The person I'd like to talk about is my piano teacher, Mrs Chen, who taught me in Kuala Lumpur when I was in my teens. I took lessons with her for about seven years.
When I was fifteen, I wanted to give up completely. I'd failed my grade six piano exam, which was the first exam I'd ever failed, and I felt humiliated because most of my friends were taking the same exam and passed. On top of that, I had important school exams coming up, and I told my parents piano was a waste of time.
Mrs Chen didn't try to change my mind straight away. At my next lesson, she didn't open the exam book at all. Instead, she asked me to play anything I wanted, so I played a song I'd been learning by ear from a film. She listened and then said, "You've just played something nobody taught you. That's what the exam is for, not the other way round." She then showed me the examiner's comments and pointed out that I'd lost most marks on one scale, not on the music itself. She offered to give me a few lessons with no exam pieces at all, just music I chose, and after a month I felt like playing again. I retook the exam six months later and passed with a merit.
Looking back, I'm really thankful. I'm twenty-six now, I work as a software developer, and I still play almost every evening; it's the way I relax. If I'd quit at fifteen, I'd have lost that. She taught me that failing a test isn't the same as failing at something you love, and I've remembered that in my career too.