Parable: Knowing where to tap
Last week was quite a ride!
I started with two new amazing clients
I dove deep into the Zettelkasten note-taking method, introduced in How to Take Smart Notes by Sönke Ahrens, and learned all about the SaaS app Roam Research to implement the method
I went on two thought-provoking and heartfelt hikes with two wonderful humans (separately)
I attended a virtual magic show put on by Andrew Evans, founder of The Magic Patio
I applied to the On Deck Writing Fellowship
I ran a lot of errands
Most of all, I wrote a lot :)
Where did the time come from?
Well, an experiment — I gave myself the constraint of having 2 meetings maximum per day for the whole week. At most, I was in 4 hours of meetings a day.
It forced me to prioritize, create space, and be okay with not being “always on”. Thankfully, I planned this out about 8 weeks ago so I didn’t need to reschedule most existing things - they were already scheduled around this experiment week (shoutout to blocking your calendar!)
It was a refreshing and much-needed change of pace, given how zoom’d out I’d been feeling lately.
On to today’s post — one of my favorite parables:
Knowing where to tap
Ever hear the story of the giant ship engine that failed?
The ship’s owners tried one expert engineer after another, but none of them could figure out how to fix the engine. Then someone recommended an old man who had been fixing ships for many years. After listening to the description of the problems and asking a few questions, he inspected the engine carefully, top to bottom.
After a few minutes, the old man pulled a hammer out of his tool bag and gently tapped on a specific spot in the engine.
Instantly, the engine sprung back to life and began working perfectly. He carefully put his hammer away. The engine was fixed!
A week later, the owners received a bill from the old man for $10,000.
“How is this so expensive?!” the owners exclaimed. “He hardly did anything!”
Outraged, they requested an itemized bill from the old man.
The man sent a bill that read:
Tapping with a hammer …………………… $2.
Knowing where to tap ………………………. $9,998.
Takeaway: While effort is important, having the experience to know where to put that effort makes all the difference.
Some things are only learned through experience, and experience cannot be taught — it’s only learned in the arena.
There is simply no substitute for experience if you want to truly master something.
Footnotes:
It looks like a version of the original story first appeared in 1908, “The Journal of the Society of Estate Clerks of Works” of Winchester, England.
I cobbled together three different sources to produce my remixed version above: (source 1, source 2, source 3).
Image source: https://gcaptain.com