to achieve it" The better I get at programming, the further I feel to be from the 'mastery' (whatever it is). You can do anything you put your mind to. But if you have doubts or not fully committed, then you're more likely to fail. In other words, just do it. Don't look back. You only have so many years of your life left. Make it worth it. If you think you're smart enough and good at learning, do it!
Whatever field you're planning to get into you'll be competing with a lot of non experts. Sure, you probably won't outclass people with the same IQ who've been doing it for longer - but who cares? Let's talk examples:
The reason tons of people from other professions can become devs and be competitive in a couple of years is because:
A. A huge chunk of lifelong professional developers are terrible
B. Even well paying jobs don't require you to do that much, it's the same crap over and over Hey young man, go West. When I was your age I switched from Ux to software dev. When I attended college at 43 I was the top student in all my CS classes. Same, when I attended an immersive 3-month bootcamp 5 years later. Now, nearly 10 years later I am an owner in a startup. I will admit that I had some advantages. First, I was a life-long programmer hobbyist. Mainly a dabbler but I made stuff, mostly games. Second, as a Ux designer, I worked in the industry and side-by-side with developers so I knew my way around the shop. And last, I've been a learner my entire life so getting in the groove to return to school was easy. Good luck. The 10K hour rule came from the research by Erics Anderson and you can learn more by reading his book "Peak: Secrets from the New Science of Expertise". It contests the generalized statement from Malcom Gladwell's writings and then the book makes sure to say that it it needs to be 10K of deliberate AND perfect practice (not just practicing incorrectly for 10k hours). This book will prove that you can learn anything at any age, and it doesn't need to be 10K hours to learn a shit ton. This is the first book I have my software student mentees read when they start. Why? Because it does one thing. Gives them hope. I know how it feels. Ive wasted my career missing good opportunities due to fear (and also missed many bad opportunities thanks to fear :) ). Assuming you dont have responsibilities like mortgage etc and fear is the only factor in your way - How would you feel about asking this same question in 10 years time when you are 53? By the way 10k hours is consistently spending 3 hours a day for 10 years. So you could spend the next 10 years practising and then switch - but that kind of all-or-nothing means you could have missed the boat for what it is you are trying to get mastery on. Depends what you want out of life and what career you're moving to... you can become pretty competent in a career in tech in just a few years and it will likely become lucrative pretty quickly. I feel that there will likely be increasing demand for programmers/engineers for decades to come. Check out Steve Yegge's youtube show for thoughts on this... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C8332hz8c2s&list=PLZfuUWMTtM... See this article The “10,000-hour rule” was debunked again. That’s a relief. https://www.vox.com/science-and-health/2019/8/23/20828597/th... "Which is why I find these debunkings of the 10,000-hour rule to be a complete relief. Because implied in the rule (at least, to me) is a deeply self-deprecating message: that if we fail to achieve greatness, it’s our own damn fault. And what screw-up would forgo greatness?" We fear change as we get older and we no longer like to take risks, especially if those risks can affect our earnings, stability etc. But if you sum up the currage, things can really change for the better. Go for it Thanks for sharing. You're absolutely right. I wonder when people will stop unquestioningly believe this 10k hours crap. If you spent a lot of time in one job there is good chance a lot of your skills are transferrable to the new one. When I decided to change jobs I figured out I want to make good use of the skills I already had, supplement them with some new skills and create a niche for myself that is overlooked/unpopular because it requires skills that you can't normally find on the market when looking at people who spent their entire life doing just one thing. Make the fact you are changing jobs your advantage, not your disadvantage. I used to dislike Gladwell but I've come to have a grudging respect for him. He took an old 7 word phrase "the straw that broke the camel's back" and turned it into a full length book called "The Tipping Point." People wanted to buy it because they liked exploring this idea in more depth and Gladwell made a bunch of money while becoming famous. It's hard to argue with success like that. I would never have thought that "the straw that broke the camel's back" needed further elaboration. The youtuber Veritasium recently did a video on the 10,000 hour expert. Summary: you need 4 things to become an expert. From comment with timestamps: 5:00 Repeated attempts with feedback.
6:47 Valid environment.
11:23 Timely feedback.
