I’ve always wanted to play the guitar.

It started as a kid, listening to my dad play around the fireplace during the holidays. The fantasy continued with Guns N’ Roses and the iconic Slash. From hyperspeed Slayer to classical Segovia, I was mesmerized.

But I never thought I could do it myself.

Despite tackling skills as esoteric as Japanese horseback archery, I somehow put music in a separate “does not apply” category until two years ago. It was simply too frustrating, too overwhelming.

My fascination with guitar wasn’t rekindled until Charlie Hoehn, an employee of mine at the time, showed me the 80/20 approach to learning it.

This post explains how to get the most guitar mileage and versatility in the least time…

Do you have any additional tips, whether for guitar or applying the 80/20 principle to another instrument? Piano, violin, flute, or other? Please share in the comments!

Enter Charlie

Almost everyone has fantasized about performing music in front of a huge screaming crowd at some point in their life. For me, I’d always dreamed of playing guitar with the same mastery as Jimmy Page, Allen Collins, or Mark Knopfler. Sadly, I could never stick with guitar practice.  I ended up quitting multiple times for a host of reasons: the material was boring, my teacher moved too fast, my teacher moved too slowly, my fingers were killing me, my wrists were sore, I wasn’t making enough progress, and so on.

Then my friend Jake Ruff taught me two simple exercises that changed everything, and I’ve been able to stick with guitar ever since.

Some guitarists proclaim that you need to tackle music theory first, while others will tell you to learn sheet music while you’re practicing chords. I found it most effective to focus on a few easy exercises, while minimizing boredom and pain. In other words, the process for learning that you enjoy the most is the best one, even if it isn’t comprehensive.

Comprehensive comes later.  First, we need to get you hooked.

The Ground Rules 

In order to get past the initial pain period that comes with learning guitar, it’s critical to manage your expectations. If you don’t have a clear understanding of what these first few weeks will be like, there’s a good chance that you will get frustrated and give up.

Here are the three things you need to know before learning guitar, under my plan or anyone else’s:

1. You will feel clumsy. Remember when you first learned how to type? You wanted to hammer out 100 words per minute, without ever making an error. The reality? You constantly had to look down at the keyboard, and you’d get frustrated whenever you made a mistake. Guitar is the same way. As much as you’ll desire the ability to play all your favorite songs beautifully, your body and brain simply won’t be able to. Your fingers will move slowly, your hands will feel awkward, and the sounds coming from the guitar will not be easy on the ears. Relax, and give yourself permission to suck. Allow yourself several weeks to build “muscle memory” – getting comfortable having your hands in positions they aren’t used to.

2. Your fingers will be sore. Expect the tips of your fingers to hurt for at least a month while they’re developing calluses. If your fingers get extremely sore, take a day off, and never play until your fingers bleed.

The pain you’ll feel is largely unavoidable, but you can reduce it by using a capo (a clamp you fasten across the strings of the guitar – read more on this in “Getting Started” below). The most important thing, of course, is to not quit playing altogether because of the pain. Whenever you want to quit because it hurts your fingers too much, say to yourself, “Justin Bieber taught himself to play guitar before he was 12.” Yes, that’s right. That effeminate kid successfully got through the same pain you’re feeling, and so has every other guitar player on the planet. You’re more than capable of pushing through.

3. You need to practice for at least 10 minutes each day. There is no quick path to mastering the guitar, but there is a fast track to failing: a lack of practice. During the first month, you need to make playing your guitar for at least ten minutes into a daily habit. Playing every day will help you build calluses faster, and increase your comfort level with the instrument.

When I first started, I aimed for at least two 10-minute practice sessions each day. I found the most convenient time to practice was while watching TV. The two exercises you’ll be focusing on won’t require intensive periods of concentration, so it’s totally fine to watch your favorite show while strumming away.

Getting Started

First and foremost, you’ll need to buy a guitar (See guitar recommendations below in the Gear section). I know it’s obviously possible to learn with a friend’s guitar or one that’s been given to you as a gift. However, I found that my desire to learn increased substantially only after I put some skin in the game. Buying my first guitar only cost me $100, but spending that amount made me much more committed to learning.

I strongly recommend starting with an acoustic guitar, rather than an electric. With an acoustic, you don’t have to plug it in to play and there’s less of an upfront investment (i.e. you don’t need to buy an amp). Learn on an acoustic first; if you decide to play electric later, the transition will feel much easier than it would have had you only learned to play electric.

Next, you’ll want to buy a capo. This is a clamp that raises the pitch of the strings. You’ll be using it for a different purpose, but to start, it will help reduce the pain in your fingers.

Capo on the second fret.

The capo pushes down on the strings, putting them closer to the fret board and thereby making it easier for you to push them all the way down with your fingers. When you’re doing the exercises, I suggest putting the capo on the second fret.

You don’t have to use a capo, of course, but it can really help while you’re still developing calluses.

Once you have your acoustic guitar, capo, and a few other essentials (see the Gear section at the end of this chapter), you’ll need to put the strings on and get them in tune. Here are a couple videos that will help you do both of these things:

Changing acoustic guitar strings tutorial

Tuning your guitar

For tuning, the $3.99 ClearTune app works really well and is convenient to keep on hand when playing, particularly in the beginning. It’s available for both iPhone and Android.

Now that you’re all set up, it’s time to take a seat in a comfortable chair and get in position to play.

The most important thing about your posture is to stay relaxed. Because you’ll be pressing down hard on the strings, you’ll often feel your upper body tense up. Take a deep breath and only maintain pressure in your fingers.

One final note on your positioning: Your thumb should not wrap around the neck of the guitar; it should be pressed against the back of the neck. Sure, you’ll see a lot of professional guitar players who don’t comply with this, but it’s much easier on your hand to learn chords this way.

Without further ado, let’s get started!

Exercise 1: G-C-D

The number of chord variations you can learn on guitar is seemingly endless. We’re going to start with three of the basics: G, C, and D.

Before we get into explanation of this exercise, take a look at how to hold the G, C, and D chords: [Note the use of the silver capo in the photos]

The “G” Chord

Index finger on the fifth string, second fret.
Middle finger on the sixth string, third fret.
Ring finger on the second string, third fret.
Pinky finger on the first string, third fret.

The “C” Chord^?1

Notice that, from G, fingers 1 and 2 are each dropping down one string.  Otherwise, the hands are the same.  So, for C:

Index finger on the fourth string, second fret.
Middle finger on the fifth string, third fret.
Ring finger on the second string, third fret.
Pinky finger on the first string, third fret.

The “D” Chord

Index finger on the third string, second fret.
Middle finger on the first string, second fret.
Ring finger on the second string, third fret.
Pinky finger stays off the fret board.

In the G-C-D exercise, you’ll be working on switching from chord to chord. Here’s all you need to do:

1. Form the G-chord. Strum.
2. Transition to C-chord. Strum.
3. Transition to D-chord. Strum.
4. Transition to C-chord. Strum.
5. Repeat steps 1-4.

Each time you switch to a new chord, you should first pluck all six strings individually to ensure that six crisp, clear tones ring out. If any of the strings sound muted or dull when you pick them, check your fingers to ensure that (A) you’re holding the strings all the way down on the fret board, and (B) each finger is only touching/holding down one string.

Once all six strings sound nice and clear individually, you can begin strumming to hear the full sound of the chord. Strum lightly for 10-15 seconds, making sure that the chord sounds nice and clear with each strum, then transition to the next chord.

After you’ve reached a point where you’re fairly comfortable with transitioning between these three chords, you’ll want to try playing along with actual music. Jamming to your favorite songs is definitely the most fun way to learn in the beginning, because it really feels like you’re producing a better sound than you actually are. It also forces you to get better at matching the correct tempo of a song while strumming.

Here are several popular songs that are great for practicing the G-C-D exercise:

Lynyrd Skynyrd – Sweet Home Alabama (YouTube, Guitar Tab)
Green Day – Good Riddance (YouTube, Guitar Tab)
Sublime – What I Got (YouTube, Guitar Tab)
AC/DC – You Shook Me All Night Long (YouTube, Guitar Tab)
Van Morrison - Brown Eyed Girl (YouTube, Guitar Tab)
Steppenwolf – Magic Carpet Ride (YouTube, Guitar Tab)
Violent Femmes - Blister (YouTube, Guitar Tab)

Really listen to each song. Try to distinguish the difference in tone between the G, C, and D chords, and see if you can match what you’re hearing. If you have trouble, find the the song on www.ultimate-guitar.com to see (1) what chords you’re hearing, and (2) when to make transitions between these chords.

