I had a chemistry class at community college taught by a guy who was apparently a brilliant chemist for Pfizer who had patented many products and processes. He retired as a Big Deal in his field, and decided he wanted to teach a class a few days a week to stay busy and near the lab in retirement.
He was the worst teach I’ve ever had for anything.
In high school, I had a half crazy science teacher who could never hold down a job in a lab so taught just about every science to every grade at a low-paid tiny Christian school.
He was one of the best teachers I’ve ever had for anything.
Being awesome at doing something doesn’t make you good at teaching it. And being awesome at teaching something doesn’t always require being good at doing it.
You ever see a fat, gray-haired, 5’10” basketball coach yelling at a 6’7″ muscular toned athlete about hustling more or perfecting their footwork?
I don’t think teaching requires being good at doing, but it does require a lot of curiosity, empathy, and ability to quickly identify the key principles at work.
Sales and marketing professionals know this, because they do it every day. Unless you are selling sales software that you use every day to other sales pros, or marketing marketing tools you use every day to other marketers, you will find yourself teaching potential customers how to do something you yourself don’t do every day.
That’s ok. Or at least it can be. There is a danger of just bluffing everything or pretending to be a know-it-all and making yourself a fool. But if you are curious, ask tons of questions, watch, learn, and tap into those who do the thing regularly for expertise on the finer points, you can do amazing things.
That fat coach may not be able to do a double pump, but he may be better positioned than most players to understand when and how to make a double pump effective if he’s watched a lot of film and is good at observing and asking questions and pattern matching. Sometimes being a little out of the weeds actually makes you better at describing them.