The benefits of over-investing

Sometimes, freedom from obligation helps us get more out of our work, however we choose to measure our results.

When I was a new music teacher, I found myself obsessing over materials.

There was nothing better than opening a slim, unmarked music book in order to present just the right piece at just the right time, for just the right student. It made my job so much easier.

The challenge was finding that “just right” book that had a dozen or so perfectly chosen and sequenced musical pieces. So I found myself, just about every week, heading up to Hutchins & Rea, an independent music store headquartered in the Atlanta suburbs.

It got to the point where the owners Roxanne and Bill knew me by name. I would browse for hours, sometimes sitting down at the in-store piano to try out some of the pieces. I’d walk out with over a hundred dollars worth of books to try out on my students — again.

After awhile, I knew every piano and guitar method on the market and every collection of folk tune arrangements or easy classical etudes available. I guided my students through a circuitous path that was designed to create a pleasingly shallow learning curve that would allow them to stick with their instrument instead of getting bored and frustrated. I knew the classical repertoire intimately and could almost always find a piece that my student would spark to. We weren’t limited to the method books — my students were learning to play real music.

Eventually, I slowed down my music buying as I became more established as a teacher. And inevitably, I began creating my own materials. But not before I gave myself an education.

I’ve worked with many people who are full-time music teachers, just like I was. But many of them don’t even know that Hutchins & Rea exists. They ask me about materials, and I make recommendations, and I’m happy to be able to contribute in that way. But they’re probably missing out on everything that’s come out in the past years since I stopped teaching full time.

I over-invested in learning about music education materials, and it made me a much better teacher, curriculum designer, teacher trainer, and musician. I benefited in ways that I couldn’t have predicted when I was whiling away my lunch hour poking around in the music racks.

Not that I’ve always taken advantage of every opportunity. As a voice major in college, I was supposed to be studying opera and art songs. I could have become familiar with the repertoire in order to be more successful as a singer. I could have gone to the music library and listened to arias and lieder (these were the days before YouTube and Spotify). It would have made my college life so much easier. Maybe I wouldn’t have taken an incomplete in my voice lessons second semester of sophomore year, quit singing, and quit being a music major. I eventually un-quit, but I was miserable there for awhile.

However, it didn’t even occur to me to listen to opera in my spare time. I did what was required, and that was it — and it’s no surprise that I never became an opera singer.

Lots of people struggle with their path in life and aren’t sure what they want to do. This is made more difficult when they lack the skills to be useful to someone else in the meantime. But most of us, if we can be resourceful, can change that. We can go from typing 25 words a minute to 55 and become Excel experts. We can research the company we’re interviewing for, along with its market and industry. We can do work that no one’s asked us to do so that when the time comes, we’re ready.

Throughout my career, I have followed my obsessive interests. I didn’t always know why I was drawn to becoming an expert on a particular topic or in a particular skill, but it’s always paid off.

And when I found myself in a situation where I was lukewarm — like when I taught public school and spent every prep period researching international travel on my classroom’s rickety old Power Mac instead of planning lessons — I took the hint. Teaching public school wasn’t the right role for me.

Whenever I have over-invested, I was preparing for an opportunity that hadn’t quite arrived yet. And you could also argue that my over-investment helped me to create opportunities. It signaled to key people that I was serious about my work, it made me more confident in my skills, and it gave me a depth of understanding about instructional design that I found invaluable later in my career.

I couldn’t really afford to spend hundreds of dollars on music books, but it ended up being an excellent investment.

For the person reading this who isn’t thrilled with where their career is going: Is there any area where you are currently investing heavily? What if you were to over-invest? What would happen if you over-invested in an area that you’re not as passionate about or where your skill set is weaker? Who might notice, and what doors could open?

There are many times when the sharpening of our knowledge and skills precedes any need for them. But that doesn’t mean it isn’t worth it. Maybe the area where you aren’t expected to have strong abilities is just the place to develop them.