Suggest edit — Journeyman Model

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---
confidence: high
related:
- wiki/entities/david.md
- wiki/concepts/learned-helplessness.md
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- raw/transcript.md
title: Journeyman Model
type: project
visibility: public
---

# Journeyman Model

A skill-transfer pipeline. **David proposed the seed**; Jacob immediately recognized it and named it.

## David's seed idea

> "The biggest problems you have to approach them in many fundamental and creative ways, and they all have to band together in order to fully solve this huge problem. So if you're just optimizing for solving this problem fully and completely, and you aren't limited to software... sometimes the most effective solution is to have a human expert that is just one or two steps ahead of where you are, fly them out, get them to come live with you for 30, 60 days until that problem is solved."

The mechanism:
- Match person-with-problem to person-just-ahead
- They cohabit for 30-60 days
- Skill transfer happens through immersion, not instruction

Jacob: "Amazing."

## The compounding extension

David then layered on the multiplication:

> "Each person that solves this problem now can teach the next person... let's say you have one [person who] learned how to solve the problem, and you have... one person who has not yet learned to solve the problem. You teach this — now it becomes two. Now you get the next person who hasn't learned to solve the problem, and now you get them to live with two people that have already solved the problem, and now it's compounding."

After enough iterations: a **community of people who have solved the problem**. The "this is what you do" norm establishes itself.

## Jacob's name for it

> "A fun name for this, I thought of, could be **journeyman**, because in the old guild model, there was an apprentice, a journeyman, and a master. And a journeyman is, like, on the way, in the middle. The point is, it also implies personal development of a journeyman. And then, lastly, it's like the journeyman is the mentor for the apprentice, in this case."

The guild model has the right shape:
- **Apprentice** — newly arrived, learning by being around
- **Journeyman** — competent, in the middle, **also teaching**
- **Master** — fully skilled, oversight rather than direct teaching

Jacob's mom's principle, cited in the next breath:
> "See one, do one, teach one."

(The standard medical-education aphorism.)

## Why this is more than mentorship

The journeyman model differs from generic mentorship in that:

- The teaching is **immersive** (cohabiting, not weekly meetings)
- The teacher is **just one or two steps ahead**, not a master far away
- The structure is **scalable** by design (each graduate becomes a teacher)
- The framing is **explicit** about the journeyman's own continued development

Generic mentorship struggles to scale because masters are scarce. The journeyman model scales by recognizing that **the just-ahead-of-you person is everywhere**, and is often a *better* teacher than the master because they remember what it was like not to know.

## What it could be applied to

David's framing was generic; his examples are the personal-development domain:

> "It's like, oh, my problem is I can't figure out how to lose weight. Fly out someone who, like, was like you, but is one or two steps ahead, and have them live with you and figure out how to tell them change your lifestyle."

> "My friend literally does life coaching, and he just has people stay in his room and live with him for a week and take his lifestyle."

Other natural domains: starting a company, learning a new craft, recovering from injury, transitioning careers, beginning contemplative practice, getting sober.

## The connection to Harrison

Jacob: "You got to tell Harrison about this, because he's super interested in education. I think this is a little bit out of his current paradigm of how he thinks about it, and he'll love it."

Harrison hasn't been read into the journeyman idea yet; this conversation is the first time Jacob is hearing David's version, and he wants to relay it.

## Plus / equals / minus

David's parallel framing:

> "One very fundamental framework that every human should have, and it scales pretty well, is you should have a plus, equals and a minus — which means you have a mentor, you have someone who you can compound with, and you have someone who you can teach."

The triad:
- **Plus** — mentor (ahead of you)
- **Equals** — peer (compounds with you)
- **Minus** — apprentice (you teach)

Jacob: "I think it's so valuable. And my mom says that for education, see one, do one, teach one."

## Related

- [[David]] — proposed the seed
- [[Learned Helplessness]] — the journeyman model is one antidote
- [[Personal Development Blueprint]] *(implicit)* — journeymanship would be the way you walk it