Explain to Others - Learn Yourself

People do not take explaining seriously enough. They treat it like a communication skill. Like something you do after you have learned. Like a nice bonus if you are a manager, a teacher, or someone who likes to talk.

But explaining is one of the fastest ways to actually learn. Not because it makes you look smart. But because it forces your brain to stop pretending.

Reading feels productive. Watching a video feels productive. Taking notes feels productive. But the real question is simple. Can you reproduce the idea without the source? Can you walk someone from A to B without skipping steps? If not, you do not really know it. You recognize it. Big difference.

Explaining turns recognition into ownership. That is why it is powerful. And that is why people avoid it. It is uncomfortable, and it exposes knowledge holes instantly.

Explain it to yourself first

Before you explain to anyone else, you need to explain it to yourself. And I do not mean the “yeah yeah I get it” feeling in your head. I mean actually sit down and build something out of what you’ve just learned.

For me, that usually means making visualization of the concept via diagrams, notes, markups, whatever fits. Not notes for the sake of notes. More like a compressed model of the concept. A reference frame I can come back to later and still understand in seconds.

The goal is to break the idea I learned into smaller pieces that explain a lot, then connect them in a way that feels clean. Because if you cannot break it down, you do not understand it. And if you cannot connect it, you do not understand it either.

This is where people lie to themselves. They keep consuming and consuming, thinking they are learning, but they are just stacking information. No structure. No clarity. No internal map.

When I think about what I just learned, I am hunting for questions. Why does this happen? What causes this part? What is the mechanism? Where does this assumption come from? These questions are not optional. They are the learning.

If you do not ask them, you will carry a half baked version of the idea. It will sound right, but it will not be reliable. It will not survive pressure.

Explaining to others is a multiplier

Once you have explained it to yourself, explaining to others upgrades it. Not because you are teaching, but because you are stress testing your understanding.

Every person gives you a different angle. Different confusion. Different mental model. Different vocabulary. Different resistance. And if you pay attention, every explanation becomes feedback.

You start noticing patterns. Where people get lost. What examples actually land. What sequence makes sense. What detail is noise. What detail is the missing piece.

So yes, I can tell people the same thing again and again. But I am not repeating. I am refining.

If the explanation did not land, I treat it as my job to make it land better next time. Not by dumbing it down, but by making it cleaner. I want the explanation to be sharp enough that it works even when the listener has a different background and different context.

Over time, this becomes a habit. You keep polishing concepts until they feel done.

How I do it in practice

My loop is pretty consistent. First I sit with what I just read, heard, or noted, and ask myself a simple question. Why is this important to me? Then I decide where it belongs. Sometimes I attach it to an existing diagram. Sometimes I create a new one and start building the puzzle from scratch. I need to see how everything connects, what depends on what, and what the actual takeaway is. And I always try to anchor it to a reference frame or a deeper concept. Something strong enough that I can remember one sentence or one phrase, and instantly pull the whole diagram back into my head.

I keep going until I can explain it to myself without that “and then magic happens” moment. If there are narrative holes, I do not move forward.

Once it feels solid, I bring it to people.

And here is the funny part. I do not usually ask people whether they want to learn something or not. I do not do the “hey do you have a minute, I want to explain a concept” thing. I open it naturally and connect it to whatever we are already talking about. A question here, a comparison there, a quick “this reminds me of something.” If you do it right, it does not feel like teaching. It feels like conversation.

Then the best part happens. People react. They ask questions. They misunderstand in ways I did not predict. And that is gold, because it shows me exactly where my understanding of the concept is still weak or my explanation is still messy.

The point

If you are serious about learning, you should be explaining. To yourself first, then to others. Because learning without explaining is fragile. It feels good, but it does not hold.

Explaining is where “I get it” turns into “I can use it.” It is where ideas stop being vibes and start being tools.

If you cannot explain it, you do not have it. You have just seen it.

Explain to learn. Then explain again. Not because people need it. Because you do.

Thanks, and good luck!

Wolf Alexanyan