13:50 Don't get to comfortable. Video link:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5eW6Eagr9XA Comment link:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5eW6Eagr9XA&lc=UgwrcQiQhReOd... One thing I find helpful is to inventory your meta-skills. There are a lot of jobs that require meta-skills which can be super useful in completely different domains. Jobs that require you to learn things on the fly, jobs that require you to interact with people and navigate complex situations with multiple stakeholders, etc. You may find that there are a ton of things you are good at which will transfer readily to the new path you want to step out into. And even if not, it's probably worth a shot anyway if you are interested in it. The 10,000 hour “rule” is complete bullshit. I, for example, was a prodigy at art and a complete dunce at music. I got better at drawing much faster than my peers but I was more interested in music, where I simply could not figure out anything. Eventually that was frustrating and I gave up music but I can imagine that I would have been a world-class talent with 10,000 hours of drawing (I went into computer programming instead where I am just mildly above average) and 10,000 hours of music wouldn’t have done anything for me. Given Stable Diffusion maybe you made the right choice! I honestly just didn’t like drawing. >asserting that the key to achieving true expertise in any skill is simply a matter of practicing. It's been a while since I read it, but my takeaway was that the depth of familiarity brought about by 10k hours of practice in an area was just one factor of many that contributed to success. You need all those other factors in addition to the 10k hours. I think it's just humans with our predictable penchant for distilling accurate nuance down to adjacent-but-inaccurate bullet points that created the idea that 10k hours is all it takes. If you think you can afford to make a change and you have a clear goal, then you should take advantage of it before your life changes and you can't any longer. I had a major career change in my early to mid 30s (I'm 40 now) and it was one of the best decisions I've ever made. I've heard a saying which I heard is an old Chinese proverb; no clue if its background is true or not, but it goes like: The best time to plant a tree is 20 years ago. The second best time to plant a tree is right now. Yep. I switched career fields at 36, stayed for 14 years and then switched career fields again at 50. Still in this new career field but just changed companies in August at 52. It took me a relatively long time (6 to 9 months) to land this new job. I'm pretty sure my skills weren't where they needed to be as a software developer played more of a part than my age for other companies to not hire me. I had some great interviews but it all worked out. Really happy with the new company. Gladwell biased his measurement to experts in their field, did he not? 20 hours can be enough in many things to get started, 150 hours decent enough to begin to command income from those efforts, and if it is pleasurable to you and provides value to others, the road goes up from there in a positive feedback loop. That has been my experience. Consider giving it a go! Edit: I wish to add the paraphrased concept: Don't let perfectionism be the enemy of done/accomplished... Another lesson I am working on :) My teens was my first jobs; pizza places and pamphlets. My twenties was travelling, hospitality and finance. My thirties was university, science and programming jobs. My forties has been a masters and now teaching, I wonder what my fifties will bring. Each change has let me take skills and experience from one sphere and apply it differently. 10k hours is not a guaranteed unless it’s directed practice. 2k and some flexible thinking can get you a long way towards interesting and new experiences. Internet is domesticated in Iran, which is kinda like an intranet without access to the outside, however there are some data centers in Iran which still can access the Internet. For any kind of VPN to work, clients have to go through a proxy at least. I can't remember where I found the idea or if there is any scientific evidence behind it but I like it, increasing your rate of failure is the best way to learn something. If it took a computer 30 minutes to compile code, compared to a few seconds for a small program today, you could only run a program 8 times a day and debug your mistakes. So I would say, do not worry about time, but find a method of learning where failure is swift :) Yes, you can. You probably also want to take it step-by-step – i.e. test the waters before jumping in. If you are concerned about transition, take it slow: make a side project, then see if you can freelance on the side, part time it, then full time it. Mastery will come if you have a passion for the subject, and probably will not come otherwise. No amount of perseverance will make you interested in something you are not interested in. I have the feeling is in midlife when people switch careers, so 43 doesn't sound strange to me. You have to be ready to take an income cut though, at least at first. Other than that, I don't think you should be afraid. That 10k hour rule is stupid. Talent is what makes the difference, either you have it or not. Regardless, it has nothing to do with switching jobs, most people moderately suck at what they do and make living and live happy lifes. Expertise isn't something you need to start a career, it's something you gain over the course of a career. Figure out the minimum necessary skills to enter a new field and focus on developing those skills. Even if you did spent the (completely mythical, made up) 10,000 hours, you'd likely be wasting a lot of time if most of those hours aren't in the actual profession, as opposed to some detached academic hobby. You must always think you can do anything, push yourself to do and be better. Don’t let negativity enter your mind, with this thinking everything is possible. Never be afraid of change. It's difficult no doubt, but better than regrets later. Just make sure to know for sure this is what YOU want. And only YOU. 10K hours rule is to master something, its not a rule that prevents you from getting into important things now. Most things aren't exactly walking on a rope between skyscrapers level risky that you need absolute practice and perfection. You get lots of room to make mistakes and learn, and beyond all this doing things that matter is a matter of priority not practice. Whatever it is, get started now. I'm in my 60s and firmly believe I could learn just about anything I needed to make a living within a couple years. Obviously excluding things that require a college degree, e.g. doctor, lawyer, architect, etc. I taught myself enough programming to get into