B?©la Fleck appeared this past Monday on the This I Believe segment of NPR’s Morning Edition program. The concept behind these recurring segments is to air radio essays from non-radio people, who write and read their contributions for the show.

B?©la talks about what he believes, which turns out to be doing things his own way when it comes to writing music and playing the banjo.

Much of my individualist, bone-headed nature comes from my grandfather.

Opa grew up in New York’s rough-and-tumble Lower East Side, didn’t go to college, but owned and ran two successful businesses: a restaurant and a car wash. He figured out what he wanted to do, and how to do it without studying a manual. He used his own creativity to solve problems as they came up.

You can read or hear B?©la’s essay on the NPR web site.