I used to be scared to death to go to class a few decades ago when I was an aimless university student. I knew I wasn’t exactly submitting works worthy of publication, mind you. I wasn’t interested in my courses, so I never applied myself. I’d hand in papers knowing I was doomed. But I was still sickened on those days when I’d get them back, even though I knew what to expect. I was usually right in my predictions.

A couple of weeks ago, I submitted my first essay in eight years. The last one before that was as a masters student, before a full-fledged career and heavy teaching and performance commitments outside of school. Nevertheless, I figured I’m older and wiser now. I’ve been around the block a couple of hundred times. I’m a master of time management (so I thought). I know how to write well and impress my professor. The next class after my nine classmates and I submitted our papers, the professor spent an entire session lasting nearly three hours deconstructing each paper in front of everyone, critiquing us on everything from content to punctuation. I sit closest to the professor in a round-table seminar room. He picked me as his first victim. And a victim I was, as he verbally ripped my submission to shreds as what felt to me to be an example to my much younger peers of how not to write a paper. Everyone had a copy of everyone else’s papers, so they were able to read along as he went line by line over my essay without a kind word. You could have heard a pin drop while he was doing so. I entered the room at 9:00 am with a little bit of cockiness. I left the room at noon feeling like I was punched in the face over and over again, made more painful by the public spectacle of it all.

I drove home wanting to run into every light pole and pedestrian. I wasn’t fit to look at or talk to. I was feeling completely unworthy of a doctoral program and afraid that I was flunking out of it. I hadn’t had these feelings of impending academic doom for thirty years. I had an impulse to e-mail my professor and apologize for my lacklustre work. I didn’t, because I was worried I’d come across as grovelling for his good favour. I couldn’t win.

I mustn’t have disguised my self-pity very well. Before I could completely figure out how to manage this deflating experience, I received a very kind e-mail from the professor, offering time to chat because he sensed I was feeling anxious. I took him up on the offer. We met for a very nice, long coffee chat downtown. Talked about one another’s life partners. Even gossiped a bit about mutual acquaintances. Talked about piano here, sociology there. I came to realize what I should have understood in the first place. That the nature of his course at this level is to learn how to present papers worthy to be considered for publication. He picked it apart, because his own submissions get picked apart by choosy editors in the same fashion. It was a real-life lesson. It was intended to be a constructive exercise which I was too self-centred to realize in the heat of the moment.

Then I realized something else in the course of our coffee chat: That this is not something a professor would have done for me when I was 18 going through the same sorts of feelings. There’s the difference… This time what’s at least as obvious to others as my worrying (given away by gritting my teeth, shifting in my seat and shallow breathing) is the fact that I love what I’m worrying about. My professor, who I’m sure one day will be a good friend once I survive his course, has the decency to identify and work closely with someone who is worried for all the right reasons. Truth is, I really have nothing to worry about. I worked my butt off to get into this program because I feel like I have something to give to it by way of my research interests. He wasn’t criticizing my work for the sake of criticizing. He wanted me to get into a position of taking the punches, sucking it up, learning from my weaknesses and coming back with something stronger.

It’s so funny and amazing how things happen. Another sociology professor, the one who received my proposal for doctoral studies a year ago, was actually my private piano student for seven years prior to that. Here was this highly-regarded published scholar every week in my piano studio challenging herself and nervously taking herself out of her comfort zone, relying completely on my artistic advice and experience. Seven years later, the tables are turned and I’m wanting to prove myself worthy of her academic world. And she’s returning my service to her by showing me extraordinary support and enthusiasm for my being there.

I spend anything from minutes to hours each day happily working with young people to get them through anything from learning notes in a song, to producing a show, to making a major career choice. Next thing I know, I’m in their shoes being calmed down and patiently guided by a constructively critical professor who’s been where I am… that is to say, as a middle-aged doctoral student temporarily displaced but who ended up realizing a very fine career.

