10,000 hours to mastery, how many have you put in?

I've been reading Malcolm Gladwell's "Outliers: The Story of Success" and the chapter on 10,000 hours to mastery was very intriguing.

The basic premise is you can take anyone at the height of their game, be it a professional athlete, a businessman or woman, or the founder of the largest software company in the world, Bill Gates, and what you will find is they all achieved the prerequisite 10,000 hours of practice before achieving a break through in their chosen field.

It started me thinking about how this applies to real estate agents and brokers.  If you look at the amount of education required to receive and maintain a license how long would it take you to achieve the number of hours required to master real estate?

I'm going to use the numbers required for the state of Idaho in this example.  I know they vary from state to state but it will give you a general idea.  In Idaho, you are required to go through 90 hours of pre-license modules to obtain your license have to get 20 hours of continuing education every two years. 

Let's say you have just received your license and set out to master real estate doing just the bare minimum based on Idaho's standards.  You would have to put 10 hours of continuing education per year.  10,000/10=1000 years.

Needless to say you're going to look like this before you're done:

Now count how many agents you know who are on this path.  I'd be willing to bet you don't have any problems using up all your fingers and toes.

My epiphany was not only did I know what it would take to master real estate but just how easy it is to get ahead of pack. 

Imagine how much further along your career would be if you put in 500 hours of focused practice?  What about 1000? How would your business look if you put in 1000 hours of solid development?

The sad part is most agents get by doing the bare minimum.

Granted I've used the required continuing education for an example and there are plenty more ways to learn real estate and I think full time agents learn a lot over the course of their career through experience alone.

But can you imagine what your career would look like if you put in 10,000 hours of focused development?  You'd be a God walking among mere mortals!