The songs are all heavy on G-C-D. Some are comprised entirely of those three chords. Here’s the breakdown:

“Sweet Home Alabama” by Lynyrd Skynyrd
D-C-G 

“Good Riddance” by Green Day
G-C-D 

“What I Got” by Sublime
D-G 

“You Shook Me All Night Long” by AC/DC
G-C-D

“Brown Eyed Girl” by Van Morrison
G-C-D-Em

“Magic Carpet Ride” by Steppenwolf
D-C-G-Bb-Gm

“Blister” by Violent Femmes
G-C-Em-D

Exercise 2: The Fret Climb

The purpose of the second exercise is to get you comfortable with moving your fingers up and down on the fret board. The below images will give you an idea of what the Fret Climb looks like. You can use a pick for this exercise, or just use your fingers to pluck the strings.

Index finger, 1^st fret.

Middle finger, 2^nd fret.

Ring finger, 3^rd fret.

Pinky finger, 4^th fret.

Here are the exact steps for this exercise:

1. Push down on the first string (the one furthest from you), 1^st fret, with your index finger. With your other hand, use your index finger to pluck the string. Ensure that a clear, crisp tone emits. If it sounds dull or muted, press down harder on the string.
2. Push down on the first string, 2^nd fret, with your middle finger. With your other hand, use your middle finger to pluck the string.
3. Push down on the first string, 3^rd fret, with your ring finger. With your other hand, pluck the string with your index finger.
4. Push down on the first string, 4^th fret, with your pinky finger. With your other hand, pluck the string with your middle finger.
5. Move your index finger down to the fifth fret.
6. Push down on the first string, 5^th fret, with your index finger. With your other hand, pluck the string with your index finger.
7. Continue “climbing” the fret board until you’ve reached the 12^th fret.
8. Once you’ve climbed all the way up to the 12^th fret, it’s time to do the exercise in reverse. Go all the way back down the string, moving up the neck of the guitar one fret at a time, and plucking the string each time your fingers move down a fret.
9. After you’ve gone up and down the first string, switch to the second string. Do this exercise on all six strings.

Again, it’s important to ensure that you’re getting nice, crisp tones each time you pluck the string. Don’t rush through the exercise if the tones aren’t perfectly clear.

Once you’re comfortable with the Fret Climb, try to increase your speed.

Next Steps

Once you’ve mastered the G-C-D and Fret Climb exercises, you’ll have a nice solid foundation that you can build upon in the months to come. But what do you do after you’ve perfected those two exercises?

I suggest mimicking the Axis of Awesome, then picking and choosing your favorites to learn.

Axis of Awesome

First, prepare to have your mind blown.  Then, watch the The Four Chord Song by Axis of Awesome.

This comedy trio plays 38 pop songs in five minutes using just the E, B, C#m and A chords.  Pick up those new chords, use www.ultimate-guitar.com to look up the below songs for ordering, and you can play them.

How’s that for Minimum Effective Dose?

1.      Journey – Don’t Stop Believing (YouTube, Guitar Tab)
2.      James Blunt – You’re Beautiful (YouTube, Guitar Tab)
3.      Alphaville – Forever Young (YouTube, Guitar Tab)
4.      Jason Mraz – I’m Yours (YouTube, Guitar Tab)
5.      Mika – Happy Ending (YouTube, Guitar Tab)
6.      Alex Lloyd – Amazing (YouTube, Guitar Tab)
7.      The Calling – Wherever You WIll Go (YouTube, Guitar Tab)
8.      Elton John – Can You Feel The Love Tonight (YouTube, Guitar Tab)
9.      Maroon 5 – She Will Be Loved (YouTube, Guitar Tab)
10.     The Last Goodnight – Pictures Of You (YouTube, Guitar Tab)
11.     U2 – With Or Without You (YouTube, Guitar Tab)
12.     Crowded House – Fall At Your Feet (YouTube, Guitar Tab)
13.     Kasey Chambers – Not Pretty Enough (YouTube, Guitar Tab)
14.     The Beatles – Let it Be (YouTube, Guitar Tab)
15.     Red Hot Chili Peppers – Under the Bridge (YouTube, Guitar Tab)
16.     Daryl Braithwaite – The Horses (YouTube, Guitar Tab)
17.     Bob Marley – No Woman No Cry (YouTube, Guitar Tab)
18.     Marcy Playground – Sex and Candy (YouTube, Guitar Tab)
19.     Men At Work – Land Down Under (YouTube, Guitar Tab)
20.     Banjo Patterson’s Waltzing Matilda (YouTube, Guitar Tab)
21.     A Ha – Take On Me (YouTube, Guitar Tab)
22.     Green Day – When I Come Around (YouTube, Guitar Tab)
23.     Eagle Eye Cherry – Save Tonight (YouTube, Guitar Tab)
24.     Toto – Africa (YouTube, Guitar Tab)
25.     Beyonce – If I Were A Boy (YouTube, Guitar Tab)
26.     The Offspring – Self Esteem (YouTube, Guitar Tab)
27.     The Offspring – You’re Gonna Go Far Kid (YouTube, Guitar Tab)
28.     Pink – You and Your Hand (YouTube, Guitar Tab)
29.     Lady Gaga – Poker Face (YouTube, Guitar Tab)
30.     Aqua – Barbie Girl (YouTube, Guitar Tab)
31.     The Fray – You Found Me (YouTube, Guitar Tab)
32.     30h!3 – Don’t Trust Me (YouTube, Guitar Tab)
33.     MGMT – Kids (YouTube, Guitar Tab)
34.     Tim Minchin – Canvas Bags (YouTube, Guitar Tab)
35.     Natalie Imbruglia – Torn (YouTube, Guitar Tab)
36.     Five For Fighting – Superman (YouTube, Guitar Tab)
37.     Axis Of Awesome – Birdplane (YouTube, Guitar Tab)
38.     Missy Higgins – Scar (YouTube, Guitar Tab)

Personalized

Next, you can learn more chords and tabs by tackling the songs you most want to learn (search “[song name] chords” or “[song name] tabs” on Google). One of the reasons people abandon the guitar, even after nailing down the basics, is because they’re learning from material that isn’t fun or interesting enough. It took me (an embarrassing) three full weeks to learn the intro solo from Heart’s “Crazy on You,” but it never felt stale or boring because I loved the material. So pick three of your favorite songs that you really want to learn, and practice each of them until they sound great. When you get bored, concentrate on perfecting the nuances of those songs or move on to new material.

After awhile, you might start thinking about what you’d like your guitar career to look like. Perhaps you want to learn music theory and take classes. Maybe you want to play your favorite songs with your friends at parties. Maybe guitar will be your vehicle for meeting people while traveling. Or maybe you’ll be happy just to have a new hobby that keeps you sane.

Whatever the case, always make sure you’re enjoying the process.

Once you get past these first few weeks, it’s smooth sailing. Have fun!

Gear

Fender Squier SA-100 - This is a great beginner’s acoustic guitar that won’t break the bank (about $100). I learned on a similar Fender model, and have been playing it regularly for five years.

Taylor 110 Dreadnaught - For those wanting a nicer model than the Fender, this acoustic guitar is fantastic and runs for about $600.

Kyser Capo - The most popular quick-release capo. Use it to quickly change the pitch on all six strings, and to reduce soreness in your fingers while practicing.

D’Addario Acoustic Strings - It’s in your interest to buy nice strings for your guitar, as they will last longer and be more comfortable. Get at least two sets, in case a string snaps.

String Winder and Cutter - This handy little tool speeds up the process of restringing your guitar, and has a built-in wire cutter so you can trim the ends of the strings off.

Guitar Picks - You can learn guitar without ever using a pick, but I can guarantee you’ll eventually want to use one. Picks give you a crisper sound and more precision in your playing. You won’t regret practicing with one.

Tools, Tricks, and Resources

Justin Guitar - Justin Sandercoe, a London-based guitarist, assembled more than 500 free lessons, many of which contain video and audio tutorials. This is one of the best resources online if you really want to dive headfirst into learning all things guitar.

Ultimate Guitar - This is my favorite spot for finding free song tabs. One of the site’s most helpful features is its quick display of how a chord is held when you hover your cursor over any chord listed in the song.

“Ocean” by John Butler - My favorite guitar instrumental, by far and away. This song is motivation for me (and several of my friends) to keep practicing. [TIM: Here's a video of a separate friend, Maneesh Sethi, playing Ocean after one week of 4 hours/day practice.]

¹ This is a variation on the more commonly used C-chord, as this one is easier to practice for beginners. With this variation, you won’t have to change the positioning of your hand when transitioning to/from the G-chord.

AFTERWORD: Best of Tips in the Comments

This post produced some GREAT comments and tips from readers. From the first 100 comments, Charlie chose some of his favorites. Here they are…

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How to Practice Guitar

“Using feedback to your advantage” by Mike Roode

I am going to weigh in on this one because the article is missing what I think is the most important thing to getting good fast (other than regularly scheduled effective practice). One word: Feedback.

You need high quality, quick and regular feedback to gain proficiency quickly on any musical instrument.

1. At the end of each practice session, make a video recording of yourself (with your phone or laptop) of you playing what you practiced (song, scales, chord patterns) to a metronome.

