I’m going to give you an answer I really stand by – YES! You can learn how to play the guitar in your 50’s, 40’s, 60’s or at any age, really. Your age has nothing to do with learning the instrument; it’s your responsibilities and how crowded your brain is that make learning a new skill challenging.

Younger players have more free time if they choose to get serious about the guitar. Outside of school and perhaps a part-time job, their schedule should be free to pursue anything they choose. They can get better quicker because they have more time to dedicate to practice everyday. For adults, things are little more difficult, perhaps, but I have never met an adult whose fingers were too short or too long, or an adult who wasn’t able to grasp concepts of playing and so on. Adults don’t have as much disposable time as youngsters, but we do have experience in learning which is on our side. I actually strongly recommend learning any new skill throughout your life. If you set your expectations correctly and understand that picking up the guitar takes repeated committment for which you make time for – I say do it.

I often talk to musicians who are stalling in putting their songs or albums out because they don’t think the material will be heard by enough people. Or, they are afraid that upon release they’ll have to take the project to a big time level. Perhaps they think doing something cool is enough, but they feel they’ll be judged by others, for you know, not becoming “successful” with their work.

As a side note, success is relative and personal. If you start a project and stay on course to finish it, that is already a level of success.

But, in regards to the above, it’s a mental trap. The truth is that not every band’s goal is to be the biggest band in the world. There are numerous one or two member groups that put out great music out there through the internet for the sake of being creative. Many of them don’t even play shows.

There is nothing wrong with starting a band to take on the world and become the next Metallica and there is nothing wrong with releasing an EP for the sake of getting the songs out of your head and into the universe. You can set your own goals for success and follow them as much as you care to. Your songs, your band, your life. That’s enough.

Some of my favorite bands never became “big” or mostly went under the radar. There is coolness in being the underdog, too.

You know what’s funny about us humans? We love to give our best advice to others, but we often think we don’t know what to do for ourselves. But, here’s the thing – we usually do know what to do. You know what you’re doing right, what you need to change or where you’re slacking. Generally, if we get quiet, we can figure that stuff out if we are being honest with ourselves.

Here’s the deal – sometimes you gotta talk to yourself, your own voice might be the most intelligent thing you hear all day. What would you tell your best friend who was facing the same challenge as you are? Ok, great. Now, go follow that advice.

Sometimes when things don’t go our way, or we have to do something we don’t want to do, it might seem to us, that we are forever doomed. It’s a loss of perspective. When we are stuck in traffic – it feels like it’ll never end. When we have to learn a new skill – it feels like it’ll take a lifetime. When we get a flat tire – it can feel like we’ll never get back on that road again. We know it’s not true, but our mind exaggerates.

I always remind myself that the success is in outlasting the challenge. Most everything we know has an end. All we have to do is to remind ourselves to outlast the temporary thorn and then all will be ok on the other side.

See if that small shift in mindset can work for you!

They don’t. While the people we look-up to, or even idolize, might have found a way to become admirable at a task be it sports, music, photography, engineering, design, teaching, sales and so on, remember that in order to become exceptionally world-class good at something, we often in the process give up on developing other important parts of life. This varies of course from person to person. The people you admire don’t always have all the answers. This is why I sometimes find it interesting that general public expects sports stars, as an example, to be all around role models. Many genuinely are, and for a good reason. But, careful with your expectations. It takes a certain personality to give up literally everything in order to achieve a task that most only dream of. I’ve met several successful people in their various chosen professions who couldn’t inflate a tire or hold a half-decent conversation. I am not not faulting you, me or anyone else – we are all work in progress. Just take above into consideration.

Internet and social media can be a powerful and positive tool. But, I don’t think humans were ready for it. I think of social media and cell phone cameras as the ultimate mirror for humanity to see themselves. It’s a big photo dump of where we are as a world population. It’s a way for the universe to turn the mirror onto us and show us what and who we are.

But, for today, perhaps on a less heavy note, I wanted to remind you that Instagram is like a big director’s reel. What you see is the best version of someone’s life, or “achievements” and it is full of poetic quotes from people who have no business posting anything of the sort. Not everyone is at the best party, not everyone is crushing it, not everyone … well, you get the idea. Enjoy the pages that bring good things into your life and don’t waste your time with the posers. Instagram, for the most part, is not real life.

