In school, effort for the sake of effort gets rewarded.

After all, what's an honors course but an opportunity to do more work in order to prove that you're a person who is willing to do more work simply for the sake of doing more work?

And once you show yourself to be the kind of person who puts in effort for effort's sake, you get more opportunities to demonstrate your work ethic at ever higher levels.

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For years, I resisted advertising for my music school.

I wanted it to be better before I invited new students in. I wanted things to be polished and perfected; I wanted every system to be functioning perfectly and every instructor to do things exactly as I would.

Well, it's been over a decade, friends, and I am still waiting for perfection that will never arrive. In the meantime, we've served hundreds of families who are pleased with what we offer (and sometimes, downright thrilled).

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"It's a great gig," said the freelancer. "I mean, I have a master's in social work, not management. So I wonder if he'd be better off with someone else. But I'm happy to run this guy's office."

This social-worker-turned-office-manager was expressing a common belief: "I'm a stand-in for someone who could do the job better." It's one of the hallmarks of so-called imposter syndrome.

Here's the thing, though: That hypothetical person they could have hired who is better than you does not exist. If that person did exist, they would have the job. Instead, you have the job. Your boss, client, or partner picked you: the right person at the right time.

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When I was a young musician, I was fully steeped in the twentieth century idea of being “discovered” by a record company executive.

To a degree, that was still how things worked back then—and even today. However, they never really worked that way anyway. If you want to “make it,” you have to already have the look or sound that the industry was seeking. The stories of being plucked from obscurity make their way around the world because they are ridiculous fairy tales, not business as usual.

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What I love about teaching music is the immediacy of it.

No matter how old you are, you can make a pleasing sound on a drum, ukulele, or harmonium on your first try. Given a few more minutes, you can create an ostinato (a repeated melodic or rhythmic pattern) that you can build into a song. It’s so fun that it makes you want to do more of it.

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