Now he wants to be my piano student…

A baseball player is considered great for consistently hitting more than .300. That means a player successfully hits his way beyond the batter’s box 30% of the time through his career. It’s considered something of a milestone. He fails 70% of the time to make it as far as first base. Yet he’s rewarded for his effort with cheers and a place in the Hall of Fame.

From the end of high school through my early years of university, I was a directionless soul, “batting” 30% in some courses. A student scoring 30% and a ball player hitting safely 30% of the time receive very different kinds of attention. I didn’t receive much positive recognition for my “effort.” I wasn’t cheered or invited to advance to the next course. I was “asked” to leave university. I ended up working in one dead-end part-time job after another since I wasn’t allowed back to school for nearly a year, loathing every second. But, in spite of my outward resistance (and very wrongly and immaturely blaming all of my professors), I secretly knew I would dust myself off and return with just enough glory to… fail again. Apparently, I wasn’t content to fail just one time…

Well here I am thirty years after my first year of university, about to take a run in yet another direction. Except now I have a very different perspective on the word “failure.” It has a close relationship to risk and has taken on a positive meaning. Looking back over the past few decades and heading back to the same campus I was once required to leave, I have learned that the only time I could be considered a true failure was as that university outcast who was faced with a challenge, choosing to not try my best. When I was 32 years old, after several years of mucking around in soul-sucking bookkeeping jobs, I finally mustered the courage to dive head-first into my music degrees and subsequent career… the career that scared me the most when I was fresh out of high school. I didn’t think I was good enough back then to risk failure at making a living with the work I love the most. Having said that, I believe I’ve realized tremendously greater happiness having started this wonderfully gratifying career much later with the experience of several failures notched in my belt.

I might be a slow learner, but I have figured out at middle age that failure is not a step backwards. As bad as it feels in the moment it happens, it’s actually a stepping stone towards success. Learning, growing and moving forward come only from the experience of failure and risk. I’m not talking about the 6/49 kind of risk. What I’m talking about has virtually nothing to do with money or talent and almost everything to do with attitude.

This summer is not over and is already at the head of the list as the most wonderful, unforgettable seasons of my life. Newman Sound Men’s Choir threw caution to the wind, took a big gamble and walked away from one of the biggest choir competitions in the world with recognition as the best in our class. I didn’t celebrate the win for its own sake, but rather for the achievements of the members of the choir many of whom aren’t trained musicians. The guys who took a huge leap of faith outside of their familiar zones and into foreign territory. Gentlemen whose day jobs are as teachers, dentists, lawyers, and so on are now internationally renowned musicians. Along the way, some of the guys were afraid, frustrated, excited, confused. But they worked extremely hard and no one quit. And they succeeded as a team with the greatest collective attitude imaginable.

Immediately after my return from that event, I jumped into the next. There’s a young man in this town by the name of James Daly who’s young enough to be my son but is arguably the most fearless and selfless person I’ve known in any of my walks of life. He took a huge gamble on booking a major performance venue for his first ever solo show, with me lending support as his musical partner and however else I could. This was a huge risk to both of us in terms of money and reputation. What if we went in the red? What if no one showed up? He was putting his neck on the line in his first solo show. Likewise, I had never done a show like this. We worked our butts off all summer and James delivered the performance of his life before a sold out audience that couldn’t get enough. As much by his talent and outward confidence, I suspect the audience was impressed equally by his incredible chracter. He has no ego, is completely supportive of all of his colleagues young and old, never boasts about his obvious gifts. But here’s the kicker… Only a year ago, we did a show of similar music in a much smaller venue and struggled to get thirty people to show up, nearly all of whom were family and friends in a half-empty room.

Another young buck in my life, same age as James, is today making his way across the Atlantic in small sailboat. He left a couple of days ago. Nathan Stanley is also a very fine, intelligent musician who divides his passions between music and being on the water. He decided in the dying days of summer to seize an opportunity that came suddenly and doesn’t come to just anyone. He didn’t brag, didn’t take this opportunity for personal gain. He still has to face the reality of another two years of music school when he returns. Yet he’s out on the open ocean with a handful of other people, risking life and limb in face of fear but for an experience that makes him happiest and may or may not come again (I suspect it will). He’s a young guy who has never taken this kind of very dangerous chance. I expect the risk at hand will enhance his remaining school experience and the rest of his life.

