Never lunge for the ball.
If you make a bad throw, just let it drop. Then start over.
Learning to juggle taught me how to handle life: sometimes you make a bad throw.
Sometimes you take on one too many projects. Or Murphy’s Law derails your plans.
Don’t lunge to save things. Let them drop.
Reset, and begin anew.
When I was 18, I auditioned to become a jazz studies major in the percussion department at the University of Southern Mississippi.
I’d been a musician for most of my life, taking my first lessons at the age of seven and attending one of the state’s best arts schools for a significant portion of my education.
But… I’d studied violin, piano, and voice. I was a completely self-taught drummer. I’d learned everything I knew from playing along to my favorite CDs and watching videos of my favorite drummers, trying to emulate them.
The audition did not go well. Dr. Wooton, the head of the department, asked me to play a ratamacue; I had no idea what that was.1
He asked me to play a G Major scale on his marimba. I remember exactly what I said: “Is it laid out like a piano keyboard?” He chuckled. “Yes, just like a piano.” I picked up a marimba mallet (I’d never held one) and slowly, painfully, pecked out a G Major scale with one hand.
Finally, he asked to see my drum set skills. Dread gave way to excitement… Until he asked me to play a Songo. I had no clue what that was. He asked for a Samba, a 2nd-Line… I just shook my head.
Finally, he asked for a bossa nova. “THAT ONE I KNOW!” I shouted. And I proceeded to demolish his drums like a metalhead on PCP playing the worst bossa nova ever attempted by a drummer.
“NO!” He said. “It’s a light and airy dance music. You play it like this.” And he sat behind the drums and tapped out something a Brazilian native would have happily danced along with.
Dr. Wooton, eventually and probably grudgingly, told me that he would take me into his studio, but that I desperately needed lessons. I decided to delay my entrance to USM by a year while I studied snare drum, drum set, and xylophone with a local private teacher (Jeff Mills, drummer for the blues musician you see in “O, Brother Where Art Thou”).
My skills under Jeff’s tutelage, buoyed by my preexisting musical knowledge, grew exponentially in just a year. I was able to audition again and even pass an audition to join the lower-level jazz band at the university, where I eventually earned a degree.
Why does this story come up now?
Well, I realized a couple of days ago that I’m once again back in the exact same place, but this time in my corporate career.
I work in learning and development for a moderate-sized corporation. And I genuinely feel like I have no idea what I’m doing.
There’s even a term for people like me in the industry: “Accidental trainer.” It’s someone who was really good at teaching, who moved into the corporate world and began implementing those same skills as a trainer… With no formal training.
L&D is its own beast, its own field with tons of nuance. And you need skills ranging from business strategy and project management to adult learning theory, instructional design, and cognitive psychology… Not to mention a penchant for being able to cajole, persuade, and sell to people above you.
Everything I’ve learned has been through on-the-job self-education to accomplish a project or do a task assigned to me. However, I’ve reached a point, much like in my audition, where the cracks in my education (or lack thereof) are starting to show.
It’s getting harder and harder to do my work well because everything is more complex than ever before. More is expected of me, and I worry I’m not up to it where I am today.
So the solution is education: actual education by people who know what they’re doing… Not random readings and YouTube videos. I need a new Jeff Mills for my learning and development career (and don’t worry—I have found something.)
At some point, I think we all discover that self-education and learning on the job aren’t enough to accomplish what’s being asked of us. We need a teacher, a mentor, a master to show us the way. Something, or someone, that knows the ins and outs of the field of study and can help us master it.
If you’ve reached this point, I hope you’ll try to find someone like that to help you level up.
Learning is an activity that moves you from a state of incompetence to one of competence.
That feeling—not knowing something—is uncomfortable. It’s why we avoid it. It’s almost physically painful at times, and we’re naturally wired to avoid pain.
It’s much easier (read: less painful) to be entertained by an online video “course.” At some point, learning requires doing. And when you do it the first, second, or tenth time, it sucks. It’s a painful process. The quality is poor.
MasterClass is popular for a reason: it’s full of high-quality videos of famous people who tell you how to do interesting things… without you ever doing the hard work of learning.
