Helping Instead of Doing

When people want to learn, it’s great – particularly you’re pretty good at their topic of interest.  It feels good to know that you can have a positive impact on them. It takes time though. There’s no shortcut. It can be difficult to put yourself in their position again, because you can’t immediately un-know what you know.  You can’t do everything for them, nor should you.  What you can do is help them build a bridge, between their current state to your pool of knowledge.

When you do something regularly, it feels easy to you. You’ve already put in the hours. So how do you flatten their learning curve, but not do too much? I think the answer lies in providing direction. When you’re new to a subject, one of the hardest things is that you don’t know, what you don’t know. How do you learn when you don’t even know the questions to ask? That’s where you can make the difference. Your knowledge and experience can provide direction, some sign posts along the way. You can give them a map, but they still need to follow their own path.