Beginners Know Better than Experts

Lansing, 2014
Lansing, 2014

Why is it that the beginners are always asking the experts for their opinion?

Shouldn’t it be opposite? Shouldn’t the experts be asking the beginners for their opinion?

Avoid becoming an expert

Experts get trapped into their own minds and thinking. They learn too much theory, concepts, and ideas, and become prisoners. Their minds fossilize, and become rigid. They stop learning how to learn. They lose humility, and a sense of curiosity and wonder. They become old, stubborn, and die.

Be a beginner

Beginners are curious, nimble, and eager to learn. They always question, and never take anything as truth. They experiment, they wonder, and they learn from their mistakes. They value trial-and-error, and incremental learning. They don’t have any big and fancy concepts to restrict them. They believe in their gut and intuition. They go out and learn practical things.

“Beginner’s mind”

Don’t become an expert. Seek to be a beginner for your entire life. Whenever you think you got something figured out — drop that thought.

Don’t let your mind fossilize. Stay flexible and nimble. Learn from beginners, and disregard what the experts say.

The experts think they know everything, yet they know nothing. The beginners think they know nothing, yet they know everything.

Keep to “beginner’s mind”.

Never stop learning,
Eric

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