#3 Talent Takes 10,000 Hours

Dear colleague,

Have you ever felt that maybe you simply don’t have enough talent? I have, more than once.

Let me tell you a story. It’s not about dentistry, but it could easily be about any of us. Years ago, when I still played basketball, I met a boy named Claudio. He was tall, shy, and came from a very humble family. He dreamed of playing for the local team, but he had a problem: he didn’t even know how to dribble. Literally. Every practice was a scene of awkwardness. He’d lose the ball, stumble, get frustrated. And, of course, others laughed

Still, he didn’t give up. After every practice, he stayed behind, over and over again, working on the most basic fundamentals: dribbling, jumping, shooting. While everyone else went home, he remained on the court, repeating the same movements until the sun went down. It wasn’t talent, it was effort.

Years passed. One day, when he was eighteen, I watched him play as part of the starting team. He wasn’t the fastest or the flashiest, but something in him had changed. Control, calm, confidence. That night, he scored the shot that won the provincial championship.

Some time later, I learned he’d been selected for the national team. And I remembered that boy who couldn’t even dribble. That’s when I understood something I never forgot: people call “talent” what they never saw being trained.

And perhaps because of that, when a patient tells me “Dr. Bruno you’re an artist”, what I see is not talent I was never one of those kids naturally gifted at drawing or sculpting teeth when I entered dental school. If anything, I was average. What they are really seeing is work and countless hours of effort ,my own version of those 10,000 hours.

Dear colleague, let me tell you this sincerely: talent isn’t a gift, it is accumulated work.

This idea was deeply studied by psychologist Anders Ericsson and later popularized by Malcolm Gladwell in his book Outliers. Both showed that high performance is not about “natural talent,” but about deliberate, consistent, improvement-oriented practice.

And on average, it takes 10,000 hours to reach mastery in any complex discipline.

Do you know what that means? That if today you feel you’re not as good as others, it’s very possible that you simply haven’t reached your 10,000 hours yet. That doesn’t make you less worthy, it makes you a beginner. And there is nothing more honorable than a beginner who keeps going.

Don’t get discouraged if someone beside you seems to have “more skill,” “more vision,” or “more natural talent.”

What you see now is only the tip of the iceberg. What you don’t see are the extra hours, the frustrations, the corrections, the moments they nearly quit.

Claudio didn’t have talent, he had determination. And that is perhaps the most powerful form of talent that exists: to keep going even when no one believes you will make it.

You’re on the path, keep training. Your 10,000 hours will be worth it.

With respect and confidence,

Bruno