The peak of mount stupid
I vividly remember the day that all of life's mysteries stopped being interesting to me. I was 14, and was leaving my science lesson. It was a sudden, unexpected and devastating realisation that hit me right in the gut.
We had just learnt about photosynthesis.
The process plants go through that uses LIGHT to convert AIR into FOOD.
WHAT!!!????
As I floated through the day, the combination of smugness and apathy overcame me. Even the objectively hot gossip that Daniel Grover was recently single, and that Justin Timberlake had pulled Janet Jackson's tit out at the Superbowl (wtf btw) was of no interest to me.
“That's nice… but I now know how PLANTS TURN LIGHT AND AIR INTO ENERGY so I'm kind of beyond your pathetic gossip”
I had no need for petty information, I realised that I knew everything there was to know about the world. You might say, I had completed science?
Well well well…
The next day, I put a KitKat in the microwave. And a second sudden wave of reality struck me…
“I am fourteen. And I don't know a single thing.
Anyway… Have you heard of the Dunning Kruger effect?
It's the theory (or rather, the observation) that there's nothing that gives us more confidence than a little teeny bit of knowledge. But quickly, with a teeny bit more knowledge, we realised that we don't know anything and our confidence plummets.
Only with time, experience, and extensive learning can we earn our confidence back.
Here's a graph that shows it way better than I can explain it.
Credit: I mean I just googled it, no idea...
You see that first bump of confidence? That's what the experts like to call: MOUNT STUPID.
We've all been atop Mt.Stupid, surveying the land thinking ‘wow I'm truly brilliant at this’, ‘maybe this will be my career’ and ‘I expect I'll be invited to do a TED talk soon’. Only to encounter your first hurdle and be violently pushed right back down to basecamp.
Ascending Dum-Dum Doodle (IYKYK) is a rite of passage, and it's an important part of learning. Also, the benefits of mount stupid shouldn't be ignored:
It gives us the boost to continue learning and retain interest in the topic
Confidence and self belief make us less risk-adverse, and mean we might try new things
It feels great and the confidence can be infectious
But we can't forget that climbing the mountain is only a small part of the overall journey. If we allow people to loiter up top there will be no winners. You end up with bad results through inexperience and they end up blindsided by the inevitable fall.
“Mountains have a way of dealing with overconfidence.” Hermann Buhl
So, what do you do? Become a sherpa? Well, kind of! In practice, you’ll need to strike the right balance between being candid about where they’re at, protecting and harnessing their enthusiasm, and helping them see the long-term journey ahead.
First off, don’t go barging in with a megaphone shouting “You’re on Mount Stupid!” (Unless you have that relationship with them, of course).
Instead, try to…
Acknowledge the climb. Congratulate them for even getting on the mountain in the first place. Loads of people will go about their lives never climbing a curiosity mountain, or stuck in a state of learning apathy after having learnt about photosynthesis (naming no names). Learning something new and feeling the rush of early mastery is awesome, you don’t want to stamp that out.
Introduce the forecast Gently hint that there’s a storm ahead. Not to scare them, but to normalise what’s coming. You need to keep things moving at a decent pace, stop them from rushing into things and accelerating the inevitable plummet to the ‘valley of despair’. Channel that confidence into something productive like more practice, more questions, a small experiment that exposes them to a bit of challenge.
Share your own fall. Misery loves company doesn’t it, and sometimes we have to share our own misfortunes to help someone prepare for theirs. Nothing helps someone descend gracefully like a good, honest story about a 14 year old caked in Dream Matte Mouse foundation who just did double-Science. It removes the shame. You’re showing that this is a shared human experience, not a personal failure.
Help them find the next grip. When the inevitable happens, be there for them. And help them find a route to mastery with a smoother trajectory and less slippy slidies. Share feedback, give them time to practice and learn, and find opportunities for them to gain experience.
If you get this bit right, the fall doesn’t feel like humiliation, it feels like evolution … ”Alexa, save that quote for another time, it makes me sound smart”.
“The man that knows something knows that he knows nothing at all” Erykah Badu (and Socrates)
In summary (I always find it hard to start introducing the end of these things)
Every time we start something new, we’ll find ourselves somewhere on that wavy line - all of us! The world needs more people who are willing to risk looking a bit daft in the name of learning something brilliant. We just have to acknowledge that it’s a thing. The best part about understanding the dunning kruger effect is the knowledge that we do get that confidence back… it’s just more sustainable, rich, and effective confidence.
Happy climbing, fellow learners!
PS. On doing a little bit of further research on this, and it seems that another element of what I had experienced as an apathetic teenager is what’s called The “Illusion of Omniscience” (or Temporary Cognitive Closure). Essentially this is a temporary cognitive plateau… You get a surge of confidence, a false sense of mastery, and then a sort of intellectual boredom or existential emptiness because… well, what’s left to learn?
