Rules Of Thumb Vs. Rules Of Big Toe

I’ve started separating shortcut-style advice between “stuff others have told me” and “stuff I figured out myself” (and, by figured out myself, I mostly mean I figured it out the hard way).

In the “stuff others have told me” category, live my Rules of Thumb.

When somebody else gives me their rule of thumb, I want to mentally label it as their wisdom. I respect it, because I know that they’ve told me it’s useful, on average, in their prior experience. However, I’m just an inheritor of their gift (and sometimes, let’s be honest, it’s more of a curse than a gift).

In the “stuff that I’ve figured out for myself” category live my Rules of Big Toe.

I call them Rules of Big Toe because they’re lessons learned after stubbing my own toe, in a way I don’t want to repeat. Hopefully ever. Instead of a Rule of Thumb that relies on anyone else’s stress test, these Rules of Big Toe have been proven by me, and to me, through my own painful lessons (re” stubbings).

You can use both.

But there is nothing like personal pain as a teacher.

Next time somebody gives you some smart sounding advice, labeling it as a Rule of Thumb, be sure to check if it matches one of your own Rules of Big Toe. If not, brace yourself if you embrace putting their rule into practice, because you might have to get hurt before you figure out if it works.

Do you separate between Rules of Thumb and Rules of Big Toe? How? What about at work - do you talk about stuff like this? Let me know if so. I’m thinking about this a lot lately.