The 3rd time I got fired from a job, I was 26 and my wife was 3 months pregnant. I was an engineer and sales were slow and I was in the first of a round of layoffs.
I later found out my boss, who’d had to throw somebody under the bus, felt horribly guilty.
A lot of people were bitter. A VP sat me down to explain the severance package and health insurance stuff. When I got up to leave I shook his hand. I said, “Thanks for letting me work here for the last 2 1/2 years, it’s been great. Hey, it’s not like on the same day I was born, some other guy was born with an obligation to give me a job. So thanks for the opportunity while it lasted. See ya!”
I spent the next six weeks scouring Chicago for engineering jobs. Without transferring out of state, couldn’t land one. Went into sales.
Quickly got some job offers. One day I was informing one of my friends about this and he says, “That’s a whole profession unto itself…. Perry, I hope you’re prepared for the learning curve.”
I’m cocky: ‘Hey pal, no problem. I’m a quick study.’
The next 2 years was a HARD SLOG. Now instead of finding a job once, I’m hunting for a job every single day. Flippin’ thru that manufacturer’s directory and poundin’ that phone and criscrossing the entire Chicago metro in my 1989 Honda Civic.
I liked that job but not once in the entire 2 years did a single major project or quotation come through.
Finally my boss, Wally, had had enough. “Sorry Perry, we have no choice but to let you go.”
Fortunately the next job sort of “clicked” (figuratively and literally) and finally started to find a groove. But lemme tell ya, it was 2+ years of baloney sandwiches and ramen soup before I even got to the level of “somewhat competent.”
Can you relate to this? :^>
Now here’s the thing:
What would happen if: Once you start to crack the “sales career code” you don’t let up? What if, once you start getting decent commission checks, you become MORE obsessed with perfecting your game, not less?
Them are the makings of a 10,000 Hour Master.
Most people let up, once things become comfortable. They’ve got 5,000 hours under their belt and then for the rest of their life they just repeat the same 5,000 hours and don’t learn anything new.
What if you press constantly forward into new territory?
Well for one thing you spend obscene amounts of money on education, amounts that most of your friends couldn’t possibly relate to. (Only because they think student loans are mandatory and seminar tickets are optional.)
The other thing that happens is you develop an ability to solve problems so easily and so quickly, people around you start to think you possess some kind of magic.
The journey is ALWAYS harder than you thought it would be.
My friend is writing a historical fiction novel. Historical fiction is tough because it requires tons of painstaking historical research. She’s 1/3 through it and it’s a LONG HARD SLOG. She’s going “Why did I ever sign up for this??? I’m never doing this again!”
Especially since there’s NO guarantee whatsoever that her novel will be well-received, or even that it will sell.
How many times have you heard about the woman in labor who screams at her husband, “If you EVER do this to me again, I’m going to cut your balls off with stainless steel scissors!”
But once the baby comes…. travails are forgotten.
I told my friend: ‘Hey, historical research is what sets you apart from 95% of the other authors in the world – and you’re good at it. So keep pressing on.’
I likewise reassure you: When you get to the other side, you always find the process has changed you. Not only does your toolbelt have more gadgets than everyone else’s, the experience has also molded your character. You’re wiser, more discerning, much less likely to get taken in by the flim-flam men.
You’ve graduated.
Once you graduate, go ahead and take the summer off. But when fall rolls around, enroll yourself in another course in the school of hard knocks and clock them 10,000 hours. There’s nothing like true Mastery. And Mastery requires, above all, a decision to just keep playing the game, to keep pressing the edge.
Perry Marshall
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About the Author
Perry Marshall has launched two revolutions in sales and marketing. In Pay-Per-Click advertising, he pioneered best practices and wrote the world's best selling book on Google advertising. And he's driven the 80/20 Principle deeper than any other author, creating a new movement in business.
He is referenced across the Internet and by Harvard Business Review, The New York Times, INC and Forbes Magazine.
45 Comments on “The Secret of the 10,000 Hour Master”
Such a fantastic story. I should learn the lessons of this. Thanks for sharing.
Great to read your story.
I think it is hard to accept a lay off. But with the right attitude it is a lot easier. I have learned a lot from your process you went through.
So, thanks for the insights.
Michaela
Good story Perry. classical art of drawing…
after 10000 hours, it will be mega master.
I wanted to drop you a quick note to express my thanks as I have enjoyed the way you’ve structured your site which is very nice one and gives in depth information. I think it will be helpful for me as well
you are really impressive perry.
