Who Am I to Teach?

I was sixteen when the first student asked for lessons.

He was a few years younger. Had the drive to play. Wanted to get serious. His parents reached out to me to see if I could help.

Who am I to teach drums?

I'd been behind a drum set since I was six. Played my first professional gig at nine - bowtie and all, there are pictures. But teaching drums? That was what real drummers did. The ones with degrees, credits, names you'd actually heard of. Not a kid who happened to start early.

I almost said no.

My Father Didn't Let Me Off the Hook

I remember where I was standing when I told my father about it. He was working in his office, looked like he was paying bills or balancing his checkbook, which he often did on Sundays. His office was located in our basement - he referred to it as "his cave." I had come down there flattered and humbled that someone was interested in me teaching drum lessons, but I was completely filled with self-doubt.

I made my case. I wasn't qualified. I wasn't old enough. What could I possibly teach him that he couldn't find in a book or on a video?

My father looked at me like I was missing the obvious thing.

"He doesn't need a world-renowned drummer," he said. "He needs somebody who just walked the path he's walking. You were in his shoes just a few years ago. That's not a weakness - that's the whole thing. You're exactly what he needs."

I didn't fully buy it yet. But I took the lesson.

And then I took another one. And another. By my senior year I had a handful of students rotating through.

The first time I was invited to go see my student play a gig was a real moment of fulfillment and accomplishment for me. It was a Saturday night party - a private event at a restaurant. He told me that he and a band he had joined got their first gig, and that I should come to hear him play. I remember entering through the kitchen and watching him from there so I wouldn't interfere with the private party. Seeing him play for the first time was a moment I'll never forget. I felt validated as a teacher and put all those early fears and doubts to rest.

Five Steps Ahead Beats Fifty

What I didn't understand at sixteen, I see clearly now.

The creator economy in 2026 doesn't reward the most expert voice on any given topic. It rewards the most relatable one. The person who figured something out six months ago and is willing to show you how. The operator, not the guru.

Take a look through your own feed and notice who you actually trust. I'd bet it's not the person with twenty years of credentials. It's the person who was stuck exactly where you're stuck, found a way through, and broke it down for you in language that sounds human.

AI has made expertise cheap. Every topic has a thousand voices claiming authority. What's rare now is somebody honest about being a few steps ahead, not a few mountains ahead.

Watch the accounts growing right now. The people teaching Claude Code after three months of using it. The ones teaching Notion systems they're still building. The ones showing up on LinkedIn breaking down a sales tactic they tested last Tuesday. They're not faking expertise. They're just refusing to pretend they don't have what they have.

You are someone's "a few steps ahead" right now. You just don't see it yet.

The Paradiddle Taught Me More Than Paradiddles

Here's the part my sixteen-year-old self couldn't have predicted.

The students I taught made me a better drummer.

Not metaphorically. Literally. When you've been playing since you were six, you stop thinking about the mechanics. You don't drill rudiments anymore. You just play. But the moment I had to walk a beginner through a single-stroke roll, a paradiddle, a basic rock groove, I had to slow down and see it again.

I had to name the thing I'd been doing on autopilot. I had to fix mistakes I didn't know I was making. I remember reviewing the book Syncopation by Ted Reed - the first book I started with when I began my own lessons at six years old, as this was the book I used with all my students as well. I remember going back and figuring out a way to explain triplets and how those landed - which are arguably harder to teach than eighth notes or even 16th notes.

Teaching didn't take time away from my practice. It WAS my practice.

That's the thing nobody tells you about sharing what you know. The byproduct of teaching is mastery. Writing about a skill forces you to actually have it. Explaining a system to another person is the fastest way to see where your own system leaks.

Whatever you want to own - teach it.

Key Takeaways

1. You don't have to be the best. You have to be useful. Relatable beats credentialed every time. Someone is a few steps behind where you are right now, and they'd rather hear from you than from the expert who can't remember what it felt like to be stuck.

2. Teaching IS practicing. The act of breaking something down for a beginner is the most efficient way to find the gaps in your own understanding. Stop treating them as separate things.

3. Qualify yourself lower, not higher. "I figured this out last month" is a better opening than "I've been doing this for a decade." Specific and recent beats vague and authoritative.

4. Share the path, not the summit. The view from the mountaintop isn't what helps people. The view from wherever you are right now, pointing at what's next, is.

5. Start before you feel ready. You will never feel ready. The student in front of you doesn't need you ready. They need you one chapter ahead.

Final Note

My father couldn't have known that the conversation we had down in his "cave" would still be running in my head twenty-five years later. That I'd hear the same reframe every time I sit down to write a newsletter, or post something on LinkedIn, or say yes to a stage I didn't feel qualified for.

Somebody is a few steps behind you right now. Waiting for you to turn around and show them what you just figured out.

Don't wait until you feel ready. They already think you are.

Until next time,
Elliot