I overheard somewhere this last week a martial arts instructor commenting about keeping the “beginner mind,” or as musicians might know it, “practice your fundamentals.”  It made me think about some of the things I’m doing right now, and puts a little perspective on life as a professional.  Professional anything, really.

I’ve long said that we in the Western world need to reevaluate our interpretation of the word amateur.  To say someone is an amateur musician is to imply the quality of their playing, but not the reason or inspiration for playing in the first place.  The word “amateur” says something else entirely.  The root of it is Latin for love, implying that an amateur is someone who does whatever it is because they love it.

As a professional musician, I remind myself constantly to enjoy what I do, even if the gig is rough or doesn’t pay well.  I’ve certainly been on gigs and played with people who clearly do not love what they do anymore, and seem hell-bent on sharing that lack of love with anyone and everyone who will listen.  But I choose to remain positive, and it’s not just sunshine and rainbows: it’s a matter of practicality too.  I play better, feel better, and get more gigs when I enjoy what I do.  It just comes through.

One of the things that struck me about the term “beginner mind” though was the idea of mistakes.  As a professional I’m not supposed to make them.  Even though my very new day job is in software development, I’m a professional there too, and I’m supposed to operate on that professional no-mistakes level.  The thing is though, programming has always been fun, like doing crossword puzzles or playing chess.  And like any game, you can’t not make mistakes; you just have to not get stuck by them.  Same as in music.

And that’s what I guess beginner mind is: you’d never get mad a kid for making mistakes, because kids tend to learn very quickly from their mistakes.  Don’t forget to learn from your mistakes.  And that means you have to let yourself make them