Practice

Thinking back, I can't really remember applying myself to anything when I was young. Apart from reading and listening to music, I didn't have any grand passions or activities that I spent hours practising on my own or with other people. At school I did pretty well but that was because I was academic and we had to do lessons everyday. Later, when there was less structure around my learning - sixth-form and, particularly, university - I started doing considerably less well.

This all changed, though, at the age of twenty-five, when I started my first freelance role, which was with National Power in Harrogate. For the only time in my life, I'd told an outright lie in an interview: I had a six week old baby and no job, so I was desperate. And it wasn't a huge lie, I just said I had experience using a language called DB2 when, really, I'd just been on a course and then swotted up for the interview.

I wasn't too concerned about this when I got the job, though: it was just the language for accessing the database and I knew enough to get by and I'd work out anything else I needed from manuals. And then, on my first day, I was asked to train another guy, Andy, who'd transferred across from the power stations and needed help with DB2. This was a disaster, an ironic punishment for my lie!

So, for the next few days, I taught Andy what I knew, working through a manual with him, supplying him with lots of coffee so that every time he had to go to the loo, I could read a couple of pages ahead. God, it was stressful and every day when I arrived at work, I expected to find I'd been rumbled and told to clear my desk. I hadn't concentrated on anything to this extend for maybe ten years.

After a couple of weeks, the project began in earnest, and I carried on helping Andy with coding as well as getting on with my own work. But something odd happened; the other developers started coming to me for help with DB2 and treating my like a bit of a guru. People would marvel at the fact that I knew all the DB2 return codes (which I'd learnt by rote in the assumption that everyone would know them). It was a massive boost to my self-esteem.

And, at the same time, I took up playing squash, which I'd played a bit in my teens, and set up a squash ladder in the office. And because I wanted to get in shape and as there wasn't much to do at lunchtimes, I started playing every day. I'd say I was pretty average when we started the project and I was in the bottom third of the ladder, but I steadily progressed, learning from the better players who gradually became more interested in playing me. By the time the project ended, eighteen months later, I was pretty much always in the top two or three.

And so that time in Harrogate was pivotal to me. From both the DB2 and the squash playing I learnt that just because I'm not much good at something to start with doesn't mean that I can't become very good simply by working hard at it. I had been one of those people who gave up far too easily, who was too readily put off by the fact that I wasn't instantly good at something. 

I'm mentioning all this because I've been delighted by how Dan has applied himself to playing guitar. He's been having lessons for a while and seemed to be enjoying it well enough but this year he's really fallen in love with the instrument. Where he used to spend his spare time watching 'Supernatural', now you'll always find him with his guitar in hand, headphones plugged into the iPad, playing along with a song. And he's clearly progressing now; his chords are clear and his sense of timing is very good. In fact, I wish I could play as well as him, but there's only one way that's going to happen!