I was all ears and loved every minute of it. While listening to his wisdom and beautiful melodies something struck me.

It was one of those wake up calls when suddenly you can see things very clearly. I had a strong urge to change some things in my life again. I needed to get my priorities straight and get back to what is most important in my life. I have done so.

Sometimes with everything that life has to offer, you get lost or off track. You are distracted or tempted by things that look interesting and sound amazing at first. Before you know it you are in over your head. You taste, but end up tasting too much of it. It does not fulfill you anymore.

It does no longer match your identity. Times are changing and so are you. You grow, experience, learn many different things that can change the course of your life. You might become confused about your current situation. You might doubt your job, your lifestyle, the way you play guitar, the band you play in, the music you play, your role as a musician, what you need to practice, how you spend and manage your time, what you want in your life and what you don’t want in your life.

You might ask yourself: Is this the right path? Is this the way I want to continue? You can’t figure it out and you are too afraid to let go of it. You might have started out with something that has grown and grown bigger. You are attached to it for whatever reason. The bigness of it all will make it seem more important than it really is and that can be quite misleading.

The time you invest in something creates a certain value but at the same time it can become a burden.
Maybe your values have changed over time, you might have new dreams or you wanna change or adjust your lifestyle. Maybe you underestimated or overestimated the choices you made or you are just being busy without any sense.

When you find yourself in a situation like this, it can be difficult to find a real honest answer and make a decision about it.

What you should do is observe and listen. Open your ears and eyes to whatever is out there. Pick up signs. Be open to whatever comes your way. There will be a moment when somebody will tell you a story, you hear a song on the radio, you watch a documentary or something in real life will happen that leaves you with a clear answer. At that very moment you will know what to do.

Here are some ways to speed up that process, get you back on track and continue to being your true self:

1. Read stories written by people or about people who inspire you. Read books, blogs and magazines you love. Reading will expand your horizon. It can help you find a way out.

2. Listen to people who can be objective. People who are wise or honest in your opinion.

3. Do something different from what you normally do. Try it for a day, a weekend or a week.

4. Take a long walk outside where it’s quiet. Alone! ( Not to the mall. )

5. Meditate or take some time to relax. ( e.g. drinking tea without the distractions)

6. Write down your questions and worries on paper. Write down pros en cons. Write down your wishes and dreams. 43things.com Write down anything that comes to mind. When you write, things often become clearer.

7. Socialize with friends, family and strangers.

8. Be honest to yourself and others. Let go of your ego. Your ego will stand in the way of beautiful things, improvement and real growth.

9. Play or listen to the music you truly love.

10. Stop worrying about what others may think of you. Don’t let others decide for you.

11. Be fearless, be bold, be courageous to do what you think is best for you.

12. Don’t follow, but lead your own way. Even if it is a lonely way. It will be rewarding.

13. Make a decision. Let it cool for a week or 2. If you still feel it is the right thing to do, act on it.

14. If you make a mistake, learn from it. Don’t regret it. Move on. Better things will come. Every mistake is a lesson learned.

Sometimes you have to do what you don’t like to get to where you want to be. – Tori Amos

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Whether you want to be a better guitar player, be more efficient or want to promote yourself as a musician, Internet is the place to be and it just keeps getting better.

These days you don’t need to spend a lot of money anymore to promote your band or to create a fan base. What you do need is hard work, dedication and persistence.

But what does “hard work” really mean when it is your passion, right? When you pursue your passion you don’t feel like you are working. You’re just having fun. So have as much fun as you can.

The more you connect and interact with your fans/potential customers on social media (see below), the bigger your fan base will become.

Social media works. Period! If you are willing to spend time and energy you can sell your music online or create a business using social media if you like. It’s all there!

If you want to be more efficient in learning, teaching, playing and communicating with your band members, students or colleague musicians there are a lot of productivity tools for you to benefit from. It can make life a whole lot easier.

Personally I strive to eliminate everything that causes work for work’s sake. Endless returning tasks, things that have to be done over and over again I try to automate or eliminate. This way I waste less time and can do more fun things like playing guitar, improving the quality and creativity of my business and spend more time with my wife and daughter. It’s all about being creative with the tools you’ve got.

Web 2.0 is the perfect platform to become more efficient and do things faster. Be careful though not to lose yourself in just being busy with being efficient unless you are having fun with it.

It’s the same with all the cool sequencers out there. Musicians are likely to lose themselves and their precious time in the endless possibilities of Pro Tools, Cubase, Sonar, Logic, etc. They tend to forget that the goal is creating and finishing the song, not over-editing and figuring out the latest plugins.

