From Opera Singer to Sales Leader: 3 Surprising Skills That Translated
- Garry McLinn
- Aug 19
- 6 min read
It was 2011. A much younger me stood on stage, face caked in stage makeup, wearing a costume of my own design, delivering the final soliloquy of Peter Quint from Benjamin Britten’s opera The Turn of the Screw.
As I sang the last few notes, my ghostly character having been banished from the mortal realm, I finished one of my most effective performances. Almost perfection. The music came to a silent pause, a caesura, and in that moment… someone’s phone started making cricket noises.
When I think back to that performance, I don’t think about the chirp. I think about how much I loved that opera, that role, and how dialed in and powerful I felt singing that piece.
Today, in 2025, I work on a different stage, as a sales leader for Education First’s domestic tour division, Explore America. And no matter the project, there is always a “chirp” of some sort: something that could have gone just a little better, some outside force I need to adapt to, something that prevents total perfection.
Perfection is impossible, but trying to get close is where I find the real joy, even now.
The Pivot
It took me a while, but I eventually stopped joking that I was “one of those people with a useless liberal arts degree.” Truth is, I use lessons from my opera days every single day. My background is what made me the sales leader I am today.
I wasn’t a sports kid. What made me feel special was my musical talent. I played saxophone, I sang, I acted, I (badly) danced, and I got a lot of attention for it. So much so that I pursued an undergraduate degree in Opera Performance from Ithaca College, followed by a Master’s in Music (Voice) from McGill University in Montréal.
I graduated in 2012 and dove headfirst into the Sisyphean effort of stitching together a performing arts career. I was good, maybe even great, but if I’m honest my focus wasn’t what that career demands for true success. To make ends meet, I pieced together various day jobs while trying to get my young adult life off the ground.
Eventually, the desire for stability took hold. A friend gave me a foothold in the professional world by letting me be “the 30-year-old intern” in her program. A few months later, I began my journey at EF as a sales professional.
Over the years, one thing became clear: leadership is my true passion. I explored it as a direct contributor until, two years ago, I stepped into a formal leadership role. Today, I am a Director of Sales for a regional team, and every day I learn just how much this kind of work fills my cup.
Storytelling as Strategy
Why do people go to the opera? There are hundreds of reasons, but they all boil down to this: people want to feel something.
Opera delivers a story, usually a dramatic, poignant arc, set to some of the most heartwarming or heartbreaking music ever written. When it is done well, you cannot help but feel exactly what the composer and performers want you to feel.
And here is the thing: most operas are sung in foreign languages. Yet a non-Italian speaker at La Bohème will still be in tears when Mimì meets her tragic fate.
So what does this mean in a sales context? It is all about how your client or prospect feels about what you are selling. As a sales rep, you are the maestro, the lead actor, the chorus, and the orchestra all rolled into one. A great sale weaves pathos into every step of the process so the client feels directly spoken to, understood, and valued, the way a powerful aria can feel like it is being sung just for you.
I remember one seller I worked with who had all the raw materials to succeed, but they were sabotaging themselves because the language we needed to move the sale along felt “too sales-y.” It was a classic case of sales reluctance.
The story they were telling themselves was that management was asking them to be pushy in a way they did not want to be. I reframed it for them: by giving firm deadlines, being consultative, and offering clear recommendations, we weren’t losing kindness, we were providing support. Our clients need us to help them move forward so they can achieve their goals. Softer language can unintentionally encourage them to stagnate. Once this seller adopted that new story, their output skyrocketed.
As a Sales Director, one of my jobs is to help my team understand their own stories. I have to show them the highs they can reach, support them through their lowest moments, and weave all of it into a narrative that stays front and center in their minds, so they can see, believe in, and realize their full potential.
Performance Under Pressure
In my young singer days, I was often hired to “cover” a main role while singing in the chorus, opera-speak for “understudy.” Usually, it was just an opportunity to learn the role and I never actually had to perform it. Except for one night.
At 6:30 PM before curtain, we learned the principal I was covering had been in a car crash. He was safe, but not performing. I had to suit up, step out, and take the role.
It wasn’t easy. I had prepared, but I still relied on the prompters, those saints who follow the score offstage and mouth the words when you lose your place. Somehow, we made it through. The audience enjoyed the show, and the production team gave me warm praise afterward.
Sometimes we are thrust into moments we don’t feel ready for, but we still have to perform.
When I stepped into my current role as Director, it was one of those moments. I had not expected to move from Manager to Director within a year, but the need was there. I found my “prompters” in mentors and peers, and dove in with a student mentality.
If I had not, I would have missed the opportunity, and my team would have missed the leadership I have worked hard to provide every day since.
Reading Collaborators
Opera, and classical vocal music more broadly, is not performed in a vacuum. I am wildly self-conscious when someone says, “Sing a little for us,” because without the context of collaborators, staging, and story, it feels naked and exposed.
Success in my performing life hinged on effective collaboration. Every new project began with building a working dynamic with the conductor, orchestra, and cast. As a soloist, I had to strike the balance between confidence and humility, showing the conductor I was competent and the cast that I was the kind of tenor they wanted to work with. (Tenors, as some of you know, have a reputation.)
On stage, I constantly had to read my scene partners. Without that give-and-take, the audience checks out. It has to feel real, and that means synthesizing input in real time.
It is no different as a sales leader. I read my team for signs of burnout not just in what they say, but in body language, work pace, and arrival times. Sometimes it means saying, “Take the rest of the day off,” no questions asked.
On a training tour in Barcelona, I noticed one client hanging back outside our final dinner. She confided that she was anxious about her upcoming tour, and she had also lost her phone earlier in the day. After talking it through, I gave her mine and told her to take as many pictures as she wanted during the dinner. She went from uneasy to joyful, all because someone noticed she needed to be seen.
Looking Back
So, how about that “useless” degree I got, huh? Not that useless after all.
I learned to tell stories, to manage pressure, and to read my collaborators. I still use those skills every single day.
Do I miss performing? Sometimes. The music, the stories, the thrill of nailing a performance. But those feelings still exist in my day-to-day. They are just as bold and rich as before, they just wear a different color.
There is such value in all of our experiences, and only those of us who honor the paths we have walked, by using everything we encounter along the way, can truly get the most out of the lives and careers we build.
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