This feels like a good rule of thumb for things I don’t know how to do: major undertakings outside my area of expertise are probably two orders of magnitude harder than my gut tells me.
It feels right to me: maybe writing an arrangement or motivating a high school vocal ensemble to an excellent performance aren’t 100 times harder than people think, but some days it feels that way.
Watch the documentaries surrounding the 50th Anniversary of Saturday Night Live and you’ll get a sense that it’s 100 times harder than people imagine. I’ve been getting the smallest of behind-the-scenes peeks of the production side of the Grammy Awards telecast this week, and let me tell you: it’s easily 100 times harder than I thought.
Leading a successfully company, or a divided country is 100 times harder than I think; so is mounting a successful opposition to a would-be despot. Fighting forest fires is easily on my list of hardest jobs; I bet it’s much harder than I can imagine.
Using this rule of thumb makes it easier for me to hold empathy and space for those attempting to do things I don’t know how to do.