The kid who hated school desks now teaches. And I’m not the only one surprised.

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The student I was

I wasn’t lazy. I was something else.

At school I watched the clock. At high school I watched the door. University… well, I never made it to university. Not because I couldn’t — because studying seemed like the most boring thing in the world.

A teacher monologuing. Me in an uncomfortable chair. Notes. Exams. Grades. And in the end, what? Nothing to do with real life.

I did well at things I cared about. Geography, for example. I could place any capital city because that was about travel, about movement, about something real. But art history at eight in the morning listening to someone talk about 14th-century frescoes… I’d rather watch the fly on the window.

“He’s not performing,” my teachers said. “He has potential but he doesn’t study.”

And they were right. I didn’t study. Because I didn’t want to. Because that wasn’t for me.

Or so I thought.

Street learner, 42 years

I started working at 18. And that’s where I actually learned.

Nobody asked if I’d done my homework. They asked if the client made it to Sipadan. Nobody gave me a written exam on airline reservations — they put me on the phone with a client holding an impossible combination of flights during an air traffic controller strike. You either learned or you got eaten alive.

42 years selling travel. 42 years of continuous learning without a single school desk.

I learned from suppliers who taught me destinations. From clients who told me what a hotel was really like — the one I’d only seen in photos. From crises — a volcanic eruption in Iceland, a pandemic, a New Year’s Eve overbooking. From borders opening and closing. From currencies rising and falling.

I never studied for any of that. I learned by doing.

And I thought that was the only way to learn.

The click (it wasn’t with a mouse)

Spring 2025.

Diabetes. Goodbye gin and tonic. Goodbye long nights on the terrace. I lost my social ritual and didn’t know what to do with the empty hours.

YouTube.

A video about ChatGPT. Because the algorithm knows better than you what you need. Another video. Another.

Someone on a screen was explaining how artificial intelligence could do things. And for the first time in decades, I was curious. Not because there was an exam — because it looked fun.

I signed up for a course. “DOMINA ChatGPT,” 39 euros. The instructor, José Ródenas, had no idea what he was getting into.

At 71 years old, paying 39 euros for an online course, I discovered that studying isn’t the problem. The problem is how it’s served to you.

For the first time, studying wasn’t memorizing. It was conversing. Asking. Trying. Getting it wrong. Asking again.

There was no rigid syllabus. There was a dialogue. And me, who had hated school desks for six decades, started waking up early to study.

My final grade: 91.18 out of 100.

José wrote to me: “If someone outside the context of this course read this work, they’d think you were designing the operating manual of a high-end boutique agency.”

He was right. But the best part wasn’t the grade. It was that I’d enjoyed it.

What do I teach now?

Turns out I teach.

At nearly 73, I’m the annoying guy who won’t stop explaining things.

I teach people who, like me, thought technology wasn’t for them. People in their 50s, 60s, 70s who think it’s too late. That “this isn’t for me.” That “I’m too old for this stuff.”

And I tell them: I’ve been selling travel for 42 years. I started with a typewriter, moved to a fax machine, then email, then a CRM, then five AIs working for me while I sleep. And the only thing that’s changed is that now I enjoy learning.

What exactly do I teach?

• That a prompt isn’t magic — it’s knowing how to ask.
• That having an AI agent isn’t having an employee — it’s having a partner that doesn’t get tired.
• That “I can’t code” isn’t an excuse — it’s the starting point.
• That age doesn’t matter. What matters is the desire.

And sometimes, when a student’s light bulb turns on, I see in their eyes the same thing I saw that spring night in Marbella, without a gin and tonic, watching a YouTube video at two in the morning.

The irony

My teenage self wouldn’t believe it.

The guy who copied someone else’s notes to avoid reading. The clock-watcher. The one who walked out of exams having written just enough to pass.

That guy is now a teacher.

And not one of those “teachers” who monologue from a podium. He’s a teacher who says: “Look, I can’t code. Let me show you what actually works.”

A few months ago someone asked me what the best part of this AI journey had been. They expected me to say “time saved” or “more revenue” or “automation.”

I said: “That I get to teach now.”

And I didn’t see it coming.

My doctor took away the gin and tonics and Google gave me this: a 72-year-old who hated studying and is now a teacher by vocation.

Life takes some strange turns.

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— Giora, recovering terrible student