Having said that, the possibilities of productivity tools can make your life a whole lot easier if you use them the right way. Here are some examples:

PRODUCTIVITY TOOLS:

- Google Docs
As a musician and guitar teacher Google Docs is a great tool to share your sheet music, song lyrics, repertoire list, etc. with your students or colleague musicians. You can create documents online and download or share them as a PDF, a Word document or other file format. Since January 12th 2010 Google Docs announced to store and share any file you like. So besides sharing sheet music you can also share MP3s and video files.

When you are working on a music project you can upload project files or WAV files of up to 250 MB and send them to your drummer or bass player. You’ll have 1 GB of free storage and you can buy additional storage for $0.25 per GB per year. That’s 100 GB for $25 per year. You can all work from the same playground. Just create a Google account for your band or business and you’re ready to rock.

- Gmail, Google Calender and Picasa
When you have Google Docs you automatically have Gmail (Google Mail), Google Calender and Picasa. For the work flow it’s really nice to have everything in one place. Google Calender is great for planning a rehearsal or gig with your band members or creating a to do list which will be mailed to your Gmail automatically. Picasa is a great social media tool. (see below)

- IDrive
IDrive is an online backup system that automatically stores all your files from your hard disk on an online backup server. You never have to worry about a hard drive crash or your daughter spilling coffee over your notebook anymore. Your music is safe now. You get 1 GB for free, 10 GB for free if you send an email to all your friends and 150 GB for $ 4,95 a month. The advantage of IDrive is that you can open all documents and play all files directly from the online server.

- Evernote.com
Evernote is a free tool to save and organize all of your ideas, notes, websites, things you see and like. You can use Evernote on your phone as well. If you snap a photo with your phone of a guitar, some sheet music or a repertoire list, etc. you can send it to Evernote where you can check it out anytime you want. Evernote is still evolving and continues to add features.

- Ultimate-guitar.com

Ultimate Guitar is one of the many places where you can find tabs. It’s a great tool to help you out, although it ain’t perfect. The tabs and chords available on those websites are created by both professionals and amateurs, but probably more amateurs than pros. There are quite a few mistakes in the tabs, but it can surely help you on the way. An other problem is that all these websites copy the tabs and chords from each other, so you end up with a lot of the same mistakes on different websites. And before you know it all these novice guitar players show themselves playing these tabs and chords on Youtube. But what the heck! It’s good for the creativity, the spirit and eventually you get better along the way. Life isn’t perfect as long as you have fun. And you can always find yourself a real guitar teacher when you get stuck or want to improve your playing even more.

PROMOTION / SOCIAL MEDIA:

- Blogging
A blog is where you build your brand as a musician. Here you tell people what is going on with your band, what you are up to at the moment or whatever you wanna get out there. One of the reasons blogs are so popular is that they are frequently updated. You can create a dynamic website with your music, videos and links to all your other social media sites. This is the place where it has to happen.

- Flickr and Picasa
Use Flickr and Picasa to store and share your gig photo’s with fans. You can also use Flickr to find free pictures for your blog. Look for the “Creative Commons” section in the “Explore” menu.

- Last.fm
Put your music on Last.fm for music lovers all across the globe to find and listen to. This is a brilliant way to promote your music. I can really recommend this one. There is music in all categories and everyone is talking about and promoting their favorite artists. It’s an awesome way to really spread your music like wild fire as long as you participate in the conversations, really talk to people and connect.

- Facebook
Facebook is the biggest social network with over 300 million users. Create a profile, tell your story, your interests, add friends, send messages, join networks, search people, connect and share info.

- Twitter
Twitter is a social networking service just like Facebook but here you can only write really short messages for anyone to read. You can have people follow you and you can follow other people. Guitar players like Joe Satriani, John Mayer and Steve Lukather have also found their way on Twitter. Again you can promote yourself, your band or just have a lot of fun with it. Twitter is the most popular social network next to Facebook and Myspace.

- Myspace
Like Facebook, Myspace is huge but more music oriented. Every big artist and band has a profile on Myspace. So obviously this is the place for you to promote your music, network and create a fan base. You can upload your own music and lyrics as well via the Artist signup. You can choose whether you want users to be able to download your MP3s or just stream them from the Myspace music player.

