You are your own teacher

It doesn’t matter if your teacher is Tony Robbins or Luciano Pavarotti.

You are the one who does the work.

You are the one who causes learning to happen.

You, through your efforts to engage a new material, are actually the one teaching your self.

A teacher would be better referred to as a guide.

“When the student is ready, the teacher will appear.” There are so many ways to unpack this. One way is this: there is no teacher, until the student is thirsting to learn and then wills themselves to reach out and grasp for the unknown.

And if you go deeper, you will realize that the teacher and the student are the same person. The teacher is unlocked, so to speak, when the student thirsts and reaches out for knowledge.

10 years ago, I studied with an intimidating force, Virginia Zeani, who is responsible for countless opera careers at the highest level for more than 50 years. In the studio of one of the greatest teachers who has ever lived, she told me, “I am not your teacher. YOU are your own teacher.”

That blew my mind, at the time.

But gradually, I came to understand the truth of her words:

You are your own teacher.