In the last 4 or 5 years, people have been asking me this question over and over again:
João, don't you feel bad about wasting years studying music, just to end up working on something completely different?
To be honest, I don't know how to respond to that.
That question is so far from what I consider logical, that simply saying "No!" isn't enough. So here’s my full answer.
For 9 years, I dedicated my body, mind, and soul to music and jazz.
I've spent 6 years studying with countless jazz musicians, improving my craft, learning about improvisation, composing, and playing.
When I started to play the guitar, though, I hated it. It was not until a teacher [who I'm deeply grateful for] told me that I couldn't be a mediocre player and should give up that I actually started to enjoy it. What he said pushed me to prove him wrong and in the process of doing it, finding one of the biggest passions of my life.
I went from not enjoying the guitar, to having one single goal: Be the best Portuguese guitar player.
This was in 7th grade and I kept that dream alive for years, striving to be better. I left classical training and started to study jazz. First in high school and then, in college.
In my 1st year in college, I was studying 7/8 hours a day, every day.
What I wasn't doing?
Warm-up exercises.
That “tiny” mistake led to Carpal Tunnel Syndrome. I remember the physician saying that usually, people got this kind of injury at 60. I was 18.
The fact that my long dream of becoming a professional musician took a fatal blow, made me devastated and I found myself lost.
I had no plan, no goals, nothing. But things changed after I asked myself 2 questions:
Why music? Why jazz?
After lots of writing, I realized that music was the language I knew that allowed me to inspire people. Once I figured that out, I was relieved. Music was the vehicle to a bigger mission, inspiring people. I could still maintain my sense of purpose, I only had to change the vehicle. And so, I did.
Eventually, my wrist got better and I even finished college but I decided to pursue another area. I cofounded a Corporate Training company and pursued that for a couple of years.
In my first gig as a corporate trainer, I had to do a 2-day course on Emotional Intelligence.
I was really nervous but, by the time we got to the first-morning break, that feeling had gone. Things were running smoothly. Or so I thought. In that break, I looked at my notebook where I had the course structure.
In the first part of the first morning, I had given them almost an entire day of content! That meant that I had 0 clues about what to do for the rest of the day!
I panicked. There I was, my first time doing a 2-day course, with 30 managers of a company as students, and I had no curriculum left for the first day.
After panicking for a minute [that felt like an hour], I was hit by this sudden calm and focus. I opened my notebook, with all the research that I had done, picked 2 or 3 concepts, and improvised a bunch of small simple games around them. Then, I hoped for the best.
Fortunately, everyone loved them. In fact, from the 2-day course, the games were the favorite part for most people.
On that day, I realized something: spending years practicing and studying jazz improvisation allowed me to improvise better in life.
When I decided to leave my first company and build What Drives Youth, I had to improvise. Building a digital school from scratch and trying to work with governments was (and has been) a big challenge. But my ability to improvise has always helped me. In fact, it's one of the few things that I'm 100% sure I do really well.
So how could I feel sorry for spending 9 years learning how to craft the one skill that got me where I am today?
I can’t.
So, to everyone asking me this, I hope that’s clear now why I’m deeply grateful for every single moment studying music and jazz.
Besides, pictures playing guitar always come in handy.