On experts and swindlers
If you can't simplify it, you don't know it
A simple brain teaser to fit today’s topic:
A man is wearing all black. He’s walking down the road and all the street lamps are off. A black car is coming towards him with its headlights off, but manages to stop in time. How did the driver see the man?
Answer, at the end. If you’re enjoying this newsletter, please obsessively forward this to people and tell them to:
Short and sweet.
There’s this quote I love that some of you might recognize:
I apologize for the long letter, I didn’t have the time to make it shorter.
Some attribute it to Mark Twain, but it seems to have been said (written) originally by Blaise Pascal.
Seems weird when you first read it, right? Making things longer should take more time, while writing something short should be quicker.
That’s what they teach us in school. Write a 10 page essay. Quality is usually the secondary criteria. And I’ll admit it’s hard to judge creativity objectively, so I get why that’s the norm.
Because of it, though, it’s so easy to seem knowledgable on something. It usually takes 3 things:
A heightened sense of self worth
A decent wit
A topic that seems easy to understand but hard to master
Most experts, real experts, will not go on rambling about a subject until it’s completely incomprehensible. They value simplicity.
They know how difficult it is to summarize their field so once they reach the stage when they’re able to do that, you’ll see them dispensing short-form wisdom all the time.
A mechanic’s worth
There’s this great (fictional) story about a guy who couldn’t find a mechanic to fix his car, everyone would rant that they know what’s wrong with it, but no one could actually make it work.
He goes to this famously expensive mechanic who takes a look at the car and says “I can fix it for you, but it’s gonna cost you $5k”. The guy accepts.
The mechanic takes a wrench, messes around with the engine for a bit, then gives it a loud smack. He turns the key in the ignition and the car works perfectly.
The guy is shocked and refuses to pay $5k for such little work, to which the mechanic replies:
“You’re paying for the 25 years it took me to learn that, not for the 25 seconds it took me to do it.”
So try to look at expertise a bit differently next time. Look at time saved, not spent. Look at how someone is able to make things simpler, not more complicated.
It’s not a bulletproof formula, but it works more often than not.
Oh, disclaimer for this rule: if the guy invented a method that he named (bizconomics 101™ or who knows what), RUN.
Answer: it was daytime.
Are you purposefully sending this newsletter to my inbox at 10 PM just to make sure all your brain teasers make me feel dumber than usual, or what?