Some of the most valuable lessons I’ve learned about teaching people to drive came from people who never sat in the passenger seat of a learner car.

If you’d asked me years ago who had most influenced the way I teach, I’d probably have named a respected driving instructor or one of the mentors who helped me through my PDI training.

Looking back, I don’t think that would have been the whole story.

Some of the people who have shaped the instructor I am today have never given a driving lesson in their lives.

Learning, I’ve discovered, rarely comes from where you expect it.

My Regional Manager

Before becoming a driving instructor, I spent many years working for one of Britain’s largest food retailers.

I was the store manager, and my regional manager had a huge influence on the way I thought about leadership. At the time, I didn’t always appreciate it. Looking back now, I certainly do.

He had three sayings that have stayed with me throughout my career.

“Retail is detail.”

At first, I thought he was talking about tidy shelves and well-run stores.

Now I realise he was talking about standards.

It’s why I care about the wording of a sentence, the design of a website or the small habits that help a PDI succeed in Part 2.

Little things become standards.

And standards become reputation.

His second lesson was equally simple.

“Sales are vanity. Profit is sanity.”

Only later did I realise he wasn’t really talking about retail.

He was teaching me that success isn’t measured by being busy. It’s measured by building something sustainable.

The third always made us smile.

“Never assume. It makes an ASS out of U and Me.”

As a driving instructor, that’s priceless.

Every learner arrives with a different story.

The moment we assume, we stop listening.

My Dad

The greatest lessons, however, came much earlier.

My dad was a coalman.

As a child, I couldn’t understand why he worked so hard.

He’d head out in rain, frost and snow because he couldn’t bear the thought of one of his customers being left without coal. In those days, that often meant a cold house.

During the school holidays, I sometimes went out on the lorry with him.

My reward at the end of the morning was a cheese roll from the local café.

To me, that was the highlight of the day.

Dad also gave me an important job.

Every time he’d emptied bags of coal into a customer’s bunker, I had to count the empty bags in front of the customerso they could see that every bag they had paid for had been delivered.

One day I proudly gathered all the bags together before counting them.

Dad wasn’t very happy.

We had no idea whether there had been twenty bags… or twenty-one.

I never made that mistake again.

At the time it felt like a telling-off over something insignificant.

Today I realise it was a lesson about integrity.

Years later, when my regional manager said,

“Retail is detail,”

I smiled.

I’d been learning that lesson since I was a little boy standing beside a coal lorry.

Looking back, I don’t remember Dad ever talking about customer service.

He didn’t need to.

He lived it.

My Driving Instructor

When I learned to drive, I probably had around ten lessons.

Oddly, I can’t remember my instructor’s name.

I can still picture his face.

I can still picture the Nissan we drove.

What I can’t remember is a single conversation we had.

Funny how memory works.

Sometimes people leave us with something much deeper than words.

As a PDI, I was fortunate to have a couple of mentors who helped me along the way, and I’m grateful to both of them.

But if I’m honest, my education began long before I ever thought about becoming a driving instructor.

Crumble & My Daughters

Some of my most unexpected lessons have come from home.

Crumble has taught me mindfulness.

She reminds me to slow down, notice what’s happening around me and be fully present. That’s a surprisingly useful lesson when you’re sitting beside a nervous learner.

My daughters have taught me something different.

They’ve helped me understand a generation that sees the world differently to the one I grew up in.

Their experiences often help me explain driving in ways that make more sense to the person sitting beside me.

Looking Back

If I could thank the people who have influenced me most, I’d simply say this:

I didn’t always appreciate the lessons at the time.

I do now.

A regional manager taught me that standards matter.

My dad showed me what looking after customers really means.

One driving instructor gave me the confidence to begin driving on my own.

A couple of mentors helped me become an instructor.

Crumble reminds me to slow down.

My daughters help me keep learning.

Together, they’ve made me a better driving instructor than I could ever have become on my own.

Perhaps that’s the biggest lesson of all.

The best driving instructor I ever had wasn’t a driving instructor.

---

Something to Think About

Before you move on, I’d like to leave you with one question.

Take a moment to think about the people who have been your greatest teachers.

Perhaps they were a parent.

A colleague.

A manager.

A neighbour.

A sports coach.

A friend.

Perhaps, like me, one of them had nothing at all to do with driving.

You might even find yourself thinking about someone whose name you’ve forgotten, but whose influence you still carry with you every day.

Who helped shape the person you are today?

And, just as importantly…

Who are you helping to shape?

Because the older I get, the more I realise something my dad taught me all those years ago without ever intending to.

The small things are the big things.

---

Wayne Smith
Founder, WS Driving Collective