How can we became a Maestro without stopping the learning process? According to Ericsson:

“The key challenge for aspiring expert performers is to avoid the arrested development associated with automaticity and to acquire cognitive skills to support their continued learning and improvement”

Become a “true” Maestro in a discipline requires about:

10,000 hours of training, corresponding to three hours of exercise every day for 10 years. Just like the medieval apprentices. Where did these data pop out? Well, from a series of studies in different disciplines and areas.

SIMON AND CHASE in 1973 discovered that to become an international chess master, players had to train for about 10 years.

Mozart, even though very talented, needed 10 years of practice before he could compose something really “magnifico”.

Nadal: he started playing when he was three years old; he won the first international championship (for boys) when he was12 (10 years later) and reached for the first time the top of the charts in 2005-2006 (nearly 10 years later from the first winning championship)

Scientists and researchers publish their first paper when they are 25 years old and reach their career peak in about 10 years later.

And we remember how Leonardo spent 10 years in Verrocchio’s Shop