Simplicity can come from mastery, or it can come from ignorance. On the surface, the two situations might seem similar, but they’re very different.

When we begin learning a new skill or trying to understand a new subject, it seems simple because we can’t comprehend all of the things that we don’t yet know.

You’ve probably felt this if you’ve ever watched a sport you don’t understand.

For example, if you haven’t played or watched much football, it probably seems simple. Big, seemingly unathletic guys run into each at the line of scrimmage, and everyone chases after the person with the ball. It’s impossible to appreciate the nuances of the game unless you know what to look for.

So in this state of ignorance, it’s easy to get a false sense of understanding. But if you were to be thrown into a game or asked to explain the sport to a bystander, it wouldn’t go so well.

 

As we get deeper into a new skill, or a new topic, hidden complexities begin to emerge.

Again looking at the game of football, you might start to see just how much goes into every aspect of the game.

If you were to just spend a few minutes focusing on a single match-up on the field, you’d likely be amazed by the complexity.

Take the “unathletic” guys on the line for an example.

First of all, they’re anything but unathletic. In 2017, Myles Garrett ran a 4.64-second 40-yard dash, bench pressed 225 lbs 33 times, showcased a 41 inch vertical leap, and broad jumped 128 inches. All at 6’4″ 272 lbs.

To put that in perspective, those numbers would make him faster than the majority of starting high school wide receivers, and the other numbers are simply off the charts.

Then beyond the sheer athleticism, there’s a skill and strategy aspect to every play that takes a staggering amount of time to master.

So as you begin to learn more and more about the game and you start to appreciate the complexity, it starts to feel overwhelming. It can feel like there’s no way you could possibly keep track of everything well enough to ever master a position.

But as you keep working, a surprising thing happens. You discover a new type of simplicity.

If you’ve heard someone say that the game has begun to “slow down” for them, this is what they’re talking about. After working through all of the complexity, the reward on the other side is an understanding of the game at the deepest level.

This is what makes a great coach so effective. It’s when he or she understands the material that they’re teaching so well that they can distill it into simple concepts for their players to learn.

This state can be thought of as finding simplicity on the far side of complexity.

It’s not based on ignorance, but rather mastery.

 

If you’ve ever tried to teach someone a concept, you’ve probably quickly learned where you are on the spectrum of simplicity and complexity. Unless you’ve fought through the complexity and come out on the other side, it’s almost impossible to understand a subject well enough to effectively teach it and field questions.

But once you truly master that subject, you can anticipate questions and understand how to best teach in the way that your student needs to learn.

So when you’re learning something new, don’t stop when something seems simple, or get discouraged when it starts to get more complicated.

Stay the course and look for simplicity on the far side of complexity.

-Brandon