I was barefoot running yesterday on 4 mile route that includes some smooth paved roads (which feel nice on the feet) and some tar and chip roads (which don’t). As I strided along on one of the tar and chip country roads, a backhoe operator stopped his work to watch me approach and said, “Don’t ‘dat hurt?”

As I ran along, considering my standard smartass response, “It feels so good when I stop,” I thought about all the other areas of my life that show the rougher road to be the better path. I learned the Secret of Success in my 20s and still hold it to be true. The Secret to Success? Successful people do the things unsuccessful people don’t want to do and won’t do.

Recently, I got a nice email note from a masonry worker in British Columbia, thanking me for this site and particularly the Converting Inches to Decimal Fractions instructional video shown below.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=462l9qlVpAI

While he found my video helpful, he still struggled with simple math in general and wondered if I could do some 1:1 instruction. He was taking a tile setting class to improve his value and found the math challenging. I recalled my miserable failures trying to tutor my math-phobic daughter and realized that me tutoring probably wasn’t going to be a good solution.

TBW suggested I point him towards the Khan Academy instructional videos. He teaches basic concepts (and advanced ones too) amazingly well. Just watch this unit conversion video to get a sense of his method.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jFSenp9ueaI&feature=player_embedded#!

I hope the Canadian mason  puts in the effort to go through a couple of math videos a night and gets comfortable doing the exercises. After a few weeks, he’ll find that he gets it. He’ll discover that deep understanding that grows out of immersion. I hope that he (and you) puts forth the effort to do that hard thing.