I couldn’t bring myself to learn them. Mixolydian scale, Dorian scale, Phrygian scale. Almost identical notes in fixed orders. Too boring. I just couldn’t.
I didn’t grasp how much this would limit me. Three decades later, I’m still paying interest on that shortcut.
Charlie Parker said, “Master your instrument. Master the music. And then forget all that bullshit and just play.” Somehow I went from A to C while skipping B entirely.
My play-by-ear ability carried me through 25 years in a wedding and party band—enough to have fun, enough to get paid. But that deep understanding? Still missing. Still nagging.
For years I tried composing, both conventionally and with computers. Always hit the same wall—the music inside me couldn’t get out because I’d skipped the foundations.
AI eventually gave me a workaround, let me develop different skills to become the composing artist I’d wanted to be.
But there’s a pattern here I’ve watched play out in my own life and in countless others I’ve met: that urge to cut corners. Skip the hard part, jump to the fun part.
The Plateau Trap
We all know how learning works. Early progress is intoxicating. Visible gains, rapid improvement, constant dopamine hits.
Then you hit a plateau where progress stalls and the fun evaporates.
That’s when three options appear:
a) Quit and start something new.
b) Develop grit and push through.
c) Try to jump over the plateau.
I kept choosing c). Every time I tried to skip it, I paid for it later.
Medical school: I decided—based on probability and time efficiency—to skip hand anatomy details. Too complex, statistically unlikely I’d need it.
A decade later I was working in hand surgery, painfully grinding through anatomic textbooks every morning and evening for months to make up for that “strategic” decision of my younger self.
The pattern holds across domains: skip the boring fundamentals, pay compound interest later.
The Truth About Talent
I used to wonder if talent was real. Watching my kids grow up, I see what psychology and neuroscience describe: innate inclination meeting environment.
Talent brings you curiosity for something - sometimes physical dexterity - and enough energy and motivation to stick through that first plateau. The new height brings the next boost of motivation for the next plateau. Success breeds success. And it’s compounding.
Talent often happens when your environment fosters curiosity early and helps you through that first plateau at a young age. The grandfather playing chess with you. The mother taking you to dance classes. The family that lets the three-year-old play with instruments freely.
These are pedagogues meant in its original sense—someone who guides a child.
Then it becomes a game of compounding effort. It’s hard to catch up with someone who has ten years of deliberate practice from childhood. We dismiss it as “just gifted.” But it’s not magic - it’s a head start, and you’re fighting uphill carrying basics they automated years ago.
Still possible, though.
What This Means for You
First: get honest about your innate inclinations. We all have them—maybe just not in the areas we think we should.
Second: develop grit. It’s the decisive differentiator. And it’s a muscle you can train.
In most conversations, especially with personnel I try to find out: “What are you unexpectedly good at outside work?”
I don’t like that classical “what are your strengths” too much. I want the thing they do for fun that they’re oddly skilled at.
The product manager who DJs weddings and intuitively reads crowd energy. The engineer who restores vintage motorcycles and has mechanical empathy most designers lack. The nurse that’s sailing and accustomed to quickly changing (weather) environments.
These aren’t soft skills—they’re transferable pattern recognition capabilities sitting dormant because we thought they didn’t belong at work.
I’ve held parts of myself back for years because I thought they wouldn’t be beneficial—or worse, wouldn’t be allowed in my environment, in my position. I’m gradually learning to integrate my own goofy extracurricular skills into my work.
And learning from my own blocks I can now try to ask “what boring fundamentals are you trying to skip?”
Including myself. Especially myself.
I spent years trying to compose without theory, lead with insufficient information, diagnose without mastering anatomy. The pattern still holds: you can’t shortcut mastery.
But you can build systems where admitting “I skipped the basics” isn’t career suicide—it’s the first step to getting unstuck.
Where we help each other develop that necessary grit.
Where we hold each other accountable not through pressure but through genuine support.
Master the fundamentals. Then forget them and play.
By the way, I’m still learning scales. Thirty years later, some lessons finally land.
To more from life,
Nicco
The song:
