Ten Thousand Hours: The Hard Truth About Mastery, Success, and Why You’re Not Winning

[00:00:00] You ever see like a great construction worker, plumber, audio engineer, video editor out of work? I didn't think so. So why are so many agency owners and coaches struggling? If you're not seeing success, maybe it's because you're not that great yet.

[00:00:26] What's up, everybody, and welcome back to the show. As always, I'm Eric, your host, and you're listening to Clipped. And Clipped brings you the tips, resources, and people to help you crush your content goals. And in this episode, I'm going to be talking about the 10,000 hour rule or 10,000 hour concept. Really, it's like putting in the fucking reps. That's what that means. And we're going to get more into that.

[00:00:50] Then I'm going to talk about my 10,000 hour journey. And then I'm going to break down why you're struggling as a freelancer, agency owner, as an online coach, why it's hard for you to get work and succeed at what you're doing. And lastly, I'm going to talk about how to fix this. Key, it's all about grinding it out. But I'm going to break down some things and some tips and some ideas and how to help you fix why you're struggling to get work. Maybe it's because you haven't put in those 10,000 hours. Let's give it a go.

[00:01:32] Okay, so what the hell is the 10,000 hour rule? Well, Malcolm Gladwell popularized it. If you're not familiar with him, he's like a thought leader, author. He runs a podcast company, or he did. Mainly, he's known as an author. And he popularized this idea of you're not going to see success in life, or you're not going to be able to truly master something unless you put in 10,000 hours of practice or 10,000 hours of repetitions.

[00:02:01] You know, mastery requires time and to build a skill set, you got to work and you got to work and you got to try and then fail and then try again. And as new tools are being developed in the field that you're in, like learning those new tools and then learning them again and getting fast and good and speed and accuracy, all those things to master whatever it is you do.

[00:02:25] Maybe you're a builder, maybe you're a video editor, maybe you're a surgeon, maybe you lay brick, whatever it is. It takes a lot of time to get to the point where you're actually like legitimately really good at what you do. The 10,000 hour concept, however you want to break that down, but it's years and years and years. And the way I also see it is like understanding that like true professionals and true people that are legit, they don't cut corners.

[00:02:53] They're willing to put in the time because they enjoy what they're doing. They have that like delayed gratification too, so they know that like the more they learn, the more they practice, the better that they're going to get. And it almost becomes like muscle memory and second nature at that point. And the hard truth, and I'm going to get more into this, is that like to really succeed and be good at something, you need a specific skill. And you're going to have to go through hell to master it.

[00:03:21] And that's really like this concept of 10,000 hours and success and like, you know, professionalism and mastery, etc. So now I want to talk about like my 10,000 hour journey and kind of where I've got today and how I like went through all this and struggled and man almost quit like doing audio altogether. Because it was so hard and because I kept getting these fucking roadblocks.

[00:03:49] And this podcast is brought to you by Riverside, my favorite place to record online remote podcasts. They've got great tools like AI show notes, AI transcriptions, and Magic Clips, which is my favorite, which will automatically turn your long form video into short form vertical clips for social media with very little work. A couple clicks here, a couple clicks there. Boom, you got yourself a video for social.

[00:04:14] Head on over to riverside.fm and enter promo code CLIPPED, the name of this show, C-L-I-P-P-E-D. You'll get 20% off any individual plan. I mean, in theory, it started like when I was in high school, recording myself playing guitar on like a four track tape machine. I mean, this is 2000, 2001, maybe something like that.

[00:04:37] That's really the first time I ever like hit record and like plugged things in and started recording myself playing guitar. But I guess professionally, my journey really started in like 2012. That's when like being an adult and like legitimately working in audio. At that point, 2012, I started interning. The first place I ever interned was a recording studio in North Hollywood, California called 17 Hertz.

[00:05:06] And yeah, I was running errands. I was basically checking people in, checking people out, cleaning, setting up microphones, doing some stuff like that. But just getting my, you know, cutting my teeth, learning as much as I could. I already knew prior to this how to use Pro Tools and had like at least a beginning or average understanding of audio equipment. So, I kind of knew what was going on, but also kind of not.

[00:05:34] That's when my whole life really up to that point and a little bit beyond, I wanted to be a professional audio engineer and record musicians in studios. You know, then I've worked at Paramount Recording Studios in Hollywood, California as a runner.

[00:05:51] And in my free time, I was still recording singers, my friends, rappers, anyone really that I could partner with and just keep getting better at setting up microphones, checking microphones, recording in Pro Tools, getting fast with the keyboard shortcuts. All that good stuff. Dude, and this is, I didn't mean for this to turn into like a fucking autobiography, but I was always doing stuff on my own on the side.

