My Non-Career as a Rock Star

(When Training Matters– and When it Doesn’t)

Many years ago I acquired an electric bass guitar and decided to master it. Unlike my experience with a regular guitar, I took lessons. This time I was going to get it right and learn good habits right from the outset.
My teacher was excellent, kind of a Bob Dylan knockoff, and could do amazing things with the bass. He assured me that before long I would be just like him.
Well, it didn’t work out that way. He had rhythm, I don’t. (Apparently that’s quite important for a bass player.) He also understood music theory and styles, while I still have to stop and think about the aide memoire “Every Good Boy Deserves Fudge”.
After a few weeks of excitement, then a few more of dutiful practicing, then a few more of having a bad feeling about the whole thing, I sorrowfully came to the conclusion that it was not to be. Ever. I was wasting my time, and I was wasting my money. The truth of the matter is that when it comes to music, my highest and best use is as a listener.
On the other hand, I went to law school and graduated with a handful of honours and a couple of prizes. Apparently this stuff suits me. Two of my professors later became my clients, which was enormously flattering.
I tell these stories not to garner pity on the one hand or brag on the other, but to make a point about training. Very simply put, it is this: if training builds on your natural talents, or at least gives you essential skills that you will need in the pursuit of your talents, it is important. But if your training is building on quicksand, you’re just wasting your time and resources.
For me, taking music lessons, or golf lessons, or tennis lessons, would only make me mediocre at any of these activities, and then only after an inordinate amount of effort and money. I wasn’t born or built for any of those things.
On the other hand, any training I have taken during my lifetime related to analysis, language, or understanding people has paid rich dividends. Why? Very simply because those are areas where genetics and experience give me an edge, and the training builds on a solid foundation.
You know it and I know it– of all the training you’ve ever taken, the stuff which has impacted you most for the good has been training which built upon your natural aptitudes and inclinations.
This is not to say that such training is easy. Implicit in training is pain and self-discipline. Even if you are Sydney Crosby, Tiger Woods, or Jascha Heifetz, gruelling training and practice are the price you pay to be the best in the world.
The lesson we can all take out of this is that greatness only comes to those who live their lives doing what they were born to do, what their experience has taught them, and what they continually work at by training and by practice.