2. Always review the last practice session’s recording as the first step in your next practice session. It’s like football, hockey, and other sports — they always watch the game afterwards to look for things they missed in the heat of the moment. It’s the same principle for playing guitar because it requires a lot of hand coordination and listening ability. Make sure to capture the entire guitar in the frame of your camera so you can see where your hands are, your posture, etc. Listen to the sound… Where are the calm notes? Did you drop the beat? It’s very important to always practice with a beat (metronome, drum machine etc.) and to be in tune (use a guitar tuner).

3. Spend time with a good teacher if possible, they will be able to correct things and teach you things that can only happen in a face to face medium.

“Learn shapes, not chords” by Micky H Corbett

1) You only need to learn 3 “shapes” rather than chords and use a capo. With these shapes and use of a capo (to change key) you can play 95% of songs out there.

2) Most shapes (and all for starters) consist of two fingers bunched and one stretched. Sometimes it is just two bunched.

3) You don’t need to play full chords – learn how to use 3 fingers first (index, middle and ring) by using the shapes.

4) DO NOT play all the strings at once – 80% of the time play the lower (base notes) and play the upper strings as highlights. Less is more. It is the difference between teen angst and lounge cool.

5) The chord shapes are: the C/G (as above but don’t need the pinky unless you want to); the A/D – (like D but only index and middle, A is one underneath the other); and Em7 shape (like G but with index and middle on 2nd fret A and D strings – two lowest but one)

That is it. Too much time is spent with learners trying to play full chords and having all the strings ring out. That will come in time. For now, stuff that. Dexterity with minimum movement is what you are after. Combined with only playing groups of strings will make you sound more experienced then you are!

“Effective Practice Tips” by Brandon Bloom

-Know your ultimate guitar playing goals, and figure out what you need to learn/be able to do to reach them. Set measurable goals and a schedule for each practice too. (This might be more for those at an intermediate/advanced level) Aimless practicing is wasted practicing, and consistency is key.

-The more extremely focused your practice is, the better. Especially as you get more advanced, it will take a lot more effort to refine your technique further and further until you reach your goals. The less distractions you have while practicing, and the more focused and uninterrupted you are, the more effective your limited practice time will be.

-Stay as relaxed as possible. Use only as much tension as is necessary to make the sounds you want. Anything excess is holding you back, and while it can take a lot of effort and practice to reduce tension when playing something difficult, do so to the best of your ability.

-Focus on exercises that work multiple techniques at once. While practicing isolated techniques is good, if you have limited time, you might not be able to get to everything. Exercises like ‘string skipping’ focus on alternate and/or directional picking, coordination between your two hands, your fretting technique and string skipping itself, while an alternate picking exercise might only help you get better at alternate picking. I know some of you might not know what all of those terms are, but the important thing to know is that — just like exercising for fitness — certain guitar exercises do more for you than others.

-You don’t need a guitar in your hands to learn songs or new chords/scales. Figure out the gist of the song on guitar if you have to, then go on to practice things that will make you better. Spend the rest of your day, when you have time, visualizing yourself playing the song, what you’d do on the fret board to get the sounds you want, etc. Then next time you sit down with a guitar, since you’ve memorized it in your head, you can focus on mastering the song instead of wasting time trying to remember which part comes next or how to play this or that. This can save you hours of wasted practice time.

-If there is only one part of a passage or song that’s keeping you from playing it perfectly, don’t play through the whole song over and over again hoping you’ll get it right eventually. Focus on that one section of song. Break it down to its simplest form, and blast it until you can nail it consistently. Whether it’s a transition between chords, a certain note pattern or riff, whatever… It’s much more efficient to focus solely on that part and then integrate it back into the song than it is to keep playing that song repeatedly while making the same mistakes.

“Use competition to learn faster” by Daz

I’d advise you to hook up with someone else as soon as possible and learn from each other. Friendly competition, more rewarding and good fun. If you can sing all the better, learn one song and go to an open mic night (if you can’t sing find a singer). There are a million songs that you could play with the chords above – choose one. Trust me: you’ll practice if you know you have a gig at the end of the week. You’ll get a massive rush and want to continue doing it.

“Public accountability” by Debbie Happy Cohen

I applied the accountability principle to art this year… I painted every day for a year, from 11/11/11 to 12/12/12, and posted each one to Facebook (398 paintings!!!) My technique and confidence levels improved dramatically. I was also able to increase my prices and sell more

Intermediate Techniques

“The almighty power chord” by Geoff Strickland

This is exactly how I started learning. Find about 4 basic chords and learn to switch between them. This part SUCKS and you will sound terrible, but trust me, it gets better.

Learn about the almighty power chord (throw the guitar in drop d tuning to make this super easy). This will let you learn just about any mainstream punk/pop or rock song and play the sh** out of your favorites. Keep it simple. Nobody starts out playing Stairway to Heaven…. instead try ‘Smoke on the Water.’

The most important part is to push through the month or so that you aren’t very good. Focus on learning songs you love to stay inspired.

If you want to take the band route (this was the fastest way to catapult my playing to a new level) find some guys that want to learn bass/drums/keys etc and go at it. Sitting around in high school and saying to my friends (none of which could play any instruments) lets form a band was the best decision I’ve ever made.

“Strumming and open chords” by Max

As a guitar teacher for many years, this is very accurate as far as breaking down the basic skills. Here’s what I would add:

1) Learn these 3 basic and common strumming patterns (D=down strum, U=up strum):

– D D DUDU
– D DUD DU
– D DU UDU

2) There are only EIGHT, yes EIGHT basic open position chords (without getting into fancy variations). The open major chords are C, A, G, E, D (spells the word CAGED). Open minor chords are Am, Em, and Dm. Spend your first few months switching between all of these chords (there are millions of songs that only use these chords!). You should be able to switch from any chord to any other chord instantly.

3) Combine basic chord pairings, for example: (C-G), (G-D), (D-A), (E-A), (Am-C), (Em-G) with the strumming patterns above.

This is literally months worth of practice for an absolute beginner.

“Solos and Songwriting” by Andrew Edstrom

I grew up in a very musical family (mom is a professional blues singer and stepdad is a guitar teacher) and I’ve been playing guitar seriously for 7 years. After dozens of paid gigs, and thousands of dollars spent on lessons, these are what I have found to be the 20% of skills that get 80% of the results, beyond what Charlie laid out here.

Solos: If you want to solo, there is only one scale pattern (i.e. collection of notes) you need to know. MOST famous players, including Jimmy Page, Jimi Hendrix, and Eric Clapton, use an extended form of this box for over 90% of their soloing. It’s called the first form of the pentatonic scale, and it is a repeated pattern of five notes that you can see here. If you are playing any of the G C D songs here, put the lowest note of the scale (marked with an R in this picture) on the 12th fret of the low E string. For any of the Axis of Awesome songs, put the lowest note of the scale on the 9th fret. Now practice going up and down the scale in time with the songs and experiment with starting and stopping at different points. Gradually, steal licks from your favorite players and sooner or later you’ll start to come up with some of your own!

Songwriting:? Write your songs in this format: Verse, Chorus, Verse, Chorus, Bridge, Chorus Chorus. For “Good Riddance,” the verse is where he says “Another turning point, a fork stuck in the road…” and the chorus is where he says “It’s something unpredictable, but in the end it’s right.” The bridge is the instrumental breakdown after the second chorus (I advise you to put words in the bridge, however). Got it? Great.

Now which chords should you play in your song, you might ask? Well, fortunately, Charlie already gave you three of them. Write all of your songs with the G C and D chords, as well as the chord E Minor. Experiment with different combinations of these chords. Your verses should all have the same chord progression, and your choruses should have the same chord progression, but the progression in the verses should generally be different from the progression in the choruses. If you use the same chords in both sections, make them last longer in one than the other. The key is variation to maintain the listener’s interest. In the bridge, come up with a new combination of these chords, and try adding the chord A minor for spice. For inspiration on how to combine chords, learn the songs Charlie has listed here. See what decisions those writers made. I also highly recommend learning Taylor Swift songs, no matter your opinion of her music. The only way to avoid writing cliché songs is to learn as many cliché songs as you can so that you know what not to do.

Learning Other Instruments

“80/20 Piano” by Linda Dye

This is foolproof. Anyone can make up their own music. I found out when I lost my vision and was so scared I would not be able to play piano because I always read the music and could not play by ear. I heard a Ray Charles song and realized, he was playing on the black keys. Revelation! (My vision came back later.) Baby What’d I Say – it’s blues with a 1-4-5 pattern, starting on the E-flat. But even if you don’t know music or what that stuff means, you can use the black keys to improvise and play a relaxing melody.