This is definitely a nice post! I like it when you said that the journey is ALWAYS harder that you though it would be. I couldn’t agree more on these phrases. I understand that not all people understand how essential it is for someone to get a job. And even though you’ve got that job already, you must work hard, work your way up in order to become successful. And prove that your worthy of the opportunity given unto you.
Is it okay to post some of this on my page if I post a reference to this page? Thanks for posting btw
Yes, that’s fine.
10000 hours means lots of hard work, i appreciate you.
i think it must be 10000 hour of mastering
i really happy after reading your story
Hi Perry. Your story really inspired me to go ahead and also enter into the “10,000 Hour Challenge”. I think that the current economic situation grants everyone to aquire the most advance education possible. Great inspiration from you.
The Secret of the 10,000 Hr Master
was the best post I have read this year, for you to reflect on your past and see your evolving to your success is a real gift, not to just yourself, but for your readers.
Thanks Dale
Awesome article!
It doesn’t matter if it’s formal education or life education, just as long as you are educating your self and learning form your mistakes.
In the game of golf if your off just by a few millimeters it makes your ball go far off course. Same is true with all skill sets. If you are doing something wrong in sales or in any aspect in life you could be off just by a little bit. Or if you are making a decent salary if you possibly adjust your strategy by just a few millimeters it can make a huge difference.
Thanks for the post
Good story Perry. classical art of drawing…
Alen
Excellent article once again Perry and so true. I am now in my early sixties and working my way through another 10,000 hour with this internet marketing lark.
True entrepreneurs never stop and my next challenge was thrown to me by my wife Jane who is in the process of getting it published.
“OK Dave”, she said to me, “you can be my marketing manager”.
So there we go again a hole new pile of skills to learn, at least I’m already part way there. Anyway what would we all do without a challenge.
Yep. I was one of those “circle-drawing machines”. Hit 18% in 5 months. Looked like we were a couple of months from 25% when sponsor’s sponsor got serious stupid — 5 legged Emerald.
25 years later, only a passive user of product.
But I’ve been immersed in this copywriting thing for about 4 years now. Engineers take a lot longer to learn, I guess. I was a senior tech writer for 20 years after a decade of EE at a big computer company.
Saw an AWAI ad for six-figure copy course. Looked like a cake walk. Yeah, right. Now I’m surrounded by the most competent professionals on planet earth.
Close to age 66, “retired” 10 years ago. But I just finished a gig (defense project — tech writing) that netted close to $100/hour.
Working on more opportunities. It takes thousands of hours to learn enough to get half-good. Thousands more to master it. My senior tech-writing skills put me at #1 out of close to 50 peers and made me a target of every mealy-mouthed pinhead in the bunch — especially bumbling managers who are more interested in their little fiefdom than in making their employer successful.
I was good. But I had over 20,000 hours of experience too.
Copywriting isn’t tech writing, so it was start-over time.
And those 25 years with Amway? I still consider it a valuable investment because it added substantially to my success as an employee and still gives huge insights into what I do now.
DON’T QUIT.
Doing some figuring here, estimating. At 40 hrs’week and 50 weeks a year, 10,000 hours is 5 years! My credit card isn’t that big!!! Are there any shortcuts?
Yes.
Get a client.
“In the land of the blind, the man with one eye gets to be king.” You don’t have to be a 10,000 hour master to do comparatively outstanding marketing for a flower shop, a restaurant, or a manufacturer of rubber gaskets. Everybody has a friend who is a business owner who knows his marketing sucks.
In most industries, a “500 hour master” is considerably above average. You can get 500 hours just by dabbling part-time for a year! I bet MOST people reading my blog already have 500 hours.
In just about any endeavor, the secret is getting PAID a living wage to log your 10,000 hours. If you have a flower shop client, a restaurant client and a rubber gasket client, you can pay your bills working 20 hours a week and you can spend the other 20 hours tackling whatever kind of advanced marketing project or pie-in-the-sky endeavor you want.
You’ll never become a Jedi marketing master just by working for a local flower shop, just like you’ll never become Jimi Hendrix playing guitar for radio jingles. But if you’re “in the business” and playing your guitar every day you inevitably find opportunities to try your hand at the tough assignments.
Oh, and by the way, one of the ways to develop advanced marketing skills is to simply get good at attracting clients.
There is another interesting thing Perry. If you spend 10000 hours doing one highly skilled thing and then 10000 hours mastering another completely different thing you get all sorts of weird and valuable synergies coming up that even true masters either one discipline would never think of.
I truly believe everything has to do with hours.
