Does that make sense?

I like to think that I'm the type of guy that is very patient in explaining things.  In fact, I pride myself on being able to relate information to others in a way that it makes sense.  Education is one of the cornerstones of my business.  

Outside of my real estate business, I'm often asked to use my experience and background in baseball to help instruct others.  Ive coached teams three out of the past four summers and from time to time will have one or two kids I work with on a personal basis.  

Currently I'm working with a sixteen year old kid who has some talent and is very receptive to instruction - the type of kids I enjoy working with.  Ive been providing him with some pitching instruction for the past month or so.   

It was easily to diagnose a couple of minor flaws in his throwing motion that are preventing him from reaching his maximum potential.  But, finding the issue is usually the simple part of the equation.  Figuring out the cause and how to correct it - not as easy.   So we immediately went to work breaking his mechanics down into separate segments to try and form better muscle memory.  Anyone who has formed a habit, especially a long standing physical one knows how difficult this can be.

The way that I learn best is that I try to break things into segments (pieces of the puzzle), work on them individually and then put them back together.  So that is predominantly how I teach.  I break things down into bite size pieces and we work on them repetitively until we've reached a point where they are all working well enough to put them back together.  The goal is steady progress.

In this particular case I could tell that he was experiencing some frustration in grasping everything we were working on, but he is/was eager to understand.  I also know there is always some discomfort with growth - so we trudged on.  

Finally this week (our 5th time together) he stopped me and said, "I think I understand what you are trying to teach me but I'm just having a lot of trouble putting it all together. I don't think that my brain processes things the way that your does."  

My first reaction was, "Hmm, interesting.  What is not to understand?  I thought I was being very clear."  But then before saying anything, I thought to myself, that is a very unfair assumption for me to make.  Obviously I'm not doing a good enough job of helping him understand something. 

After a minute of reflection and after some clarification, I realized that I'd failed to paint a vivid enough picture of what the finished product is supposed to look like.  What are we ultimately aiming for?  What does the picture on the box of the puzzle look like?  Imagine trying to put a 1000 piece puzzle or a 100 piece puzzle for that matter together without the picture on the box.  Focusing on the individual pieces without the vision is futile.  

So I said, "You know, I really appreciate you telling me that.  Thank you for being honest.  Let me try to figure out a better way to paint the picture for you."  We went a different direction and had a very productive back half of the lesson.  

On my way home and over the past day or two the experience has stayed with me.  Ive thought to myself, there is a very important lesson here. One that needs to be shared, or at least documented for the next time.

I'd suppose that you, like me, have something that you are very passionate about and well versed in.  It just clicks for you because you've already been through that trial and error.  But we must patiently understand that the person we are trying to help does not have that same background (database) to draw upon.  

Lesson to be learned:  Clarification doesn't always mean connection.  Sometimes you have to dig deeper.