Embrace The SUCK! THIS Will Make You Quit Early.

I'm about to give you the best piece of advice I ever heard. When I learned guitar. This is actually a friend of mine and a guitar teacher that I know, and he said, you know what you have to do? You really just have to embrace the suck. And what he meant by that is that every guitar student, when they start learning the guitar, we all suck. We really do. It's horrible. It's bad. You know, in my seven level guitar system, the first song I teach people is Horse with no Name. Okay? It's a two chord song and we learn two chords. And most of the times the students sound like this.

And they're like, this doesn't sound like Horse with no Name at all. They're like, this sounds like crap because they want it to sound like this.

And you know, it's just not going to happen in the beginning. And what I want you to do is to change your mindset about learning guitar and this will prevent you from giving up too quickly. Because what happens with a lot of students is they put such high expectations, and that's great. I'm not saying have big goals to be an amazing guitar player. That's a great goal. But I want you to understand that that takes time. Time. People look at me and they say, wow, you're actually a really good guitar player. And it's like, well, I've been playing for 24 years. I would really hope so, especially if I'm on here teaching on YouTube. I would hope after, you know, a long enough length of time that I would be good at playing guitar. So a lot of students make the mistake of comparing themselves as a beginner to myself or another one of the YouTube teachers on here or their favorite guitar players, Clapton, Hendrix, John Denver, Johnny Cash, whoever it is that you look up to and want to play, like, understand that they started in the same space you did. And when they were learning guitar, even when I was learning guitar, they didn't have resources like YouTube. Okay. And you know, if you were like me, my family couldn't afford to pay for guitar lessons. I took piano lessons for a little bit. My grandfather paid for it and I hated it. And then they were like, well, we're not going to waste any money on the guitar lessons because they're expensive and you're not going to do anything with it anyway. So I want you to reframe your expectations and understand and I want you to accept, and I know this is going to be very, very hard for the perfectionists out there. You are going to suck in the beginning. And you have to embrace that. You have to embrace that your chords are going to sound like this in the beginning, okay? And they're going to be muted, and you're going to be hearing. Hearing all these weird sounds in noises. But you are learning. You are just getting started with the guitar. And this is really what I try to emphasize and motivate students within my course is like, listen, guitar mastery happens over time, okay? It's not going to be perfect in the first three months or even six months, okay? We are in the mechanics phase in the beginning with we are learning how to get our hands doing these weird shapes and positions that they've never done before. And that can be frustrating. And you want it to always sound crystal clear and perfect, but right now, it's sounding like.

You know, and it's weird, and you're having a lot of wrist pain and tension, and you're just saying, am I too old? Is this going to happen? I'm not talented enough. Let me tell you, no one in my family plays a musical instrument. I'm the only person. I didn't get a talent gene from anyone. So I want to let you know, you don't need talent to play the guitar. You just need determination and enough time and consistency to make it happen. All right? I taught myself to play guitar over the course of a very long time because I didn't have any lessons and I didn't have resources like YouTube here. And it took me a very long time, but I never gave up. And over time, I did get better and better and better. And eventually I decided I wanted to become really good at the guitar. So I did get some guitar lessons. I worked with the teacher so that I could become a better strummer. Work on my timing. Try to learn some finger picking. But in the beginning, I really did suck. And I want you guys to understand that if you're getting discouraged or you're feeling like this isn't going to happen, don't think that way. What I want you to do is instead of comparing yourself to me or your favorite guitar player, I want you to compare yourself to the guitar player you were three months ago. This is an amazing tip I give my students, and I tell them to do this in my course. I say make a recording of yourself. That first song you learn, that Horse with no Name, or whatever your first song is that you learn, make a recording of you just doing one strum per chord, okay? And maybe it's going to sound good, maybe it's going to sound bad. Record it Save it. And then what I want you to do is keep going on your guitar journey, okay? Each step of the way. And 90 days down the road, I want you to come back to that same song and play it again. And maybe it sounds like this now.

Okay? And I want you to record that and then go back and watch your old video and be like, oh, wow, look how far I've come in just 90 days. And then you go for another 90 days, and then you're like, great, I'm going to record Horse with no Name again. And now you've got.

Great. Wow. Now take that video, compare it to your first video, and you're going to be like, wow, I really, really come a long way. Then another 30 days go by, and now you're doing.

All right, and you're like, wow, I have come so far in just one year of playing. But you always have that reference video to compare yourself to yourself. When you get to those plate points, when you get discouraged, when you wonder why you're doing this, go back to that first video and watch yourself doing this.

And hearing those strings buzz, Your strumming's off, your timings off, and say, wow, I really have come a far way. So my biggest tip to you as a student learning guitar is embrace the suck. Be the suck, and keep practicing, and you will get better. And you will start sucking less. It will start sounding good, and people will come in from the room next door, and your spouse will say, hey, were you just playing Horse with no name? And you will smile and you go, yes, I was playing Horse with no Name. Finally, someone recognized what I was playing on the guitar. I hear these stories all the time from students in my course. Oh, my God. I was just playing at my grandson's birthday, and I got to play Happy Birthday for him. Or I went over a friend's house and I jammed for the first time. But in the beginning, they all sucked, okay? But we all worked our way up on our guitar journey. Everyone's journey is unique. Yours is no different than anyone else's, all right? So do not give up. Do not get discouraged. The guitar is not an easy instrument to learn. If it were, everyone would be doing it. So embrace the suck. And if you are interested in getting those fingers to move a little bit faster so that those chords don't sound as bad, I highly recommend you go check out my video over there for. For the number one finger exercise so that we can get those chord changes going much faster and much cleaner.