- YouTube
Share your music videos on Youtube. Videotape your gigs and upload them for everyone to see and share. Promote your band or business anyway you can using Youtube videos. You can also embed a Youtube video on your blog. This way you can play a music video on your own blog that you uploaded on Youtube.

- ReverbNation
ReverbNation is used by musicians, labels, managers, venues and fans. ReverbNation is a complete music marketing tool. You can create, distribute, and sell your CDs, T-shirts, caps, etc. from the Reverb store. You can update all your Facebook and Bebo profiles with new info from your ReverbNation account. For a membership fee you can also have your music sold on iTunes and Amazon and there is still more. Check it out yourself.

Be effective and efficient!

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This is an awesome goal, but success takes a while. In the meantime you need to pay the bills. Luckily as a musician there are a lot of creative ways to make good money.

We can’t live without music anymore. Music is needed everywhere and for everything. It’s a global language that we all understand and people all over the world come together to listen to it. We need music to feel good, get excited, be inspired, relieve stress, go crazy, to connect and to feel we belong to something or someone.

We are surrounded with music everywhere. Just to name a few: CDs, DVDs, Radio, TV programs, ads, movies, Internet, games, jingles, concerts, festivals, bars, coffee houses, restaurants, malls, weddings, ceremonies, etc. So there is a huge market for you as a musician to benefit from. You don’t need to be a professional. You become one while doing it. It’s possible for everyone. All you need is dedication, motivation and persistence to make it happen.

Here are 5 ways to make money while loving what you do:

1. Playing in a Top 40 cover band.
Playing music in clubs, pubs, at weddings, restaurants, etc is a good way to make a descent living. If you’re creative, flexible and produce quality, you can make a lot more than a decent living. The more flexible you are as a musician the more money you are going to make. By flexible I mean:

• you have to be willing to play every kind of music that people like to hear.
• you need to get along with your fellow musicians / colleagues because you will spend a lot of time hanging out with them on the road
• you need to become a good socializer to get the best of your employers, booking agents and most important of all… your fans.

Be aware of other bands in your area. Check out what other bands are charging for a gig. If possible, compete. Make sure your band stands out from the rest. Be original, be special, be creative. Ask yourself: what do people want? What kind of band do you want to hear or see when you’re going on a night out with your friends? You can also make extra money selling merchandise like T-shirts, caps, CDs, DVDs, whatever you can come up with. The more you connect with your audience the more stuff you’re going to sell.

As far as equipment goes, don’t rent but buy your own P.A. system. It’ll be cheaper in the long run.
If you are really going for it, it can be a great ride. I played in cover bands myself and I learned a lot from it. Sometimes you might not like particular genres in the first place but you end up appreciating more music and learning more different styles. You’ll become an all-round guitar player and it’s an awesome experience in many ways.

2. Becoming a freelance guitar player…
will give you more freedom and independence. Playing in multiple bands with different musicians is a challenging job. You need to learn how to fit in fast and easily and it’s a great learning school. You not only learn how to become a great musician but also how to become a great salesman and businessman.

To be a freelance guitar player you have to make yourself heard. So marketing yourself is the number one thing you have to be busy with. Put up a website or blog and start promoting yourself. Put yourself on Youtube, Myspace, etc. Network your way to success.

Playing in a band is ultimately the best marketing there is, but networking is just as important. Make sure you have a business card with you all the time. Become the guitar player that every band wants to have. Enjoy the lifestyle!

3. Providing a service online
The Internet is the place to be nowadays. There are many ways to provide a service online as a musician. You can present yourself as an online session player, music producer, songwriter, performer, etc. Find out what it is that you are good at. What is it that you are passionate about? How can you persuade and satisfy your customers? What can you deliver in good quality and fast if possible? What makes you stand out from the rest? What is it that people need from you?

Let people hear and see what you can do for them. Amaze people with your skills. Focus on your potential customers. Learn from people who do what you do. Make up your own plan. Be special. Create a niche. Don’t get overwhelmed by the amount of people who already do what you do. There are also hundreds of thousands of bakeries, supermarkets, carpenters and painters all over the world and they all make a living.

4. Starting a music trio, duo or becoming a solo performer…
has a lot of advantages. Because you are with less people, you are a lot more flexible. You have less opinions, less hassle, more control, more money. You don’t need a lot of equipment. Buying your own P.A. system is definitely a good investment.

You don’t necessarily need a live engineer. This also means you end up with more money in your pocket. You are probably cheaper than most bands are. So bars, pubs, coffee houses and restaurant owners are also more likely to hire you because of their smaller budget. If you can create a class act you can perform almost everywhere and charge more. You are what you create.

