Old notions can be detrimental.

Way back in the dark ages when I was in High School, I remember my dad telling me, Son, the best way to build your credit is to charge your credit card to the max and then pay the monthly minimum. I adore my dad, and I took his advice to heart. Many years later, I complained to him about his good advice. He looked at me in absolute horror and said, I never said that!

Just the other day, I was working with a student on his bow hand. There was a breakthrough moment, something I live for as a teacher, when an old paradigm was broken. His comment to me was, I remember them teaching me to hold my bow hand this way back when I started. This is so much better! I am almost positive that whoever that original teacher was would be mortified to know that was what this student took away from that particular lesson.

Sometimes we base our beliefs on statements from people we respect and admire, only to find later that what we thought we heard was probably not what was actually said.

What we need in this life are solutions that work. We seek those solutions from folks that we respect and admire, and then we try to apply them in our own lives sometimes with hilarious, but unintended, results. We should always judge our beliefs by the standard of Does this work for me?, rather than just blindly hammering away at the nail with our screwdriver.

Even though our beliefs come from respected and revered persons in our lives, sometimes our perceptions (and theirs) are based on misunderstandings, misassumptions, and poor interpretations.

The bottom line is that if you keep doing something that isnt working for you, youre crazy too expect better results than youre getting right now. You may have, indeed, received poor advice or you may simply have misunderstood what was told to you. Either way, the only way to improve is to change.

Otherwise, youll be paying for your misunderstandings for the rest of your life. With interest.