The Fundamental Elements Required For Becoming A Great Guitarist

Want to become a great guitarist? You’ve come to the right place. After helping thousands of guitarists reach their highest goals, I have discovered five main requirements for true greatness. Before you can ‘truly’ reach greatness as a guitar player, you must attain all five of the following key elements:

The 1st key to becoming a great guitarist is the easiest one to get. Actually, it requires no effort at all. This is because you already possess it. The first key is simply the ‘potential’ to achieve greatness. Truth is, everyone possesses this key. Contrary to popular belief, there is no such thing as a guitar player who cannot become great because he/she was not born with ‘natural talent’. This is 100% not true as I’ve seen time and time again after helping MANY guitarists who weren’t talented (at first) grow to become virtuoso players.

The main idea is you and everyone else already has endless potential to become great. However, you will ‘not’ become great unless you believe in this fact (and take action on your beliefs). Until you believe that you have the potential for greatness, you will simply make excuses and settle for being ‘average’ at best.

Regardless of which particular belief you have, you will BECOME that belief over time. The truth is, nobody really desires to be ‘mediocre’... And I know that this includes YOU because you are taking the time to read this. Your guitar playing goals are much higher than mediocrity.

So this is a summary of what we know so far:

1. Everyone already has the potential to achieve greatness.
2. You become what you believe.
3. Every guitarist wants to become great.

That being said, why do so many guitar players FAIL to become great? The answer lies in their inability to attain the remaining four keys for reaching greatness. Although most people fall short in one or more of these areas, anyone (including you) can conquer them all. If any voice just popped into your head saying something similar to this: “... my scenario is different... Tom, I can’t become great”, I give you full authorization to tell that voice to shut up! Why? Because your situation is NOT different... Of course, you are your own unique person, but you are not so different from everyone else that the following principles are not applicable to you.

The 2nd key: The initial problem that will keep you from becoming great as a guitarist is the fact that you’ve never actually been presented with a clear definition of what greatness really is. Truth is, being great has nothing to do with the speed at which you can play guitar solos, knowing how to play like your favorite players or developing better musical skills. It’s likely that you’ve heard others describe greatness in this way many times before... but in reality most of these people are not really qualified to tell you these things. You must understand exactly what it means to be great from a core and fundamental level while forgetting about the other superficial things people say.

You must have someone fully demonstrate to you, “This is how you achieve greatness in your guitar practice in order to reach your musical goals.” “Here is precisely what true greatness looks like in the way you consciously focus your mental energy during the training process and how this is not the same as merely practicing.” “This is what greatness looks like while applying the things you are learning to your guitar playing, performance, improvisation and music writing.” “This is what greatness looks like in the form of learning, the methods you use to learn and the order in which you learn everything you want (and need) to master.” “Here is how greatness looks as you express yourself musically while accurately conveying specific ideas and emotions in the manner of a true virtuoso.” “This is what it looks like when you are quickly achieving greatness in all of these areas at once.” The point is: ‘every’ element of the process of learning guitar can be performed with varying degrees of ‘greatness’. You need to learn to be great in all of these pieces so that these pieces add up to make the complete picture of your total musical greatness.

The 3rd key: You must totally understand (with 100% clarity) the things you want to achieve as a guitar player and musician. If you do not understand these things in ‘great detail’, how will you ever accomplish them? It would be like thinking to yourself, “I want to get my mom a present for her birthday, but I have no idea what she wants or what to get for her. I’m not sure if she wants candles, pictures, a card, a nice blouse, a fishing pole or... a power drill.” So the day before her birthday you go up to the mall and walk around for hours until finally you settle for some lame present. Then her birthday arrives and the whole family is there at the dinner table when your mom opens your present... a 15 dollar gift card to a fast food restaurant (that she doesn’t even like).

Now, returning to music – If you are unsure about what you want from your guitar playing, how will you know the correct road to take, the best things to study and the most effective strategies to use? You must know EXACTLY what you want to achieve first because this is what determines every decision you make and action you take.

The 4th key: As for the small group of musicians who already know what greatness looks like in the ways I discussed above, and have the complete picture of what road will lead them there... there remains yet another obstacle in their way and a new key to attain.

In reality, the majority of people do not have a strong sense of confidence in themselves, don’t believe they really CAN achieve what they want, and lack the determination and dedication to become truly great.

So instead of achieving greatness, they give up and return to the habit of always taking the path of least resistance. As a result, they only are able to achieve mediocre results and end up feeling disappointed in themselves because they know deep down that they are not reaching their fullest potential. This makes it even harder for them to do what it takes to become a great guitarist.

The 5th key: If you...

1. Know what true greatness really looks like in all different scenarios...
2. Understand the strategies you must to implement in order to achieve it...
3. Have confidence in your own ability to reach your full potential and make forward progress...

... then you will take action to become the great guitar player you desire to be, can be and ‘ought’ to be. However, be aware that you can still lose your way, become confused, upset, impatient, or distracted... leaving you back where you started in a mindset of mediocrity. Fact is, it is way easier to give up and accept a life of ‘being average’ than it is to stay on course and do anything it takes to become great. So why does this happen exactly? Why do so many people give up in their pursuit of greatness and return to their comfort zone (never to accomplish anything truly great)? It is my belief that this occurs when you are lacking someone who is there to inspire you, believe in your capacity to succeed, support you, hold you accountable and help you up in times when you fall flat on your face. You don’t have someone there who can empathize with your situation because that person has experienced it many times as well. You must have all five keys to become a great guitarist. You must have someone on your side with tons of experience, who will support you, train you and give you massive amounts of inspiration... a person who will guide you along the correct path and make sure that you remain on that path until achieve the greatness you were destined to achieve.

I am NOT selling you anything here. I simply want you to understand why you have not become the great guitar player that you ‘should’ be – and what you must do to finally grab hold of what you deserve… beginning
right now: Your True Greatness!