Can 10,000 hours of practice make you great?
Jan 27, 2025•37 min•Transcript available on Metacast Episode description
I explore the truth behind the famous 10,000-hour rule, popularized by Malcolm Gladwell. Today, Prof Alex Edmans uncovers why the rule persists despite its flaws and dives into the psychological biases that make misinformation so believable.
You’ll learn:
Why the 10,000-hour rule isn’t as universal as it seems (feat. insights from Alex Edmans).
How confirmation bias shapes beliefs—from the Atkins diet to Deepwater Horizon.
The dangers of narrative fallacy in explaining success (feat. 1975 Barry Staw study).
Real-world examples of misinformation, from Belle Gibson’s cancer cure claims to Volkswagen’s diesel scandal.
A simple mental trick to fight confirmation bias and save yourself from misleading ideas.
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Alex’s book May Contain Lies: https://maycontainlies.com/
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Sources:
Gladwell, M. (2008). Outliers: The story of success. Little, Brown, and Company.
Edmans, A. (2024). May contain lies: How stories, statistics, and studies exploit our biases—and what we can do about it. University of California Press.
Kaplan, Jonas T., Sarah I. Gimbel and Sam Harris (2016): ‘Neural correlates of maintaining one’s political beliefs in the face of counterevidence’, Scientific Reports 6, 39589.
Wong, Nathan Colin (2015): ‘The 10,000-hour rule’, Canadian Urological Journal 9, 299.
Staw, Barry M. (1975): ‘Attribution of the “causes” of performance: a general alternative interpretation of cross-sectional research on organizations’, Organizational Behavior and Human Performance 13, 414–32.
