“When you are not practicing, remember, someone somewhere is practicing, and when you meet him he will win.”
Many years ago, when I studied bass trombone at the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music, one of the professors kept that quote on his office door.
The line belongs to Ed Macauley, a Hall of Fame basketball player who at 32 became the youngest person ever inducted, a record he still holds. As a young player he was known for out-practicing everyone, following the B-team's practice and then going back to the court for another hour on his own. The man who wrote those words lived them.
I no longer spend hours a day in a practice room, but the principle has not changed. Skill does not stay sharp by accident, and experience turns into a liability the moment it convinces you that what worked before is still enough.
I have a real hunger to understand how things work, and nowhere more than in AV. I go to the field with our engineers to watch how they commission a system. I sit with our project managers to understand how they actually execute a job. I earn new certifications and attend industry trainings to stay current, because the technology does not wait for me to catch up.
Our industry moves faster than most. The work I did as a young project manager years ago looks like stone tablets and chisels next to what today's teams do. That is not a complaint. It is the reason I keep going to the field, keep asking questions, and keep studying.
Someone somewhere is practicing. I would rather it be me.