Let’s review the things that I learned this week.
1) When all else fails, be bold rather than timid
The alternative message here is “trust your training”. This is the test to whether a person has a fundamental understanding of what they’re doing or whether they’re just a monkey that knows the motions. A person who has true understanding has no fear of the unknown because they can fall back on what they know and adapt their knowledge to a new situation.
2) It’s all about the basics
Speaking of which, train the basics with an eye for understanding the concepts rather than just getting bored. The reason it’s better to train basics is that you’re breaking down concepts to their core components and then moving forward. Knowing concepts is learning how to use and apply facts, whether they’re new or not. As I remember Aki’s dad telling me, almost everything you ever learn is wrong and useless anyways. If you don’t know the concepts behind the facts, you don’t know anything.
3) You only get out what you put in.
Finally, a lessons learned where all the lessons are related. The ultimate lesson of education is exactly this lesson, especially when you’re only learning the basics. A lot of people are plenty talented and smart enough to be just a monkey that pretends to fake understanding, but when you put them in the crucible, they just fall apart because they don’t really know. But just because something is easy doesn’t mean it requires little effort.