How My High School Band Teacher Helped Me Become A Successful Freelancer

Find out the valuable lesson I learned from my high school band teacher, which helped have success as a freelancer. (It has nothing to do with playing music…)

You probably don’t know this about me. But I was kind of a band geek in high school.

And not to brag, but I was pretty damn good.

I played clarinet. And I was “first chair” most of the time — meaning I was the best player in the band and got to play all the coolest (and hardest) parts.

In fact, I wound up winning an award for one of my solos at an international competition we played in Toronto my junior year.

But the biggest lesson I learned from my time in school band actually has nothing to do with music…

And looking back, I think it’s one of the reasons I’ve been able to carve my own path to success as a freelancer. (Instead of just blindly copying what everyone else is doing.)

See, our band teacher Mr. Vala took an…unconventional…approach with our grades.

Especially when you think about the fact he was dealing with a bunch of high school students.

He let us pick our own grades.

More specifically, we had to listen back to the recordings from our concerts and grade ourselves after each performance.

Now at first, you might assume we just gave ourselves an A every time…

…but that’s actually not what happened. At all.

In fact, we were pretty demanding with the standards we set for ourselves!

And that had an impact in my life far beyond my high-school transcripts.

Since grading ourselves taught us how to step back and honestly evaluate our own performance.

Which is a huge lesson to learn as a young adult.

Because the odds that anyone in our high school band would become a professional musician were vanishingly small.

But by using our time in band to teach the valuable skill of self-reflection, that class had a lasting impact for me. And I’m sure it did for a lot of my peers, too.

In fact, I think it’s the main reason that I now constantly evaluate my own business and try to make things better. Instead of just settling for the status quo.

So wherever you are today — thanks Mr. Vala.

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