We spend lots of time at work, too much for some of us. Here, we’re striving to produce and master our vocation. 

In Malcolm Gladwell’s best-selling and often debated book, Outliers: The Story of Success, he talked about the 10,000 hours rule. He cites a paper from American Scientist by Herbert Simon and William Chase, noting that it takes between 10,000 and 50,000 hours to master something difficult. While the paper primarily talked about chess masters like Bobby Fischer, Malcolm’s book also tells the stories of successes like The Beatles, Bill Gates, and Canadian ice hockey players.

While some have debated the 10,000 hours rule, what’s clear is that there’s no such thing as an overnight sensation in mastering complex things or earning expertise. It takes a lot of the rights kinds of practice, hard work, and deep thinking to become an expert at something and do worthwhile work.

Ray Dalio, the hedge fund manager, philanthropist, and author of Principles, identifies two main life-driver types: people who want to impact the world and soak up life. 

We want and need healthy portions of both impact and life-soaking for most people who work within the leadership or innovative worlds or who orbit closely to these realms (entrepreneurs, designers, artists, strategists, planners, etc.). Ray identified this to be true for him, too.

“Music happens in the space between the notes.”

—Itzhak Perlman

The other 10,000 hours is the time we spend before, after, and between the deep work and long hours of applied practice in the work we do. The other hours are spent imagining, wondering, and living in the land of curiosity. It’s the time we spend thinking about our lives, our roles in the world, our impact, and the meaning of our work. It’s the incubative space between the thinking.

It’s impossible to be curious and know something at the same time. Experts and business leaders need to suspend their expertise to learn and innovate.

Our best ideas often come when we’re in the shower, out for a walk, immersed in nature, or looking at a vast horizon—not at our desks. 

During this time, our minds wander, we wonder consciously, and our imagination travels to places that it doesn’t typically go when at our desks or in meetings.

When immersed in this time, we put together uncommon things. This time is both an investment and investigative. We connect ideas. We envision the impossible. We play with possibilities. We hold paradoxes. We think of solutions to the most perplexing challenges that we can’t or don’t do at our desks. We connect the world of mystery with the world of reality.

These other 10,000 hours is spent tethering and amplifying our expertise with more meaning and benefit. It’s worthwhile because we think bigger, broader, and more profoundly when we reflect.

By soaking up life, we become more vital in our work. It is the soaking up of life that feeds our expertise.

It’s the time and space for respite, relaxation, recreation, rejuvenation, and reflection. It is necessary for the real and beneficial work we do.

With the other 10,000 hours in mind, I pose these questions for you:

• What practices are designed within your organization to foster deep innovation?
• What are you doing regularly in your life to commit to these other 10,000 hours?
• What are your daily, weekly, and yearly rituals to nurture this?
• What are your organization’s practices to instigate this other 10,000 hours?
• What are you doing to ensure you’re feeding your expertise?

“Rest and self-care are so important. When you take time to replenish your spirit, it allows you to serve from the overflow. You cannot serve from an empty vessel.”

—Eleanor Brown