Why I Teach Career Professionals Piano

In August 2025, I put a small notice in front of my house to let people in the neighborhood know that I teach piano.

It was a simple idea. I just wanted to share my musical knowledge with anyone interested in learning music. My assumption was that most of the enquiries would come from parents looking for lessons for their children.

I was wrong!

The first few messages surprised me.

Two tech professionals from Uganda had just moved to Ghana and were looking for something new to explore outside of work. A Ghanaian surgeon, who had spent decades practicing in the United States, reached out after returning home. She wanted to revisit and refine the piano skills she had once started as a child.

A former Bank of Ghana employee contacted me as he approached retirement. He told me he had a list of things he had postponed for years and learning the piano was one of them.

Then there was an investigative journalist from a dictator-led African country, living as a political exile in Ghana. He wasn't looking for performance or mastery. He simply wanted something that could help him relax and find a bit of mental stillness.

The pattern became clear. These are professionals from different fields, at different stages of life. They all have different stories, but the same underlying desire: "I've always wanted to learn."

Unfulfilled dreams don't disappear.

It made me realize something simple but easy to overlook. Unfulfilled dreams don't disappear. They wait, and sometimes itch as they wait.

For many professionals, life fills up quickly. There is work to do, expectations to meet, responsibilities to carry. And so certain desires, often the quieter and more personal ones get pushed to the back burner.

But at some point, they resurface.

Sometimes this happens when things slow down. Sometimes it comes in a quiet moment after a long day. Sometimes it shows up as a question one can't quite ignore: What about the things I wanted for myself?

That question is part of why I teach piano. Not just to help people play music, but to create space for their inner dreams to find realization.

Becoming a beginner again

There is something unique about learning music as an adult.

You become a beginner again, which is both humbling and refreshing. You learn to sit with the process, not just the outcome. You discover a way to engage your mind that is different from your everyday work. Your worldview expands. And perhaps most importantly, you gain an entirely new voice for expression that no one can ever take away from you. The power to create something calming, expressive, and personal becomes yours.

This idea isn't new. James Wolfensohn (a former World Bank President), for example, started learning the cello at the age of 41. Years later, he performed at Carnegie Hall multiple times. This was not because he needed to, but because he wanted to. He wanted his inner voice to find expression.

Warren Buffett plays the ukulele, and found a way to convince Bill Gates to learn the same instrument in his adult years.

These are people with demanding lives, yet they made room for something that had nothing to do with productivity or performance. They made room for something that mattered to them.

That's the same opportunity I see in the professionals I meet. These are not people who are trying to become concert pianists. These are people who are simply responding to something they've carried for a long time.

If you've ever had the thought "I wish I had learned how to play this or that instrument", that's a voice worth paying attention to.

Don't think it is too late. This might just be time.