“Keep Climbing Your Hill” — Feeling Blue? Here is the Best Advice

A word of encouragement for all guitarists and readers alike.

I meant to blog as a hobby, but since I’m travelling, I got a lot of time on my hands. Might as well do something productive!

I wanted to share some words of encouragement for everyone out there. Especially aspiring musicians and guitarists.

Reality has taught me this: we don’t jump into hardship to suffer; we experience hardship to reach a goal.

Plus suffering is simply part of being a conscious individual.

As a guitar guy, I’ve been fortunate enough to perform live for money once upon a time (though not much, all things considered).

I wasn’t always a good player, nor am I naturally a musical genius. I started where everyone else starts: as a beginner.

I remember painfully practising for hours endlessly on certain chord transitions or solo that I had to perform live.

Many years ago, I had to learn Neal Schon’s solo in the song Faithfully by Journey for a big night gig. I was in a cover band, and we were playing a 12-song set, give or take. At that time I didn’t understand music theory at all. I learned mostly via guitar tabs and through other guitarists who gave me feedback.

I practised just enough to be able to play passably in front of a crowd.

My bends were sloppy and recording myself was a cringe-worthy experience. I had one month before the gig, so I practised for hours on end until my guitar calluses fell off (many times).

Having performed live few times before, I knew I needed to nail the song 7–8 times straight in order to be comfortable enough to play live. So that’s what I did.

When people are nervous, especially when playing live, we can lose up to 50–60% of our motor function skills, sometimes more if we’re anxious.

Thus, learning to nail a song many times in a row is a tell that you’re comfortable enough to play under stress.

We performed, and the gig went well. Afterwards I had beers at the bar, and I got some shout outs from guitar players in the audience.

At the end, all that freakin’ effort resulted in a $100 cash payment at the end of the night.

Then I had another gig, and I had to repeat all that again.

Most guitarists with whom I’ve spoken have a story similar to this: they listen to a song/passage that’s hard for them to play, they try it, fail for a while, feel hopeless, practice like crazy, perform it for someone, then succeed.

Then they experience a new plateau, fail for a while, punch through the plateau, and succeed again.

Isn’t that the story of life from those of us who’ve accomplished something?

Here’s an example.

Someone I know made the decision to leave her job and start her own venture. Her goal was a career change, and to become more financially independent.

As a result, she took steps on the hill she chose for herself.

She knew the risks in leaving her job as she decided to live on her savings for a while.

Now, she’s seeing success in her endeavour so far. She’s growing her own personal blog, and she’s applying what she’s learned in her career to coaching her own clients. She’s got regular clients and managed to develop a sustainable income.

That’s pretty bad ass.

As for me, I’m half-way around the world, away from home in North America, trying to settle in a new country (temporarily). I’m working on my own goals building several passive sources of income, and teaching English locally. Once I’m set up at my current location, I’ll be teaching guitar online on my spare time.

I took a step up that hill, and I’m moving.

There’s no guarantee for massive success. But now that I’m doing meaningful work, the cost-benefit analysis tells me this path is way better than working a 9–5 without any other streams of income.

Plus it doesn’t feel soul-crushing to wake up in the morning. It does, however, feel like an adventure every day.

Ask anyone who had invested in the S&P 500 index in the past 5 years (though the bullish trend may change over time): how have you made money on stocks?

As many bloggers here have put it: keep it simple. start investing, invest at the right time, over time, and keep doing it (remember though: DYOR).

For the guitarists out there: did you hear a solo you’ve always wanted to play? After hearing it, did you think “I’ll never be able to play this”? Then felt like setting your guitar in its case forever?

Pick up that guitar. Start learning the first measure, at least. Then the next measure, etc.

Apply the same analogy to any other meaningful challenge you got for yourself.

If your goal is to become a better player, start moving in that direction.

When you’re discouraged, keep going. Then take a quick breather. Then keep going.

If we do nothing, we achieve nothing.

And if we do what we’ve always done, we’ll get what we’ve always got.

Keep climbing up the hill you want to climb.

You might not know where you’ll end up, but it will be better than regretting not climbing.

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P.S. Jocko Willink’s podcast really helped me in my past leadership positions at my old job. The best advice for inaction, hesitation, or despair is one word, and one word only:

“Go.”

The last thing I’d want is a world where we all just gave up. Let’s build the world we want to live in. We can start by getting after our own goals. Then, we may have the ability to help others achieve theirs.

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’Til next time, godspeed.