I was reminded today listening to my Spotify Radio station of a song by Macklemore called Ten Thousand Hours. An amazing song with really deep lyrics.
…
See, I observed Escher
I love Basquiat
I watched Keith Haring
You see I study art
The greats weren’t great because at birth they could paint
The greats were great cause they paint a lot
I am still shocked by these words, so true and relatable. If you want to be great, a professional…you must work at it. It frustrates me that some people I work with struggle with this concept. It will take time for you to master this software, to build a network, a reputation. I know that reading and writing was never my forte. I spent my 10,000 hours focused on math, scratch that…sports. And even with that focus, it was still not 10,000. It was when I was told to practice. I went through conditioning every year and it was hard every year. If I did run or workout all the time…conditioning would have been easier. Reflecting on the last 10,000 hours I have focused on a single thing…it has been software. No surprise if you know me. Now I am the BIM guy in the office. My job even has the word “specialist” in it. Now I have to work harder to learn deeper into the parts that no longer come easy. I am using software I had never heard of 4 years ago. I am starting to get into writing code…and that is exciting for me. Funny, now…reading and writing is my business. Maybe after 10,000 hours of writing on this site with encourage me to write a book worth reading. If I want to get in shape, I should run for 10,000 hours (or at least 10 minutes to start).