Is the ten-thousand hour rule a general rule of success?
这是成功的常规定律?
If we scratch below the surface of every great achiever, do we always find the equivalent of the Michigan Computer Center,
如果你能深入剖折各项伟大的成就,你是否发现在密歇根计算机中心或者是
or the hockey all-star team, some sort of special opportunity for practice?
曲棍球明星球队之间存在相同之处,是否他们都能够为专业训练提供某种机遇?
Let's test the idea with two examples, and for the sake of simplicity, let's make them as familiar as possible:
让我们通过两个例子来验证这个观点,为简约起见,我们挑选两个最明显的案例:
the Beatles, one of the most famous rock bands ever; and Bill Gates, one of the world's richest men.
世界上最有名的摇滚乐队一甲壳虫乐队和世界上最富有的人——比尔.盖茨。
The Beatles (John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, and Ringo Starr) came to the United States in February of 1964,
1964年2月,由约翰.列侬、保罗.麦卡特尼、乔治.哈里森和林戈.斯塔尔组成的甲壳虫乐队登陆美国,
starting the so-called British Invasion of the America Music scene
在美国音乐界掀起了一股“英国入侵”的旋风,
and putting on a string of hit records that transformed the face of popular music.
不仅洗刷了音乐界一系列的纪录,也改变了流行音乐的风格。
The first interesting about the Beatles for our purposes
令人感兴趣的是,在甲壳虫乐队登陆美国之前,
is how long that they had already been together by the time they reached the United States.
他们组建的时间到底有多久?
Lennon and McCartney first started playing together in 1957, seven years prior to landing in America.
列侬和麦卡特尼最早是在来到美国7年之前的1957年开始音乐表演的。
(Incidentally, the time that elapsed between their founding
值得一提的是,从他们组建乐队开始,
- is ten years.)
到创作他们最优秀的艺术作品——《佩珀军士孤独心灵供乐部乐队》和《白碟》两张专辑的时间间隔是10年。
And if you look even more closely at those long years of preparation,
假如你进一步研究他们的成长历程,
you'll find an experience that, in the context of hockey players and Bill Joy and world-class violinists, sounds awfully familiar.
你就会发现,他们的经历和曲棍球运动员、比尔.乔伊、世界顶尖小提琴演奏家都惊人地相似。
In 1960, while they were still a struggling high school rock band,
1960年,当他们还仅是正在奋斗的高中生摇滚乐手的时候,
the Beatles were invited to play in Hamburg, Germany.
他们就已经被邀请到德国的汉堡进行演出。
"Hamburg in those days did not have rock-and-roll music clubs. It had strip clubs,"
“当时在汉堡还没有摇滚音乐俱乐部,成人俱乐部倒是不少,
says Philip Norman, who wrote the Beatles biography Shout!
甲壳虫乐队传记《呼喊!》(Shout!)的作者菲力普.诺曼说道,
"There was one particular club owner called Bruno, who was originally a fairground showman.
“需要特别提到的是一个叫布鲁诺的俱乐部业主,他原是一个露天马戏团的老板,
He had the idea of bringing rock groups to play in various clubs.
他突发奇想,希望能让摇滚乐队到各个俱乐部去表演。
They had this formula. It was a huge nonstop show, hour after hour, with a lot of people lurching in and the other lot lurching out.
他们把这个想法变成了现实。那是一场一场从不间断的演出,俱乐部人来人往,一个小时又一个小时,人流络绎不绝。