Yesterday, Lauren and I jumped in the car and took a visit to the local tip.

We’ve just finished moving house from Casa Grundy to Fort Grundy and the new place was overrun with empty boxes, bubble wrap and polystyrene begging to be cleared out.

As we drove, we got chatting. 

Conversation turned to whether or not our future ankle biter would end up playing a musical instrument.

Now, there’s some context to this.

Lauren is a virtuoso violinist. She played regularly in one of London’s most prestigious concert halls (St John’s Smith Square for those of a musical bent).

I had my musical moments too. I didn't reach Lauren’s lofty levels, but I did make it to Grade 8 on the ultimate badge of coolness, the French Horn.

While the horn never rocked my world, there was a hidden gift with learning how to play it:

I got a multi-year lesson about the process of learning.

I remember I couldn’t even make a sound for my first few lessons. Eventually, I could generate a vaguely musical noise and as time went by I got more into my horny groove (if you’ll pardon the phrase). 

Then there were moments when I could sense I was improving - hitting a clean note or playing a simple melody. But a week later I’d miss every note or start to sound like a honking goose. There were also plateaus where however hard I practiced (which wasn’t that hard), I didn't seem to improve.  

To make things worse, I sat next to a French Horn player in the school orchestra who was a natural. He belted out the horn solo for Jurassic Park so effortlessly that it made me wonder why I picked up the goddamn horn in the first place.

Yet I see now that this is exactly what should’ve been happening.

It was a similar story when I learnt chess, learnt poker and started taking magic lessons.

For each of these I felt like a total beginner, made some progress, went backwards, went forwards again, reached a plateau, saw how much I didn’t know compared to what I thought I knew and watched talented superstars leap ahead of me.

But this is the learning process in a nutshell. These were all signs that my own learning was ticking along just fine.

What’s more, I’ve no doubt that learning about learning played a role in getting me into writing & coaching and has helped me stick with them for over two and half years.

See, I knew that being a beginner didn’t matter when it came to writing and coaching.

I knew there would be some rocky moments.

I knew progress wouldn’t be linear.

And yet I also knew that if I showed up, practiced, got more experience under my belt, learned from the experts (like John Bejakovic and Michael Neill – both bona fide masters of their respective crafts), I’d improve.

That’s just how it works.

Perhaps you’re ready to get up to something new but you’re not sure how or what's holding you back.

That’s where my coaching comes in.

More info here:

https://waitinglist.followingfulfilment.com