[00:06:15] And then I was getting like part-time work at studios, learning more and getting used to like that feeling of being under pressure. I even did some like live audio events, audio lighting, video, kind of learned about all that stuff. This was all for several years, probably 2012 to 2015. Probably 2015, I don't even know.

[00:06:41] But at some point in the 20-teens, all my friends were crushing it in the film industry, making a lot of money. And I was struggling with the music thing to get like legitimate work. So, I was like, all right, I'm going to apply it to some voiceover studios. I worked at several like my, what is it, Mark Grouse. What's the other one I worked at? DG Entertainment. I worked at the New York Film Academy, dude.

[00:07:07] And through all these, learning more, I recorded projects for like Cartoon Network, Comedy Central, CNN, Disney, and like dozens or if not hundreds of ad agencies. This is where I really cut my teeth because it was brutal. Like learning to edit under pressure, kind of getting yelled at. I've been cussed out several times, being told what to do and how fast to do it. And the producers wanting to look good for the clients.

[00:07:33] And so, they kind of changed their whole MO and vibe around those people because they got to look good and they're kind of mean to you. I hated it. I loved it in the beginning and then I started hating it. Needless to say, this is really where I cut my teeth. I learned how to get so fast at Pro Tools. I learned how to edit under pressure, record under pressure. If I fucked up, like kind of talked my way out of it or got comfortable telling like the talent to stop and redo something or pause.

[00:08:01] Or like really learning to like master the studio or like the control room. Different mixing consoles, different versions of Pro Tools, different Pro Tools templates. Hundreds of recording sessions. Maybe thousands even. But this is where I really learned what it was to be an audio engineer. And also learning that I hated it because it's kind of like a soulless journey. You're kind of like a monkey pushing buttons. And it's not really what I thought.

[00:08:31] There's really like no creativity in that. It's more just like technical. The meantime, I was listening to a lot of podcasts. Specifically, the Adam and Dr. Drew Show because they hosted Loveline when I was a kid. And I found out they were back on the pod. So I started listening to them. And I was like, dude, there's probably work like editing these. Or maybe there's not. But let's try. Maybe I could get into this.

[00:08:56] So I set up a profile on a freelance site similar to like Upwork. And lo and behold, I think I just got lucky because I got hit up for like some side like one-off gigs by a girl named Kimberly Snyder, who now is like a bestselling author, New York Times bestselling author, has written multiple like cookbooks, different kinds of books. Hell, I don't know. I work on her podcast still. And the first like gig I ever did with her was in 2015.

[00:09:25] She's on podcast one. There's been several renditions of the podcast, but I'm still doing it twice a week. She's my first client. And shout out to her and her team for believing in me, hiring me. I helped them launch. I helped them do everything when I fully didn't even know what I was doing. So that's where I started to cut my teeth in podcasting. And I got a little bit more work. I worked on like this Shaleen Johnson show. I was getting little projects on this website as a freelancer. And then I was like, you know what, dude?

[00:09:54] I'm going to make... I'm going to build my own website. And I'm going to brand it as... The name I came up with was the Podcast Haven. And the first website obviously didn't look great. And then, dude, for like months, I literally emailed... Cold emailed hundreds of people that had podcasts. I would find their contact info. Back then it was iTunes or like their website associated with the shows I would see on iTunes. Cold pitched them, hey, I'm an editor. Are you looking for an editor? I can do X, Y, and Z. I can help you.

[00:10:24] Got a couple clients through that, namely Burn Bootcamp, Rich Jones. What was that? Paychecks and Balances. That show was like ranked two on the iTunes charts. Don't know how the hell that happened, but I got that gig. Meanwhile, I was still doing the voiceover thing part-time, making a little bit of money. At this time, I've moved in with my current wife, paying all the bills through just doing audio stuff. I kind of make my old schedule.

[00:10:51] I did have some like part-time hours at a studio, but then I was... The podcast thing was growing. And then my wife and I got married. I got fired from the voiceover studio because there just wasn't enough talent. There wasn't enough projects coming through the door. It wasn't my role to secure, like to book the studio. But when it was booked, I would work. So yeah, I got fired. And then I was like, you know what? We're about to go to Maui for our honeymoon. And I was like, you know what? Fuck it. I'm going to go all in. I'm going to do another website.

[00:11:18] I'm going to register as an LLC, the podcast haven, and really start grinding and trying to get work. Thousands of episodes later, years later, everyone from startup creators that want to do a podcast to working with Nike. Sony had some connections in the film industry. Sony, Lionsgate, Wondery. Got some work for the LA Times.

