that might be a good number to throw out, but in many fields some reach a top level quicker and some are never capable.
This is correct. Originally the term was (pretty much made out of thin air). It was originally from a book called "The Sports Gene" and the "theory" has been widely criticized. .............
The SPorts Gene Actually, the 10K hours "rule" wasn't pulled out of thin air, it came from the early 2000s published studies of master violin students by Dr. Anders Ericsson, an FSU psychologist and adopted by many publications since. It's a pretty decent indicator of how long it takes to raise your game to the "expert" level in anything, but as others have mentioned, it's not an exact science (with the endless variables involved in this discussion, no amount of hours could ever
cover everything).
He also stated that 10K hours of practice alone wouldn't make anyone an expert, but that it took "deliberate practice" with constant improvements and tweaks to truly master any particular activity. He stressed that 10K hours of practicing terrible technique would only serve to yield terrible results. Learning from mistakes and constantly pushing yourself over time at your activity is more important than any arbitrary amount of hours.