Passing it Down

A little more than a week ago, I had the opportunity to accompany my wife as her piano student played the Israeli and American national anthems before the exhibition game between New Jersey Nets and Maccabi Haifa. As the teacher, my wife received complimentary tickets and we decided to make a date night out of it. The game was was marked by heavy security (protecting against a "Munich"-type tragedy), a sparse crowd (I'd put it at 4000 Maccabi fans, maybe 1000 Nets fans) and a nice performance by stud rookie Derrick Favors (whom the the Nuggets may very will regret not trading for in the aborted Carmelo Anthony deal).

Anyway, my main musing isn't about the game as much as how cool it was to have my wife go to big event from her student. Cynics can point out that the student happened to be the nephew of the Haifa Heat's owner and scream nepotism, but the fact of the matter is that the kid played keyboard on center court in the Prudential Center with 5000 people watching and did it with ice water in his veins. He definitely proved that his mettle and artistry. It was great to see Sarah give him some words of encouragement and reminders to "tell the story" in his playing - to ensure that not only focus on the technical aspect of his play, but to weave emotion and narrative into a piece of music. I know my wife was proud of her student, and I was proud of Sarah.

There's great joy in passing along a skill to the next generation and seeing them grow and succeed with those same skills. For teachers who are fortunate enough to experience and witness manifestations of that phenomena (often it's much more subtle than a national anthem performance at a basketball game), it can become even a more valuable reward than the X dollar per hour that they get paid.

So the question I ask myself is: professionally, what will be my legacy? Who in my workplace can I say that I've been able to mentor, coach and grow so that they can achieve heights that they otherwise would not be able to?