10,000 Hours. Or My Commitment to Doing Good Work.
on Jan 28, 2013
“That’s what separates the wheat from the chaff. That’s what makes a CEO a CEO.” - Gillian Muessig, SEOmoz
You would think Gillian Muessig, SEOmom – who was on a cycling and business tour to India and spent time in our office for the better part of a fortnight – would be talking about some esoteric and vague values such as vision, leadership. NO.
She was talking about: blogging. She was referring to her son Rand Fishkin (@randfish), CEO and co-founder of SEOmoz who has been blogging every single day since the inception of the blog. No matter what happened during the day, a blog would be up at night. He blogs about what he knows best: "inbound marketing, SEO, startups & entrepreneurship". He shares all that he knows about his business and discusses all. He’s social in a true sense.
Sceptics questioned his policy of talking about business secrets out in the open which could lead to people siphoning off work. But he wasn’t worried. The response invariably was: “If they are going to do it themselves, they were never our customers; if they are our customers, they will come to us when they are going to see our expertise.”
Yes, this approach backfired sometimes. But this paid off more than it backfired. SEOmoz is one of the first, biggest and most successful online marketing communities in the world. The blog is visited by millions of viewers. If you can get published in their blog, you can coolly double the price of your services and people will be willing to pay.
And after a very public battle, they received a funding of $18 million last year.
This reminds me of my favourite blogger and a fellow libertarian Amit Varma (@amitvarma) who, unfortunately, doesn’t blog enough now and is on to bigger and better things such as writing novels and winning Poker championships. He wrote a column on 10,000 hours in 2010. He writes:
Natural talent alone isn’t enough to make you good. You have to work damn hard, and practice damn hard. Some researchers have even put a number to how many hours of practice you need to achieve excellence: 10,000 hours.
[…]
The part of the study that I find astonishing is that not only did all the top performers have over 10,000 hours of practice to their credit, but everyone who put in 10,000 hours was a top performer. The key to excellence was not natural talent, but hard work. (Caveat: this is not to say that talent doesn’t matter at all. Firstly, as the researchers pointed out, there was a minimum level of talent required to get into the Academy. Secondly, a completely untalented musician would probably not get the positive feedback for his work that would motivate him to put in 10,000 hours in the first place.)
This all leads me to conclude that, since I am in the business of communication, practice I must; specifically because, as Gillian put it: “you owe it not just to yourself but to your company to work hard and give it everything you can. Sometimes, just showing up is important.”
I promise to myself and to my company to start blogging at least once a week and increase the frequency gradually.
And since this is a meta-blog (a blog about blogging), it seems befitting to end with another blogger quote, Girish Shahane:
Film used to be a precious resource in India, to be used with care. This bred discipline among cinematographers. Once video became widely available, discipline often went out of the window. [...] I have this example before me as I inaugurate a blog -- which is free to publish and in which I can stuff endless random thoughts. I aim to bring some of [the] discipline into the inevitably looser, less formal structure of the blog.
Wish me luck. :)
Nimit Kathuria
Team OMLogic
Post a comment
8297 comments
Recent Post
.png)
.png)
More Stories
.jpg)
Copyright © 2025 - OMLogic Blog. All rights reserved.
casino en ligne
I was wondering if you ever thought of changing the page layout of your blog? Its very well written; I love what youve got to say. But maybe you could a little more in the way of content so people could connect with it better. Youve got an awful lot of text for only having 1 or 2 images. Maybe you could space it out better? casino en ligne Hi there, I enjoy reading all of your article post. I wanted to write a little comment to support you. casino en ligne Hey! This post could not be written any better! Reading this post reminds me of my good old room mate! He always kept chatting about this. I will forward this post to him. Pretty sure he will have a good read. Thanks for sharing! casino en ligne Highly energetic article, I liked that bit. Will there be a part 2? casino en ligne This page certainly has all of the information I wanted about this subject and didn't know who to ask. casino en ligne fiable Greetings! Very helpful advice within this article! It's the little changes which will make the greatest changes. Many thanks for sharing! casino en ligne francais I used to be suggested this blog through my cousin. I am now not certain whether this put up is written by him as nobody else know such specified about my problem. You're amazing! Thanks! casino en ligne France Hi there just wanted to give you a brief heads up and let you know a few of the images aren't loading properly. I'm not sure why but I think its a linking issue. I've tried it in two different internet browsers and both show the same outcome. casino en ligne Greetings! Very useful advice in this particular post! It's the little changes that will make the most significant changes. Thanks a lot for sharing! casino en ligne France It's a shame you don't have a donate button! I'd definitely donate to this brilliant blog! I suppose for now i'll settle for book-marking and adding your RSS feed to my Google account. I look forward to fresh updates and will share this site with my Facebook group. Chat soon! casino en ligne
casino en ligne francais
