Aoife Henry

Learning is simple but not easy, doing is complicated but critical.

Learning new skills or attaining new knowledge is not easy, but it is simple. Choose your topic, obtain the courses/videos/books/articles you need to hone your expertise in it, allocate the time to study, off you go! Until my mid-twenties or so, I had spent most of my career as a student who learns, or, a professional exam taker. And I was a professional. I knew the memory hacks, I crushed the practice questions, and I militantly devoted time and undistracted attention to studying. Now, it is a familiar practice to continue learning. In the last month, I’ve studied 8 business/AI product-development books from cover to cover. I’ve plastered these books with annotations and adapted my approach to market research, customer discovery, business model iteration, and team management to incorporate the teachings I deemed valuable. This is a highly approachable and satisfying type of work for me, because there is a clear input (duration of my undistracted attention), and a predictable output (expanded skills/knowledge). Anytime I have my glasses and a set of headphones, I can pop the hood of my computer and continue reading where I left off, or start a new book. It is not easy to assimilate this information, but it is a simple process.

It is unfamiliar, and frankly terrifying, to prioritize the much more critical work of getting busy and building my company. That requires squinting into our market – that of wind turbine design and optimization – that can in fact be characterized similarly to the sites wind farm are installed at: foggy, turbulent, and complex. In learning, the next step is clear – the next chapter or course segment. In doing, you have to decide the next step based on very limited information. In learning, the end goal is always in sight – the end of the book/course. In doing, you are figuring out what the end goal ought to be as you wade through the fog. In learning, you can expect consistent and regular rewards for your efforts – the satisfaction of completing each chapter. In doing, you’re actively seeking evidence that you are going in the wrong direction such that you can pivot as swiftly as possible.

But if I think back to my experiences to date, every novel pursuit I channeled my energy into as an adult was unfamiliar and terrifying, because I was afraid of being bad at it. I was ungainly the first few months I was learning to run fast or to catch a wave about to break. I stuttered and struggled when I started to converse with others in German. I panicked at first when I encountered an unfamiliar supercomputer error. 

What if I can’t do it?

I don’t remember having this aversion to doing new things as a child, because I wasn’t afraid of f**king up. I was blissfully unaware that was a possible outcome, and one to be avoided at all costs. We all start this way I think, and we all learn to be afraid of trying. But if I could learn all the things I have so far in my life, I’m optimistic that l, given time and practice, can unlearn things too.

Whatever your current unfamiliar endeavor may be, based on everything you’ve learned so far, what do you and your team think is the next best move? Do that. Now. The right thing to do is trust in your ability to adapt, and try. You can finish the book later. Fuck it, you can write the book later.