Malcolm Gladwell, in his book "Outliers," describes how studies of expertise consistently show that 10,000 hours of practice in a discipline is required for true mastery. This is problematic for those who become independent school trustees--bringing with them a passion for their school and for education in general, but not much else. Many independent school trustees are serving on their first school board, and may or may not have experience with nonprofit governance in general. So how do they develop the skills to succeed in this critical role? One way is to share experiences, both good and bad, across schools--so that one trustee's mistakes do not get repeated over and over in other schools. In this article, the author shares ten lessons he has learned in his own trustee experience.