There are children right now pretending to be warriors, superheroes, and great performers in fields, in their living rooms, and on playgrounds. When I was a kid, there were entire days that I would only answer to my formal name, “The Incredible Hulk.” It took trying to run full speed at a brick wall to prove to me that I wasn’t actually “The Incredible Hulk.”

There are two things that we never pretend, though: the before and after.

No little kid pretends to be Iron Man or a Ninja and says, “Hold on, I need to stretch.” Or, “I need to get my Iron Man suit serviced, then get some rest to be sharp for the board meeting tomorrow.”

When I was in culinary school, we just wanted to skip to the grilling, sautéing, or tasting of the sauce. We didn't want to cut the onions, and no one even thought to preheat the oven. Once dinner was prepared, if we skipped cleaning our cutting boards, today’s soufflé tasted like yesterday’s onions.

I used to be aggressive about this, as I watched people avoid the necessary before-and-afters that would keep them in practice and build longevity. I was competing with gamification and the mindset that everything needs to be fun. To me, gamification is just as annoying as clickbait. The learning part is the fun. Especially learning anything that kept me practicing more deeply, performing better, and using less effort. I wanted the capacity for more skill and ease. That container is built by the before-and-after.

Then I learned where I was ignorant. Many people didn’t have time for the before-and-after. We just wanna get in there and get working. That is why we like classes, that is why we like trainers. I’ve sat across the table from countless people who have quit something that is skill-based, like martial arts, and they said, “I don’t really wanna learn more things, I just wanna go to the gym and work out.”

When I started learning guitar, I wanted to rock. I wanted to be a shredding Metal God on stage, melting faces with my guitar. So, of course, my first guitar was a tiny nylon-string acoustic that would not stay in tune.

I knew I needed a teacher because my dad was very clear with me that if you’re going to learn anything, learn it right. Start at the beginning and build a good foundation and container to put the new skill in, or don’t waste your time or others’. 

My first lesson was not playing any songs; that jerk guitar teacher just taught me to tune my guitar, that's it, nothing else. The fun part about it was that the guitar was so bad it wouldn’t stay in tune, so I got a lot of practice tuning it. Finally, even my teacher got sick of his time being wasted watching me tune my piece of crap guitar every week, so he worked out a payment plan for me to get a better one from him.

Your instrument is body and mind together, and once you’re in tune, the next step is “ear training.” The sensitivity to notice when your instrument goes out of tune, or just make sure everyone is drunk or high, and y’all sort out the details the next day.

For decades, I was out there earning and putting in “the work.” My biggest challenge was to retune my instrument to a new register by asking, “What really is ‘the work’ and when do I actually get to ‘play’?” Great artists don’t work their instrument; they play it.

Play is about releasing pressure, and it can be focused, like cooking for friends; it doesn’t have to end in a food fight.

Go back to that field with the child who has been working hard, pretending, and who now seems exhausted. If you tell that child they need to stretch and clean up, they will start whining for their juice box. Then just tap them and say, “Tag, you're it.” They will perk up and start sprinting for the next 30 minutes. I do it all the time to exhausted kids when I teach classes.

Every day I work with people who say, I wish I stretched more. I need more exercises for my back or my shoulders. They look at stretching or taking time out to rest as an inconvenient chore. You either take time out now and do it with a smile on your face, or you take time out after surgery; either way, you’re going to do before-and-after work. How many stitches, and how many painkillers do you need to focus on the before and after?