Choosing Your Teacher
Why having the right teacher makes or breaks your progress
Choosing who to learn from is as important as choosing what to learn. People might assume they want the tippity-top, smartest expert of the field to teach them because that would be the best, right? Not so fast.
Learning from the top of the line expert can actually be a frustrating and fruitless experience for beginners. Why is that? Consider what author C.S. Lewis said about how young students often learn best from their own classmates.
“It often happens that two schoolboys can solve difficulties in their work for one another better than the master can. When you took the problem to a master, as we all remember, he was very likely to explain what you understood already, to add a great deal of information which you didn’t want, and say nothing at all about the thing that was puzzling you. I have watched this from both sides of the net; for when, as a teacher myself, I have tried to answer questions brought me by pupils, I have sometimes, after a minute, seen that expression settle down on their faces that assured me that they were suffering exactly the same frustration which I had suffered from my teachers. The fellow-pupil can help more than the master because he knows less. The difficulty we want him to explain is one he has recently met. The expert met it so long ago he has forgotten. He sees the whole subject, by now, in a different light that he cannot conceive what is really troubling the pupil; he sees a dozen other difficulties which ought to be troubling him but aren’t.”
I can add my own analogy here. Imagine someone wants to learn how to drive a car. They just want to follow the rules and be able to drive for errands and their job. Would they look for a typical instructor or would they only want to work with a professional F1 driver to teach them?
The F1 driver, while a talented expert, would obviously be the wrong choice. A person wanting to know how to safely navigate to the grocery store doesn’t need to learn to drive a race car. It would be way over their head and unhelpful for them getting started on something practical.
Here’s another example. Let’s say you want to learn the basics of physics. Do you need to enroll at a university and work with Einstein-level geniuses just for that? Or could you learn from free lessons online?
I like entrepreneurial sucess stories such as the work of Alex Hormozi. For those new to him, he built up a gym empire on his own and then started an acquisition company. He outputs tons of material in his books and his videos on YouTube.
Great, but what’s the problem? Maybe I’m dense but his stuff goes way over my head. He goes into all these detailed frameworks about creating offers and advanced marketing tactics to build up multi-million dollar enterprises. When I watch or read his stuff, I feel like I’m trying to get a glass of water from a fire hose. Alex is obviously smart, talented, and successful. I just don’t know how to apply any of the lessons. Like C.S. Lewis said in his quote, Alex “sees the whole subject, by now, in a different light that he cannot conceive what is really troubling the pupil.”
For me, my thinking is—dude, that’s great you can create huge businesses but that’s way above my league right now. How do I generate like $500 a month while I work my day job? I don’t have an answer to that question yet but keeping this lesson in mind is now steering me towards who I should listen to. I’m starting to think Nick Loper or maybe Noah Kagan would be more helpful for me at this stage.
Once you decide what you want to learn, also decide who it’s best to learn from given your own standpoint. If you are taking your first baby steps, you don’t need to train with a marathoner. It’s better to work with a coach or friend who understands you’re trying to get off the ground.
