Teaching as a Foundational Skill

When I step back and look at my career, most, if not all of it can be attributed to the time and effort I’ve put into teaching.

Teaching is a skill and like any skill, it can be honed and developed through experience and thoughtful practice. The impact teaching has had on my career extends far beyond time I’ve spent as a trainer, both in the classroom and on egghead.io.

Teaching is a huge part of how I approach work in more traditional, corporate environments too. For example, my current role requires that I get up to speed and understand complex problems quickly, break them down, come up with proposed solutions, and communicate all of that to audiences with varying levels of technical background. Not only do I have to help people understand the problem and the solution, I have to build consensus around the efficacy and the value of investing in the proposed solution. What might seem like a problem to one group, might fall lower on someone else’s priority. In these situations, I’m essentially selling both the problem and solution by educating my audience.