Explain it like you would to a child

The physicist Richard Feynman, a Nobel laureate, had a brutal test for knowing whether he truly understood something: explain it in words so simple that a ten-year-old could grasp them.

The technique that bears his name has four steps: pick a concept, explain it in writing in plain language, spot the exact point where you get stuck or reach for jargon — that's your gap —, and go back to the material only to plug that hole. Then repeat.

It works because jargon is the perfect hiding place for ignorance: you can repeat "core inflation" without knowing what it is. By banning the big words, the gap comes into view.

Next time you study something, close everything and try to explain it to someone. Wherever you stumble, there's your homework.