06/13/2026
When my niece was much younger, I took her to tennis lessons so we could do something together in the summer.
Her very first lesson, her instructor had her put a tennis ball on the racket and roll her wrist in a motion that made the ball roll on the racket. Presumably for wrist strength, education on racket control, and to strengthen hand/eye reaction time. She did it a minute or two and then said “okay that was good but let’s just play tennis now”. She was 6 years old. Neither one of us had ever set foot on a court. There was no way we could just ‘play tennis now’ even though it appeared that easy to her.
A few months back I got to speak to a high school culinary class. One of the first questions was “what is one important skill you need to know to run a food trailer”. Without hesitation, I replied “how to move the trailer.”
When I took my first trailer job, I had moved it all of one time. All of me wanted to move forward like a freight train. I’ve been making coffee for a decade. I wanted to blaze through events like wildfire.. it pained me to have to slow down, step back, and consciously make myself vulnerable to learn a new skill so I could proceed. It’s hard as an adult to choose to do something you’re not naturally good at. Many times while my inner monologue was saying “right to go left and left to right” amidst trying to back up, I would hear my niece saying “alright, let’s just play tennis now” … and I knew I had to stick it out if I wanted to play the game.
Admittedly, the summer she and I did tennis lessons we discovered we were much more skilled at going for ice cream than we were with a racket.. and that’s okay too. Sometimes you try and try something and it just isn’t for you.
But if you find yourself trying at something new, don’t get discouraged by the slow down. Take time to pick up the building blocks. Learn the rules and perfect your form so when it’s finally game day, everything that was once so overwhelmingly hard just feels like play.