Paul has started to learn the piano, as a part of his applied practice for his love for music. Rich and Paul discuss the importance of having the humility to learn for the sake of learning regardless of the outcome.

Everyone.

My name is Rich Ziti.

I'm one half of the Ziti in Ford Podcast, and I'd like to introduce you

to my six-year-old co-host Paul Ford.

He's in the first grade.

Hi Paul.

This is me, Paul Ford.

I'm six, uh, the the other co-host.

Uh, why did you introduce me as Six Rich?

Because you're taking piano lessons.

Piano lessons is a stretch.

There's this very nice guy with a, with an accent who on Udemy, who teaches a

class with like 200 separate installments.

And I am learning by watching.

Welcome to the Zian Ford podcast.

We're gonna talk about learning to learn.

Yay.

Well, that's nice.

That sounds nice and generic, but, but here's what's up.

After we sold our company, something we've talked about, I was like, I should

buy something to honor this moment.

Something I would never normally buy No, I went, I went and

got a profit, ex synthesizer.

Boring.

It is very boring.

Not even expensive compared to like, I mean, it's just like,

it's expensive for a synth.

Um, but it's not like a, it wasn't a fancy thing, but I always wanted one.

I always wanted like a good piano in my

Okay.

Okay, so this one,

fun.

A toy, you got yourself a.

a toy, a really fancy toy.

And it plays, you know, it has like a.

Great piano sample and it also plays all sorts of BBOs and, and so, so great.

So I found it for about six months and I learned how to turn, turn all the knobs.

I learned subtractive synthesis and how to make it work.

And then, um, I started to look at other synths and shop for them and

I got kind of like excited about it.

Okay.

And then after ordering a few items on the internet, I had a little meeting

with myself and I said, are you just gonna buy gear or are you going to

actually learn and understand music?

And the way that you understand music theory and kind of in the last 150

years is you do it with the piano.

You, you get, you learn how to play piano.

It is applied music theory.

It's 12 semitones and arranged in octaves, and you learn the chords and the, you

know, the chord progressions and so on.

And it kind of starts there.

It starts with the keys on the piano.

And so I was like, I better do it.

So, Then it was kind, I was kind of curious.

I'm like, will I stick with this?

Let me ask you your motivation here.

Most people who are six years old take piano lessons cuz

their parents want them to,

right?

Maybe he's got a god-given talent and will be a prodigy.

So let's, let's, let's try this out.

Most people who do it, when.

16 years old do it because they wanna perform and they want

people to love them and love their music, and they want to be a star.

Why in God's name with a 48 year old successful former

executive want to take piano

There was a point where I was practicing it.

My wife just came into the room and said, I just need to

know how far this is gonna go.

That's a fair

Well, cuz he's like, am I gonna have to go to like.

event where you're performing,

why do it?

I love music.

I've always loved music.

I've written about music.

I like to listen to music.

I know musicians and I always felt that it was sort of away

from me and outside of me.

I was a writer, I was a technologist, but I've always kept a hand in, I've

always, you know, had music software on the computer and so on and so forth.

And there's, there's a point of just like, well, who am I gonna?

Am I gonna be a guy who, um, participates and knows how it works and can

feel it and can do things with it?

And then I was like, boy, yeah, you don't have any dexterity.

You don't have any particular skills.

Your ears okay, but let's, and I was like, I, maybe I could learn it.

It's literally, I am learning piano because the exercise of learning, it gives

me a place to focus my energy in my mind.

Mm-hmm.

. Mm-hmm.

And because I, and it's, I'm like, I need a hobby.

Okay.

Uh, I think this is great, and I'll tell you why I think it's great.

First off, there are very, there are many passive hobbies you could

collect, you know, stamps, you could collect, I don't know, butterflies.

I've seen people like glue butterflies to paper

It's a weird one.

Leo Opery.

Yeah.

don't know what that is.

Anyway, those are, those don't require a lot of skill and those

don't make you feel like a novice.

Right outta the gate.

The, the bar for what you're talking about, which is playing

a piano well, um, is high.

