I think I’ve mentioned before that I taught a little between trips overseas. Each Special Forces Group has a training detachment and I was assigned to my Group’s for a couple years, first as the detachment medic and later as an instructor for the various courses. If reality is the great humbler, then for me, anyway, teaching is a close second. This is probably because the most important thing I learned from being an instructor was how much I didn’t know. I learned a lot of other things by teaching, but the lesson I want to pass on to you today is what we called the 33% rule.
SFAUC was one of the courses I taught and one of the first blocks of instruction was a deliberate load process for both carbine and pistol. This is the slow and…….deliberate set of steps you’d take to not only ready your equipment, but check its functionality. When your life depends on it, is not the time to discover that something is loose, needs new batteries, etc. Even though it’s separate from the fast reload you’d do in the heat of the moment, all the motions are the same, giving you one last muscle memory rehearsal before showtime.
I usually gave the safety brief first thing in the morning and since it was short and the deliberate load sequence was next, it was only natural that I continue straight to it. I would talk through the steps, giving a reason for each, because SF guys always seem to want to know why they’re doing something. Then I would demonstrate the process slowly, talking through each step again. Finally, I would demonstrate it at normal speed while just saying the steps. After that, we’d walk over to the firing line, the head instructor, over a PA system, would give the command to perform a deliberate load and begin calling out the steps, ……….and Every. Single. Student. Would. Do. Most. Of. It. Wrong.
The first time I observed this, I shook my head in utter confoundment and remarked to a more senior instructor, “I don’t understand. I just went over this five minutes ago. That guy did steps 1-3 right, but none of the rest, that one only got the last 3 right, and that one screwed up everything but the middle ”.
“Oh yeah”, he told me. “That’s the 33% rule. See, only 33% of the class is paying attention to you at any one time and it’s never the same 33% at the same time. Some only hear the first part, some only hear the last part and some only catch the middle ”.
“Wait, that’s only 99%”.
“Ah, yes, that 1% that’s left…….they weren’t listening to a word you said”.
Unbeknownst to me, training elite soldiers helped prepare me for a particularly frustrating part of MS; explaining it to others. No, my past experiences don’t help me explain it any better, but it’s some comfort to understand why a given person only absorbed 33% of my explanation.
Come to think of it, it’s flattering, actually. I’ve only known I had MS since 2014 and I don’t begin to know or understand 100% of it. Throw in the individual variability of it; my MS is not the same as yours, as her’s…etc and it’s downright impressive that someone who asked, grasped even 33% of my rambling explanation.
As for the remaining 1%, I’ve reached a point where I think I can gauge whether someone’s actually interested, or if they’re just conforming to the societal norm of saying something polite. I get why you feel that you should say something, or feel like it would be rude not to ask a question. Please understand though, if you ask a 1% question, you will get a 1% answer.
“I’m fine”, “It’s fine”, “Oh, can’t complain”, etc, etc, etc
4 replies on “The 33% Rule”
Hello Ben. Great post. I really understand the 33% rule you explained here as I have experienced it before, though I never knew the name. I actually like it when people ask me questions about my MS, because I figure if I can help them understand the condition better then they might recognize the disability better, and also tell other people about what they’ve learned. And in those ways we all might become better acquainted, and it may lead to more help for people with MS and all disabilities in general as it’s not so alien to people. I understand people not asking questions so not to offend or make things really awkward and uncomfortable, but it doesn’t help me or anyone else because nothing gets communicated and I become more isolated because no one wants to approach. The more we can talk freely the better we can understand each other and the more connected we become, which is much more helpful for people with disabilities than being isolated. I also like sharing things I’ve learned, and I’ve noticed that if people can see how much I enjoy explaining MS then they seem more interested in learning about it. One of the things I do is try to make it less complicated by using metaphors and pictures to explain the science and biology. And with difficult words I use similar sounds… like with kids, who have a lot of trouble pronouncing ‘multiple sclerosis I tell them to try saying multiple scar-roses. These things help, but there’s also the people who just don’t care or don’t really pay attention too. But hopefully they are few and far between.
Also thank you for your service, sir.
You need to copy and paste that on to your blog. I mean it. You said more in that comment than I did in the original post.
I wish I could explain it to some adults like I do with kids, but some get offended by the methods. “You don’t have to say it ‘that way’. I’m not a child, I understand all those big words”.
“Yeaaaaah, you just told half the people here that I have scoliosis, so I kinda feel like maybe you don’t understand”.
Thanks for the comment and I’m serious about turning it into your next blog post.
I heard (Guess I only listened to 33%) that people hear the first and last thing you say, but not the middle. So at the drive-thru I make sure to say the thing I really don’t want them to mess up first or last!
We put our orders first and last and 3 kid’s meals in the middle for just that reason. It’s so much harder (but not impossible as it turns out) to screw up a pretty generic kid’s meal.