John Berardi talks about self experimentation:
If you’re not trained in science, you don’t know how to do it properly. So people like find out what a great cliche is in the nutrition world. Find out what works for you, right? Well, who the hell has the tools to do that? A tiny percent of people, right?
It’s like saying here’s the secret to getting in great shape: dunk a basketball.
There’s only certain people can do that. You have to have, you have to be a certain height, you have to have a certain ability to produce force.
To me, finding what works for you is a skillset they need to develop—not just a thing everyone has access to.
So what I like instead of self-experimentation is guided experimentation. Get some guidance. Yes, it’s good to find what works for you.
Have someone help you through it.
I own John Berardi’s Change Maker: Turn Your Passion for Health and Fitness into a Powerful Purpose and a Wildly Successful Career but haven’t read it yet. This podcast definitely bumped it way up in the to-be-read list.
I flipped through it in Amazon Books (back when malls were open) and the thing that got me in the book was a really straightforward description of the Jobs-to-be-Done framework. I’ve read a bunch of explanations of it in startup books and things like that, but the section in Change Maker made it stick.
Oh yeah, some thoughts on the excerpt above.
Self-experimentation is good so that you can learn what works for you. But I like Berardi’s reminder that it doesn’t have to be all or nothing. It doesn’t have to be (all-by-your)self-experimentation.
Have an expert help you figure out what works for you.
Or just someone who isn’t as biased as you are. Everyone gives some advice that they don’t follow themselves.
Speaking of, I’ve gone way too long trying to self experiment when I could bring in some expert help. In the past few years, I’ve started to look toward experts a bit more but there’s still way more room for it. I’ll start looking for opportunities to get some coaching with kettlebells (gotta fix my swing) and other hobbies. I enrolled in a writing course last month and it’s been pretty transformative. Now I should do the same with design and anything else where I want to grow.
Anyway!