Microsoft and enough business to retire from what I earned myself. Specifically for software development, you have the example of Coding Bootcamps. It's not a guarantee, but the better your Bootcamp brand-name, the better your region's job prospects, the more time you spend hobby coding before applying for the Bootcamp, there's a very high likelihood of a successful transition into the software industry. And all in the period of 6 months to a year. The 10k hour rule has been debunked many, many times. I don't think Gladwell is intentionally a charlatan, but he's astonishingly sentimental given his choice of subjects, and notably, was never a practicing scientist. At worst he's a fluffy-haired priest to the rentier class, paid to soothe the intellects of Manhattan financialist pirates in the same way William Sumner once stroked the egos of Carnegies and Rockefellers. Rather then measure expertise with practice (subjective), I feel like it’s much more productive to measure it with time spent (objective, hence 10k hours) on it. Time spent feels much less stressful than “I’ve practiced heavily regularly”. Since humans inevitably improve with repetitions or practice, it’s less scary (for me or imo) to just “put in time” versus “practice” to get possibly better or intimidated by what’s “enough expertise” An anecdote: my mother dropped out of law school when she was younger. She finally went back to law school in her 50's, graduated, and is now a practicing lawyer in a field she is passionate about. Taking the time to go to law school was definitely a risk and a cost. It definitely was not easy for her. But it's absolutely possible, probably more so than most people believe for themselves. Even if we just accept it at face value... 10K hours to be an expert does not mean 10K to make a career change. It means 10K to be the top of your field. So it is really up to you - can you handle being a junior level team member for a few years? If so, switch and do what makes you happy. But if being the expert at the top of the field is more important to you, then do not switch. Range is a fantastic book that completely discredits the whole book. Give it a read, it will make you understand how the world actually works outside of elite athletes. https://www.amazon.com/Range-Generalists-Triumph-Specialized... Derek from Veritasium had a pretty good video on becoming an expert in anything and I didn't see age as a blocking factor. I'd say go for it! Also check out the video here, it's worth a watch https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5eW6Eagr9XA As soon as you buy in to any concept, idea or a myth — it (or rather your subjective interpretation of it) starts manifesting in your real life with real consequences. If you truly want to achieve some goal — you'd rather find and absorb any examples of other people achieving similar goals, and filter out everything else. Yes. It doesn't take 10k hours to master something. Nor do you need to master something to have it be your career. Being an outside to a new thing at your age can bring insights that others can't bring. Use your head, but there are lots of ways you can bring this to your advantage. It is the folks that cross domains that bring the gains. > Gladwell repeatedly refers to the “10 000-hour rule,” asserting that the key to achieving true expertise in any skill is simply a matter of practicing. It could be the greatest practice myth. Is everyone who has a rewarding career in an in-demand field actually a 'master' of that field? Seems unlikely. I took a coding boot camp at age 40+ and changed my career. Been working for years, making good money, very happy with the decision. Congratulation You don't need to become a master to switch jobs. You just need to be able to learn new things. You weren't a master at your current career when you started it. Assuming you will live to 86, you still have half your life ahead of you. But the longer you wait, the less time you have. Just do it. You will regret not trying. In my own experience, and based on what it I've observed, it's all about demand and supply. I have been hired for jobs even though I said "I do not have any experience doing this." If you're switching, switch to something that there's enough demand for that the chance you need a safety net is shall. My mom separated from my dad and, with a young child, went back to grad school at age 40. She got her PhD at 55, and tenure at 67. While she's a very difficult person, I do admire this trait and willingness to reinvent herself, and I think I've been more fearless in some ways because of it. Do what you want. You don't owe it to thr world to master your new thing. You just have to be good enough at it to get by. If you spend your remaining working years doing something you want, but perhaps at not the same level of performance as your last role, that's ok. Are you asking if you can switch to a developer career? I think absolutely. Remember, you don’t need to become a master to start a career. I know people who have gotten work after doing a bootcamp. The most difficult task will be getting your foot in the door. After that, you’re golden. That book is nonsense, so I would disregard it in this context. Programming language matters. You can't really achieve
expertise with some in any amount of time. Choose a simple language at first. Also, I recommend learning more languages than just one. It gets easier the more you know. Regardless of validity of the 10k hour “rule”, you absolutely can. My mother, who had an undergraduate degree in electrical engineering but was a stay-at-home mom for 25 years, went to law school when she was 46. She worked as a patent attorney for 10 years before retiring. Gladwell is hugely entertaining. His conclusions, unfortunately, range from arguable to wholly indefensible conjectures. Many have disputed the 10k hour rule. “Practice makes permanent” is a thing. If you’re really excited to learn something new, and have a modicum of aptitude, and have a mentor, go for it. Act to minimize future regret. Sam Walton was about 45 when he started walmart. I've made career pivots several times, most recently this year, at age ~39. Just do whatever you're interested in... major pivots require the willingness and stamina to drink from a firehouse, so keep that in mind. Walton's story is the opposite of the OP. Walton was in retailing for years. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sam_Walton It doesn't take 10000 to become good enough at something to work in it. A couple of hundred hours is often enough. If you want to work as a programmer, management consultant, business developer or similar that is. Becoming first violin does take tens of thousands of hours. I successfully switched careers at 51. The way I did it was to: 1. Figure out what I really wanted to do.
