Early on in Peter Jackson's new Beatles movie, Get Back, there's a moment in which George Harrison is speaking earnestly to his fellow bandmates about his shortcomings as a guitarist and his desire for growth.

As a huge fan of the Beatles, it's illuminating to hear George talk about his skills and the way he sees himself in relation to other guitarists, like his friend Eric Clapton.

And it's heartbreaking to see how dismissive John and Paul are as George is speaking. Paul is practically yawning.

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A leader was looking for ways to get better at her job.

As she explored her options, she discovered that being the boss has a counterintuitive truth built into it.

She realized that the best way to improve was not to teach herself new skills or spend time with her company's SOP binder.

Instead, she needed to get her team to show her how do things.

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It is embarrassing to go back and listen to recordings of mastermind sessions I’ve been part of.

In a mastermind, a group of entrepreneurs takes turns being coached by each other. When it’s my turn to be coached, my current self cringes as I hear my past self blather on about my business and deflect useful ideas and feedback. It is so hard to believe that I couldn’t see in the moment that I was doing this.

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An honors course is an opportunity to do extra work for the sake of proving that you’re a person who is willing to do extra work.

You can’t fake it and you can’t delegate it, both for the purposes of your own learning and for the credit due. There are no shortcuts. A top student must be thorough and conscientious. Efficiency is not a priority; the teacher doesn’t actually need 25 different papers on the same subject. Grasping an esoteric concept takes hours that don’t translate to productivity, per se—that’s not what it’s for. In academia, we’re not looking to accomplish things more quickly and easily. As in weight lifting, the point is the hard work and effort.

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When I saw my house for the first time, I didn’t notice the condition of the floors.

I was so enamored with the many windows and the cute little bedrooms and the ancient but charming kitchen that I didn’t realize that the hardwoods in the living room were a treacherous expanse likely to give you a splinter when you dared to traverse them. Even with socks on. In fact, this didn’t occur to me until months later when I got my first splinter (with socks on).

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