[00:11:47] Did a thing for Spotify. Now I've worked with... You can see it all on the website. I'll link to it. Fortune 500 companies. I've done it all. The only reason it's possible is because I was confident to do it all and to work with those type of clients because I put in the fucking work for years and years and years and years. Struggling. Getting yelled at. Wanting to quit because of the pressure. Mixing. Fixing mixes. Fixing edits. Learning about different fades. How to edit quickly. I could probably edit blindfolded. I'd like to try that actually. That'd be fun.

[00:12:17] Literally doing it all. Music. Post-production. Voiceover. Stuff for podcasts. Etc. So, that's my fucking rant right there about why I've been able to have success. And if you haven't, it's probably because you haven't had a journey like that. And now I want to get into why your offers or why what you're doing is not working.

[00:12:43] If you're an agency owner or coach and you're trying to like make money because you see all these people on social media and all this fucking bullshit about 10x this, double this. I can get you 100 leads for that. Dude, you're struggling because you don't have a true skill set because you haven't put in those 10,000 hours. You're just selling an idea that you think sounds good and maybe you have a little bit of experience in.

[00:13:09] But if you haven't gone through the struggle, if you haven't gone through your go-through, that's what I heard one time. You got to go through your go-through. Your go-through is the years of learning, iterating, struggling. And to be honest, I think it has to be a skill where it's like an agency. Okay, maybe you're a video agency. Maybe you're an audio production agency. Or like, dude, maybe you run like a Google Ads agency.

[00:13:39] These are all like tangible things with like a skill set, with a set of steps that is kind of the same every time. And every project you tackle with a specific like software or a specific set of tools. So if you're like an agency owner, you need to master that. Those tools, that software, those steps over and over and over and over.

[00:14:07] And coaches, I think the problem is you don't have a true skill. You're just selling like this idea of like, oh, I can help you. And you'll meet me and we'll talk about it. And I'll probably put like some ideas into ChatGPT of like textbook stuff of how I can help you grow your YouTube. How I can help you grow your podcast. But it's not like a tangible thing. I feel like coaches are just selling like a theoretical, philosophic result.

[00:14:35] But you actually have to have like a set of steps or tools that you've, I feel like it's had to be something that you've done. So it's like you can talk from a place of mastery and expertise instead of like this theoretical knowledge about how to grow your show. How to frame a doorway. How to lay bricks. How to grow a garden.

[00:15:00] Like it has to be a tangible thing with like this set of data. Then you fucking crush it. Oh yeah, you want to like build a YouTube channel? Well, hell, I built one to 100,000 followers and this is what you have to do. You don't know what to offer if you're like a new agency owner or want to be agency owner or coach because you haven't put in the work to know what actually works.

[00:15:28] People see all this shit on social media and just think they can slap together a course or some kind of coaching program. But without the actual expertise and trophies to prove it or awards or a bank account revenue to prove it, honestly, you'll probably fall flat. And don't get me started on using AI to like to shortcut all these things because you're already thinking that like you're going to shortcut something.

[00:15:53] You're already fucked because you can't replace a deep hard-earned skill that you've like cried over, that you've screamed over, that you've wanted to fucking quit. All right. Love ranting. Part four, how to fix this. It kind of is just what I said. Grind and grind and grind and figure out what you like and don't like and learn the skill, learn the software. And when that software updates, learn the updates. You have to get out there.

[00:16:21] You got to get your hands dirty. You can't be sitting behind a fucking computer at home and being like, I'm going to be the next fucking millionaire agency owner with a video agency. You got to get out there. You got to practice. You got to learn what it's like to do things under pressure. You got to get yelled at. You got to know how to handle that when a client is angry or upset or things aren't working or you have to pivot.

[00:16:42] You have to know how to handle that within yourself, with your clients and with your team, with people, how to tell them and give constructive feedback. And the only way to do all this is to actually do it. So the answer is simple. So like how to fix it. Do the real work before trying to sell solutions to other people. Stop relying on AI to fast track success. Test, fail, refine, repeat. Test, fail, refine, repeat.

[00:17:11] Say that three times fast. If this resonated with you, would love to know about it. Leave a review. Leave a comment on Spotify. Leave a review on Apple. I'm really trying to get more ratings and reviews for the show. I haven't really pushed that. But if this resonated with you, would love to hear about it on Spotify. You can leave comments on Apple. Rate and review. Whatever platform you're on. Let's party. Let's talk about it. And follow the show, guys.

[00:17:41] That's it. Keep listening. Keep engaging. Keep creating. I'm out.