Great Teachers

Some of the most important relationships in my life have been with people who don’t know me.

I have learned from their books, listened to their teaching, and applied their ideas. They have comforted me, challenged me, and helped me change my life. In some cases, I’ve never met them. That doesn’t make the relationship less real.

When a student tells me they feel close to me even though we haven’t met, I understand. I have experienced that same relationship with my own teachers.

The teacher-student relationship is sacred to me. Its power comes from the work: what the teacher offers, what the student learns, and what changes when that learning becomes part of a life.

Being a great student means applying what you learn

I consider myself a great student because I love learning and being taught. But I don’t mean I’m quiet in a classroom, raise my hand, and get an A.

Being a great student means taking what the teacher teaches and using it. You apply the concept. You let it change how you think, what you do, and how you live.

Without that application, you can consume teaching without experiencing its value. Learning can become another way to buffer instead of doing the work.

The most meaningful part of my relationship with a student isn’t an autograph or a photo. It’s the work we do together when they take what I teach and apply it to their life.

Great teachers live what they teach

The teachers who have influenced me most are examples of their own teaching. They don’t simply deliver theories they have never practiced. They share how they have experienced the work and how their students have used it.

Those stories make an idea come alive. A concept becomes something you can understand through an experience and then apply to yourself.

But a great teacher doesn’t get lost in the story. They teach a concept, illustrate it, and come back to the concept. The example serves the learning.

When a teacher wanders into an unrelated story because they have an audience, the student loses the thread. Teaching requires staying aware of what the student came to learn, rather than indulging every tangent.

Simple teaching takes work

It can take more time to explain something simply than to explain it in a complicated way.

I spend a lot of time making challenging concepts easier to understand. That’s how my own brain learns. I need the idea spelled out clearly, so that’s how I teach it.

Great teachers also repeat themselves. Teaching a concept once doesn’t mean the student has learned it. Our brains need repetition.

I often hear from students who have listened to an idea many times before one explanation finally makes it clear. Hearing the concept in a new way helps them understand what they couldn’t quite grasp before.

A teacher’s job is to keep making the material accessible, rather than assuming everyone should know it already.

Preparation honors the student’s time

When students ask how I teach a webinar so naturally, I tell them I practiced. I had an outline, and I rehearsed the teaching—even if I had taught the topic many times before.

Your students are giving you their time. Preparation is one way to honor that.

Energy matters, too. A teacher who is uninterested in the subject can make learning painful. Great teachers find their interest and excitement and bring it into the room.

They challenge students to think. They don’t simply demand that students accept a list of ideas. They ask people to consider the concepts, try them on, and see how they apply.

What my teachers taught me

My high-school algebra teacher, Mrs. Gobble, made a subject I wasn’t particularly interested in come alive. She was organized, prepared, energetic, and attentive to our individual struggles.

When I struggled with a concept, I went to her after class. She gave me extra problems, and I did them. I still remember getting a test back and seeing how well I had done after that work.

I think about her when I introduce the Model. To someone unfamiliar with it, the Model can look like algebra: confusing and disconnected from what they care about. My job is to help them see why it matters.

Robin Norwood’s Women Who Love Too Much had a profound impact on me when I was coming out of a painful relationship. Her stories about herself and her clients helped me make the concepts real in my own life. She communicated with conviction and belief in the possibility of healing.

That is something great teachers do: they believe in us while understanding our doubt, and they show us a way through it.

Byron Katie helped me understand that my thoughts create my feelings. Her simple process, repeated again and again with different people, changed how I understood my mind.

She also demonstrated unconditional love. Even when a client hated someone who wasn’t in the room, Katie had compassion for that person. Watching that had a profound effect on how I coach.

Amy Porterfield showed me what was possible as a woman building an online business. Listening to her explain her work helped me believe I could create that kind of business, too. Her preparation, professionalism, and willingness to show how she worked gave me a model I could learn from.

Russell Brunson taught me about marketing, funnels, communicating value, and creating valuable offers. His excitement and clear explanations made the material something I could understand and use.

Marianne Williamson taught me about compassion, self-respect, and loving unconditionally. Tony Robbins brought extraordinary energy to concepts that continue to show up in my life. Abraham and Esther Hicks influenced my thinking about deliberate creation and managing emotions.

What matters in these relationships is the work I learned and applied. I don’t need a personal friendship with every teacher to feel grateful for their influence.

Choose your teachers—and what you take from them

Try not to study too many teachers at once, especially when their approaches contradict each other. Choose a few whose work complements the learning you want to do.

Then take what resonates and leave the rest. You don’t have to agree with everything someone teaches to learn something valuable from them.

If you’re focused on relationships, you don’t need to study my weight-loss teaching just to prove you’re a good student. Choose what serves the work you want to do.

You can also combine what you learn from different teachers. Apply the ideas to your life and create your own teaching recipe, rather than simply repeating everything one person says.

Finally, honor these relationships. Think about a teacher who influenced you years ago and notice where their teaching still lives in you.

Keep seeking teachers who challenge you to grow. Then be the student who puts the teaching to work.