1/ "It’s strange that some of the greatest musicians were self-taught or never learned to read music. I’m not saying one way is the best, but I get a lot of students from schools that are teaching jazz, and they all sound the same. They don’t seem to find their own voice. (cont.)
2/ I think when you’re self-taught you experiment more, trying to find the same sound in different places, you learn how to solve problems…I could show somebody in two minutes what would take them years of screwing around on the fingerboard like I did to find it. You don’t...
3/ ...know what’s right or what’s wrong. You don’t have that in your head. You’re just trying to find a solution to problems, and after fifty lifetimes, it starts to come together for you. It’s slow, but at the same time, there’s something to learning that way.” — Jack Cecchini
4/ I think we are conditioned to believe that people who teach themselves how to play an instrument or who start a successful company in an industry they know nothing about are naturally brilliant and that the manner in which they learned is secondary - that it's nothing more...
5/ ... than the signature of their genius. I think it's less intuitive for people to imagine that the manner in which we learn is more integral than some fundamental predilection for any particular sport or discipline. There's something about throwing oneself into the deep end...
6/ ... that can't be replicated by any course or prescribed reading in my view. As Jack says, "I could show somebody in 2 minutes what would take them years of screwing around" to learn, but it's the screwing around that can't be taught. As Herminia Ibarra says, "We learn who...
7/ ... we have become—in practice, not in theory—by testing fantasy and reality." Isn't this what is meant by the classic adage "it's the journey that matters?" Perry Klebahn of IDEO says "don't get ready, get started." I feel like all of these touch on the same, basic message.
8/ If I could have given myself any advice growing up, it would have been to worry less about what others were doing or where I was going and instead, have faith in my own process and intuition. It would have saved me a lot of unnecessary grief.
