Guy Reams (00:01.496)
This is day 94, the steep learning curve.
You know, there's a steep learning curve to almost anything that you do that is worthwhile. This is just a reality. You know, lately I've been helping my daughter who in eighth grade she got real enthusiastic about basketball. So much to her credit, she's worked very hard and now she's gotten on a team that is very good. And that team, the skill set is just
way above her. And that can be discouraging at times. But what's happening, it's hard for her to see, but I absolutely see it. Her learning is dramatically going up. Like she is just gaining in leaps and bounds, which is really cool. I've seen the same trend happen in my early days when I was teaching computer science.
So while teaching computer science, I had usually about 60 or 70 students a semester. And part of my responsibility was to teach a couple entry level courses in my subject matter. this, and I usually would teach a networking course like computer networking. So I would get usually young people that were out of high school and had not established a career yet.
And they were looking to get into computers or into network administration or system administration. And they thought this would be a good career path for them to choose. So excited, they signed up at the college and they started taking a couple of classes. The problem is they were coming in learning a completely new language and a whole new way of thinking about systems.
Guy Reams (02:02.593)
Going from video game player or forklift driver or fresh out of high school or retired whatever, leaving that world and coming into the world of computer networking or systems admin work is just a completely different mind shift. There's a whole new language to learn, new tools to understand.
And you're looking at the way computers communicate at a very granular level. And you have to understand some algorithms and how a numbering system works, binary and hex and all these things. You also have to understand how to think and how to troubleshoot problems and how to read technical manuals and understand them. So in a beginning level course, the learning curve is incredibly steep.
What happens is there's a period of time where people that are going into this new subject matter really struggle because I don't know if you've ever put a puzzle together, but just last night I was helping my mother-in-law put a puzzle together. And the general way you put a puzzle together is you dump all the puzzle pieces out and then you sort them. You sort the straight edges away from all the other pieces.
And then the goal is to try to build the perimeter, the straight pieces, before he gets started on the inside. That's typically the strategy people use when putting up.
When my students would be taking a new class to get into computer networking.
Guy Reams (03:47.191)
They would like, they're basically learning the basics of routing and switching at a very elementary level. Basic IP, internet protocol. So this is a whole new ball game for them. So they're starting to do the puzzle, but they're literally all they're doing is recognizing the straight pieces from the non-straight pieces. At the early stages, that's all you're doing.
And that can feel extremely frustrated. When you start to get into a new world, you realize after you become more educated, you come in with a lot of optimism, and then you realize, man, I had no idea. And that's what happens. So there's one of two types that happen. There's the person that comes in and realizes how complex and how big the world is that they've dove into, and then they...
gut it up and they stick through the steep learning curve, and then there's those that quit. Unfortunately, I would say about 20 % decided to keep going. The rest decided to quit. And I think this is just human nature. We get involved in something, we're optimistic, we jump in, we're all excited about it, and then we learn the truth. And the truth is anything worthwhile
Anything that is complex, anything that has value to it that will cause you to personally grow or make more money requires a massively steep learning curve. There is no more easy paths left in this world. They just don't exist. If somebody is trying to pitch to you an easy path, they are lying to you. Absolutely. There is no way up.
The only way to go is by a steep, very difficult climb over the initial hurdle of knowledge. The nice thing about this is very few people actually climb and scale that steep learning curve. That means once you get past the initial hurdle, it does become considerably easier once you know the language. You know, I've oftentimes wanted to learn a foreign language.
Guy Reams (06:11.693)
But I've never been able to really do so well because the steep learning curve is something that I wasn't willing to tolerate. Now that I'm older, I just can't handle the fact that I don't know how to do something. When I was a young kid learning like Spanish, I learned Spanish when I was a little kid. When I learned Spanish in high school, yeah, the learning curve was the same steepness, but I was ignorant. So I just learned what I could and had fun doing it.
But later in life, I wanted to learn French. So I started trying to learn French. And the learning curve was so steep that I gave up way too early. So there's some definite things to ponder here. And let me go over a few of them. The first kind of general idea is that complexity leads to mastery. When you enter into something, there are going to be intricate systems, complicated skills,
difficult knowledge to acquire, and that is going to take time and effort to understand deeply. So when you start small, start breaking it down into manageable steps, and you celebrate along the way, you will eventually climb that steep hurdle, and it is going to be complex and difficult. But once you overcome that, then you will have a base core understanding of the subject matter, and then you can start to excel.
The value you get out of something generally reflects the investment that you make. The more effort something takes for you to achieve, the steeper the learning curve initially, the more value it will give to you later. You can actually look this up in micro or macro economics. This is a principle of scarcity. By the way, I failed economics in college. I got an F. But I do remember a couple of things from that economics class.
and one was the principle of scarcity. Easy things are abundant. They're everywhere. Hard things are very rare and much more appreciated when you figure them out. So you know you're on the right track when you've discovered a good thing that is very hard. That's when you know you're on the right path. So what to do?
