If You Think You're Lacking Skills, Help Others

The 20th-century genius physicist Richard Feynman had a unique learning method. Known today as the Feynman Technique, it’s so famous that I assume many have heard of it. Nonetheless, let me briefly outline it:

Write down and list the topic you want to learn.
Explain it in language that even a child can understand.
If there are gaps in your explanation, study the concept to fill them.
Summarize concisely.

For example, if you want to understand the principles of network communication, you might explain it to a child by saying, “It’s the process of a letter sent by one computer being delivered to another computer.”

Here, you might not know exactly what the letter sent by the computer means. The letter sent by the computer is a discrete signal made up of 0s and 1s, and to make it understandable to a child, you could say, “It changes the letter content into simple information like 0s and 1s so that another computer can understand it.” To explain why it needs to be changed into 0s and 1s, you need to understand the concept of network layers and repeat the explanation.

By applying the Feynman Technique to study “network communication,” you might end up learning most of the basics of networking. Everything is connected by “why” and necessity.

There Comes a Time When Anyone Doubts Their Skills

I experienced this just yesterday. Despite often being told I’m good with computers and diligently building my skills through toy projects, I suddenly doubted, “Am I falling behind?” Such thoughts usually arise when studying alone.

The reason for doubting one’s skills is singular: lack of validation. The anxiety stems from the inability to measure one’s skills objectively. To overcome this, practicing explaining things in a way others can understand is necessary. And the Feynman Technique is always the most efficient starting point. Learning the necessary knowledge through the Feynman Technique and explaining it to others builds a foundation of knowledge. That’s what’s needed.

Instead of doubting your skills, adopt a mindset of reading one more thing. Doubting your skills can lead to self-doubt and deception, which may result in the pathological imposter syndrome. This imposter syndrome negatively affects those you meet and has adverse effects on your life overall.

Successful People Across Fields Often Say:

Truly successful people are those who help others succeed.

It’s true. If you think you’ve already settled on the right track, there’s no greater joy than lifting others up, and simply sharing the knowledge you’ve learned is enough.

However, there are tremendous advantages to this.

The person who receives help feels gratitude towards the helper.
The helper learns unknown facts in the process of helping.
Helping forms self-esteem.

The first is for evolutionary reasons. Humans benefit from living in harmony with others. Help in that process is reciprocated, and if such bonds are formed, the likelihood of receiving a return when helping someone increases.

The second is from the perspective of the Feynman Technique explained earlier. In the process of helping, unknown concepts may arise, and explaining them offers the possibility of learning anew. I had an experience where I was surprised to find I wasn’t familiar with a concept while helping a junior with a programming implementation. Fortunately, I was able to recall the knowledge I had learned before through Googling and explained it well.

Lastly, self-esteem is formed when helping others. A representative study by psychologist Mogilner at the University of Pennsylvania is as follows: “Participants in group A were asked to spend a certain amount of time helping others, such as writing letters to sick children or students. Participants in group B were given the same amount of leisure time to spend meaninglessly. The experiment concluded that participants in group A had higher happiness levels.” We experience psychological happiness when helping others.

I also occasionally write answers on developer Q&A sites when I’m bored. Writing answers has helped me supplement concepts I was lacking and study areas I didn’t know about. If you’re curious, please refer to the answers tab on the site below.

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