Malcolm Gladwell's '10,000 hour rule' as detailed in his 2008 book Outliers was, when it came out, a concept that many grasped onto in making sense of work and the world. The idea that putting in 10,000 hours brings us to mastery in our chosen field is nice, tidy and easy to buy into. In 2009, he was on Reddit answering questions and wrote: There is a lot of confusion about the 10,000 rule that I talk about in Outliers. It doesn't apply to sports. And 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...