This is what I show children how to do—Play a black key with your left hand and press the foot pedal at the same time, holding it down. (There are 3, use the right foot on the far right pedal.) The note will sustain itself. Touch a black key with your right hand, then another, try to make a pattern, then repeat it a couple of times if it sounds good. Play another note with your left hand, down in the bass notes, the low notes, and again move around in the treble, high notes, with the right hand. STAY ON THE BLACK KEYS and you will not make a mistake. Try to establish a rhythm, which is just the beat. If it sounds a bit wrong, do it again, as if you meant to do it, then move to a sound you like better. Maybe this will be the first song you’ve ever composed.

To end it, you can repeat that first pattern, hold the last note and maybe do one last bass note. Breathe in, breathe out, close your eyes, and you will feel the music, plus look cerebral and cool.? Let the pedal up now and then or it will sound too murky, maybe when you change bass notes… Just to prove my point when someone is skeptical, I have played on the black notes with my fist, forearm, and even my elbow, and can make it sound like it goes together.

Try googling 1-4-5 and blues scale for more. There are tons of music lessons out there. Learn the circle of fifths, learn the scales and the chords, major and minor. You will never run out of things to learn with music.

“80/20 Flute” by Kaylin Johnson

Here are some key points for applying the 80/20 principle to classical flute, designed for someone who can already read music:

(1) When playing solos and other pieces, flute players rarely benefit from re-playing the portions they can already play well. I see a lot of students who are so determined to play perfectly from start to finish. They end up wasting a lot of time playing the portions they have already mastered, when instead the majority of practice time could more efficiently be spent focusing on the parts that are causing them difficulty.

(2) All etudes and exercises are not created equal. I once had a teacher tell me that if I could master the exercises in the Taffanel/Gaubert 17 daily exercises book, I could play almost any solo. This is true to some degree, but I would recommend focusing on the portions you need for each solo as you choose to focus on it, unless your goal is accurate sight-reading in an orchestra or other performance group.

(3) I completely agree with Tim that consistency is key when it comes to practicing. My first band teacher said to practice eight minutes a day (about an hour a week), and that actually got me into the practice habit because it was achievable. I worked up to two hours a day, but, looking back, I’m not sure that playing past an hour was worth it. I got through more content (etudes, exercises, solos, etc.) but I don’t think it was necessary based on the 80/20 principle. I’ve also heard of many serious musicians who develop problems in their hands or other parts of the body, which seems like a huge motivator to practice smarter, not longer.

(4) A private teacher can be an immensely powerful motivator for practicing and designing a plan for advancement. If you are looking to do something unconventional, such as following the 80/20 principle, it may take a few teachers before you find one who supports you. For example, I play with an unusual embouchure (lip placement) and all but one teacher out of five was determined to have me learn “proper” embouchure if I studied under them. I went with the one who wanted to work with me as I was, and still found success without undergoing a lengthy re-learning process. To note, a teacher can also serve as a mentor and a friend, so I recommend scheduling shorter lessons and getting right down to business if you want to get the most for your money. You can even warm up ahead of time if possible to save a few minutes.

(5) Having the right tools, such as a tuner that can detect notes or a metronome, eliminate guesswork and save you a lot of time and effort.

(6) When working with other groups, such as small ensembles or piano accompanists, listen to recordings ahead of time, if available. When you are paying someone like an accompanist per hour, you don’t want to be paying to learn how each part sounds together. Instead, you should be focusing items such as cues, tuning, and entrances.

Some of these principles may apply to other instruments as well, especially woodwinds.

Preface from Tim

The following is a guest post by John-Clark Levin, Joe Luchsinger, and Jason Soll.

I’ve been waiting for the perfect time to publish it, and today is that day. Why? I have big battles coming next week, and they make me want to tackle the world.

By the time you finish reading this post, you’ll learn how they:

• Booked the heart of Times Square for three days for only $20
• Brought together teams of elite competitors from as far away as Nepal and New Zealand
• Organized a record-breaking competition as full-time college students…from 3,000 miles away
• Received a promotion on every page of YouTube.com, ultimately receiving over 800,000 webcast views and tens of thousands of comments during the course of the event
• Landed extensive coverage by the Wall Street Journal, ABC, NBC, CBS, and AOL News
• More than doubled the previous Guinness World Record for the Longest Continuous Handshake

After telling the crazy story behind this event, called “Shaking History,” they’ll teach:

• How systematically studying both your successes and failures can take you to the next level
• Why taking on charitable projects allows you to make astounding breakthroughs in the size and scale of your endeavors
• How to achieve spectacular results by defining your own “best practices”
• Why you can be the best in the world at something

Now, on to the story…

Enter John-Clark

“This is Jason, leave a message after the beep.”

I pressed the cellphone to my head, trying to be heard over the hubbub of JFK’s Terminal 4.  “Jason, this is John-Clark.  Still no sign of the Nepalese, but they should have arrived more than an hour ago.  But listen–I’m starting to really feel sick here.  Call me back when you can.”

The arrivals lobby swam in and out of focus.  I steadied myself on a steel railing, scanning the crowd of unfamiliar faces for two people I had never met in my life.

Brothers Rohit and Santosh Timilsina had never been to the United States–Santosh, the younger one, had never been outside Nepal at all.  Yet they were about to appear on the way out of customs, and my job was to ferry them safely to their hotel in Midtown Manhattan.  The eyes of their home country were upon them, and thousands waited eagerly for news of their safe arrival.  The Nepalese government had seen them off with great fanfare.  The Brothers Timilsina had flown here from the other side of the world for a simple handshake.

It had all started almost two years before.  One of my lifelong goals had been to break a Guinness World Record and make it into the bestselling book, but I had always dismissed that as something to attempt in some future time and place.  But one night during my Freshman year of college, a startling idea came to me: now was the time.  I quickly researched records that might be possible to break, in search of the entry that would fulfill my childhood dream. When most people think of what it takes to set a Guinness World Record, they imagine holding insects in their mouth, juggling chainsaws, or pulling jumbo jets across a runway.  There is a different record, though, that all of us have experience with.  It is a gesture of good will, peace and friendship the world over: the handshake.  I found a college friend to shake hands with, and we started practicing to achieve the world’s “Longest Continuous Handshake.”  Guinness World Records sets incredibly high standards—the standing record was 10 hours, and even the slightest pause in our handshake could nullify the attempt.  With a great sense of urgency, we secured the use of our college’s main auditorium and directed well-wishers to make donations on our behalf to the Cancer Research Institute.  Two weeks to the day after the idea first came to me, we had achieved the longest handshake in human history: 10 hours, 10 minutes, 10 seconds.  But that was only the beginning of the story.

The following summer, an Australian team broke our record, and less than a month later, we took the record back with an even longer handshake.  The following year, I was doing research for an article I wrote for the Wall Street Journal about my experience breaking the handshake record, when I learned that my record had been broken by a pair of brothers from Nepal.  My second record, 15 hours, 15 minutes and 15 seconds, had been easily broken by the new attempt in Kathmandu, which clocked in at 19 hours, 35 minutes.

And it wasn’t just the Nepalese who were interested in this record.  As I researched, I found that teams from Australia, Canada, Germany, New Zealand and the UK had also notched record-breaking handshakes–each time to raise money and awareness for various charities.  What was lacking in these attempts, though, was the motivating pressure of direct competition.  Even in my own attempt, my shaking partner and I had simply decided on a time and paced ourselves until we got there.  Not much drama in that.

I talked over the problem with two college friends, Jason Soll and Joe Luchsinger.  They agreed that if there were some way to bring these teams together for a head-to-head competition, not only would the world record likely be shattered, but the impact for the charities was almost certain to be magnified greatly.  Jason could manage the event, while Joe would be my shaking partner.  It sounded like a great plan.  It was, of course, completely crazy.

Even tracking the teams down was harder than we’d imagined.  We spent countless hours scouring the internet to find contact information–and many more on the phone with journalists and editors who had covered the other teams’ previous record attempts.  The dead ends piled up throughout September and October of 2010, but eventually we had enough tentative commitments to try to find a sponsor to fly in the international teams.

To be sure, there’s room in the world for all kinds of obscure extreme sports. Skysurfing, BASE jumping, parkour–each has its own fans and its own sponsors.  But competitive handshaking might be just a little too far out there, we learned.  We spent months trying to secure sponsorship, but week after week ground by with little progress.  Energy drink companies turned us down.  Sporting good companies turned us down.  Hand sanitizer companies turned us down.  It was starting to look like the handshake competition would remain a pipe dream.

Then one of our pitches fell on the right ears. A Fortune 1000 CEO was intrigued by the idea and agreed to sponsor us personally for part of the total budget. The next week, Jason and I met with Pamela Gann, the president of our college in Southern California.  Claremont McKenna College is known for its emphasis on leadership, government and economics, and President Gann saw that handshakes were a natural fit.  She enthusiastically supported our enterprise and agreed to financially support the event as a primary sponsor.  A few other private donations rounded out the budget, and our project suddenly had life.