5. Teaching guitar…
gives you a great deal of independence, freedom, fulfillment, fun and good way to make money. Hey, what more do you need? :-) You need to keep up with the latest hits, the hottest riffs, the coolest guitar dudes, but also keep digging for oldies. That way you teach but also learn a lot of new and good old stuff.

As a teacher you don’t need to have a lot of expenses. You can probably teach at home or at the home of your students. All you really need is a guitar and probably some sheet music. What you do need is a lot of patience and the ability to teach. Most people who would like to teach already have a clue if they are suited for the job. It’s something that comes naturally. Knowing how to play guitar helps. :-)

Again market yourself. Start putting up a website, always carry your business card, create flyers and hang them up at appropriate places like guitar shops, supermarkets, malls, social clubs and schools. Advertise in local papers, etc. If you do a good job teaching, the word spreads quite fast. Teaching small groups instead of private lessons will make more money and is definitely possible. It has also advantages for the students themselves. It’s cheaper, fun, socially, slightly competitive and thus motivating. They also learn how to play together, how to interact, which is important if you want to become a musician.

What you need to do as a teacher is to be really focused. Give all your students the same amount of attention and have an extra pair of ears an eyes. Don’t worry you can train this as you teach.

Good luck with your choices!

A summary of tips:

- Find out what you like and just go for it. You’ll make mistakes but you’ll survive.
You’ll find obstacles and setbacks on your way, but you’ll overcome them.

- Market yourself or your product via a website, Youtube, Last.fm, Twitter, Facebook, Myspace, etc.
Advertise in local papers, create flyers and folders, hang them up and spread them around.

- Market yourself in real life: socialize, be friendly, listen, ask questions, network.

- Read books and blogs about your niche. Learn everything there is to know about.
Ask people who know, call people, email.

- Keep your expenses as low as possible.

- Don’t charge to little, but try to outsmart your competitors

- Whatever you do, do it with passion and enthusiasm.

- Keep it fresh, keep being creative, keep developing, keep improving, keep it fun.

- Challenge yourself. Take a risk now and then.

- There’s no one particular way to do it, there is only your way to do it.

- Make sure you love what you do. That is the golden rule!

Do you know some awesome ways to make money playing guitar?
Please share them in the comments!

Click here to download your free copy of "The 150 Esstential Chords" Ebook

Body work outs, healthy foods, stress release, finger warm up exercises, taking care of your hearing, stretching, relaxation, etcetera are all part of the journey in becoming and staying a good guitar player. I know we don’t always have the time to work out and we all get into a slump once in a while. That’s okay. It’s part of life and it’s good to have a break now and then, but that’s no excuse to ignore that little voice in the back of your mind who knows what is best for you when you haven’t taken care of yourself the last couple of months or worse. So let’s pick it up where you left of. You know you’ll be a lot happier once you start working out. We are talking about your health here. It’s the most important thing!

Being fit will make you feel good about yourself. It gives you a more overall positive attitude. You will be more motivated to practice and more focused to achieve your musical goals. A good physical condition will also improve your performance on stage and in the studio when you’re recording.

So here are some tips to get you in good shape and stay motivated at all times:

Work out
Working out gives you more energy and a clear mindset. Something most of us need every now and then. Whether you experience a writers block, you can’t figure out why that solo isn’t working or when your practice session leads to nowhere, working out is a great moment to refresh your mind and get new inspiration. So let’s start today. Take a run outside, ride your bike, take a walk in the fresh air, do some push ups or stretching exercises. Working out outside is the best way to get you back in the saddle. If possible, run or ride to places where it’s quiet, where your mind can blow off some steam. Run to areas in your town where you don’t come everyday. It’s good for inspiration. Run where nature is. You’ll feel reborn.

Eat healthy, drink healthy
We all know why you should eat healthy. At least I hope so. Okay for those who have forgotten…
Healthy food is essential for gaining energy, preventing your body from getting sick and keeping you focused and inspired. Unhealthy food leads to laziness, unhappiness, obesity, etc. So this is a settled matter. We need to be in good shape to stay productive and positive.

As far as healthy drinks goes, drink water not soda. Drinking too much soda leads to blood pressure, concentration problems, anxiousness, sadness, tension, etc. Water on the other hand is essential for transporting the oxygen to your cells, flushing out toxins and protecting your joints ( a lot them in your fingers ) and organs. Like food water also gives you more energy and keeps you really focused.