So… What possessed James and me to try again? Not only try, but gamble on a much larger program and venue a year after a small, modest showing? What is it about Nathan that has lead him into an unfamiliar situation where nature is in control, and regardless of what anyone thinks of him or would do in a similar situation? Why would Newman Sound, not having competed in our own country for more than four years, head to the U.S. as a bunch of loveable unknowns, to compete (and win…) against some of the most powerful and seasoned choirs from around the world? Why on earth am I going back to university in a few weeks and for the next few years at my age when I should feel I have nothing left to prove or give?

Many of the guys in Newman Sound had no idea what they were getting themselves into when they joined the group, but they trusted the leadership, worked hard on their own and gave everything they had.
James faced a lot of odds against both of us and took ownership of a big situation with a great result. (Oh.. and he’ll be a major star very soon.)
Nathan admits his fear and takes this ultimate risky journey anyway. Nathan and James who don’t even know one another have in common the most positive life views of anyone I’ve known. They move forward to the next challenge with everything they have, though as if they have nothing to lose, while always, living in the moment with the purest expression of joy. I’m pianist and friend to both of them and I always come away with any meeting with either of those two walking a little taller and feeling happier for the experience. Their positive attitudes appear boundless are absolutely infectious.

I’ve scarcely mentioned talent here. However you define success… It’s all about attitude and how you shape and present your talent skillfully and strategically. That in itself is a priceless skill.

Here I am about to don a backpack, sharpen my pencils, head back to the classroom and burn the candle at both ends for the next few years, I am taking an enormous amount of inspiration from the likes of James and Nathan especially, and the men of Newman Sound who surrendered precious vacation and family time to try something daring and way outside the box. If not for my work and time with those extraordinary people and so many other exciting young people I’ve been unworthily lucky to work with, I’m not sure I’d be taking the steps I’m about to take. I’m not crossing the Atlantic or leaping onto stages with big name stars. But I am throwing caution to the wind and feeling younger than ever… thanks to them.

On September 5th, thirty years almost to the day of the start of my first failed year of university, I start my doctoral studies in the same university in a discipline I’m completely unfamiliar with in the academic sense: Sociology. However, my research area is going to closely resemble my experiences with the likes of James and so many others. In a simplified nutshell: What traits and experiences are necessary in a place like Newfoundland and Labrador to realize success in the music industry? What I know is that the professors of Sociology are very curious about me and my research proposal and have (thankfully) largely disregarded my grades from decades ago in favour of my life experiences and attitude…. again, all owing to my experiences with my wonderful young friends and colleagues.

This blog was a bit of a ramble, but it’s just because I’m about to take a sharp turn in a new direction and am feeling reflective (and a bit wordy).
I tend to be infrequent at best with these blog posts, but for the few who check in, I’ll be far more regularly posting a progress report once I start my new life in a few weeks, I promise. They will be much more to the point and blunt. I expect some major emotional down- and up-swings for the foreseeable future which I’ll be sharing. In the meantime, I’ll close with a few more of my favorite quotes which I hope you will appreciate.

Thank you for reading and for your support.

“Do not go where the path may lead. Go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.” ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson.

“When I stand before God at the end of my life, I would hope that I would not have a single bit of talent left, and could say, ‘I used everything you gave me.’” ~ Erma Bombeck.

“You can’t get there by bus, only by hard work and risk and by not quite knowing what you’re doing. What you’ll discover will be wonderful. What you’ll discover will be yourself.” ~ Alan Alda.

“Flaming enthusiasm, backed up by horse sense and persistence, is the quality that most frequently makes for success.” ~ Dale Carnegie

“If we were to go only half way or reduce our sights in the face of difficulty, it would be better not to go at all.” ~ John F. Kennedy.

… and just for fun…

“If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again. Then quit. There’s no point in being a damn fool about it.” ~ W. C. Fields