Do you really think that you can become a world-class screenwriter or negotiator by watching a video? Of course not.
You become a great screenwriter by writing screenplays. You become a great negotiator by negotiating with people over and over again. The first screenplay will be terrible. You will lose your first negotiation.
Learning content can give you new ideas and techniques to implement. But you have to actually implement it.
There is no learning without doing.
Sometimes, you just have to let people touch the metaphorical hot stove.
We work so hard to enact safeguards that protect people from making poor choices. But those safeguards are often viewed as a shackle on individual liberty, either because they don’t understand or don’t care.
For many, experiencing the consequences of their actions and choices is the only way they’ll learn.
The problem is that, in a society as interconnected and dependent as ours, those of us who know the stove is hot often get burned in the process.
The best way to learn a new word is to have it paint a picture in your mind.
Adjectives conjure images of people who embody their meaning.
Verbs project images of the actions they represent.
Few people learn words by memorizing dictionary definitions and reciting them in their minds every time they hear them. The definition is great when it’s completely new and unfamiliar, but it’s only the first step. Mastery comes from the imagery conjured by the words.
Eventually, we develop an intuitive “feel” for the meanings of words and no longer need either the definition or the image they conjure. We become fluent, and the words roll off the tongue.
This path from incompetence to mastery is present in all learning. The “grammar” is just the first step.
What topic do you most connect with?
What subject fills you with an almost religious fervor?
What do you spend your time thinking and learning about, regardless of what you’re paid to do?
This feeling of love for a field might be pointing you toward something worth mastering.
Why is it considered strange that my bookshelves are full of history, philosophy, and business texts? Furthermore, why is there a cultural push to make people choose between those seemingly disparate subjects?
If you want to study business, you must go all in on it. There is no room for history or philosophy. Or so the prevailing wisdom says.
But that’s ridiculous! Let’s put aside the fact that some of history’s most outstanding leaders were business people as well as great leaders, philosophers, and students of history.
You cannot be a well-rounded citizen without these three subjects combined. One helps you understand yourself and what’s right; another enables you to understand the world and why things are how they are; and the third teaches you how to serve others while making a living yourself.
When combined, all three do a bit of each and compound the effects.
We need more polymaths, Renaissance Men (and women!), and multipotentialites, not fewer. Stop stressing over “picking,” and follow your interests wherever they lead.
Children flourish if parents reward their efforts rather than outcomes.
Annie Duke’s decision-making education makes it clear that good decisions don’t always result in good outcomes. All decisions involve luck to a certain degree, so neither we nor our children can control how things might turn out.
Sometimes, a good decision leads to a bad outcome, and other times, a bad decision leads to a good outcome. This means we must reinforce good decision-making first and foremost, not just praise decisions that lead to results we like.
This is not to say that all children deserve a participation trophy. It means that we should appropriately reward good effort (i.e., good decisions) and discourage bad decisions, even if they lead to a positive outcome.
The “how” of achievement matters as much, if not more, than the “what.”
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Something I learned to do as a musician was the idea of “deliberate practice.”
What this meant for me—like when I was learning a concert snare drum solo—was to take individual measures or a small group of measures, and turn them into exercises.
Examples:
I would take these passages, slow them down, get them perfect, and work my way up to “normal” playing speed. Then I would add back in the music that surrounded these difficult sections.
This is how I was able to learn difficult music.
There’s a lesson to be learned here for every aspect of life.
Doing the things you can already do easily won’t make you any better at anything.
You’d got to practice the hard parts until you can get them right.
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If you want to improve your drumming, copy musical phrases from masters like Elvin Jones or Tony Williams.
If you want to learn a new style of art, copy the sketches and brush strokes of da Vinci and Van Gogh.
If you want to become a world-class copywriter, copy the best, most successful ads from people like David Ogilvy or Claude Hopkins.
From medieval apprenticeship practices to their modern-day equivalents in universities and 1-on-1 mentorships, the best creatives know you must first start by copying the masters.
You learn the fundamentals of most everything first by imitation. Only then can you add your own touch to create something wholly your own.
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