Moving the Clip

Once, a cohort’s feedback wasn’t as good as the ones before it.

I tried to look at it like editing a video. If my clip started right before that cohort’s survey and ended right after, I’d feel frustrated. It would look like I hadn’t met my own standard.

But if I moved the start of the clip back to the day I decided to launch my very first cohort, and moved the end forward to a future where I’d improved the course based on what I learned, I felt much better.

Over time, teaching taught me three things.

Most of the pressure I felt came from a fear of letting people down and looking bad. Things changed when I shifted my focus from avoiding a bad review to the value I could help people gain.

What people think of the course is not the same as what they think of me. I had to learn to separate myself from my work.

And when I became truly obsessed with my students, a lot of things became natural: making time for one-on-one chats to understand their needs, and paying experts who know things I don’t. I’ve spent more than four thousand dollars on guest speakers and teaching assistants. At first, I hadn’t even considered it. Then I started seeing my students as the center, instead of myself.