Back in those days, the internet did not exist. So, the next day I hopped out of the office at lunchtime to a nearby business bookshop and ordered a book on VBA. Soon, I was staying an hour late in the office every evening to experiment with VBA for my own work. Given David's extrovert and extremely generous nature, I would stop by to ask him for help when I got stuck on some sticky topic. He would go out of his way to help me with the more challenging areas. Of course, I made sure that David never needed to visit the coffee station again - covering his caffeine needs was the least I could do to recompense his generosity with his own time.

This is where the "continuous bias for learning" really kicked in. In no time. I had automated my entire day job. The work that used to take me till late afternoon each day could now be completed by mid-morning. I now had time to spare.

To the immediate right of my desk worked Birgitta, who was one of our "quants" or "rocket scientists" as they were fashionably called in those days - she had a PhD in some very complex area of physics or perhaps mathematics. Her job was to work on the complex mathematical models that underpinned some of the derivatives trades. Given all the extra time I now had, I was able to engage in more social chit-chat with Birgitta. I discovered that Birgitta, a German, who had recently arrived in the U.K, found some of the Anglo-Saxon ways of doing things at work quite challenging. We soon came to a sort of informal agreement. I would help Birgitta deal with navigating the ways of our office while she would help me understand all the complex derivative products that she was working on. Soon enough, I was being introduced to the world of "exotic" options and associated risk management techniques - at the time these were some of the most cutting-edge areas of our industry.

The traders soon began to notice a difference in my interactions with them. I would turn up earlier in the day to agree numbers. Thanks to Birgitta, I was a lot more knowledgeable about their products and the market. Since I would turned up earlier, I could now linger longer with the traders, observing how they read the markets and their interactions with our clients. This further improved my know-how. The quality of the conversations with the traders steadily improved - a virtuous cycle had set in.

Soon enough, I was turning up not just to agree numbers but also offering my own opinions on where the market was heading and what trades the traders should be putting on. While my ideas were often met with much hilarity by the desk, the traders were nevertheless a friendly lot and I always remained very humble in my mannerisms. I was no market expert and many of my ideas were naive. But my manner was engaging and so, many conversations followed with the traders that went something like "No you dope! It's not like this, it's like this!". I was learning a lot from these interactions.

There were some unintended consequences however. At one point, I had a long run of consecutive "bad calls" (loss-making suggestions. Whatever I suggested, the market would do the exact opposite the next day. The traders actively considered hiring me into their Research team - the naughty idea being that they would do the exact opposite of my daily recommendations! Sadly, I soon started getting a few calls right - I just wasn't consistent enough in my "bad calls". We agreed that I was best left to Accounting!

Nevertheless, my market knowledge improved vastly from my daily visits to the desk and I became a part of the furniture on the trading floor. Seen as a "hungry knowledge-seeker", the traders would now talk to me in advance about complex or challenging situations, rather than seeing me as a nuisance to be dealt with in the least possible time. The senior trader on the desk would go on to found his own hedge fund and become a multi-billionaire, one of the most successful traders of his generation. This was apprenticeship at the highest level.

Meanwhile, my interactions with Birgitta were also giving me an insight into German culture ("Noon in German means 1145") which meant that I was better able to work with the German salespeople and marketers in our Frankfurt office who I often had to speak to as part of my role.

I was becoming more effective in my role and my boss was beginning to take note. As the summer was approaching, I was feeling pretty pleased with my progress. Then one day, the boss called me out of the blue. He told me that he had been summoned to the Head Trader, Bill Winter's office. I was to accompany him as I was the subject of the conversation. The boss's demeanour appeared downbeat. Bill was one of the most senior Managing Directors in the London office of JP Morgan. Even my traders were careful not to venture in the vicinity of Bill's office unless absolutely necessary. Being summoned like this sounded like trouble. I was terrified. Had I done something wrong? Had I made a big mistake with the numbers? Or maybe the traders had complained about me. I thought this most unlikely. While they were friendly, they could also be very blunt. If I had annoyed them, surely, I would have heard about it from them first. Shakily, I entered Bill's office with my downbeat looking boss. It turned out that the whole "downbeat demeanour" thing had been an act on the part of the boss. Recognising my contributions over the course of the year, unbeknownst to me, the traders had entered me into the annual JP Morgan "Productivity Champion" competition. After careful assessment, the company-wide committee had chosen me as the winner. I had been summoned to Bill's office to be presented with the prize of an all-expenses-paid, VIP-trip-for-two to the Semi finals of the Football World Cup in Paris, France.

My voracious appetite for learning was paying off and so it was no surprise when at the end of the year, I was promoted to Vice President and offered the chance to lead the Product Control team looking after the Credit products desk.

The key message here is to always have a "bias for learning" new things. Formality only ever gets in the way. I never sat down with my boss to formally agree what courses to enrol on or what he would do to improve my learning. I just found the smart people around the office - Dave and Birgitta - befriended them in a sincere way - and learn't from them.

The "bias for learning" is a state of mind. Times change. Technology changes. Markets and Products change. So, it is important to be a lifelong learner. Today, we see new mathematical techniques coming up, especially in the areas of Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning. My approach to dealing with these emerging technologies is the same as it was with VBA and Dave twenty-four years ago. Find some people who are good at it, befriend them sincerely and learn from them.