Learning To Do It Yourself
“Fine. I’ll do it myself.” -Thanos, as played by Josh Brolin, Avengers: Age of Ultron
Sometimes I think that, possibly, I am being punished by years of Karma. Let me elaborate. I’ve never been a real do it myself person. I’m not handy. I’m not really mechanical. I can’t fix a car or build a deck. For years whenever my more handy friends would give me a hard time for hiring people to handle the above mentioned tasks, I would always joke that I was trying my best to stimulate the economy.
The truth was, if we could afford to have someone do the work for us, I rationalized that I would rather have it done by a professional than just trying to figure it all out myself. While for bigger undertakings, I still very much stand by that idea, I have had a change of heart in general regarding this stuff.
Why, you ask?
As you may have heard, about a year ago, I left a good paying job to start my own business. When you start your own business it really makes you think about how you are spending your money. Budgeting suddenly becomes a frequent topic of conversation. Even though things are going well, my wife and I are still more cautious with our expenditures because my income is prone to much more fluctuations than it ever was when I worked for a large organization.
I was pondering this change today while working on my wife’s car. Lately, I have found myself changing headlights, replacing a battery, and changing an air filter among other things. Today, I was even researching how to replace a starter. After some online searching, I decided it was far enough beyond my skills that I should still take the car to a shop.
This past summer, I worked as an unofficial assistant for my friend, who happens to be an amazing contractor. I was helping him build our screened-in deck at my house in an effort to save some money. For a couple of weeks, I scheduled around my standard work and instead, worked outside with my friend. The idea was simply that we would pay him for the work, but with me helping it would save time and therefore money.
That part worked as planned. But there were some awesome unexpected benefits as well. I couldn’t help but ask questions while working and my friend couldn’t help but want to teach me how everything worked. So in the end, I gained a ton of knowledge that I have used constantly since then. I built a raised garden and did a few other small projects around the house.
It was around that time that I also started trying to fix small things on my car. Funny thing, I have also been enjoying doing those things. This was something unexpected because in the past, when I have tried to learn about these things, I haven’t enjoyed them.
So aside from the motivation of saving money, why do I now have the confidence to do these things? I was finally able to answer that question today while installing a battery in my wife’s car. It’s not that I didn’t like those things before— it’s that I was intimidated by them. More specifically, I had trouble learning on previous attempts because of the way I was being “taught.”
I’ve attempted to help several different handy-people over the years and all of them tried to explain things to me in a way that just didn’t resonate. They wanted to get the job done, and they weren’t super interested in teaching me along the way. My friend who built the deck with me was different. He would stop what we were doing to try and teach my the reasons behind why we were building it the way we were.
He’d admit when he wasn’t sure how to proceed. He’d even ask my opinion on how to do something if he felt stuck. I’m proud to say that more than once, he tried my ideas and they worked.
The same goes for when I attempted to work on cars. I had this friend who would give me the most ridiculous, and sometimes even incorrect, explanations of why we were fixing things a certain way. In addition, he would always send me to the local car parts store to get the parts we needed. Problem was, those guys would always be rude and condescending when answering my questions. I hated going to that store so much that I began to refuse.
Not too long ago a new store opened up next door to the other store and they are always happy to help. No judgments, no dumb questions, they just want to help me fix my car. I don’t mind going there at all. In fact, I have been there four times in the last month.
So what can we learn from this as leaders and as humans in general?
I think as leaders we need to ensure that we are being approachable, open-minded, and caring to those who we are leading and teaching. In addition, we need to continually be seeking feedback from others to be sure that we are being all those things mentioned above.
Finally, we need to understand that people have different types of learning styles. Some of us will learn by doing the job and working through it while others will need you to stop and take a moment to really explain things to them. Possibly, in multiple ways.
As humans, I think the takeaway here is all of the above, plus that we be kind and helpful. There’s so much to be said for helping others learn. When someone asks you to teach them something new, whether they are a friend, acquaintance, co-worker, or one of your children, I truly encourage you to take the time to help.
Make the effort to be patient even when they are like me and ask a million questions. Not only does it help them, but you may learn a few new tricks in process.
Until next time, be kind, be helpful.
-Jason