By now it was December, though, and our event was scheduled for January 14th.  As students all around us crammed for final exams, we worried about final votes.  Our dream venue was Times Square, New York City, but what were the chances?  Most blocks in Times Square would have cost at least $19,000 a day–far beyond our modest funding.  There was one block, though–Father Duffy Square–which was administered by the Department of Parks and Recreation instead of the Mayor’s Office.  Parks would give us the space for a nominal fee, but only if Manhattan’s Community Board 5 gave its approval.  On December 9th, a full board vote confirmed our permit overwhelmingly. Yet despite the approval, Father Duffy Square typically charges around $60,000 a day for events. But, in the 4-Hour spirit, we wanted to see how low we could take the venue fee. Because the event served to benefit charities, we were able to secure the venue for three days for only $20. I have to admit, I was feeling pretty good about myself.

My phone grated in the darkness.  I rolled over in bed and squinted at the bright screen.  The call was coming from a number with many more digits than I was used to seeing.  “Hello?”

“This is Rohit Timilsina from Nepal,” said an accented voice over the faint connection.  “Is it night there?”

The clock on my nightstand read 3:52 AM.  “Sort of,” I said.  “What can I do for you?”  Rohit told me that I would need to supply information to the United States embassy in Kathmandu, and soon.  Otherwise, he might not get his visa in time to fly to New York.  I made a call to the U.S. consular in Nepal, and the process went smoothly.  As I came to learn, the whole country was swelling with excitement about the upcoming competition.

Each team was competing on behalf of the charity of its choice.  The Nepalese, for example, were shaking on behalf of the Women’s Foundation of Nepal.  I was shaking on behalf of Teach for America.  By the rules of the event, the team that continued its handshake the longest would get a majority of the total event proceeds for its charity.  The rest of the funds raised would be divided among the other charities represented.

The final weeks before the competition were a blaze of details.  The competition site would need heaters, barricades, tables, chairs, and dozens of other essentials that we knew still weren’t everything.  Because we planned to stream a video feed of the event live around the world, we would need a high-speed internet link and a generator to power it.  Then, a real sucker punch.  Unbeknownst to us, Father Duffy Square closed every night at 1AM and didn’t reopen until the early morning.  We knew that we would now have to pack up the whole venue and move the contestants to an indoor venue during the wee hours of the morning, all while maintaining seamless handshakes.  Still, the city wanted us to arrange for private security to protect the generators and heavy equipment during the night.  As costs spiraled upward, it seemed as though the red tape was closing in around us.  Working with the bureaucracy of Gotham is always tough, but for three college students 3,000 miles away, it was maddening.

And then there was Guinness.  Guinness World Records Ltd. has a very stringent application process to ensure the rigor and safety of all record attempts, and “Longest Continuous Handshake” is one of their most unforgiving records.  Even a second’s pause in the handshake is enough to disqualify an attempt, and every moment must be carefully recorded on video.  Already perilously close to the limit of our budget, we had to recruit an all-volunteer crew of videographers.  Additionally, Guinness requires that witnesses and trained medical observers monitor the event from start to finish.  On top of all that, we would have an official Guinness World Records adjudicator on site as the records were broken.

Reams of paperwork consumed my last few days to departure.  The night before my flight, I was starting to come down with a nasty virus.  Worse, the weather forecast was looking shaky.  New York was going to be slammed with up to a foot of snow just two days before the start of the event.  A few days afterward, another blizzard was expected to batter the city.  The handshake–outdoors, as I confirmed to scores of incredulous friends and family–was wedged into a 48-hour break in the weather.  We could only hope it stayed open.

Two days after my own arrival, I was back at JFK airport, waiting for the Nepalese to arrive.  Again my phone rang with a call from a number with many digits.  “Hello?”

“This is Chandra Sharma from Nepal,” an unfamiliar voice said, clearly very close.  I whirled around.  A big man in an overcoat was waving, joined by two smaller figures who I knew had to be Rohit and Santosh.  We shook hands warmly and exchanged greetings.  Chandra, it turned out, was an American citizen who had flown out from Kathmandu at his own expense to help the Timilsina brothers cope with life in the Big Apple.  We packed into a taxi–avoiding several predatory gypsy cabs on the way–and set off for Midtown.

When we got Rohit and Santosh checked into their hotel, we began to realize just how strange and wondrous New York City must have seemed to them.  They hung back at crosswalks, quite naturally intimidated by the rush of honking cars–until Jason explained that the white walking man in the signal box meant that it was safe to cross.  Taking them into a pizzeria for dinner that night, their mouths fell open.  Rohit’s voice fell to a panicky whisper.  “What is this?”  With everything else on our plate, Jason realized that introducing the Nepalese to Neapolitan cuisine just wasn’t in the cards, so down the street they went in search of Indian food.

The next night, Team New Zealand was scheduled to arrive after being held up in San Francisco due to weather delays.  It had been a major coup to bring them out.  Alastair Galpin is the number two Guinness World Record-breaker in the world, with dozens of records to his name–including “Loudest Clap” (113 dBA, louder than some jet aircraft at 100 meters), “Most Gloves Worn on One Hand” (24 gloves), and the slightly disturbing “Most Cucumbers Snapped in One Minute” (a total of 75).  More importantly, he was the first person to set the “Longest Continuous Handshake” record.  Alastair’s partner, Don Purdon, was a triathlete and business consultant with a background in sports psychology.  With Don’s help, they had gained the advice of more than a dozen scientists and experts on how to maximize their performance.  Alastair had spent the past week with ice packs strapped to his bare arm, shaking a bottle of sandwich spread from morning to night.  Together, they made a formidable team.

As I guzzled Emergen-C in my room, Jason got the Kiwis settled, and Joe arrived with the videographers.  Reports began to drift in from home about media that had featured the event.  Excited relatives called after seeing a segment on ABC back home in Los Angeles.  Even better, the Wall Street Journal was interested in covering it.  The competitors were stunned to hear that they had 30 minutes to get dressed and travel by taxi to News Corp.’s huge steel-and-glass headquarters on Corporate Row.  Each one of them took great pleasure in initiating the business reporter interviewing us into new facets of the strange world of competitive handshaking.  “Look, I’m in it to win it,” Alastair told the Journal’s videographer, demurring on the subject of his secret techniques.  We all knew he meant it.

I awoke very late on competition day.  Jason and Joe had insisted that I get as much rest as possible, so it wasn’t until almost 4:00PM that I joined the others in the hotel lobby.  The competition was scheduled for an 8:00PM start.

Then, a worried call from Jason, who had gone down to the venue.  “We’re trying to get the heaters working, but something’s wrong.”

The sand in our hourglass was rapidly dwindling.  Sponsors, media and supporters in at least a dozen countries around the world had all been told that the live webcast would begin at eight o’clock sharp, and we couldn’t keep everyone waiting.

At the same time, with temperatures hovering several degrees below freezing, it would be very risky to start without heat.  When I arrived at Father Duffy Square, I saw the problem.  The heating unit was a new radiant model that we were told would be far better than the older liquid-fuel burners.  Trouble was, it was only glowing a feeble red–enough to keep roast beef warm, maybe, but hardly enough to overcome the full blast of a Canadian cold front.

Then the internet went down.  Jason and the volunteers were fighting to stay calm and keep the competitors warm and busy.  A crowd was beginning to form around the circle of stanchions that had been set up around us at the center of the plaza.  I checked my watch.  7:30.  Then 7:45.  Still no internet.  We were supposed to be live by now.

“Jason?” I asked as he hunched over a laptop, trying to will our WiFi to life.

“Yeah?”

“Are the paramedics all signed into the medical observer logbook for Guinness?”

“We have a problem with that.”

A problem?  He said it so neatly that it could only be a catastrophic one.

“Even though we had the contract all signed, they’re saying they won’t let the paramedics stay out in the cold like this.  They’re pulling the plug.”

Were I given to under-breath profanity muttering, this would have been the moment. Unless we could find a medical professional in–I checked my watch again–three minutes, we wouldn’t be able to start the event.  The internet was still down.

Jason called for all the teams to get into position.  The video checks were clear.  Joe and I stretched our hands, enjoying the last minutes of freedom in who knows how long.

We were late.  It seemed like the crowd was murmuring impatiently, but I’ll never know how much of that was just my own fears.  By 8:15, it was clear that the event couldn’t be delayed any longer.  Jason had found a doctor against all odds, so we decided to start the handshake and bring up the video feed once it was already underway.  The crowd–dozens of people lined the barricades now–joined in the countdown.

“Five…  Four…  Three…”  Joe and I clasped hands.  “Two… One…  Go!”  Almost automatically, we were off.  The energy of the moment wiped away any chance for reflection.  Our whole world had tunneled down to one set of pumping hands.