Warming up exercises
To prevent your arms and hands from injuries you need to go through some warm up exercises before you really start playing. Releasing the tension in your finger muscles will make guitar playing run more smoothly and less stressful. You need a good blood flow and circulation to get your hands warmed up. It also wouldn’t be wise to run a few miles without stretching first. The same goes for guitar playing.

Warm up exercises are also great for speed development. So for you race cats out there this is the way to go. If you don’t have a lot of time, just take five minutes to go through some exercises. You’ll definitely feel the benefits. Check out some really good warmup exercises below. Have fun!

Protect your hearing
Besides your fingers, your ears are the most important tools you need in order to play guitar. Your hearing can go a long way but don’t underestimate the vulnerability of your ears. Long exposure to loud music can cause serious damage to your ears. Once you damaged your ears there is no way you can fix it, so don’t mess ‘m up. Whether you’re performing on stage or go to gigs, wear earplugs when you’re exposed to loud music. There are all kinds of earplugs that are designed for listening to music. If you perform on a regularly basis consider using an in-ear monitor system. In-ear monitoring is the replacement for traditional monitoring. All professional musicians use In-ear systems nowadays. It’s a great way to protect your hearing and having a consistent monitor performance.

Meditation
More and more research is discovering the benefits of meditation. While it’s not necessarily a must in becoming a great player, I do really recommend it. If you want to reduce stress, be more focused, motivated, productive and balanced, meditation will get you there. All these things will help you on the way towards your guitar goals. It also fuels inspiration, creativity and gives you a better insight on where you’re heading. It’s something you really need to experience over a period of time. It will change your life!

Health is not valued till sickness comes.- Dr. Thomas Fuller

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Klaus Tol

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All you really need is an instrument to play and then you need to get going, working your way up to becoming a better musician. A very efficient and fulfilling way to do this is becoming a minimalist musician.

Stop focusing on all the stuff you think you need to improve your playing. It will not. Practice improves performance.

A lot of stuff will only distract you from reaching your goal. As a musician it is tempting to keep buying the latest gadgets, hottest gear or recording equipment, but in many cases it will eventually end up somewhere in a corner. I don’t say you shouldn’t buy gear or recording stuff, but keep it basic and to a minimal. The less stuff you use, the more authentic you will be as a musician. If you do buy some recording equipment, use what you buy, use what is is meant for. Don’t leave the dust to settle. You know who you are. :-) Write songs and record them. Brilliant ideas won’t stick in your head forever. They deserve to be recorded and put on paper. Buying is the easy part, actually recording is a different matter. It’s great fun but you also need some persistence. Keeping things simple makes it easier.

Being a minimalist musician is about sticking to the essentials, being focused on your music with the least distraction, feeling good about yourself and trying to become as authentic as you can possibly be. Play, write, perform and record authentically. Don’t strive for perfection, strive for authenticity.

Here are some suggestions to becoming a minimalist musician:

- One acoustic guitar is all you need.
Make sure this guitar sounds amazing and plays nice and smooth. It needs to be comfortable for you so it is easy to spread your ideas out on the fingerboard.

- One electric guitar. Buy an all round guitar like a stratocaster or a guitar that fits your needs and particular style. Too many guitars is too much hassle.

- Use minimal effects.
Maybe just a reverb or chorus. Maybe your amp already has a reverb.
The less effects you have, the less dependant and distracted you are, the more you can concentrate on real music.

- 3 channel amplifier.
Go for a 3 channel amp with sparkling clean, bluesy distortion and an overdrive that rocks the hell out of you. This way you don’t need extra fuzzes, super monster X blaster distortions and blah blahs. Keep it basic.

- Use a cable instead of a wireless system.
Wireless systems are messy. You need to switch batteries all the time and if something is broken you need to figure out where the problem lies. Again it’s more stuff.

- Focus on guitar playing. When you practice you practice, when you write you write, when you record you record. There are so many things that can keep you distracted from what is essential. Time is lost easily. Make sure you keep away from distractions. Turn off the internet, TV, mobile phone, etc, Stay focused.

- Memorize songs, chord progressions, scales, etc.
Try to memorize what you learn as fast as possible so you don’t need a book or laptop in front of you all the time. Memorizing music makes you a better musician and a more flexible one.

- Make sure you know your repertoire. Learn your music thoroughly so that you feel good about playing in front of an audience. It also gives you more confidence with every new piece you learn. What is a musician without a repertoire?

