"The Dan Plan"

THE THEORY

'Talent has little to do with success. According to research conducted by Dr. K. Anders Ericsson, Professor of Psychology at Florida State University, “Elite performers engage in ‘deliberate practice’–an effortful activity designed to improve target performance.” Dr. Ericsson's studies, made popular through Malcolm Gladwell's book Outliers and Geoff Colvin's Talent is Overrated, have found that in order to excel in a field, roughly 10,000 hours of "stretching yourself beyond what you can currently do" is required. "I think you're the right astronaut for this mission," Dr. Ericsson said about The Dan Plan." What is the "Dan Plan"? Keep reading.

Dan McLaughlin is practicing “The 10,000 hour rule” and it is just that. This is the idea that it takes about 10,000 hours of deliberate practice to master a skill.

For instance, it would take 10 years of practicing 3 hours a day to become a master in your subject. It would take approximately 5 years of full-time employment to become proficient in your field. Simply work out how many hours you have already achieved and calculate how far you need to go. You should be aiming for 10000 hours.

The thing is, Dan is a quitter by nature. He quit playing tennis as a kid, quit after a year of high school cross-country, isn’t entirely sure he graduated from the University of Georgia, and quit being a newspaper photographer after one year. He has started five novels as well. But he has way more passion for golf —and now the experiment has taken its own momentum. He counts only about six hours a day, six days a week as official hours, but he probably spends 50 hours a week on the “Dan Plan” if you include workouts with his personal trainer, studying golf, and entering his stats from his notebook into his computer. He already is extremely inspiring to a lot of fans who find his website. He gets several correspondence a day from people who want to replicate his act. McLaughlin has no intention of letting his fans down by not finishing his 10,000 hours.

To learn more about "The Dan Plan" click here.