Guy Reams (08:31.979)
You can reframe something that's challenging not as a challenge but as an investment. So if you pour the time and energy to overcome the steep learning curve, that's not a challenge. That short-term discomfort that will lead to long-term rewards. Third, growth comes from resistance. You are not going to grow unless something is you are being resisted by something.
You already know this. Most people know the basics of weightlifting. You're not going to grow muscle unless you're faced against resistance. The same thing happens when you're trying to learn something new. The only time you're going to grow is when you're exposed to mental and emotional growth, emotional difficulty which leads to growth. So you should embrace discomfort. Things are going to suck for a while.
Use setbacks as necessary steps for growth rather than failure.
Fourth, the journey will transform you. The process of overcoming a steep learning curve changes you. It develops not only new skills, but new qualities like discipline, resilience, and focus. You know, I'm really sad when I think there are some people that I've met in my life that have never actually overcome something significant. Like, a lot of people have overcome something significant because they had to, no other choice.
But very few people have taken on something difficult without having to and forced their way through it. That is really what it means to be human. To thrive as being human is to pick something extremely challenging and over...
Guy Reams (10:22.989)
So how do you do that? Well, I've always learned to keep the why in mind, always remembering why I'm doing it. When that steep learning curve feels incredibly overwhelming, I always like to remind myself why I started this path in the first place. There are some practical steps that we can use to tackle a steep learning curve and adopt what I call this growth mindset. You can believe that efforts lead to improvement.
Lock that into your brain. Second, you can learn from mistakes rather than ferrying them. And then you can break things down so that it doesn't feel so overwhelming. You can chunk the learning down into smaller digestible pieces so the learning curve doesn't feel that bad. You can focus on one skill or one concept at a time rather than trying to understand everything all at once.
The hard part, going back to my example of people learning new networking concepts, as they were trying to put the puzzle together, one of the challenges in technology is they're adding new puzzle pieces every day. So just when you think you're starting to figure it out, there's a whole new technology coming down the pipe. I think you can also learn to leverage people, friends, family, resources, and leverage communities that are dedicated for the specific purpose of teaching others.
Remember this, every generation has an incentive to teach the generation that follows them. I'm at the age now where I'm getting old enough where I need to realize that I have to start teaching the generation that follows me the things that I've learned and the things that I've known so that humanity can progress. So there's certainly things that I've learned and I'm really good at and it behooves me to try to pass that on the best I can.
There are communities of scientists, researchers, engineers, associations that are designed to help you progress as you learn a new thing. Find out who those people are and get to know them and follow them. Join their groups. There are plenty of books, tutorials, mentors, things that you can do to fast track your progress. Here's something you got to deal with. Never be afraid to pay the right people.
Guy Reams (12:42.177)
to help you understand exactly the learning path you should take. It is highly valuable to find somebody that knows the path. I'm telling you, when I was younger, I made this fatal mistake. I thought that I could figure this out on my own, and I did not want people to know that I was ignorant. So I tried to always approach the situation pretending like I knew everything. The problem with that is I never asked the right people for help.
If I would have asked a wiser, more sage person what path I should have taken, I would have avoided a lot of mistakes in my life. Do not make that prideful, egotistical mistake of trying to pretend that you know everything. I would surround yourself with people that are on a similar journey, both for support and also for accountability.
Finally, you know, being consistent is really important. If you start on a steep, steep path, the only way you're going to get to the top is one foot at a time. You're not going to find any shortcuts. You're not going to find any gondola rides to the top of the mountain. It just ain't going to happen. The only way to do it is consistently one foot in front of another. Regular, incremental efforts.
always beats sporadic intense effort. Let me repeat that just so you get it. Regular incremental effort always beats sporadic intense effort. Building habits around your learning process is absolutely the way to take one step at a time. You should also track this progress. Document what you've learned and how far you've come and go over that frequently.
One thing it's hard to see, and it's really hard for people on the mountain, when you're on the steep mountain, it's hard to see where you're at. But everybody else looking from afar can watch you and see you and realize how much you've made. Like me watching my daughter, I've seen her make a ton of progress. I see her halfway up the mountain already. She doesn't see it that way. She sees it as really difficult and very steep.
Guy Reams (14:59.118)
So it's a good idea to document what you've done and ask people for their opinion. Reviewing your progress always motivates you to keep on going. So just to conclude, remember this. Anything of value requires you to overcome a steep learning curve. Just because the initial going is difficult does not mean that you should give up.