We began the set of protocols for controlling who was “powering the shake” at any given time.  Each hand in a handshake is like a wave, with crests and troughs running down the length of the arm.  If my crest (the top of my upward motion) lined up with Joe’s trough (the bottom of his downward motion), they would cancel out, and the shake would be interrupted.  Even if that happens twenty hours in, it’s curtains.  So we devised a set of code words and commands so that exactly one person would always be powering the shake–giving the other person a chance to go limp, relax, and maybe even catch a few winks.  Other code words governed our responses to various emergencies.  If one of us spotted an interloper trying to climb over the barricades and disrupt the shake, we would shout “Yankee!  Yankee!  Yankee!” and drop to a crouch that protected the handshake between our torsos.

The other teams had different protocols.  Behind me, I could hear the Nepalese talking quietly in their native language, while Alastair’s voice periodically cut above the crowd with reports delivered in clipped staccato: “Alastair: shaking.  Alastair: shaking.  Alastair: relaxing.”  Ahead, a team from San Francisco was chatting in English.

It’s strange how time flies when you’re shaking hands.  Before I got myself into this most unusual of sports, I had imagined that minutes would creep by–that I would have a chance to read hundreds of pages and exhaust an iPod’s worth of music in an effort to stay sane.  Instead, the motion is strangely meditative.  Keeping the shake going without the slightest pause is actually so absorbing that even conversation is often difficult.  Next thing you know, one or two or even three hours have slipped by.

About two hours had passed when I heard concerned voices behind me.  Rohit’s shoes were not warm enough, and his feet were getting dangerously cold.  If conditions didn’t improve soon, he’d have to drop out to avoid serious frostbite.  Team New Zealand was warm, though, and plugging away with scientific precision.

The volunteers tried to warm Rohit’s feet with blankets, but nothing seemed to work, and his condition was worsening.  Then, one of the Nepalese onlookers at the barricade learned what was happening, and without hesitation removed his own boots and socks and gave them to Rohit, whose feet quickly warmed.  I was stunned to see the barefoot man stay for hours more, cheering his countrymen on with a smile on his face.  The live stream was working at last, and the large Nepalese contingent waved flags and sung songs without rest.  Chandra walked the inside of the barricades, working the crowd and leading cheers with unbelievable energy.

It was around midnight, and we made the decision to go indoors an hour early due to the problems with the heater.  We had a banquet room at the Marriott Marquis, less than a block away, but the transfer would still be frighteningly complex.  The teams would be taken inside one at a time, along with two videographers and the required witnesses and medical observers.  Times Square security and NYPD would help us keep the crowds back, but once in the hotel, we were on our own.  Everyone knew that all it would take was one lunatic to ruin everything.

Just as plans for the move inside were being finalized, I started feeling very sick again.  The strange numbness in my face and hands that I had felt in the terminal at JFK returned, and I found myself shivering and short of breath.  They hustled me into the Marriott, and as I warmed up, the symptoms faded.  The other teams were brought upstairs, and the live video feed switched to a shot from inside the room.

Joe and I were taking hour-long shifts–I would power the shake for an hour and then he would take it for an hour.  Keeping up a steady diet of Power Bars and Ricola, I was starting to feel decidedly better.  Then my stomach turned.

“Joe,” I grunted while powering the shake.

“What’s up?”

I felt bad.  He had been resting.  “Joe, I’m not feeling so good again.”  Bad nausea now.  Joe powered up, and powered me down, all according to our protocol.  He called the volunteers to prepare the cameras and witnesses for a bathroom run.  I figured if I could just get to a toilet and vomit, maybe I would feel better.  “Please hurry,” I whispered.  My face was alternately prickly and numb again, and it felt like someone was squeezing my hands.  Come to think of it, someone was squeezing one of my hands.  But my left hand had no excuse.  The numbness was spreading to my back.

The camera crew was ready, and Joe and I carefully got out of our chairs and stood up.  I was more nauseous than I’d ever been in my life–and having once had a run in with tainted mussels, that’s saying something.  I was starting to think I’d throw up right there in the room, all over the expensive patterns in the carpet.

“Loosen his clothes!  Loosen his clothes!”

I was on the ground, looking up at my empty right hand.  In books, I’d always read about people waking up from losses of consciousness with a “Where am I?” sort of feeling, and a certain period of gradual reorientation, but not with me.  The vision of my open hand said it all.

“The paramedics are on their way.”

Soon, a crowd of men in coveralls tromped into the room and started taking my vitals.  I figured all this was at least making good TV for everyone watching the webcast.  It was just after 4:30AM in New York, so night owls in Nepal and early birds in London were watching everything unfold live.  I didn’t want to go to the hospital, so I was ordered to go to sleep.

By the time I awoke in the morning, everyone else had left the room and set up again in Father Duffy Square, where the heater had finally been fixed.  The night had taken its toll, though.  One team had lasted only fifteen minutes–but even Joe and I had only made it eight and a half hours.  As I crossed the barricades after breakfast on Saturday, it was down to just the Nepalese and the New Zealanders.

At eleven o’clock, the Guinness World Records adjudicator arrived.  Sara Wilcox was quick to ensure that everything had gone by the book thus far, but much to our relief, she seemed quite pleased.  The standing official Guinness World Record would be broken just after 11:45AM.  The previous Nepalese attempt, which was still technically under review, would be surpassed at 3:50PM.  Just over an hour later, they would break the longest documented attempt, a recent Canadian effort, and start out into uncharted territory.

Our webcast was part of the beta test of new live stream features for YouTube, so the event was featured in a banner that appeared over every page on the website that afternoon. YouTube, along with all of the other event partners, had rallied behind the charitable nature of this event and offered to help promote the competition. As the records fell, one by one, interest ramped up to the point that we were getting several YouTube comments every second.  Many, of course, were scatological drivel, but we were at least glad that the charities were getting so much attention.

The Nepalese were still out there, indefatigable Chandra at their head, singing encouragement to Rohit and Santosh, who seemed to be keeping up an unsustainable pace–nearly twice as fast as the New Zealanders, who were maintaining their strict regimen of vitamins and high-nutrition foods.  “Alastair: shaking.  Alastair: shaking.  Alastair: shaking.”  There weren’t as many Kiwis in the crowd as Nepalese, but Alastair and Don were making up any morale deficit with iron discipline.

Volunteers rushed in every few minutes to spoon feed them mashed potatoes or hand them bottles of Vitamin C.  The Timilsina brothers, meanwhile, were eating irregularly, and having spicy foods brought to them.  Trips to the bathroom just to urinate were difficult enough, and Jason and I feared that an attempt to make “number two” might lead the Nepalese to disqualification.  They had already had a very close shave when Rohit had put his hand under the soap dispenser on his first trip to the toilet.  The motion sensor automatically discharged a spurt of foam, and Rohit had recoiled in alarm, nearly breaking the shake.  The vagaries of what we delicately referred to as an “excretory maneuver” were scary to even consider.

It was getting into the evening again.  The sun set, and the crowd soon chanted off the final seconds to the 24-hour mark.  Donations and messages of support were pouring in from every corner of the world.  As organizers, we alternated between incredulity that the competitors could go on for another second, and terror that the contest might go on for weeks unabated.

The numbers were beginning to come in from YouTube.  More than half a million people had been watching the web cast.

Night had fallen and the massive jumbotrons lit the canyon of Times Square. As Jason and I narrated the live video feed for the growing global audience, we watched in awe as Team Nepal and Team New Zealand continued to extend the world record. Periodically, Alastair and Don would send for bananas, potatoes, and triple-shot espressos. We stirred electrolyte-enhanced beverages, placed energy candies in their mouths, and adjusted their clothing frequently. They were intensely focused, never letting their emotions take hold. They were in it to win it, and any moment now, Team Nepal could fall. Alastair and Don kept peering over their shoulders, waiting for their young, inexperienced opponents to crumble.

But Rohit and Santosh, with their country behind them, were still going strong, and were constantly smiling and laughing. Meanwhile, they were still shaking hands far too fast. Team Nepal was doing everything wrong: their clothes, nutrition, and technique seemed unsustainable. Beyond doubt, though, they were blessed with the magic of smiles, community, and heart. Chandra would occasionally hold his cell phone next to the brothers as family and friends sent words of encouragement from home. Theaters in Nepal were filled as people gathered to watch the live stream projected from an internet feed.

Before we knew it, the night had run out, and it was time to go back into the Marriott.  Guarding the two remaining teams like Secret Service agents flanking a sitting president, we managed to get them safely inside.  The Nepalese spectators formed a cordon around us, still in buoyant spirits, and led us safely to our banquet room, where many stayed for hours.

The night ground on.  Even though both teams were still going strong, the strain was beginning to tell.  By thirty hours, the body begins to physically break down, as lack of sleep causes tissues to start consuming themselves for energy.  Hallucinations can creep up almost unnoticed.

Our reservation of Father Duffy Square only went through Sunday.  If one of the teams didn’t quit soon, we would need to find another venue, and fast.  And Don’s flight back to New Zealand was Sunday afternoon, we realized.  The teams had already far outstripped even the most generous projections we had made when booking the flights, and it was coming down to the wire now.  We would have to make a decision some time in the early morning whether to make the arrangements to continue the competition into Monday.

