Coaching eight-year-olds teaches patience that no management book ever could.

Children do not pretend to follow instructions they did not understand, which makes them an unusually honest test. You cannot lean on your tone or your position, because none of it registers. Either you found a way to make the thing clear or you did not, and you find out immediately. That feedback loop teaches more about explaining than any amount of reading about it.

Go help with something involving people much younger than you, even once: a practice, a club, a younger sibling’s homework. Notice how many times you have to rephrase. Take that patience back to whoever you normally lose it with.