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.
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?
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.
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.
The advice I like is "read them until they all sound the same".
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.
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.
A change shouldn't be just hoping that you "end up at the right place at the right time" this time. That is rare.
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.
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.
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.
Why doesn't that count as practice?
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.. :-)
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.
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.
* 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?
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.
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.
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.
However, there is a huge and dynamic middle ground that can be conquered by anyone through nothing but work and dedication.
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.
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.
Well after a few months, a company made a job offer and I'm very happy. Thank you!
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'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/
https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2017/08/the-dan-p... https://archive.ph/yPd3R
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/
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.
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".
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.
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'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.
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.
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.
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?
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.
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...
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:)
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.
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.
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.
Very true. It's also miserable with an IDE.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Am I reading a quote from The Stormlight Archive? Life before death, journey before destination.
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?)
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.
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
It can be done. I would focus less on hours and more on just finding something you can stick with and develop professionally.
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.
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.
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.
<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.
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 am no master. But I enjoy the job and I am happier. I made the switch at 36.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
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 main benefit is having any kind of positive coefficient in a world where you have to work to pay your bills anyway.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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...
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.
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.
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.
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.
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 :)
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.
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 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.
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.
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.
The better I get at programming, the further I feel to be from the 'mastery' (whatever it is).
In other words, just do it. Don't look back. You only have so many years of your life left. Make it worth it.
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
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.
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.
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.
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?"
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.
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...
And even if not, it's probably worth a shot anyway if you are interested in it.
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.
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.
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 :)
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.
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.
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.
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.
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 taught myself enough programming to get into Microsoft and enough business to retire from what I earned myself.
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.
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”
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.
https://www.amazon.com/Range-Generalists-Triumph-Specialized...
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.
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.
Is everyone who has a rewarding career in an in-demand field actually a 'master' of that field? Seems unlikely.
Been working for years, making good money, very happy with the decision.
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.
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.
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.
The most difficult task will be getting your foot in the door. After that, you’re golden.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Time is only a factor for retirement. Your career will mostly be forgotten when you retire anyway.
You don’t need other people to validate your choices or your define your level of expertise or success.
Range: Why Generalists Triumph in a Specialized World by David Epstein
You can always change things up. Just do it.
She is 42.. she doesn't know a single windows command line command
So yeah, you definitely can :)
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 cannot predict the future and success is dependent at least as much on "luck" as it is on expertise