Social Anxiety Support

rubyruby · 10-28-2009, 07:32 AM

Outliers is a non-fiction book written by Malcolm Gladwell and published by Little, Brown and Company on November 18, 2008. In Outliers, Gladwell examines the factors that contribute to high levels of success. To support his thesis, he examines the causes of why the majority of Canadian ice hockey players are born in the first few months of the calendar year, how Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates achieved his extreme wealth, and how two people with exceptional intelligence, Christopher Langan and J. Robert Oppenheimer, end up with such vastly different fortunes. Throughout the publication, Gladwell repeatedly mentions the "10,000-Hour Rule", claiming that the key to success in any field is, to a large extent, a matter of practising a specific task for a total of around 10,000 hours.

What if we applied this to social anxiety. Malcolm Gladwell thinks it takes 10,000 hours to be a success in any field. What if we spent say 2,000 hours practicing to be more social - do you think we would be less anxious in social situations? What if we spent 2000 hours listening to relaxation tapes. Surely after 2000 hours of practice we would be able to master this task and relax quite easily.

coldmorning · 10-28-2009, 08:53 AM

I haven't read Outliers yet though I've read his other books. But I'm familiar with the 10,000 hours thing. I know it's been mentioned for music, programming, etc. I don't think it really applies to social anxiety because it's more like parachuting. Someone is too scared to jump out of the plane but parachuting itself isn't really hard and you don't need to do it many times to learn it. The 10,000 thing refers to proficiency at a skill and socializing isn't really that hard to do. Though it is a skill, it's more like learning to ride a bike which doesn't require that much practice. But some people are so scared that they keep falling off.

JMX · 10-28-2009, 09:43 AM

(Off-topic)

Outliers was one of the few books I've read for leisure, and it was quite an interesting book. Shows how much luck is involved in being successful in life.

10-28-2009, 07:32 AM	#1 (permalink)
rubyruby Status: SAS Member Join Date: Jun 2009 Posts: 59	Malcolm Gladwell, 10,000 hours Outliers is a non-fiction book written by Malcolm Gladwell and published by Little, Brown and Company on November 18, 2008. In Outliers, Gladwell examines the factors that contribute to high levels of success. To support his thesis, he examines the causes of why the majority of Canadian ice hockey players are born in the first few months of the calendar year, how Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates achieved his extreme wealth, and how two people with exceptional intelligence, Christopher Langan and J. Robert Oppenheimer, end up with such vastly different fortunes. Throughout the publication, Gladwell repeatedly mentions the "10,000-Hour Rule", claiming that the key to success in any field is, to a large extent, a matter of practising a specific task for a total of around 10,000 hours. What if we applied this to social anxiety. Malcolm Gladwell thinks it takes 10,000 hours to be a success in any field. What if we spent say 2,000 hours practicing to be more social - do you think we would be less anxious in social situations? What if we spent 2000 hours listening to relaxation tapes. Surely after 2000 hours of practice we would be able to master this task and relax quite easily.

10-28-2009, 08:53 AM	#2 (permalink)
coldmorning Status: Add water and shake Join Date: Jul 2007 Location: Northern California Gender: Male Posts: 2,122	I haven't read Outliers yet though I've read his other books. But I'm familiar with the 10,000 hours thing. I know it's been mentioned for music, programming, etc. I don't think it really applies to social anxiety because it's more like parachuting. Someone is too scared to jump out of the plane but parachuting itself isn't really hard and you don't need to do it many times to learn it. The 10,000 thing refers to proficiency at a skill and socializing isn't really that hard to do. Though it is a skill, it's more like learning to ride a bike which doesn't require that much practice. But some people are so scared that they keep falling off.

10-28-2009, 09:43 AM	#3 (permalink)
JMX Status: SAS Member Join Date: Feb 2008 Location: Indiana Gender: Male Age: 23 Posts: 299	(Off-topic) Outliers was one of the few books I've read for leisure, and it was quite an interesting book. Shows how much luck is involved in being successful in life.