Admiring the persistence you put into your site and in depth information you present. It's good to come across a blog every once in a while that isn't the same out of date rehashed material. Fantastic read! I've saved your site and I'm including your RSS feeds to my Google account. casino en ligne francais Hello There. I discovered your weblog using msn. That is a very neatly written article. I'll make sure to bookmark it and come back to learn extra of your helpful information. Thanks for the post. I will definitely comeback. casino en ligne francais Since the admin of this site is working, no doubt very soon it will be famous, due to its feature contents. casino en ligne fiable WOW just what I was searching for. Came here by searching for sss casino en ligne fiable What a information of un-ambiguity and preserveness of valuable familiarity concerning unexpected feelings. casino en ligne Hi, yes this piece of writing is actually nice and I have learned lot of things from it about blogging. thanks. casino en ligne great post, very informative. I wonder why the opposite specialists of this sector don't understand this. You must proceed your writing. I am confident, you have a huge readers' base already! meilleur casino en ligne Greetings! This is my first visit to your blog! We are a collection of volunteers and starting a new project in a community in the same niche. Your blog provided us useful information to work on. You have done a marvellous job! casino en ligne fiable Greetings! Very helpful advice in this particular post! It's the little changes that produce the biggest changes. Thanks a lot for sharing! casino en ligne When some one searches for his vital thing, therefore he/she desires to be available that in detail, so that thing is maintained over here. casino en ligne
Gloriasnumb
<a href="http://skyapharmacy.com/">sky pharmacy reviews</a> <a href="http://onlinepharmacyadocprescription.com/">Web Site onlinepharmacyadocprescription.com</a>
casino en ligne francais
Tremendous issues here. I'm very glad to peer your article. Thank you a lot and I'm looking ahead to touch you. Will you please drop me a mail? casino en ligne francais I know this web page provides quality depending articles or reviews and additional information, is there any other site which offers these kinds of stuff in quality? casino en ligne fiable Excellent post. I was checking constantly this weblog and I am impressed! Extremely helpful information specifically the closing section : ) I deal with such info a lot. I was looking for this certain information for a long time. Thanks and good luck. casino en ligne I have read so many content about the blogger lovers however this paragraph is in fact a nice post, keep it up. casino en ligne Hi, I do believe this is a great web site. I stumbledupon it ;) I am going to return once again since i have book marked it. Money and freedom is the best way to change, may you be rich and continue to help other people. casino en ligne I love reading a post that will make men and women think. Also, thanks for allowing me to comment! casino en ligne francais There is definately a lot to know about this subject. I love all of the points you've made. meilleur casino en ligne I blog quite often and I truly appreciate your content. The article has truly peaked my interest. I'm going to bookmark your website and keep checking for new details about once per week. I opted in for your Feed too. casino en ligne Hey just wanted to give you a quick heads up. The text in your article seem to be running off the screen in Safari. I'm not sure if this is a format issue or something to do with web browser compatibility but I thought I'd post to let you know. The layout look great though! Hope you get the problem solved soon. Kudos meilleur casino en ligne Hi! I realize this is somewhat off-topic however I had to ask. Does running a well-established blog like yours take a large amount of work? I am brand new to operating a blog but I do write in my journal daily. I'd like to start a blog so I can easily share my experience and views online. Please let me know if you have any kind of suggestions or tips for brand new aspiring blog owners. Appreciate it! casino en ligne France
meilleur casino en ligne
I will immediately grab your rss feed as I can not in finding your email subscription link or newsletter service. Do you've any? Kindly allow me recognize so that I may subscribe. Thanks. meilleur casino en ligne Hi there mates, its great post regarding cultureand completely defined, keep it up all the time. casino en ligne I blog frequently and I seriously thank you for your information. This great article has truly peaked my interest. I will bookmark your site and keep checking for new details about once per week. I subscribed to your RSS feed as well. casino en ligne I like the helpful information you provide in your articles. I will bookmark your blog and check again here regularly. I'm quite sure I'll learn plenty of new stuff right here! Good luck for the next! casino en ligne France Thank you for the auspicious writeup. It in reality used to be a amusement account it. Glance complex to far delivered agreeable from you! By the way, how can we communicate? casino en ligne francais I am regular visitor, how are you everybody? This post posted at this web site is really pleasant. casino en ligne Hurrah! After all I got a website from where I know how to genuinely get valuable data regarding my study and knowledge. meilleur casino en ligne Very great post. I just stumbled upon your weblog and wished to say that I've really enjoyed browsing your weblog posts. In any case I will be subscribing in your rss feed and I am hoping you write again very soon! casino en ligne Greate article. Keep writing such kind of information on your blog. Im really impressed by it. Hey there, You have performed a great job. I will definitely digg it and personally recommend to my friends. I am confident they'll be benefited from this site. casino en ligne Whoa! This blog looks exactly like my old one! It's on a completely different topic but it has pretty much the same layout and design. Wonderful choice of colors! casino en ligne francais