3 min read · Sep 26, 2023
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What do Jeff Bezos, Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg, Sergey Brin, Larry Page, and Jimmy Wales have in common? They all went to Montessori school. That’s 90% of the internet attributed to Montessori Alumni. There’s a lot Montessori can teach us about entrepreneurship.
One of my absolute favorite things about Montessori education is the multi-age classrooms. Montessori groups children of different ages and developmental levels together. This encourages the development of strong social and collaboration skills.
More importantly, it gives children the opportunity to learn from each other. This peer-to-peer learning is massively impactful for children on both ends of the age spectrum. Younger children learn from someone who was “just there,” and older children learn to teach and to lead.
Maria Montessori discovered that the student who is a year or two ahead is the best teacher. They understand the material and the path to grasping it far better than someone who has fully integrated the lessons but has long forgotten the steps or journey.
At the same time, being placed in a position to almost immediately turn around and teach other children what you’ve just recently learned helps improve retention and allows children to integrate their learning fully.
This concept continues beyond childhood. When you’re learning something, the best person to learn from daily isn’t the grand master; it’s the person just a few steps ahead of you. They understand exactly where you are and how to help take those few steps.
Obviously, we need the masters to guide our journey. In fact, Montessorians call teachers “guides.” However, when it comes to making incremental progress, the best teachers will be the senior students who can make the next steps look and feel accessible.
If you’re trying to build and scale a business and are currently at 6-figures in revenue, the best teacher probably isn’t a multi-billion dollar entrepreneur (even if they were accessible to you).
The best teacher is the entrepreneur who was exactly where you are today and only recently found a way to scale up from 6 to 7 figures. What they learned along the way will be much more accessible and applicable.
This also means we need to be humble enough to begin teaching even as we’re on the learning journey. It’s important to realize that you’re a far more effective teacher than someone who is a supposed “expert” because you’re still learning.
So, I ask you: Be brave and start teaching what you do know, even if it’s inconsequential or minor. Look back, and you can remember how far away your current standing used to look even just a year or two ago.
At the same time, seek out people who are only a few steps ahead of you and put yourself in a position to learn from them. This exercise will help and strengthen both of you. In fact, it’s not uncommon to find yourself leapfrogging each other & trading roles back and forth as you grow.
