How to become a genius – advice from Malcolm Gladwell

Interesting article from Malcom Gladwell in Saturday’s Guardian weekend magazine.

All about what makes a genius.  He talks about the Beatles, Bill Gates and Bill Joy and discusses what went into their creating something completely different from what had been before.

One of his conclusion echoes something that one of my writing mentors talked about.  That it takes approx 10,000 hours to become first class at something.

Gladwell talks about the combination of circumstances and hard work that goes into excellence.  Such as the Beatles having to perform for hours in Hamburg strip clubs.  And certainly it’s something that I’ve found for myself with writing.

The more you write, the better you get and the faster you can write.

Gladwell has a new book out called, Outliers, the story of success.Published on 27 November by Allen Lane.

I have an audio programme that I’ve used over several years, called the Einstein Factor by Dr Win Wenger.  Very interesting on visualisation, how to improve performance and all sorts of things.  I’ve found it very useful.  It was a Nightingale Conant programme, but I’m not sure if it’s still available.