As a poker author in my other life, the proliferation of young poker-superstars is directly attributed to this.
In the past, you could play about 40 hands / hour in a live, casino environment.
Through the Internet and playing multiple tables, you can play 400+ poker hands / hour.
This means you could get 10 years of experience in 1 year and it is theoretically possible to get MORE than one “lifetime’s” worth of experience.
Heh, the only problem is that the younger players don’t have much personality. The interviews are repeatedly, “Mr. X is 23-years old. He started playing in college and now does this full-time”
It’s funny you say that! I got started in my real estate career, and right at about 2 years, I got to the point where I was turning business away because I had all I could handle. Realizing that that was a silly thing to do, I started my own company, and instead of skimming commissions off of my agents’ efforts, I made a conscious effort to continue to learn about marketing, and joined your coaching program.
About 10,000 hours into my real estate career, I built my real estate company to over 50 agents. Right about the point where the market was really slowing down, my mentors convinced me that my skillset wasn’t real estate, but in generating traffic. Now, having been a consultant for companies ranging from selling frisbees one at a time, to large commission items, I’ve continued to learn in areas I never thought learning was possible.
The learning never stops.
The most dificult thing I think is to get rid of those around you that block your vision and progress. At the same time you also need people to work with you. Can’t do it all alone. (Perry doesn’t do it alone either I think.)
However, getting rid of all those that block you is a lot more difficult than it seems. But it is possible. Realizing who the ones are that block you is already something that might never happen, in which case you´re blocking yourself. Once you got to this realization, you´re on the right track.
(I have to say, a lot of this has to do with financial independence.)
Very true. Same is said in Malcolm Gladwells book ‘Outliers’.
Although, i did my major in business & having working class parents, could not run a business or make decent profit) till 7 years of painstaking endless labor & abuse from the ‘real’ world. But there was always so much to learn, my constant desire to beat my own performance year after years, made me own a $10m company, starting from living room mom & pop shop.
I now hope i had advantage the of coaching from people Perry Marshall in those days, may be my journey would have been a little shorter and less painful.
Cheers,
All famous gurus say they spend thousands and thousands each year on education… I don’t see anything wrong with that – after all if they are rich they afford investing to be richer… I think it’s normal.
Perry,
Love your stories and how real you are. It is obvious you have 10,000 hours in.
I hear ya, it’s a bloody mess at times getting the hours in. Start, stop, fail, win, fail, fail, fail then have some wins and push through complacency.
I got my 10,000 hours in engineering. Another 10,000 in sales. Another 10,000 in human behaviour and growth. And another 10k in advertising & marketing. And holy smokes, I feel like I’m just getting going and realize how much there is to learn.
Hard journey at times. But you know what?… I dig it!!
Is there any other way?
Like the clerk said to Jerry McGuire when he was printing his Manifesto… “that’s how you become great man, you hang your balls out there”
Keep hangin ’em!
Chris.
Hi Perry,
I love learning about how people meet challenges. My challenge right now is to sell 2 houses I bought with my own dollars and rehabbed. One is a real problem, lots of traffic, not one single offer. I am going to have to find a better way to get it sold than just waiting for realtors to show it. I made many mistakes starting with buying the house in the first place, hiring the wrong person to remodel it, and pricing it all wrong! What else! No one will tell me why it’s just sitting! Its quite cute actually, and staged properly. Most of my challenges I have overcome by focusing and original thinking. This one is a bear, and I am gettign used to failure now! Hoo boy …
Thank you for this forum in which to vent.
–Jane
Was watching tv and saw a commercial by Experian. They were talking directly to LifeLock customers saying how LifeLock was sued and that the protection LL customers are getting today is NOT the same as they were before the court date.
Remember LifeLock is the company where the CEO got on tv announcing his name and social security number proving how secure his identity theft monitoring was.
Just another challenge this courageous entrepreneur has to endure in the face of a big company.
I feel sorry for those fools at Experian. He’ll be just fine I think ;-)
You are so right Perry.
One must continue to learn and improve. Each hour, each day is like putting money into a savings account. Money that one can withdraw later and use as one sees fit.
Thanks for that great post.
From my late teens to mid 20’s I lived in Bed-Sits or Rooming Houses until I got married and tried to settle down. Shortly after that, I went into
business with a couple of friends.
At first we were lucky and won lucrative contracts. However, it wasn’t long before we were spending more than we were earning and I discovered my
wife was having an affair with one of my employees.
