In today’s post, I want to show you eight things you need to become a great guitar player and make money with music. This is a simple path that everyone can follow. It doesn’t matter if you want to be a music teacher or a successful songwriter. There is a blueprint to success, and believe it or not, you have it. Learn how to use it, and you will be successful!

You want something, train. Kobe Bryant trained. He shoots 800 shots a day before practice, takes four hours a day. That’s training. He didn’t need pride in himself because, as Pooh Richardson said, your competence will become your confidence. You will begin to have pride and confidence once you’re a master. Until then, you’re a student. Students got to act like students. If you are Pablo Picasso, if you are John Malkovich, if you are Mark Cuban, then puff up the pride and be like, I’m a badass. Until then, tone it down, man.

Training is what makes us unique. Forget about talent! There are tones of books on this myth. At the end of the day, the person who trains the most will succeed. Talent is a tiny ingredient. You want to be successful; you have to train hard. I am not just talking about grabbing your guitar and playing or practice. I am talking about purposeful practice.

Practice what you are good at. Work on your strength. Stop wasting time trying to get all the gigs they offer you. There is no point! You might have a little bit more money in your pocket, but at the end of the day, you lose. You must train and get the gigs you are good at. Same thing with studio sessions or teaching. People going like ” I can play everything” or “I teach all style and age”  are going to lose. There are few exceptions, but … do you want to base your life upon exceptions? I don’t think so.

I talk to people all the time, and they are like, “I trained a lot when I went to Uni two years ago, now I just play gigs, “and I say, “Well, you’re going to lose,” and the answer is always “But no, no, I believe in myself.” Well, the music director doesn’t believe in you. The musicians (the good ones) don’t believe in you. Your mum might believe in you. She ain’t here! Hundred people are standing behind you that put in the work! If you don’t train, you will be left behind, my friend.

Let’s talk about something important for a second. Let’s talk about pride; being proud of your own work.  Now I can bullshit you right now and tell you it’s all about self-belief, but I will tell you something real.

“Unless you’ve got thirty years in and you’re the damn Picasso of what you’ve done of your industry, give it a break. The second you’re proud is the day you stop working, trust me, and people are going to bullshit and say, “You need all this.” You need to be proud to energize yourself, so you’re going to look in the mirror and say, “I am doing great.” Your mum wants you to do that, but again, your mum ain’t here!

Musicians have quite a lot of pride. We are going around saying, “I am a full-time musician,” when we know that actually, all we do is playing some worthless gigs. If all you do is gigs you don’t want to do, you have to do something to change that. Don’t get stuck in that situation for too long. If you want to be successful, learn to say NO to some worthless stuff—the same thing with teaching and recording.

I met some good guitar players who are massively successful because they dropped all these worthless gigs and focused on becoming better players. They focused on promoting, networking, and training.

Most of the gigs we do (or we used to do) are worthless and tiring. The last function I did was years ago. I came back from Manchester at 5 am, tired, upset, and depressed. I had 350£ in my pocket that didn’t make me happy at all, and I had a moment of revelation. I said to myself: “I don’t have to do that crap,” and so I stopped!

But yet you see around all these dudes going like, “I am fully booked. I am going to Leeds tomorrow, then Manchester and New Castle, it’s 800£ in one week, not bed!” … If all you do is playing functions for drunk people who don’t give a damn about what you are playing, you will never become great.  Money isn’t worth the time and self-confidence you lose by doing this crappy stuff.

You should set higher standards. Start by getting better gigs. Do it steps by step. Commit each day to try to promote yourself so that you can improve your standard. Remember, you can always improve your standard, but you have to work really hard selling yourself to the better manager and music director. Make videos and blog a lot. Send all the material to music agencies and music directors.

When you decide to spend your time working on something, you are inevitably saying no to other things. This is great if you make the right choice. Pick the wrong thing, and you are literally wasting your time. Unfortunately, most of the musicians I know focus on too many things. Some of them play different instruments, so they have even more choices. When it comes to choices, you should always ask yourself:

The moment I asked myself, “Will this choice help or hurt my confidence” was the moment my life changed. It would help if you were extremely picky about what you choose. I went from running like crazy doing four gigs a week (making other people wealthy) and teaching at the lowest rate possible to gigging four/five times a month doing MY gigs and MY lessons (all the money in my pocket).

You must be able to say, “No.” I know it is challenging because we are always scared to miss an opportunity. I strongly believe that we can create our own opportunities. We don’t have to wait for someone or something extraordinary to happen. Day by day, focus on your choices, and make your own investments. Say no to unimportant things and focus on what you really want to do.

