Consistent hard work pays the dividend

When one of the friends read the article on the topic age appropriate achievements, he asked a question, if it was the only way to success or there are other factors also which contributes to it. I had to think about the same and as believed and talked about, by many great people, this is true that age cannot be the only reason for success. It made me to realise that consistent hard work is another very important factor contributing in the success of a person.This can be proved by taking many examples including the case of the hockey players,football players or any other successful personality. If the hockey players had not practised for long number of hours everyday then whatever was the age or the talent of an individual player they would not have achieved what they achieved in the long run.Here the rule of practicing for ten thousand hours comes into play.People have found that the ones who spend around ten thousand hours honing their professional or vocational skills, by the time they reach the age of twenty, they are likely to be more successful in their field than the ones who had not done so.In this respect, we can take the example of players and the entrepreneurs,business icon and the people who became famous in the field of the music or tecnnology. Take the example of Ms. Lata Mangeshkar, Ms.Asha Bhonsle,Pt. Bhimsen Joshi, Bill Gates, Beatles band group and Bill Joy who have made a mark and have created history in their respective fields by achieving great heights.

When we try to understand the success of Beatles -one of the most famous rock bands, it has been found that they used to be ordinary singers who sang on the roadsides and played the drums and other unsophisticated musical instruments, though some of the members were indeed talented.They formed a group and then went to America.There also they sang in clubs and on the roadside with or without audience. Fortunately one day, they got a chance to play in one of the clubs in Germany which changed the entire scene. Before they ventured into this club, they hardly played for more than one hour everyday and that also the same numbers which were very popular and that did not allow them to learn more or sing their own compositions. But once when they were in Hamburg they played the whole night, seven days a week and that transformed their lives.In ten years, they could play for about the same number of hours as required by someone to be successful.

If we take the case of Bill Gates then again it is observed that though he was good in maths but got an opportunity on his way and worked for more than sixteen to seventeen hours a day on computers, in those days of 1960's when computers were not so easily available.Many of you would be knowing that his father was a lawyer and the mother was the daughter of aa affluent banker, so we can easily gauge that he belonged to a rich family.He used to get bored by his routine very soon during his school days. His parents took him out of a public school and sent him to a private school which was basically for the children of elite people of the country and that school was Lakeside. Fortunately that school started the computer laboratory when Bill Gates came to class VIII and he got  a chance to work upon that. He used to go to computer center corporation after the school hours which was formed at the University of Washington.He used to skip his precious night sleep sneaking to the computer lab. This club went bankrupt and Bill Gates and his friends used to hang around the center before they came in contact with someone from an outfit known as ISI(Information Sciences Inc.) where they were allowed to work on computers in return of some work done for ISI.During this time Bill used to spend a lot of time working on computers and programming.He worked day-in and day-out to climb the ladder of perfection thereby carving the road to success.It is certainly on this account that he is amongst the most prosperous and famous people in the world.

When we think of Bill Joy, the same story emerges here also. He was very sharp in maths and wanted to do engineering or graduate in maths before he came in one of the first universities which had the finest computer centre in those days and that was University of Michigan. He was impressed by the ambience of the building and the set up and got his hands on computers and thereafter it was no looking back from computers. This was somewhere in the year 1971.This young boy of 17 years of age spent maximum time in the computer centre. In those days programming was not that easy and shared programming was also not possible. There used to be some hours given to individuals and they were charged for the same. He learnt to crack the pass word of others and worked for many hours on the computer. This was similar to what Bill Gates had been doing,cracking the passwords and using the device to learn and explore. And all those who are aware of Bill Joy`s  achievements would know that he was the one who could rewrite the programme LINIX. In this case also the number hours spent by Bill Joy was around ten thousand hours by the time he reached the age of twenty.

These were very few stories of the successful people but we come across so many and the common link in all of them is that the individuals got the opportunity and by consistent and persistent hard work, they became successful. And in most of the cases the rule of ten thousand hours worked very well. Even if you have the talent and appropriate age, perseverance and honest efforts for long are the key to success.