This was the start of a very dark period in my life. With a collapsing business and a crumbling home life, I did what I always did in times of
trouble; I ran away. I lived off credit cards until they were declined and I ran out of options.
Returning to Birmingham, I stretched friendships by sleeping at acquaintances houses, sometimes on their floor, often to the chagrin of their wives.
This was the lowest point to which my life ever descended. Homeless, jobless and broke with massive debts, I was rapidly becoming friendless too. I
blamed everyone for the conspiricy they had against me.
Then someone handed me a tatty little book and said, “Read this, it could change your life!”
That book was “Think and Grow Rich” by Napoleon Hill and I still dip into it just about every day for inspiration. After my first reading of this
little book there was no going back to despair and self pity. This book gave me hope and faith in myself which brought back my self esteem.
Within a few weeks, I had a good job and my massive credit card debt was replaced by a manageable loan. Settled at last? No! the company was taken
over by a multinational conglomerate and I was destined for the scrapheap, again.
Without waiting for the redundancy axe to fall in the hope of getting severance pay, I gave my notice and announced that I was going into business on
my own.
The next six months were far more challenging than anything I had faced before. Some people were a great help and others were deceitful and lied.
Despite it all the business became a success.
What was different from only a few years earlier? How could I prosper this time with similar challenges that had broken me two years ago? What had
changed? What was different? It was my ATTITUDE that had changed! Instead of fearing challenges, I welcomed them!
That business started in 1984 is still flourishing. We have challenges and setbacks of course but for 25 years the inspiration that Napoleon Hill
gave me in Think and Grow Rich has steered me through. Did reading that book change my life for the better? Yes, it did. Was it a one off ‘light bulb
moment’ that turned my life round in an instant? No, certainly not.
It was definitely a pivotal moment but it was just one small, first step in the right direction when for years I was running in the wrong direction.
It opened my eyes to a whole spectrum of information that I didn’t know existed. It also made me hungry for knowledge.
I read every self-help book and ecourse I encounter. My education is still continuing every day, I never stop learning and applying my new skills.
Thank you Perry for the contribution you have made to my continuing education.
Have you noticed how people with no money, no inclination to improve their situation often say,”I hate money and hate the machine so I have opted out”. They’ll spend hours and hours defending their decision and they work very hard at being a loser.
Perry,
Great article. I’m a relative newbie and after 6 months of learning I.M. and still not making money, I’m wondering, is that a light at the end of the tunnel, or is it a train? Your article reminds me to not quit when part way through.
It’s a lot easier to do this when you’re single… like you, I went through this while I was married and am thankful for having a patient and supportive wife.
I left an IT job for a sales job that looked promising. It was a year of boiler room styled cold calls with little to show for it.
But I had to go through it. I kept telling my wife “Doctors have to go through med school, board exams, and 3 horrible years of residency before they can think about making money… this is my med school honey. Things WILL get better”
Yeah, it sucks when you’re broke and trying to build a business, but everyone goes through it. It’s the price of success.
Right on Perry. Its reminds of the old arguement over talent and hard work. Talent alone will not get you far. Talent + hard work = potential for greatness/mastery. … When talent runs out, its the hard work that pulls you through.
Wow, you hit the nail on the head with this post. My wife says I have lived 10 lifetimes in my 49 years. She is right, but only because I have a burning desire to know more, do more, and live more. The true joy of being self motivated is that work and play become indistinguishable.
Even though we all have the same 86400 seconds in a day how we use them is what gives us value. Value is intangible in many ways since we all face the same fate where no possession can be taken. Therefore the true value is in what we learn, know, and most importantly teach.
Thanks for your consistent leadership Perry
William
The Secret of the 10,000 Hour Master
was the best post I have read this year, for you to reflect on your past and see your evolving to your success is a real gift, not to just yourself, but for your readers.
Thanks Dale
Perry,
I’m currently coaching a newbie sales professional and thinking about some of the challenges I have faced over the years in various sales environments.
It is so important that you do “everything” to guarantee our success and stay out of the range where we “may be” successful.
I think there’s an inner effort economist who’s always trying to find the “just enough” point where I can put in just enough effort to successfully reach goals. Instead of selling out to the goal and absolutely guaranteeing it.
Thanks for another classic.
Gogo
It’s this kind of content that keeps you in my email box, Perry. Really, I just unsubscribed to a ton of email subscriptions, but I kept yours. The simple power of your story-telling has the ability to inspire and always seems to come right at the moment when I’m feeling the most vulnerable and ready to quit. But your words renew my faith in myself and my ability to weather the storms. Thank you!