This is a big post and one that resonates with me a lot. It has to do with the biggest dream killer of all – FEAR. Now, I have been on a quest dissecting fear and how humans react to it for a few years now. This subject took a lot of my attention. Today, I am going to make my findings simple.

Every human being experiences fear. Fear is primal and it is built into us so we can survive and not get into life threatening situations. Feelings of fear are there to protect you. We often think that professional musicians, athletes, dare devils, CEOs or celebrities don’t experience fear and that’s why they are able to do the things they do. That’s incorrect – everyone experiences fear. Here is the kicker – there is absolutely nothing wrong with it. You are supposed to feel it.

Read this again. Fear is natural. Expect to feel it. It shows up as a motherly word of caution. When you do anything outside of what’s comfortable to you right now – you will meet fear.

However, on the other side of fear in the same wrestling ring is doubt. This is where the business end comes in. Fear shows up to the party, but doubt lives in you. Doubt is where your sword is hidden. You have to decide whether you have the goods to perform so well that you have little “doubt” that you’ll do well at a task. It can be anything – playing a live show with a band, giving a speech, taking someone on a date.

When I perform live in front of many people, I have a fearful tingling in my stomach, but my doubt is very small in that I can perform well in front of an audience. This is because I have done the work to prepare. I showed up, worked, prepared and stayed the course that I outlined. I know that I won’t let myself down. I have done this successfully before and I’ll make sure that I will do it well, again. With this mental prep, I face any fear of standing in front of hundreds or thousands of people.

As a side note, I think it it important to know that people feel different levels of fear. For me, standing in front of people was never a nerve wracking issue and it isn’t for most rock musicians. But, I might experience deeper fear in areas that are easy to overcome for others. With that said, I never just get up there and play. I go through a small process.

Returning to our blog, please know that if you don’t keep your commitments to yourself, you saw doubt that lives deep inside you and you’re letting down the most important ally you might ever have. Having strong doubts makes fear impossible to face. You have to slay the doubt that you won’t come up short on yourself, and this can only be done by keeping your word and staying comitted to the things you feel are important to you.

Doubt gets squashed by self-dependence and by self-reassurance. In short, you must know and believe that you won’t let yourself down, and even if things don’t work out as planned, you can figure out a way to hang in there.

Now, between Fear and Doubt lies Resilience. Resilience is like an elastic band that will allow you to spring back into shape, to recover quickly. Resilience is the power to stay looking at the scary task while your fear is telling you to run away. It is the belief that you’ll get control back and survive the task. This is a huge part for people. It’s a big issue for humanity in general.

Fear is a bully with no friends. Your resilience comes with a new pal of no doubt.

See, we have to think of individual parts when we go face to face with something that scares us. Remember, fear is to be expected. It shows up, it is just a warning buzzer that everyone gets. It has no control. It is supposed to be there. Your doubt, on the other side of the table has to extinguished and you have feel self assured, self reliant and know that no matter what – you won’t let yourself down and won’t give up on yourself. Can you honestly feel that about yourself? If you show up for yourself, doubt will have no hold on you. I say you have to be armed with no doubt, sword in hand.

Resilience is the middle man. It’s the rubber band that pulls you back to face the initial fear while you are armed with no doubt that you will handle the task. Read the last sentence, again. Resilience is the glue. If you don’t have the glue of resilience in-between fear and doubt – you won’t cross the bridge to give fear the returning eye. Use it and remember it. That’s how you face the most powerful, yet, most powerless force in the world.

I believe we can say that when you are planted with resilience and armed with no doubt in you having your own back, you are utilizing Courage to face the fear. Sometimes even knowing these words helps us tremendously. It helps us frame what we need to call on. Most of us feel fear and just run away with hands in the air. But, we are not scared of the fear – we are scared of our self-doubt. Good news is that when aware of this we can work on fortifying our abilities, remember difficult situations we’ve overcome in the past and lessen the doubt – so we can combat what scares us. It might be a long road, but at least we can start taking the problem apart and make progress. Even armed with the info here it is not easy.

As a book mark to end this post, when someone goes through the process outlined above time and time again successfully, you can say the person has developed Confidence. They have a good track record by now, and are confident that they’ll do it again. This is a true confidence built on tangible results and personal wins and not a cocky attitude of all looks and no hooks. Big difference.