You, you do, you suck

actually.

Oh, I'm terrible.

Absolutely.

Without a, I didn't know the names of the notes.

I'm sitting there going, that one's C.

That one's d.

Um,

also the brain at, at, as you get older and

Oh, left hand.

Left hand and right hand are supposed to do different things Hey, ain't great.

It's probably not great.

I'm learning.

There's a thing called the Half Beat Bounce, where your left hand is like

frustrated.

Oh, so

frustrated.

Will you quit?

I am not gonna quit.

I don't think I might because I have choices in my life, and if

I don't want to, I'm never gonna be a professional piano player.

Sure.

So it doesn't, there's no cost to me to quit and there's very little

benefit if I succeed, but, There's a a thing that happens when you really

go deep on something, and to me, this is why learning is worthwhile.

Even if you aren't gonna cash out the skill,

it's that it connects you to a much bigger, weirder thing.

You're really into headphones.

Right now.

yes.

And the conversations we have about headphones, sometimes you'll be

like, come listen to this on these.

Yeah.

And that's cool.

And you gave me a great pair of headphones.

It was generous and I love it.

And I enjoy them.

I don't think I gave them to you.

I put them on your head.

You're like, these are

unbelievable.

You can't have them back as, as a really as how I believe it went

That's a side effect of, of working together for a long time.

time.

Can I highlight a distinction here or do you want to finish

your, well, no, let me finish my thought because as we talk about

headphones, we don't just talk about music, we talk about supply chain,

the community around headphones, how people focus on this particular thing,

how they analyze and understand them.

And so what I, what I, what I look at when I see headphones is you going.

I need a way to interpret it and understand the world.

I love music.

This is really interesting that there's a whole world here.

Yeah.

And it's a way for you to connect with and interact with the world

purely focused around a thing.

It doesn't have any complexity.

There's no, like, you're not worried about Lebanon being okay today.

Like you're ju it is just a thing in your

It's a place to go.

People who people think about this.

We're talking abstractly right now.

They think about this when it comes to travel.

People who love to travel.

Yes.

They, they have a list and their goal is to go

to places they've never been

Soak it in.

Learn 10 words in the language.

Exactly, exactly.

I, I, I happen to not be that pre, I mean, there are places I want

to go, but I don't have a list.

Like my wife actually has a list.

Like she wants to go experience strange, weird, she hates the

hermetically sealed resorts where.

that's fair.

Where you don't, oh, sometimes you just wanna decompress.

I'm not gonna judge people who do that, but she wants to go take those in.

I, I think it's great, by the way, I also think it's rare, and I, I think I would

put collecting stamps and headphones in one category and then learning a skill and

failing spectacularly at it as another.

I'm kind of realizing how much fun it is to connect to something

that is hundreds of years old, that is one of the books is from like 1890.

And that makes me think about the fact that, um, what was my

neighborhood like and were people.

People were definitely playing piano in my neighborhood at that time.

And so there's this connective tissue.

There's a, and there's just a sense of like, I will never win, like,

I will never be good at piano at a level that people would go, boy,

that's a really good piano player.

Yeah.

Like, that's, I

yeah.

No, you, you never will.

I can

confirm

that.

Yeah.

I never will.

Um, look, I, I, I'm gonna take a leap here and, and, and kind of

make a statement that I have absolutely no authority or citation to back

Go for it.

It's a podcast.

You're really allowed to do that here.

That's what they do at all the podcasts.

it is really good for your mental health to learn something brand new.

Uh, it is and and I don't mean that as in like, oh, keep

learning and expand your horizons.

I mean, it is gen.

Genuinely.

Good for you.

I, for a law, I learned most of the skills I used today after law school.

Like I went to law school, I was supposed to just go cash in on the damn law diploma

No, and then you learn, then you learn how to program.

Right.

You learn how to,

I learned.

Project and product management for five years, and then I was 31 and I took six

months off and learned how to program.

I I wasn't gonna be a programmer.

I could tell by, after I was learning the program that I wasn't gonna

be a programmer, but I learned to

you need to have control over the thing you do.