Can I ever relate to this story Perry.
It jumped out at me.I think I have maybe 10 years on you….doesn’t matter but I’m 53 and at 36 years of age I saw this in an Amway opportunity meeting in 1992 ,”It’s better to rely on the efforts of 100 people than relying on 100% of your own efforts.”
Now I come from a UAW family where everyone I knew plus many folks in my family worked at G.M.
Just by association I was almost turned in to a socialist thinker.
That’s not bad or good just a fact.
I had a so called good job at IBM but was not happy because the sales guy near my cubicle was making 5x what I was making selling the large phone systems that my team and I installed for them.
This pissed me off because I thought what’s wrong with me?..I’m not stupid, I work really hard and this guy makes more in one sale than I make all week.He had his golf clubs in the office to golf with customers.
I want that job.
Then I went to the Amway meeting to appease my older brother because I was the last person on his list. We did not really get along. He could not get anyone there, I was his only one.
Long story short I went ballistic with this thing.I ate the info in the cassettes at that time,read books which I’d never read before(Seeds of Greatness by Dr. Dennie Waitley was my first)and after the 1st function 5 hours away my family thought I was an idiot.
I couldn’t sleep and showed the plan as they called it then to trees if if I had to. Actually I did show it to our cat 1st. He didn’t like it.
Tired at work with folks avoiding me now who liked me before…hey that’s the Amway guy run away!
My new wife at that time who is still with me wanted nothing to do with this because her Mother who never tried the business of course knew all about it.
So that was the beginning of my 10000 hrs. as you call it.
I ended up on stage within 1 year as a direct and was bringing so many new folks to metings ,more than my uplines that my monthly bonuses where $1000 – $2000 monthly and growing.
I was 90% of my Brother’s business.He was confused.
My wife now liked the business and came with me.
Anyway I’m still somewhere in the 10000 hrs. of fixing myself.
I lost most of my group when the internet came in to play. So since I am not a socialist but a dreamer I have never stopped trying and again I now finally work from home after learning all decade from smarter folks like you about how to market online.
I want 6 figures and will get it because I continue to work inside that 10000 hrs.
The only free cheese is in the mouse trap folks.
the outliers and the 10,000 master –
I believe that the concept of an outlier – someone whose abilities or success falls so outside the normal bell curve that he or she is considered to be an outlier has been connected to the 10,000 hour mark in a book with that title – whether or not this is true is difficult to say since using a few examples of both observed people as well as his own life experience is somewhat of a shaky use of any scientific evidence to call something proof – but Malcolm has done such and therefore 10,000 hours example will be touted by many for decades perhaps eons to come – while my experience as an artist is so much different that that – the successes that I have both in the commercial world as well as the artistic world and in every other world that I have functioned in has both been extremely of a different nature as well as perhaps totally contrary to what is being described –
The successes I experience come from a complete – what I call – relaxing into whatever it is that I am do – such that I am there for an infinitely long moment – and am not going anywhere else ever when I am in that particular infinitely long moment – and when – as far as I believe – anyone else begins even to ever so slightly understand what it is that I am now rambling on about – they will have cracked and even more unusual code for success than has ever been worked on and searched for and conjured so far till this point in time –
thank you for this unique opportunity to demonstrate and touch upon something that I have known not just in the last few years or for a major part of a business or professional career – but something that I became profoundly aware of back in grammar school –
Walter Paul Bebirian
When people encounter one another,what is viewed almost never reveals what the other has gone through. Reading your early employment history and travails above is welcome and inspirational. Perseverence is obviously of great importance, but so are knowing what education and skills to focus on – and more. Most important is courage. Thank you for providing this information.
You are certainly providing a very good lesson. I see so many people starting out who want to be where their hero/idol is now. They look at someone successful and think the person just jumped right to the top of the ladder.
I do not know anyone who is successful who did not go through a tough learning period. As you pointed out, too many people drop out because they find the going a bit rough. Then another large percent quit when they reach a comfort level.
Only the truly dedicated keep pushing. That is why there are so few at the very top.
It takes a lot of work, but once you get there the rewards are worth it.
Nice story Perry. When I first saw a drawing of a beautiful woman on scrap of paper being coveted and passed around in class I wanted to be an artist. I had no natural artistic ability at all but imagine being able to take a pencil and piece of paper and making it into something people treasure. I spent my entire life learning to draw and paint. I never stop learning and working to improve my artistic skill. When people tell me I have talent, I tell them that talent has nothing to do with it. Desire to keep practicing and learning is what it took. Do what you love.