It was pointless, though.  If the handshake continued into Monday, it could just as well go on through Tuesday, or Wednesday, or the Wednesday after that.  And changing the flight reservations would be painfully expensive.

Jason and I had a hushed conversation in one corner of the banquet room.  On the other side, a hardy contingent of Nepalese were still awake, keeping up Rohit’s morale.  We tried to judge how much gas was left in each team’s tank.  Both were clearly in pain now, but their handshakes were as steady as ever.

“Can we ask if they’d be willing to declare a draw?” Jason asked.

“I dunno,” I said.  “Like Alastair said, they’re in it to win it.”

We agreed that if one of the teams brought it up of their own accord, we would be in the clear, but the odds of that seemed fantastically remote.  We dreaded having to bring it up to the teams ourselves, but I didn’t see any way around it.

Miraculously, the New Zealanders brought it up first.

“Jason!” Don hissed across the room.  “Jason!  Can we talk to you?”

It was a quarter to four in the morning.  Thirty-one and a half hours.  Alastair’s eyes were glazed, but he was still grinding on–and the Nepalese incredibly showed no signs of slowing.  Jason and I sidled up to the table.  “What’s going on?”

“We’ve been talking,” Don said, “and there’s no end in sight here.  I’m dead tired–I’ll keep boxing on if I have to, but the Nepalese have got to be getting tired, too.  We think maybe they would be interested in some kind of a joint thing.  Do you know if that’s possible?”

As it happened, the Guinness adjudicator had mentioned this specifically as a possibility.  “Yeah,” I said, “Sara explicitly okayed it yesterday.”  Was it only yesterday?  I had lost almost all sense of time.  Out the huge windows, it felt like Times Square should just be cycling through the dinner crowd.

“Are you absolutely sure?”  Alastair asked pointedly, coming out of his funk.  “Are you absolutely sure that the record can be held jointly?”

“Positive,” Jason said.  “But it has to come from you.  We don’t want to impose this on either team.”

“Right.”

We slipped away, and the New Zealanders called Chandra over to propose sharing the record.  From a distance, I could see a tear running down Chandra’s cheek as they spoke.  He relayed the offer to Santosh and Rohit, who soon called us over.

They were overjoyed.  There’s something primal about humans bonding over intense physical exertion.  Maybe it’s just romanticizing to say that the immense respect the teams developed for each other was akin to the closeness shared on football teams or among soldiers, but I don’t think so.  They had pushed themselves beyond what the experts had said the human body was capable of, and emerged victorious.  Agreeing to share the record was the highest compliment they could pay each other.

Just before 5:00AM, Jason sprinted down to Father Duffy Square to fire up the generator and prepare the venue. Chandra told us that national television in Nepal was carrying our video feed from our indoor venue, and we knew that this climactic conclusion had to be seen by the world.  Once we had safely moved the teams outdoors, the cameras were rolling and the stream was live.

Jason explained the agreement to the global audience and announced that the shared world record would be 33 hours, 3 minutes.  He adjusted Team New Zealand and Team Nepal until they stood perfectly back-to-back. Raising his hands high, he began the countdown.

As Jason’s hands hovered in the air above the two greatest handshakes in history, the intensity of the moment dawned upon me: history was now in his hands. If the shakes were not broken at the exact same moment, one team would walk away victorious and the other empty-handed. After 33 of the most intense physical and mental hours of these competitors’ lives, it would all come down a fraction of a second. “Three! Two! One! Zero!”

Perfect.

Jason’s hands broke both shakes at the exact same moment, thus sealing for history an unprecedented, shared record between Team Nepal and Team New Zealand.

Enter Jason, Joe, and John-Clark

Nearly two years after exchanging hugs and handshakes with the competitors and volunteers at 5:18am in Times Square, the three of us organizers find ourselves in many different places. John-Clark recently competed on Jeopardy! and is publishing a book on private navies this spring. Jason recently worked at Udacity and is pursuing his MBA at the Stanford Graduate School of Business. Joe is finishing his triple-major in Neuroscience, Psychology and Physics, minoring in both Chemistry and Biology, and is the co-author of The Gedanken Institute Book of Puzzles (to be released this winter). He is also a Senior Associate at the Baldwin Wallace Neuroscience Laboratory, which was just named Program of the Year by the Society for Neuroscience. The takeaways from the event continue to unravel. All in all, what this event demonstrated is the sheer power of the 4-Hour approach to motivation and dedication, with regard to both lifestyle and body hacking.

Why taking on charitable projects allows you to make astounding breakthroughs in the size and scale of your endeavors

For us, Shaking History’s emphasis on charity was always a driving motivational factor. Everyone knows that charitable events can go a long way to help charities and provide great personal satisfaction. What we also learned, though, was that doing something for a good cause is the best way to involve other people in what you’re doing. From booking Times Square for three days for only $20 to partnering with YouTube.com for promoting our live webcast to its millions of users, the dozens of times when luck tilted results in our favor were likely due to the charitable nature of the event. When cold-calling a corporate executive to ask for a partnership, discount, or personal favor, you will always have more success when calling on behalf of a charitable cause. Frankly, it is by far the greatest way to increase your odds of being able to do something huge. If you make those same requests to the same corporate executive on behalf of a startup, selfless favors are no longer an option. By combining the entrepreneurial lifestyle hacking methods from The 4-Hour Workweek with charitable projects, you increase the likelihood of gaining the skills, experiences, and relationships that will get allow you to succeed in future endeavors.  Centering your life around charitable causes makes it much easier to bring people on board to your vision, projects, and life.

How systematically studying both your successes and failures can take you to the next level

The three of us have always believed that in order to become successful in life, you need to be able to learn as much from your successes as your failures.  Say, for example, you’re driving your car through an intersection as the light goes from yellow to red.  A turning car comes within inches of crashing in to you, but thankfully, you drive away unscathed.  Most people will feel an overwhelming sense of relief that dwindles throughout the course of the ride.  The most effective people try to learn as much from the near miss as they would have from a collision.  When the next close call comes, they will be wiser.  All of life’s near misses grant us incredible learning opportunities: those who forcefully learn from them are at a significant advantage over those who don’t.

The three of us have spent dozens of hours carefully analyzing our event’s successes and failures. Many things went wrong during the event that we scarcely could have imagined.  It was only by careful planning and redundant logistics that Shaking History succeeded.  Some potential failures were averted in equally unexpected ways.  For example, if the Nepalese spectator had not removed his shoes, given them to Rohit, and stood out in the freezing New York winter barefoot, the entire event could have been compromised. Team Nepal would have probably called it quits early to prevent Rohit’s feet from getting frostbite. Thus, the competition would have been over shortly before 5:00am on the Saturday, January 15^th. That, along with dozens of other moments, could have jeopardized everything. Talk about a near miss!

We also learned that you don’t have to have everything go right in order for an event to be a success. Despite the widespread global publicity the charities received, we were disappointed to find that only a small minority of spectators actually donated. We had used an experimental, open-ended donation platform whereby donors pledged a certain amount per hour as long as the competition ensued. We received reports that the donation form crashed occasionally and that many donors were unable to pledge. The SMS donation platform hardly brought in any funds at all. While the thousands of dollars we raised went a long way for the charities in Nepal and New Zealand, we know that we could have done a much better job. We’ve spent many hours on this subject alone and have come up with nearly twenty suggestions for improvement. When it’s time for the next event, whatever that may be, we will be much better prepared as a result of our thorough debriefing process.

How to achieve spectacular results by defining your own “best practices”

Launching a new company and transforming your body have an important element in common: you are stepping into the unknown world of complexity. Unlike training to become an Olympic runner or NBA player, Guinness World Records represent unchartered territory for human accomplishment. Training to become a star sprinter is easier now than ever before: this is because the techniques and training regimens have been defined and refined time and time again. Deciding to break a Guinness World Record is an entirely different animal. You have to be relentlessly committed to experimenting with new techniques and training methods, constantly searching for new ways to measure progress. Blindly following pre-defined best practices is not an option: breaking Guinness World Records requires intense creativity and persistence. Alastair Galpin, the #2 world record breaker that competed in our event, recounts his innovative preparation for the event:

A sports physiologist had drawn up a physical training regime for me to cover the short lead-up period, as well as given dietary and general advice. I had already begun shaking a sandwich spread bottle, which I then needed to pay more attention to. By the time Don and I left for New York, I’d shaken the jar for 165 hours. Doing so with ice packs strapped to the affected muscles had earned me strange looks in my neighbourhood, although I was more attentive to my increasingly sore right shoulder and forearm. My being left-handed and Don’s being right-handed meant we both had to learn a range of new skills with our free hand, which took perseverance.

I asked several local businesses with cold storage if we could practise in their freezers to help our bodies adjust. All said no. Don and I went to stand in a local snow sports centre where staff was helpful and where we quickly found the weak aspects of our planning coming to the fore.

