It’s one thing to study business. It’s another to run your own.
It’s one thing to study war. It’s another to have served.
It’s one thing to study marathon training. It’s another to have run one.
Academic study is critical to move the genre and collective forward. Academia generally sits above and behind, and from this vantage point, one can remove emotional complexities, see the whole picture, and create new solutions.
Experience is, yes, anecdotal, but the only way to know how you feel doing it. What decisions will you make? How will you react? Where is your comfort zone?
Don’t confuse yourself by thinking that just because you studied something, you know how it feels to do it.
