SUCCESS STORY
James Wight and 10,000 hours
By Noah Tedlund | Biology Major, Music Minor
James Herriot had already delivered one calf late at night and then he goes home and takes a bath to get all of the dirt off of him, finally relaxing for at least a short time. He lays down with his wife and snuggles in under the blanket, and then the phone rings. “I huddled deeper in the blankets as the strident breeng-breeng, breeng-breeng of the telephone echoed through the old house,” James Herriot wrote (Herriot, 43). It’s a farmer calling to tell him that their calf stuck in its mother and it looks bad. Wight worked all day and night. He put in his ten thousand hours, which Malcolm Gladwell calls the threshold of success. Every one of those ten thousand hours took a lot of work. Herriot recounts about his work, “They didn’t say anything about this in the books, I thought, as the snow blew in through the gaping doorway and settled on my naked back. There was no mention anywhere of the gradual exhaustion the feeling of futility and the little far-off voice of panic.” The only reason he was able to do that was because he loved his job. He could find every little enjoyable moment left to be squeezed from life.
James Wight wrote many books about his life using the surname James Herriot. That name became the memorable name that everybody in the veterinary business knows him by. He had time to reflect on his whole life and career as a countryside veterinarian. It was not easy for him and he had many nights just like that. He had many long jobs and many times had to work all night on difficult and dirty jobs. James Wight was dedicated to what he did and he truly loved both the people and the animals that he worked with everyday.
James Alfred Wight made it to where he was because of thousands of hours of dirty, hard work and studying in college, attaining the outliers ten thousand hours, and enjoying every last bit of it.
In Outliers, Gladwell talks about the ten thousand hour rule and how it applies to musicians. A psychologist from the 1990s, Anders Ericsson, who did a study on music majors.
“Everyone from all three groups started playing at roughly the same age, around five years old. In those first few years, everyone practiced roughly the same amount, about two or three hours a week. But when the students were around the age of eight, real differences started to emerge. The students who would end up the best in their class began to practice more than everyone else: six hours a week by age nine, eight hours a week by age twelve, sixteen hours a week by age fourteen, and up and up, until by the age of twenty they were practicing — that is, purposefully and single-mindedly playing their instruments with the intent to get better — well over thirty ours a week. In fact, by the age of twenty, the elite performers had each totaled ten thousand hours of practice. By contrast, the merely good students had totaled eight thousand hours, and the future music teachers had totaled just over four thousand hours.”
Gladwell goes on to talk about how there are no naturals and that everyone who is good got there through hard work. He even brings up Mozart as an example and shows that Mozart’s early works were relatively not very good and that his father helped him greatly. He did not become a master until he had put in his time. Even the Beatles were not famous until they put in there hours performing all night in Hamburg. Before that they were a garage band (35–42).
Wight did not start out anywhere near the top. He had to make a name for himself in a small community that was not ready for a new vet.
“And how long have you been qualified, may I ask?” a farmer asked Wight, “Oh, about seven months.” “Seven months!” Uncle smiled indulgently, tamped down his tobacco and blew to a cloud of rank, blue smoke. “Well, there’s nowt like a bit of experience, I always says. Mr. Broomfield’s been doing my work now for over ten years and he really knows what he’s about. No, You can ‘ave your book learning. Give me experience every time.” (Herriot, 4)
Herriot was the new vet on the block. He was trying to win the approval of country farmers that had had the same vet for years and were not very welcoming to change. He had put in hours upon hours of what the farmers called ‘book learnin’ but he had not yet had his experience. This experience was his true ten thousand hours and he had not even started it yet. He soon achieved that experience and that is why he was the respected and appreciated vet that he was. He had a way with the farmers that came from working with just about every kind of person and had seen just about anything that could possibly go wrong with an animal.
Wight was no genius and just made it through vet school. His son writes one of his quotes about his years in veterinary school. Another veterinary student said to James Wight about the recent exam, “Whats the pass mark?”
“45 percent,” Wight replied.
“What did you get?”
“46 percent.”
“You’ve been working too hard!” (Wight, 52)
James Wight was just average but as Gladwell talks about in his book Outliers, a just average person can be a great outlier. James Wight became an outlier not because he was a genius or because he did amazing in veterinary school but instead because of the time that he put into his work. Malcolm Gladwell talked in outliers about geniuses. There is a threshold and once your good enough, you’re as good as all the other people just good enough and from that point on its the opportunities you receive and the work you put in that makes you an outlier. Gladwell states, “To be a Nobel Prize winner, apparently, you have to be smart enough to get into a college at least as good as Notre Dame or the University of Illinois. That’s all.” Herriot was just good enough in vet school but he was given the opportunity to work hard. He slowly gained more and experience and slowly became a true outlier.
James Herriot was getting ready to do vaccines when he pulls up to the farm and realizes that they are not at all prepared. He gets ready for a lot of work. They round up the cows and put them in the pen and start to take them one by one getting shoved into the walls struggling to give them the vaccines. This kind of gruesome hot and hard work was what those ten thousand hours were made of. If these hours hadn’t been work he would not have ever had the experience that he did. James Wight loved the work that he did and he did it for the animals. He once said, “I love writing about my job because I loved it, and it was a particularly interesting one when I was a young man. It was like holidays with pay to me.” James Wight put in well over ten thousand hours but every one of those hours was enjoyable. You cannot work to the best of your ability without enjoying the work that you do.
James Herriot did not choose an easy path. He chose the hardest bull. He became one with that bull, practiced with those kinds of bulls and beat that bull. Gary Leffew is a professional bull rider who did a video interview for the New York Times. He said in that interview, “You become a success from the attitude and the work you put in. and you see guys smiling, laughing, giggling and having fun with life, its usually a success.” He also said, “If you just go out there and hope its going to happen then it’s probably not going to happen. But, that’s the way life is. If you just hope you’re going to be a success — good luck,” (Leffew). Then talking to others he can say, “Oh you got that bull that bulls easy.” James Herriot took every opportunity to work hard.
