Nowadays, when it comes to Bill Gates, people will talk about everything about him-a talented mathematician and a computer genius. He dropped out of Harvard, founded a computer company called Microsoft with his friends, and then became the mainstay of the software industry at an alarming rate. Almost everyone who uses a computer has used the Microsoft operating system.
1968, Gates first came into contact with computer terminals and began to learn programming. Seven years later, he founded Microsoft. In this process, he got nine lucky opportunities to get in close contact with the computer and accumulated his 10000 hours.
When Gates 13 years old, his private middle school bought a computer terminal that can be directly connected to a large computer. Since then, Gates has been immersed in the computer room for a long time and taught himself how to use this machine. At that time, a group of programmers at the University of Washington set up a company called "C-Cubed" to provide online time rental services for local enterprises. As it happens, the son of monique Rona, one of the founders of the company, is one year older than Yoji and goes to the same school as Gates. Rona hopes to use the computer of her son's school to test some company's programs in her spare time on weekends, in exchange for providing some online time to the school for free. He gets along well with the school. From then on, Gates, who dropped out of school, took a bus to C-Cubed Company, where he could program until the evening.
After the collapse of C-Cubed, Gates contacted an information technology company (ISI). ISI hires students to write enterprise salary management software, and the student's salary is-a free computer. During the seven months of 197 1, Gates worked in the main computer room of ISI Company 1575 hours, with an average of 8 hours a day, 7 days a week.
"That time influenced me in two ways," Gates said of his early experiences. "My programming has really improved a lot. I always go there at night and study all day on weekends. At that time, my working hours on weekends were rarely less than twenty or thirty hours. "
Gates was expelled from ISI because he stole the computer password and crashed the mainframe. One summer later, he and his classmates found a free computer in Washington University. "The computer is placed in the physics laboratory of the school medical center. It was originally used for 24 hours, but we found that the computer was actually idle for such a long time from 3 am to 6 am. " Gates smiled and said, "So I always sneak out of the house after bedtime. Washington University is near my home. I can walk there, sometimes by bus. This is why my donation to the University of Washington is always very generous, because they give me too much computer time. "
Another "Bill"-Bill Joey enjoys the same important position as Bill Gates in the Silicon Valley circle, and his peers regard him as "Edison of the Internet". Sun Microsystems, founded by him and his partners, is one of the main promoters of computer technology in our time.
Joey, 16 years old, came to the University of Michigan when the new computer center in Ann Arbor had just been established. At first, his ideal was to be a biologist or mathematician. However, after he came into contact with the computer center, his wishes changed.
The computer center has become Joey's whole life. He used every possible time to learn programming. Even during the summer vacation, he got a part-time job as a computer professor so that he could program during the summer vacation. From 65438 to 0975, Joey was admitted to the Graduate School of the University of California, Berkeley, where he was deeply addicted to computer software programming.
"When I was in Michigan, I programmed 8 to 10 hours every day," Joey said. "When I arrived in Berkeley, I was programming day and night. There is a computer terminal in my residence. I often watch old movies and do some programming. I don't go to bed until two or three at night. I often fall asleep on my keyboard. "
"Do you know that if you keep pressing the keyboard, the machine will beep, wow, wow? Usually this happens three times, and I know it's time for bed. When I first arrived in Berkeley, I still couldn't do some things well. However, the next year, I felt that I had mastered it. This is why the program I compiled at that time is still not outdated today after 30 years. "
How long did it take Joey from start to success? "I started at 197 1 in Michigan. I started to learn programming formally from the second grade, plus the annual summer vacation, plus all the days and nights in the first year after I arrived at Berkeley. Maybe ... 10000 hours. " Joey said so.
Warren Buffett and Steve Jobs, the godfather of Apple, both spent more than 10,000 hours in their respective professional fields to concentrate on reading, thinking, research and practice before achieving their later achievements.
IT's not just IT men in science who need so long and boring practice. In fact, any world-class level needs at least 65,438+00,000 hours of training. Neurologist Daniel levitin wrote, "With the deepening of research, composers, basketball players, writers, skaters, pianists and even Jiang Yang thieves, no matter what you are, 65438. Of course, this does not explain why some people can get better training results from the same amount of training. But what is certain is that no world-class expert has received less training in his own professional field. "
The Beatles is a world-famous pop band. Lennon and McCartney first cooperated in 1957. Seven years later, they came to America. Later, in an interview, Lennon said that hamburgers made the Beatles.
"In Liverpool, we usually play for an hour, and we only play what we are best at, and those songs that turn over and over. In Hamburg, we play for eight hours every day, so we must find new playing skills, or people will get tired of listening. "
Peter Best, a former drummer in The Beatles, said, "At that time, whenever it was our turn to perform, the bar owner would gather guests on the stage. We play seven nights a week. At first, we played until the evening 12: 30, that is, when they closed. Later, we got better and better, and people in the bar kept hearing until two in the morning. "
From 1960 to 1962, the Beatles went to Hamburg five times. I spent 106 nights on my first trip, with at least 5 hours every night. The second level was played 92 times. The third performance, 48 times, stage 172 hours. The last two trips to Hamburg were in 1962, 165438+ 10 and 65438+February, and they performed for 90 hours. In this way, in a year and a half, they performed for 270 nights. The Beatles had actually given 1200 live performances before 1964 became famous. This is really unusual! Nowadays, pop bands will perform no more than 1200 times in their whole career. It was Hamburg's overtraining that made the Beatles stand out.
Mozart, the "musical prodigy", had been trained by his father for 3500 hours before his sixth birthday. By the time he wrote the most popular Concerto No.9 at the age of 2 1, you can imagine how many hours he practiced.
Bobby fischer, a "chess prodigy", miraculously established his status as a master at the age of 17, but before that, he also devoted himself to 10 years of hard training.
Da Vinci, a great painter, began his painting career by practicing painting eggs. Day after day, year after year, he changed different angles and different light, at least he had to practice 10000 hours. Leonardo da Vinci mastered the method of reaching the highest artistic level in the most boring repetition, which resulted in the world famous paintings's Mona Lisa and The Last Supper.
Lu Xun wrote 10 more than ten thousand words in his life. Someone has calculated an account: a person starts writing at the age of 28, and writes 1000 words a day on average. It takes 28 years to write the word 1000. As we know, Lu Xun took up a lot of work in his life, made contacts with many friends, and wrote more than 10 million words after his busy work, that is, 10000 hours. Some people say that Lu Xun is a genius. Lu Xun said, "Where there is a genius, I spend other people's coffee time at work."
"Talent is not the only important thing, not the most important. As long as your IQ exceeds 120, you are as likely to succeed as people with IQ 170. " Christopher Michael Gan Lan's IQ is as high as 195 (Einstein's IQ is 150), but he can only work in a horse farm in rural Missouri. Why didn't he become a rocket scientist or a brain surgeon? The answer is that no one has developed his talent and guided him to find his own way and keep practicing.
The key to success in any field has nothing to do with talent. From entry to mastery, you only need to practice 10000 hours-20 hours a week, about 3 hours a day, 10 years. Maybe it takes so long for the human brain to absorb the knowledge it needs to master. For successful people, no matter whether the practice process is boring or not, they will pay a far higher price than others.