I do.

Like you, you and I had the same path.

I was not a natural programmer.

I taught myself, I got pretty good, but never like, oh my God, this is the, the,

you know what's hard if you're not a natural programmer, that last 20% where

you're like, I'm gonna write the unit tests because otherwise my job isn't done.

Yeah.

Uh, never.

That was

I, that didn't interest me.

And, and there are people who really enjoy that last 20%.

Uh, I think, I think I, for me, programming was communication.

Uh, like I, I was very like, you know, I wrote a piece of code that

was actually popular and I showed it to the engineers at my old shop.

The way I presented to them was like, think of this as a prototype.

I want you guys to make it happen.

Make it better.

Because I, it was, it was almost a way of expression.

It wasn't really anything that was supposed to be for the world.

It ended up being used in the world.

But that's beside the point.

know who hates when you program that way?

Who?

Oh, for sure.

Oh my God.

They thought I was a fraud.

Oh, they really

they thought I was a

There's a tremendous disciplinary focus.

This is why learning things when you're older is hard.

When you're little and you're learning fine, cuz you're not a

great piano player, you're six.

But when you're older, what happens is you start comparing.

To all the people who do this for a living.

Yeah.

And people are gatekeepers around their own disciplines.

They're like, why are you in here?

In my JavaScript?

Yeah.

That's mine.

That's not for

you to

right.

Yeah.

Oh, a hundred percent.

And, and sometimes, here's the reason I learned a program.

This is the cynical piece of shit, rich

For a moment.

Yeah, go for

Um, I, I got tired of being lied to.

People would give me, they would give me time estimates on stuff.

I was like, I'm done.

I want to understand everything

as a product manager, it's a great reason to learn the program.

became a nightmare of a product leader after that for a

while because I could not hear it.

And I've sat down sometimes with some really serious technical thinkers

and said, you're gonna draw the pseudo code for me on this board

as to why this is gonna take eight months, cuz I don't believe you.

they couldn't do it.

you know what's tricky is the, um, oh no.

They just, it's, I have, I have

it as col this sound, I sound like a bully right now.

I used to treat it as collaboration.

I'm like, let's see if there's a faster way.

It's

not just that there are, there are really good reasons why it

will take three months to update one web

there's always good reasons.

Right.

good reasons and it's, and when you are not, and.

. And if you don't have the domain expertise to be like, seems a little long.

Yeah.

Uh, people will give you those reasons.

You're like, well, I, there's no nothing I can do here.

Yeah.

You know,

Uh, I, I will say, uh, you know, what is the takeaway?

I mean, we're talking about advice first off.

We are in a fortunate position.

We can pick up these entire domains and play with them.

Um, even if you're doing it just a little bit, go do something you're gonna fail at.

Go feel like a novice even if you're older.

I think that is the advice.

I had an, uh, a law professor who was sort of my mentor during law

school, and he taught, you know, at the law school, but also took on.

Supreme Court cases.

Like this guy was very well regarded.

fun hobby.

But you know, when you take on a Supreme Court case, it's the date of

oral arguments could be five months away and you're, you gotta get to work.

And I was like, why are you, you know, why do you, why do you still do this?

I thought maybe it was like a, you know, a high minded justice for the people thing.

He's like, I just gotta keep my brain working.

Like I've been teaching the same, you know, criminal

procedure courses for 20 years.

Okay, let's, yeah, it's true.

Like, okay, it's Tuesday.

It's evidence,

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

He used to, I remember one, one of the classes, he ended one,

it was like a beautiful day.

He's like, wow, who are we kidding?

And it was like a two hour like lesson that day.

He ended it like 45 minutes and he was like, go outside.

Who are we kidding?

And everybody's shocked.

. But the point is, for me personally, if I don't.

Yeah, I'm not, well, like I have to keep learning.

I, I'm, I think I'm, I'm an outlier a little bit.

For most, it's hard.

They have their job, which for most people are they in, you

know, most aren't in r and d most, there is redundancy in the job.

