10,000 hours doesn't guarantee mastery

And a quote that completely changed how I approach mastery

Feb 22, 2025

10,000 hours to achieve mastery.

That’s what we all hear as the “benchmark” to achieving mastery that was made popular by Malcolm Gladwell in his book Outliers.

Is it true?
Is there more to it than that?
Is it as “simple” as putting in the hours and it being a guarantee?

Or is there another dynamic missing from this popularized statement?

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Mastery: a short history

I could pretend to be a master on the subject of mastery (← sorry for the meta-ness there), or I could quote + paraphrase people who’ve been studying this for decades and know how to say it much better than I can, so here’s the TL;DR from Robert Greene, in his book Mastery:

“We imagine that creativity and brilliance just appear out of nowhere, the fruit of natural talent, or perhaps of a good mood, or an alignment of the stars. It would be an immense help to clear up the mystery— to name this feeling of power, to examine its roots, to define the kind of intelligence that leads to it, and to understand how it can be manufactured and maintained. Let us call this sensation mastery— the feeling that we have a greater command of reality, other people, and ourselves. Although it might be something we experience for only a short while, for others— Masters of their field— it becomes their way of life, their way of seeing the world. (Such Masters include Leonardo da Vinci, Napoleon Bonaparte, Charles Darwin, Thomas Edison, and Martha Graham, among many others.) And at the root of this power is a simple process that leads to mastery— one that is accessible to all of us.”

And about the process of obtaining mastery:

“We enter a new field with excitement, but also fear about how much there is to learn ahead of us. The greatest danger here is boredom, impatience, fear, and confusion. Once we stop observing and learning, the process towards mastery comes to a halt.
But if we manage these emotions and keep pushing forward, we start to gain fluency, and we master the basic skills allowing us to take on bigger and better challenges.
Eventually, we move from student to practicioner. We use our own ideas and experiments, getting feedback in the process. We start to use our own style
Then as we continue for years we make the leap to mastery. We develop an intuitive sense of the skill and have mastered it to the point of being able to innovate and break the rules.”

I promised a short history, so I’ll wrap it at that. Should give you the context you need for what’s coming next. If you want to go deeper, those two books are great starters to learn more about the subject.

“Mastery” by Robert Greene + “Outliers” by Malcolm Gladwell

False mastery

Ok, so it might not be false mastery, but using generalized benchmarks like “10,000 hours” as a measurement to say you have achieved mastery once you hit that mark doesn’t have a 100% hit rate.

For context (and because I’m a data nerd) 10,000 hours equates to 1.14 years for those interested.

I’ve been breathing for my entire life, so I’ve certainly logged over 10,000 hours of “breathing time,” but would I say I’m a breathing master? Not a chance.

I played soccer from age 5 through 22 regularly, and have continued to dabble on weekends in my 30s. Well over 10,000 hours logged playing soccer. But it’s Saturday morning here in the US and I’m typing this newsletter up and not on the pitch playing in an EPL match.

I think you get where I’m going with these examples. Time logged is not a guarantee of mastery.

And no, I’m not here to argue with Malcolm Gladwell or Robert Greene. I’m more than sure they’d agree with me on the above and that it’s a generalization, an average, of how long it takes to become a master if you truly dedicate yourself to something.

True mastery

“The difference between a student and a master is that a master never stops being a student.”

If there is one line that perfectly sums up the difference between “false” and true mastery, it would be the above.

I’ve come across countless examples in books, podcasts, and in-person seeing this statement hold true.

We see the experts + masters who continue to hone their craft and share their learnings openly with anyone who will listen.
We see the experts + masters who actively seek shortfalls and weaknesses in their practice to improve those.

Then we see the “experts” + “masters” who tell people what to do because “it’s what worked” to get them to where they are, so it’s the only way to continue. (note: see the rise + fall of the predictable revenue model as a growth strategy to understand why this mindset is dangerous).

These “experts” and “masters” in the latter example are a group that were true masters at one point. But then they stopped learning. Or they shifted their focus and continued learning, but in other areas. So their “mastery” of the former subject diminishes over time. Times change. Practices evolve. Markets evolve. Everything evolves. Mastery is the ability to continue on a forward trajectory of the focus subject AND the ability to adapt your trajectory with the constantly evolving landscape surrounding it.

And that is precisely why true mastery is only achieved when we realize that mastery is never actually achieved. It’s a path we continue on daily through learnings + actions.

A lesson in the reality of mastery

I like to think I’m good at marketing and B2B growth. I’ve spent my entire professional career on a path focusing on those. Seeing the strategies available, the tactics to go about executing them, and the playbooks required to accomplish desired results.

I’ve felt comfortable about the strategy I’ve been running for a few years now. I know it well. I know it’s pros and cons. I know what resources I need to do it, from team members to budgets to tech. And I know how it’ll pan out over a week, a month, a quarter, a year, and multiple years.

But things are changing RAPIDLY in B2B right now, especially in marketing + GTM. And I’m at a crossroads. I could keep doing what I’ve always done because “it worked for me,” but I’ve seen how this plays out already with the rise + fall of the predictable revenue model strategy. AKA that’s not an option.

So that leaves me with the alternative and the ultimate lesson of this newsletter. I need to adapt. Take the fundamentals of what I know works and adapt that to the changing environment. The "modern” demand gen approach is not the most modern approach anymore. Access to vast quantities of accurate data used to be reserved for organizations with VERY deep pockets. But that’s not the case anymore.

I could keep segmenting based on high-level firmographic + demographic information and messaging them accordingly. But we’ll fall behind if we do that. Competitors will leapfrog us. And the market will also come to expect more relevance in how they’re approached + marketed to.

So that leaves me here today looking at what’s changed and exploring the resources needed to continue to be successful moving forward. The skills I need. The skills I need my team to have. The tech we use to act on our strategy. The offers we present to the market.

It’s very rare to have a time like we do now where so many variables are changing at once, but like it or not, it’s the hand we’ve been dealt. And this is where we must ask ourselves the question: are we willing to continue to be students in order to stay on our paths to mastery?

In case you missed these this week

I felt like I was constantly behind. Never getting enough done + a constantly growing to-do list. Then two weeks ago it finally clicked for me and I found my way off of the hamster wheel…

Friendly reminder that human content is still > AI content, quality > quantity, and depth > breadth

Each of us will experience just a handful of career-defining moments in our lifetimes. And I know that today will be one of those in mine with a $115M investment placed in Loxo to help level up the entire recruitment market.

Friday health thoughts: creating your very own Swolebook with Clay GTM (Go-to-Muscle)

See you next Saturday,
Sam

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