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Unless you are a prodigy, you simply haven't had the time yet to become really good at anything. Supposedly it takes 10.000 hours or so of exercise, which would be 9 years at 3 hours daily.

I'm not trying to push you down, and anyone not paying you what your work is worth is definitely taking advantage of you.

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Very true. But, I don't think that applies to everything. I don't think it takes 10,000 hours of practice to design a decent Wordpress theme. In fact, I would say that most college graduates (even from top universities) would still be quite far away from 10,000 hours in a specific domain of CS/SE, yet, companies do hire them.

Yes, and they are hired into a graduate position, if they are lucky. Most are brought on as Juniors because they do not have the required experience.

> But, I don't think that applies to everything. I don't think it takes 10,000 hours of practice to design a decent Wordpress theme.

Well it does, but you obviously benefit from all relevant experiences. Any kind of design, even print or illustration, is relevant. Obviously all programming, not only PHP/Javascript is relevant.

He doesn't have to be a rock-star to be able to freelance and charge decent rates. Also, it's not about the quantity of hours spent; it's also about the quality and focus.

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