And as you get older, you fall into the grooves o the same

grooves over and over again.

the

well.

there's, there's, there's a lesson in my story that relates to

this, which is I was eyeing gear to buy because I, it felt good.

I was gonna buy it.

I would get the little dopamine release when the package came in

and I bought some gear and I was feeling like, okay, all right.

And then, then there was this moment where it was.

The only way I'm gonna get the value here, the only way I'm actually gonna experience

this stuff and understand what it's about.

Yeah.

Is if I become just enough of a musician to really understand the the technology.

Absolutely.

Absolutely.

And diving deeps out of fashion right now, we skim across everything.

It's all very

It's all very skimmable,

there's no way, unless I teach my hands to touch the keyboard

and hit the notes in the right order.

Yeah, it doesn't work.

Yeah.

So you gotta do that and it's awful.

It sounds like, boo.

it's awful.

That's it.

It's awful.

And, and, and, and, but it's satisfying on the other side, even the little wins.

Well, you start to perceive the world in different ways.

And actually you start to see all the, it's cheat codes.

You start to go like, oh, I see what they did in that song.

Yeah.

Oh, that was actually really easy.

Can I end it with one last little tiny piece of

advice, and then we can close this

Absolutely.

right.

Listen, I, we live in New York City.

Everybody's kind of close to each other.

If you're over 40, don't start with a, like, don't learn the saxophone.

Oh God.

Nobody needs to hear that.

Like nine o'clock, 10 o'clock at night.

You're doing your sax

last.

Ooh, guess what's coming next though, right here in the office

after I'm done with piano.

Saxophone.

I'll get a digital midi sax.

Those are the best.

Jan.

They, oh, they sound, it's like a robot.

Making love to another robot.

Go forth and learn.

That's right.

Just a little, a happy, positive, uh, cheerful.

Let's go kind of Z Ford.

I think what's nice about what you're suggesting here is, is

you're not aiming towards an outcome.

There is no success.

You're just exercising

is the ability to do things without an outcome.

that's, yeah, that's, that's, you're not even there yet.

Half the time.

What skill are you gonna go get Me?

Yeah.

Oh, I'm so metrics driven.

Paul

I know.

Come on.

Come on.

You

I need to learn something.

You know, I learned to swim very late in my life.

Okay.

And, uh, to this day, it's still not a comfortable experience.

I, when you learn to swim in your forties, It's never comfortable, even

if you know how to float and swim.

Um, it's terrible actually.

But so credit to others.

Uh, my lovely wife who's like, you're, this is not gonna work.

You're gonna save our children

Right,

if the situation

arises.

She didn't care about my

No.

If we're at the beach, you're gonna save the children.

gonna save the

save the.

Um, so keep learning.

I think that's a good, uh, it sounds

Swimming is great.

No, cuz I've actually been thinking the piano is a great, the, the reminder

here is really good as I'm getting my physical health back, because

working out is incredibly incremental.

I started working again with weights and I'm just, I started trying to like, lift

horizontally up, put 25 pound weight and my, my arm was like, no, no, no,

yeah, yeah.

You're gonna have, that's not gonna, you can't flip that switch right

exactly.

And it's gonna take incremental gains on a, on a recurring basis.

So that's, that's the other thing, is you can take that lesson of constant

humiliation and apply it to the other humiliating parts of your life.

That's great.

You're gonna become a, and the thing is, is I'm like, you're

gonna become a champion swimmer.

No, you're not.

No, you, you're not.

You just, but you might have more control over your body

in the water, and that's cool.

Exactly.

by little it's little wins.

It's all

that's the thing.

You're just going for the half a percent is great today.

Yes.

Great.

All well, rich, the Audi Ford advisors, if people wanna get in

touch, who do they, what do they do?

Where do they

Hello, it's Audi Ford dot.

That's enough.

That's all anybody needs to hear.

we're on Twitter at Zdi Ford.

If you still know how to use Twitter.

They keep moving shit

They really do.

It's quite a thing

here we go.

, Paul Ford: All right,

hit us up.

We love, uh, getting, uh, feedback and, and suggestions for topics.