My advice for kids: The 1,000-hour rule

Philip Guo:

I’m not yet qualified to give general life advice to kids, but I would like to share one simple piece of advice that I would’ve liked to hear when I was a kid:

Find something you genuinely enjoy doing for its own sake, stick with it, keep learning more about it, and after a decade or so, you can’t help but get good at it and feel proud of yourself.

This is my own personal take on the popular 10,000-hour rule, which claims that it takes around 10,000 hours of intense practice to become an expert in a particular topic. For instance, top-notch musicians, artists, athletes, scientists, and other experts in their respective fields all share a common experience: They practiced consistently and with high intensity for over 10,000 hours, often starting at a young age. That amounts to practicing for 4 hours every weekday for a decade straight, which takes tremendous passion and perseverance.