If you would thoroughly know anything, teach it to others. — Tryon Edwards

If you would thoroughly know anything, teach it to others.

Author: Tryon Edwards

Insight: There's something that happens the moment you try to explain something to someone else. Suddenly all the gaps in your own understanding become impossible to ignore. You realize you don't actually know why you know what you know, or worse, you find out you might not know it as well as you thought. Teaching forces honesty in a way that just thinking privately never does. This matters more now than ever, partly because we can get away with half-understanding things. You can skim an article, nod along in conversations, build a persona around a topic without ever testing your actual knowledge. But the second you sit down to teach it—whether that's explaining a concept to a friend, writing about something you care about, or training someone at work—your bluff gets called. You have to organize your thoughts coherently, anticipate questions you haven't considered, and fill in the fuzzy spots where you've been winging it. The real gift is that this process improves both directions. Your student learns from your clarity, but you learn from the act of clarifying. It's one of those rare situations where you can't help others deepen their understanding without deepening your own in the process. Teaching isn't just a way to share what you know; it's actually how you truly come to know it.

Source: New Dictionary of Thought - 1842