Well, actually...

Tip #40 - Who are your teachers?

This post is part of a series I’m writing from mid-June to the end of 2024 or whenever it ends, on things that helped me rebuild my confidence, sense of self, and increased my delight in my life after massive difficulty in multiple areas. For full details and post links to all 110 things, go to this post here.

Tip #40 - where are your teachers?

Teachers and experts are a little bit different.

Different flavors of information giving.

Often there’s an overlap and that’s fine but I find some distinction between the words.

From an expert, I want to get directed to a solution. The best solution from their expert understanding of the topic or problem or issue.

From an expert I want to benefit from the 10,000 hours they’ve cultivated in a field and in an expertise and have them tell me what to do.

I just had that experience when I went to the dermatologist for the first time in my life a few weeks ago. I went to get answers, to get the directions, to benefit from their knowledge.

While I feel like I do get answers and directions and benefit from the knowledge of teachers also, it’s different.

From good teachers, it’s a little different for me because a good teacher I can drop into their space and learn something anytime. I can go in without a specific thing I need solved, and find wisdom that’ll help me out somehow.

From good teachers I can also go to to learn new skills, new ways of cultivating knowledge given to me in a way that I don’t always find in experts.

There’s no shade here but there is a bit of a nuance.

From a teacher I often want to leave with more questions in the way that questions are a prompting and action driving thing.

From a teacher I want to have homework that I engage with actively, rather than the list of steps from my dermatologist that required me to purchase and apply products regularly and consistently.

To be clear, I am learning from my dermatologist about how to take better care of myself, but it’s not as much of a shared skill build as it is with a teacher. To me, at least.

Both are valuable, immeasurably, and both – to me – are different.

I look for teachers in authors, in friends, in people who have skills I want to acquire and admire.

I look for teachers in the stories of strong people who have endured in ways I want to endure.

I find teachers in seeing someone share vulnerably in ways that resonate with me and make me feel connection.

I find teachers in someone being willing to share what they know and also take questions, who tailor their approach to the people on the receiving end of the content.

So while we do learn from experts, I want you to consider the nuance that the people in your life who teach you are maybe – maybe! – able to be a little more engaged and prompt a back and forth type of an experience with the information, the knowledge, the experiences that you’re looking for from them.

In looking for some help to clarify this nuance for myself I turned to the internet, as one does.

An observation from someone that not all experts are teachers caught my attention, and I think that might be a valuable thing to consider.

While it’s possible that anyone can learn from anyone I do believe, and I’m massively a fan of the idea that you can gain knowledge from every aspect of your life if you want to, and obviously you have to bring an engagement to your life in order to benefit from an expert and a teacher, but again - I think there’s something in a good teacher, some education or perhaps even some training formal or a level of experience, even just someone who’s good at connecting while conveying information in a responsive way that isn’t necessarily required of someone who has the label of expert.

So really, this question, this tip of mine for today, isn’t so much about knowing your teachers, but knowing who YOU are finding learning from paying attention to.

The other half of this question - to know who you find learning from in exchange for your attention and time - is to know and figure out how you actually learn.

The best way I know how to have you think of this if you haven’t already, is to consider how you are able to learn how to fix something when it breaks.

For example - I had a vacuum I no longer have but it would break sometimes.

I went to youtube to figure out what to do.

Partly because I was real hardcore in my I don’t need no mans I can solve this myself and I’ll do it without buying a whole gd new machine type of stubborn independence.

Partly just to see if I even could fix it myself.

I found out a few things about myself.

It helped to have videos that were also narrated by someone who didn’t sound mad at me.

I benefitted from multiple view point of the inner guts of the vacuum so I could see how the pieces worked in context with each other. The videos that didn’t do that were harder for me and frustrated me quickly.

I watched the whole video and then went back to watch it again, and followed along step by step with my own situation, doing the mechanical origami of the vacuum’s issue, and getting it done.

It worked.

I fixed the thing and put it back together successfully and it felt good to do so and be able to learn from someone else’s dad on the internet who made the video - a gratitude there for sure, to all the dads and people on the internet who share basic mechanical based skills in a way I can follow along and learn from.

In knowing where your teachers are, how you learn, and who you can learn from for specific and just general reasons I think you’re providing yourself with an abundance of experts that can help you level yourself up.

A few of these tips so far have been about removing the shame and fear that sometimes accompanies learning new things - especially if we haven’t extended or believed in ourselves or our abilities for a while.

You can learn things.

You can learn new things.

You can learn the things you see other people doing.

You can learn from other people who know how to do those things.

You can learn from yourself and use that information to learn better and refine and keep going in the directions you want to pursue.

Teachers, the best ones, are going to believe in you and really mean it.

They’re going to know it’s possible for you to get where you want to be.

They’re going to be thrilled to hear of your wins, your steps, your progress, your overcoming, your beginnings.

To learning, to curiosity, to teachers and experts, to someone’s dad making reference videos on youtube to help fatherless adult children and everyone else who might need it, and most of all to you for being here and reading this and working on whatever and everything that you feel in yourself that you want to get going onwards to do with yourself.

A hug to you.

A spark of the universe winking to you in encouragement, from me.

Have patience, continue, and keep going.

Slow and steady and in the right direction, ILYSM - Marian