2. Build a plan to make that transition.
3. Test each phase of my plan and make adjustments along the way. Since then, I've worked at two Big Tech companies doing what I enjoy doing. You might want to read Grit:
https://www.amazon.com/Grit-Passion-Perseverance-Angela-Duck... Are you switching jobs to something completely different, where absolutely none of your current skills are transferrable? Given your age, that seems unlikely, as you've probably chalked up a fair amount of experience in various areas. Check out the 100h rule. https://www.codingvc.com/p/the-100-hour-rule A lot of professionals are not in the 10,000h range and a few 100h is more achievable. Regardless of whether the 10,000 hour rule is true, it seems you are conflating becoming an expert with successfully switching careers. I know more people than not who are successful in their careers despite being non-experts. Think of it another way. It will take you a few years to get kinda good at something. Even less to get kinda good enough to be paid for it. Time is only a factor for retirement. Your career will mostly be forgotten when you retire anyway. A short video regarding "10000 hours" and learning in general - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5eW6Eagr9XA Working in technology you should plan to reinvent yourself several times during your career. I used to be a Novell Netware engineer, fast forward forty years and I have to explain what that was to people. Even if the 10,000 hours to be an “expert” is valid, you don’t need to be an expert to be successful. You don’t need other people to validate your choices or your define your level of expertise or success. Best advice, plus best delivery of said advice: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZXsQAXx_ao0 I know someone who in his 40's, after working in the navy, then went to medical school and became a doctor! You can certainly do it if you are willing/able to put the time into it. Absolutely can switch careers, I did it and was one of the best decisions I made. For me was doing something I've also wanted to do with a Company whose core values matches my own. So lets say you plan to retire in 22 years. An 18-year-old starting college will be 40 in 22 years. I would say you have plenty of time so don't waste it. One thing I don't see used strongly enough is know-how transfer from GenXers to Millenials. Docs won't do it. And everything depends on that. Please explain detail and context further. Do you mean a mentorship kind of relationship? The 10k hour rule has been debunked by many studies. For further reading, I recommend the book: Range: Why Generalists Triumph in a Specialized World by David Epstein "There's no speed limit"
https://sive.rs/kimo Not the exact timing, but my grandfather started a phd in his late 30s. He then had a fulfilling career as a professor for almost 20 years. Theoretically I think that it’s 10k for one thing then 10k minus all the the amazing things that you learnt in your first 10k Were you an expert in your current field right at the start? Or did you learn things over time? You can always change things up. Just do it. My wife is starting to study UX design... She is 42.. she doesn't know a single windows command line command So yeah, you definitely can :) it's not the number of hours you put in - it's how you practice. you can get very proficient quickly if you apply insights to your performance to identify your shortcomings and address those. and similarly you can spend 30k+ hours learning something and be merely mediocre. You'll use a lot of skills from your current job in the new career path. Just do it! Can you not switch career, given that you don’t like your current one? Absolutely. I've had multiple careers, my most recent starting when I was 46. N If you have a bit of a safety net, by all means give it a try. I wish I could. 10k hours is only 5 years. You will be a master before you are 50. i would try not to fall prey to an entirely "rationalist" perspective here you cannot predict the future and success is dependent at least as much on "luck" as it is on expertise yes, only that it will take 2-3 years of work on the new topic. One benefit of it at this age is your brain will remain fresh and young. If you want to do it, do it. Fuck everything else. Read Art of Impossible by Steven Kotler Switch to or from software engineering? If you have to ask, don’t do it. don't ever do, say, or think anything because of malcolm gladwell Am I the only one wondering why almost everyone asking HN questions gets downvoted every da*n time ?
I don't get why people love to hate on him so much. He was just popularizing the idea that talent takes effort and is not predominantly innate. ( But I do agree the Beatles example is BS and contrary to the DP principles ) There is a lot of confusion about the 10,000 rule that I talk about in Outliers. Practice isn't a SUFFICIENT condition for success. I could play chess for 100 years and I'll never be a grandmaster. The point is simply that natural ability requires a huge investment of time in order to be made manifest. Unfortunately, sometimes complex ideas get oversimplified in translation.