The Effort is the Prize. Orszag

[elleng]

(I)t seems plausible that many more people than commonly believed (but perhaps not all people!) have sufficient innate skill to perform at world-class levels in complex fields with sufficient practice; the problem is that they do not undertake the necessary practice.

http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/09/09/the-effort-is-the-prize/?ref=opinion

[Jim__]

1. Peter Orszag attended Exeter Academy - high school @ $38,000/year.

Now he tells us:

Indeed, the examples we have of individuals who put in 10,000 or more hours of dedicated practice and fail to achieve stunning levels of performance is quite limited — because most people are not willing to put in that time and effort.

10,000 hours is about 5 years (40 hr work week). Most people put in far more than that in their chosen field. And, no matter how expert they may be, you'll never hear of them. Some of Peter's background:

Orszag grew up in Lexington, Massachusetts.<2> After graduating from Phillips Exeter Academy with high honors (1987), he earned an A.B. summa cum laude in economics from Princeton University in 1991, and a M.Sc. (1992) and a Ph.D. (1997) in economics from the London School of Economics. He was a Marshall Scholar 1991–1992, and is a member of Phi Beta Kappa.<3> He is also a member of the Institute of Medicine of the National Academies of Science.

Economists Alan Blinder (who taught him at Princeton) and Joseph Stiglitz were his mentors early in life, and later Robert Rubin.<4>

Did he put in his 10,000 hours before Exeter, Princeton, London School of Economics? Another born rich kid telling the rest of us we didn't make it because we didn't work as hard as he did. He has no clue what most people go through to put food on the table. So, yeah, most of us don't put in 10,000 hours in complex fields. We're too busy surviving - a very simple fact that he seems blissfully unaware of.

[elleng]

2. So kind and reasonable of you to dump on someone who was fortunate.

You're an economist?

[Jim__]

3. Orszag's claim: because most people are not willing to put in that time and effort.

Right, the rest of us are just not willing to put in the time and effort. Maybe he should go buy a clue before telling everyone else what they're willing or not willing to do.