James Wight loved his job and he was good at what he did. And within those hours and hours of experience he still had time for all the little moments to stop and enjoy life, thinking about everything. One example is when he was driving to an appointment and stopped to enjoy this world.
I was in a rush as usual but I had to stop. I pulled up in a gateway, sam jumped out and we went through into a field; and as the beagle scamper over the glittering turf I stood in the warm sunshine amid the melting frost and looked back at the dark damp blanket which blotted out the low country but left this jeweled world above it. And, gulping the sweet air, I gazed about me gratefully at the clean green land where I worked and made my living. I could have stayed there, wandering round, watching sam exploring with waving tail, nosing into the shady corners where the sun had not reached and the ground was iron hard and the rime thick and crisp on the grass. But I had an appointment to keep, and no ordinary one. Reluctantly I got back into the car.
This shows how much James Alfred Wight had to work to keep making it. He was able to do the work that he did because he enjoyed every aspect. He stopped and he took the time to take in the curious little moments that made his job meaningful. He was able to look at every animal with love and affection. He was able to look at the scenery and just absorb the beauty of it. He treated every client with respect and enjoyed working with all of them. He gained there respect and did not abuse it but instead worked harder to better what he could do for them. He worked at his job with his whole heart. It didn’t come easy for James and it will never come easy for anybody. You have to put in the time.
Works Cited
1. The Bull Rider. Dir. Joris Debeij. Perf. Gary Leffew. New York Times, 2015.
2. Gladwell, Malcolm. Outliers: The Story of Success. New York City: Little, Brown, 2008. Print.
3. Herriot, James. All Creatures Great and Small. New York: St. Martin’s, 1972. Print.
4. Tabor, Mary B.w. “James Herriot, 78, Writer, Dies — Animal Stories Charmed People.” New York Times [New York City] 24 Feb. 1995, Obituaries sec.: 1. Print.
5.Wight, Jim. The Real James Herriot: A Memoir of My Father. New York: Ballantine, 2000. Print.
6. Herriot, James. All Things Bright and Beautiful. New York: St. Martin’s, 1973. Print.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Noah Tedlund, a biology major and music minor from Minneapolis, Minnesota, seeks to become a caring and loving veterinarian. Tedlund likes the burrito bowl with everything at Chipotle Mexican Grill, playing piano instead of studying for important exams and sitting in chicken poop on the floor of the coop feeding the chickens by hand.
WHAT I’VE LEARNED
I learned that the freshmen were not eaten by anonymous but instead that anonymous ate the freshman because anonymous people were-ing is not very exciting is it?
I learned to name that dog in college writing class at Bethel University 3900 Bethel Drive, Saint Paul, MN 55112 at 12:35 pm every Tuesday and Thursday during the second semester or in other words to be specific.
I learned that not everything can, on its own, be a good story but that everything can be written as an interesting story.
I learned that adding the title name and date at the top of the paper actually does matter and that you can lose a couple of points for not adding them.
I learned that writing doesn’t bore me when I am writing about something that I enjoy.
I learned that sharing, even in our writing covenant when everybody, in unison, snaps at the end, is still pretty scary.
I that good writ know wha to leave out in order to make a story much more exciting like how I just left out the fact that I didn’t eat breakfast this morning and that I went to sleep last night before I woke up and shaved and put on deodorant and got dressed and drove to school to take finals and walked in through the front doors and then walked up the stairs and then walked in the door to class because I learned that some of that isn’t needed.
I learned how I should shouldn’t use juxtaposition, like how I placed should and shouldn’t close together to add contrast.
I was sitting ferociously typing on my keyboard at nine o’clock in the morning in college writing class, drowsy from studying for finals until three the night before and being jarred awake by my alarm clock with the bells on it as I scrambled out of bed to shut it off before it deafened me and, I learned to drop the reader in a moment.
What did I learn? Oh yes, I learned that great stories start with a question.
I learned that the orange sitting next to me smells just like the gorgeous acres of orange trees in Florida. It feels like sitting in the middle of that orange grove with the wind blowing gently past, carrying more smells to me. The tick tick of peoples fingers typing sounds like the sound of little birds quickly and gaurdedly eating seeds off the ground. Also I learned that I am supposed to appeal to people’s senses to make a good story.
I learned that I sped on the way to school today and that I drove down the shoulder past over a hundred cars on Snelling to get to the Bethel turn so that I would not be late to college writing and, that I am supposed to reach a deeper level of honesty with the reader.
I learned that I am supposed to make original comparisons and that writing papers and coming up with ideas is like taking care of chickens. You feed them, take care of them and nurture them but you just have to take the eggs when they come to you because no matter how hard I squeeze that chicken I can’t get the egg out. But then once the chicken stops producing eggs you can butcher it just like when an idea isn’t going anywhere I can delete the whole idea and get a new one.
I learned that I actually can write interesting things and that people really do like to read the work that I do.
It was 12:40 and I was in the back row of college writing in the AC classroom. Scott Winter, the teacher, says, “What class is this?” expecting us to respond writing covenant, “and what do we do in the writing covenant?” expecting us to say share. I try not to make eye contact with him. I feel my writing is not good enough and don’t want to share. He pulls out a hat and starts drawing names. The first name drawn out of the hat? Me. I start nervously sharing and I’m halfway through. Somebody chuckles and I think maybe this isn’t too bad. I finish and everybody snaps. It’s over and I’ve done it. Maybe this sharing thing isn’t as bad as I thought. I even feel like publishing a paper online.