- Wear easy clothes that you feel comfortable with.
As a musician you don’t need much more than a good pair of jeans, a t-shirt and some sneakers or flip flops. Whatever you’re wearing make sure you can move around easily on stage and feel flexible when you need to jump, sit, kneel, turn around or whatever.

- Always keep your stuff in the same place.
It’s great to you know where your (minimal) stuff is, so you don’t need to look where you put that damn capo or your collection of picks every single time. Keeping things in the right place makes life a hell of a lot easier.

- Make sure you feel lean and fit. Work out. You need to be in good shape mentally and physically to practice, record and perform. You fingers also appreciate some good warm up exercises before you get started.

- Compact gear setup.
Again, If you use minimal gear you don’t have to carry a lot of stuff around everywhere you go. Wouldn’t it be great if you could just bring your guitar with you and one or two other things so you don’t have to worry about anything else besides playing great music. Strive for a minimal setup.

Possession isn’t nine-tenths of the law. It’s nine-tenths of the problem – John Lennon

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A better guitar, a more powerful amp, more and more effects, the best sequencer, the latest plugins, always looking for updates and upgrades. I admit I’m guilty as charged. I always thought: “If I only could have that plugin, sequencer or this effect, life would be much better”. I’ve been there, done that, but I’ve come clean. I realized it took my eyes off the ball and I lost a lot of precious time because of it. Now I’m back to basics.

I focus on playing guitar. Practicing and writing. That’s my main goal. Why? Because I love it. I also try to be basic in my lifestyle. Although I’ve got stuff like everyone else, I get rid of the things I don’t need. When you go basic, you automatically create more time for your music and social life. The more basic you get, the more time you have left.

What do I do apart from practicing and writing?I teach guitar three days a week from home or anywhere I like. Besides that I practice, write, read, play in a band, record, run, meditate and spend time with my friends and family. Let me not forget to mention that I wake up at 5 AM to do all these great things but I don’t do all of them every single day. If you need good advice on how to wake up early, check out Zenhabits’ 10 Benefits of Rising Early, and How to Do It or Steve Pavlina’s How to Become an Early Riser.

Here are three steps to get more basic and thereby improve your guitar playing:

Less commitments is a good place to start with. All these things, beside from teaching (I do need to make a living of course) and playing in a band, are no commitments or obligations. Although I can’t really say teaching guitar feels like an obligation. It’s the greatest fun there is. It gives me a wonderful feeling to see progress in my students, their eagerness to learn and their inspiring enthusiasm. Sorry, I had to get that off my chest. Let’s get back to what I am trying to say.

The less commitments you have, the more freedom you have to do what you want. So when you are not in for it today, you can leave it till tomorrow. Do things you want to do or need to do, but try not to make everyone depend on you every single minute of the day. I’m not saying you shouldn’t hang out with people anymore. On the contrary, but try to make it more spontaneous. Call a friend today to meet instead of planning it two weeks ahead.

Focus on your main goal
While I have many things I like to do, practicing and writing are my two main guitar habits. They are usually the first two things I do in the morning. I try to keep focused as much as I can without getting lost in all the external stuff. I also feel great when I’ve done these things first so I know I won’t postpone them. You know what happens when you procrastinate…

Not everybody can work on their goals first thing in the morning but make it a priority so it doesn’t just end up on your to-do list all the time. I always think of where I wanna be a year from now and what I will have to do in order to make that change come true. I don’t wanna be thinking: “O gosh, another year has gone by and I’ve done so many things, but none of them really made a difference”.

Set a goal for yourself! It doesn’t’ always have to be a big goal. Small goals are not to be underestimated. They can be really powerful too. For example: you only need one (hit) song that could change your life or make one right turn where everything starts to make sense for you.

Basic needs
I try to be as basic as I can. I’m still learning and growing though. This means I stopped concentrating on “stuff”; being materialistic. Although you need a guitar to play and create music, all the external stuff distracts you. It doesn’t make you a better guitar player: guitar playing does.

I stopped watching television. I don’t buy what I don’t need. I try to be creative with the things I have. I drink water instead of soda because it gives me the right boost of energy to get going when I feel tired. I sell stuff that I don’t use or distracts me from being an authentic person. I walk or relax to get inspired and I feel a lot happier because of it.

I’ve come to realize that the more basic I get, the more clearer things become, the more inspiration I get, the more time I got left, the better my guitar playing will get.

Click here to download your free copy of "The 150 Esstential Chords" Ebook