I love challenges. I am Italian. When I was at school, I didn’t study English, but I am writing this post myself. I am sure there are a lot of mistakes, but I don’t really care. I like the challenge, and I am actually happy I can do it. My writing might be sloppy and “weird,” but that doesn’t stop me because I know that I am improving. In music, it is the same thing. Challenge yourself with something difficult. The bigger the goal, the bigger the challenge. Back in 2013, I said to myself I wanted to teach forty people a week. I took the challenge and worked really hard. I got there in twelve months!

If your challenge is too simple, it will be easy to attain, but it won’t change your life, and it will probably be not very helpful. Most musicians approach challenges from the wrong perspective. Most of the time, if the challenge is too difficult, they easily give up, lowering expectations and motivations. The better-paid gigs become impossible to achieve, the studio sessions are in a close circle, and the tuition fee they get is too low. I have been there! I challenged myself and changed my life. Don’t wait for life to challenge you. Start challenging yourself today. Make things happen. Do you want better gigs? Promote yourself better. Do you want to make more money teaching? Record more video lessons. Challenge yourself every day… it will change your life, I promise!

If you want to be successful as a guitar player and musician, you have to stop thinking you can please everyone. Give up the need to be liked by everybody.

I know we do that all the time. I was the best at doing that. Always trying to please everybody. Saying yes, all the time. Guess what? Most of the people I was trying to please didn’t give a shit about me. They replaced me without notice, and I got depressed.

As Bill Cosby said: You can’t please everybody, so don’t even try, in fact, when you try, the one person you absolutely won’t please is yourself”. People who don’t care about you won’t make you wealthier. They will steal your good energy for their purpose, and then, once you are done, ciao ciao. Don’t let that happen. Carefully choose the good people you need in your life and eliminate the rest.

• If you hang around 5 confident people, you will be the 6th.

• If you hang around 5 intelligent people, you will be the 6th.

• If you hang around 5 successful guitar players, you will be the 6th.

• If you hang around 5 successful music teachers, you will be the 6th.

You must shift your circle of influence and be around smart musicians. You must spend time with the people above you. People who motivate you and make you feel like everything is possible.

How your life would change if you could hang around with people like Eric Clapton, Santana, John Williams, Nathan East, and all these amazing players. I am not just talking about improving your playing. Hanging around with these people would definitely teach you how to manage yourself. How to sell yourself. How to be confident. How to be consistent.

Find a good mentor is one of the quickest ways to become successful. Remember: You don’t have to learn everything from your own experience. You can learn from people who made it! It would help if you reversed engineer their path. How did they get there? What did they do? How they did it? Once you figure this out, do it yourself! Find mentors to speed up the process of learning and achieving. You should have at least five successful mentors. Trust me … it works.

I know some of you don’t have a webpage. I have friends who don’t have a webpage. There are three kinds of musicians that really don’t get how important it is to have a webpage and use social medial.

• The “I don’t know how to do it “guy: People who fear technology are going to lose. It takes a few minutes to set up a webpage, and it cost nothing. Also, the tutorials you find online on YouTube and Blogs are almost unlimited and constantly updated. Don’t fear technology. It would help if you had it. It is actually really cool to have your own webpage and social media channel. Start getting some subscribers will motivate you! You will be able to promote yourself better. YOU NEED A WEBPAGE!

• The “I hate social media” guy: Once I spoke to this guy and he goes like “I am not on Facebook … short pause … Social media is full of crap. They made billions on you, and they keep all your private information and blablablablablabla” he kept ranting for 20 min. You don’t want to be like this guy, do you? Even if you don’t like the concept of social media, you should use it to promote yourself. Just use it to promote yourself. You don’t have to post your private life. Use social media purposefully. Don’t think black and white! Trust me.

• The “We don’t need social media” guy: If you are a musician and you think social medial is worthless … you are going to lose. You need social media to promote your music, share your video, share your music, share your gigs, share your achievement. It’s true, they didn’t have social media in the 90s, but that doesn’t mean you don’t have to use it today. Things are different now! Keep up with technology.

Use social media to promote yourself. Record video daily. Use YouTube, Instagram, and Facebook as your main social media. Build your webpage and blog a lot. People will watch your videos and read your blogs. I wouldn’t be writing this, I promise. I do what I do because my followers motivate me. It would help if you did the same. At least try …

The last tip I can give you is, “Set a specific goal and don’t stop until it’s done.” I usually have three months of goals. I wrote my last book in three months. I am recording a video course for the next three months. It doesn’t matter how difficult it is or how busy I am. Once I set my goal, I will work on it every day.  You must be really specific and commit every single day. You must learn how to set up daily, weekly and monthly goals too. By setting up a specific goal and a deadline, you will push like crazy and achieve more.

If you want to record an album, do it in three months. Do you want to record videos for YouTube? Set up a three months goal where you record one or two videos a week for three months? Write five songs in three months. Or maybe ten songs. It is completely up to you that the reason it’s fun. Challenge yourself. Be specific with your dreams.