Medical-Legal Topics

The Beatles practiced over 10,000 hours

Are people born lucky? Is success a fluke? Malcolm Gladwell’s Outliers book exposes the myth that some people are successful because they are born lucky, intelligent or ambitious. This has direct applicability to the success of attorneys and legal nurse consultants. One chapter of the book traces the success of New York Jewish lawyers born in the 1930s. Many of them were children of garment manufacturers, who came to Manhattan at a time when their specific skills were needed.  Their children observed the successes that came from being smart, ambitious and hardworking.

Gladwell argues that success is not a random act. It arises out of a predictable and powerful set of circumstances and opportunities. The New York Jewish lawyers who rose to the top of the New York legal profession were born in the 1930s. They received the best attention from uncrowded public schools and had the easiest time in the job market. They learned about the connection between effort and reward from their hardworking parents. The doors were closed to them at the big gentile downtown law firms so they were overwhelmingly sole practitioners who worked hard, learned their craft, and were ready to take advantage of the rising tide in litigation that began in the 1970s.

Gladwell’s book identifies the 10,000 hour rule. This concept shows that the more time a person puts into learning a craft, the better the skills and the higher the chance of success. Gladwell described Bill Joy, who wrote much of the software that allows you to access the internet. He spent eight to ten hours programming a day while he was in college. Bill Gates spent about seven years in nonstop programming before he dropped out of Harvard after his second year. Early in their career, the Beatles spent eight hours a day, seven days a week performing in Germany. All of these efforts resulted in at least 10,000 hours of experience perfecting knowledge. Consider Michael Jackson’s career began when he was 5-years-old. Berry Gordy said of Michael Jackson: “He had a hunger to be the best and was willing to work as hard as long as it took.

Gladwell’s thesis is that people are not successful because of luck. The brightest people are not always successful. Outliers are those who have been given opportunities- and who have had the strength and presence of mind to seize them. It is dedication, determination, and problem solving that adds up to success.

FYI- Med League began in 1989, although I began reviewing cases as an expert witness in 1987. I can say we’ve passed the 10,000 mark long ago.

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Tags: attributes of success, Bill Gates, Bill Joy, legal success, Malcolm Gladwell, Michael Jackson, The Beatles, The Outliers

This entry was posted on Monday, July 6th, 2009 at 7:33 am and is filed under Business skills, Trial lawyer skills. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.