What the Royal Academy Taught Me About More Than Music

When I got into the Royal Academy of Music in London, I thought I knew what I was signing up for: intensive training, world-class teachers, and the chance to play at a level I'd never reached before.

What I didn't expect was how much the experience would teach me about things that had nothing to do with music.

The Discipline of Small Improvements

At the Royal Academy, progress is measured in millimeters. You don't wake up one day and suddenly sound like Heifetz. You work on intonation in one passage for a week. You spend an entire practice session on bow distribution in a single phrase.

It's painstaking. And at first, it feels pointless. But over months and years, those tiny improvements compound. The passages that felt impossible become manageable. The interpretations that seemed out of reach start to click.

I think about this all the time now with CultureTicks. Building a product is the same slow grind. You're not going to ship a feature and suddenly have product-market fit. You're going to make one small improvement, then another, then another. And six months later, you'll look back and realize how far you've come.

Feedback Is a Gift

In music school, you get feedback constantly. Your teacher points out every flaw. Your peers hear things you don't. You record yourself and realize how much you're not hearing in the moment.

It's brutal. But it's also essential.

The musicians who improve the fastest are the ones who actively seek out feedback and take it seriously. The ones who get defensive or assume they know better plateau quickly.

That lesson translates everywhere. Whether you're building a product, writing an essay, or learning a new skill, feedback is the fastest path to improvement. You just have to be willing to hear it without getting in your own way.

Collaboration Over Competition

Conservatoires have a reputation for being cutthroat. And sure, there's competition. But what surprised me most about the Royal Academy was how collaborative it felt.

Chamber music taught me that making great music isn't about individual brilliance—it's about listening, adapting, and supporting the people around you. The best performances happen when everyone is locked in together, not when one person is trying to stand out.

I try to bring that mindset to building CultureTicks. The goal isn't to be the smartest person in the room. It's to build something great with people who care as much as you do.

You Have to Love the Process

Here's the thing about music: if you only love performing, you're not going to make it. Performances are 1% of the work. The other 99% is practice—slow, repetitive, unglamorous practice.

The musicians who thrive are the ones who genuinely enjoy that process. They like the puzzle of figuring out a difficult passage. They like the meditative flow of technical work. They don't just tolerate practice—they find meaning in it.

Building a startup is the same. If you only love the idea of being a founder, you're going to burn out. The day-to-day work is mostly unglamorous: debugging, customer support, endless iteration. You have to love that process, or you won't last.

The Royal Academy Changed How I Think

I went to the Royal Academy to become a better violinist. And I did. But the bigger takeaway was learning how to approach hard problems, how to improve deliberately, and how to work with others toward something meaningful.

Those lessons show up everywhere now. In how I build CultureTicks. In how I think about chess. In how I approach learning anything new.

If you're considering music school—or any kind of deep, immersive training—my advice is this: pay attention to the meta-lessons. The technical skills matter, but the way you learn to think might matter more.