An innovation consultant, hearing my fears about my hand freezing, suggested I slide a sheath of bubble wrap packaging around my right arm, which could be pulled down over Don’s and my grip in the event of extreme cold. I made such a contraption which was to the envy of the other teams. (For more information about Alastair Galpin, visit http://www.worldrecordchase.com)

Alastair is a perfect example of the power of personal best practices.  He was not born uncommonly strong or fast or dexterous.  He was not born with a particular talent for clapping hands or snapping cucumbers.  Rather, he approaches all these endeavors with a commitment to stretching the limits of his own ability.  When Alastair sets himself a new challenge, he studies and analyzes the problem rigorously, figures out what training methods work best for him, and constantly reevaluates how those methods are working.  Over time, the techniques he’s learned have evolved into a set of best practices that allow him to approach new problems with confidence and a solid plan for success.  Developing your own best practices is a key to breaking Guinness World Records and achieving anything else that’s difficult for you.

Why you can be the best person in the entire world at something

The most inspiring and empowering takeaway of our Guinness experience, ultimately, was just how easy it was.  Two weeks to the day after first getting the idea to break a world record during his Freshman year, John-Clark had completed the longest continuous handshake in human history.  Shaking History in Times Square was much more difficult, but it was still a sobering realization that as college students, we were still able to pull it off at all.  Recordbreaking, we found, was not about vast resources or natural talent.  It is about dedication and persistence.  There’s a real sense that anyone regardless of age, talent or disability, can look through the Guinness World Records book and find something that they can become better at than anyone else on the planet.  This is worth much more than bragging rights.  Rather, we like to think of recordbreaking as a metaphor for the process of accomplishing any difficult goal.  Recordbreaking requires the same mental habits and confidence that a person needs to start a business, transform their bodies or master a new set of skills.  Once you have broken a world record, you will approach each new challenge with a greater sense of who you really are and what you are capable of achieving.

In 1902, Einstein (far right) formed “The Olympia Academy” with two friends, who met to discuss books about science and philosophy. Three years later, Einstein’s Annus Mirabilis papers vaulted him to international fame.

I’m asked “How do I find a mentor?” all the time.

I’ve never had a good answer. The sad fact is this: people you want as mentors don’t want to view themselves as pro-bono life coaches. So what to do?

First, change the question. Perhaps it’s a cliche to say that when the student is ready, the teacher appears, but it’s a prescription in disguise. Here, the better question is “How do I become an ideal apprentice?”

The best treatment of apprenticeship I’ve ever found is in Mastery, the latest book by Robert Greene, author of The 48 Laws of Power. His writing on apprenticeship, mentor cultivation, and in-depth mastery of skills makes Mastery the perfect companion book to The 4-Hour Chef, in my opinion. It’s one of the few books I made time to read cover-to-cover in the last few months.

The below article explores examples of world-class apprentices and how you can emulate them. Once you do that, growth is a foregone conclusion.

Enter Robert Greene

The path to greatness is simple. It’s the path followed by everyone from Renaissance artists to the entrepreneurs of Silicon Valley. In writing my first four books, I immersed myself in the study these types of people–some of most powerful figures in history. Over the course of many hours of thinking, researching and writing on excellence–the last four years of which were dedicated to writing my newest book–I discerned an unmistakable formula for becoming the best…

Today I’d like to share the first in the journey to Mastery: how to begin an apprenticeship. Throughout history, it’s always been the way that Masters acquired their education. There are many different strategies for getting yours, but make no mistake: you cannot become great without mentors and masters to teach you the necessary skills of your chosen craft.

Part I: Value Learning Over Money

In 1718, Josiah Franklin decided to bring his twelve-year-old son Benjamin into his lucrative, family-run candle-making business in Boston as an apprentice. His idea was that after a seven-year apprenticeship and a little experience, Benjamin would take over the business. But Benjamin had other ideas. He threatened to run away to sea if his father did not give him the choice of where he could apprentice. The father had already lost another son who had run away, and so he relented. To the father’s surprise, his son chose to work in an older brother’s recently opened printing business. Such a business would mean harder work and the apprenticeship would last nine instead of seven years. Also, the printing business was notoriously fickle, and it was quite a risk to bank one’s future on it. But that was his choice, his father decided. Let him learn the hard way.

What young Benjamin had not told his father was that he was determined to become a writer. Most of the work in the shop would involve manual labor and operating machines, but every now and then he would be asked to proofread and copyedit a pamphlet or text. And there would always be new books around. Several years into the process, he discovered that some of his favorite writing came from the English newspapers the shop would reprint. He asked to be the one to oversee the printing of such articles, giving him the chance to study these texts in detail and teach himself how to imitate their style in his own work. Over the years he managed to turn this into a most efficient apprenticeship for writing, with the added benefit of having learned well the printing business.

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After graduating from the Zurich Polytechnic in 1900, the twenty-one-year-old Albert Einstein found his job prospects extremely meager. He had graduated near the bottom of the class, almost certainly nullifying any chance to obtain a teaching position. Happy to be away from the university, he now planned to investigate, on his own, certain problems in physics that had haunted him for several years. It would be a self-apprenticeship in theorizing and thought experiments. But in the meantime, he would have to make a living. He had been offered a job in his father’s dynamo business in Milan as an engineer, but such work would not leave him any free time. A friend could land him a well-paid position in an insurance company, but that would stultify his brain and sap his energy for thinking.

Then, a year later, another friend mentioned a job opening up in the Swiss Patent Office in Bern. The pay was not great, the position was at the bottom, the hours were long, and the work consisted of the rather mundane task of looking over patent applications, but Einstein leaped at the chance. It was everything he wanted. His task would be to analyze the validity of patent applications, many of which involved aspects of science that interested him. The applications would be like little puzzles or thought experiments; he could try to visualize how the ideas would actually translate into inventions. Working on them would sharpen his reasoning powers. After several months on the job, he became so good at this mental game that he could finish his work in two or three hours, leaving him the rest of the day to engage in his own thought experiments. In 1905 he published his first theory of relativity, much of the work having been done while he was at his desk in the Patent Office.

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From the time he was born in 1960, Freddie Roach was groomed to be a boxing champion. His father had been a professional fighter himself, and his mother a boxing judge. When Freddie was six he was promptly taken to the local gym in south Boston to begin a rigorous apprenticeship in the sport. He trained with a coach several hours a day, six days a week.

By the age of fifteen he felt like he was burned out. He made more and more excuses to avoid going to the gym. One day his mother sensed this and said to him, “Why do you fight anyway? You just get hit all the time. You can’t fight.” He was used to the constant criticism from his father and brothers, but to hear such a frank assessment from his mother had a bracing effect. Clearly, she saw his older brother as the one destined for greatness. Now Freddie determined that he would somehow prove her wrong. He returned to his training regimen with a vengeance. He discovered within himself a passion for practice and discipline. He enjoyed the sensation of getting better, the trophies that began to pile up, and, more than anything, the fact that he could now actually beat his brother. His love for the sport was rekindled.

As Freddie now showed the most promise of the brothers, his father took him to Las Vegas to help further his career. There, at the age of eighteen, he met the legendary coach Eddie Futch and began to train under him. It all looked very promising— he was chosen for the United States boxing team and began to climb up the ranks. Before long, however, he hit another wall. He would learn the most effective maneuvers from Futch and practice them to perfection, but in an actual bout it was another story. As soon as he got hit in the ring, he would revert to fighting instinctually; his emotions would get the better of him. His fights would turn into brawls over many rounds, and he would often lose.

After a few years, Futch told Roach it was time to retire. But boxing had been his whole life; retire and do what? He continued to fight and to lose, until finally he could see the writing on the wall and retired. He took a job in telemarketing and began to drink heavily. Now he hated the sport—he had given it so much and had nothing to show for his efforts. Almost in spite of himself, one day he returned to Futch’s gym to watch his friend Virgil Hill spar with a boxer about to fight for a title. Both fighters trained under Futch, but there was nobody in Hill’s corner helping him, so Freddie brought him water and gave him advice. He showed up the following day to help Hill again, and soon became a regular at Futch’s gym. He was not being paid, so he kept his telemarketing job, but something in him smelled opportunity— and he was desperate. He showed up on time and stayed later than anyone else. Knowing Futch’s techniques so well, he could teach them to all of the fighters. His responsibilities began to grow.

Working the two jobs left just enough time to sleep. It was almost unbearable, but he could withstand it because he was learning the trade for which he knew was destined. One day Virgil Hill showed him a technique he had picked up from some Cuban fighters: Instead of working with a punching bag, they mostly trained with the coach, who wore large padded mitts. Standing in the ring, the fighters half-sparred with the coach and practiced their punches. Roach tried it with Hill and his eyes lit up. It brought him back into the ring, but there was something else. Boxing, he felt, had become stale, as had its training methods. In his mind, he saw a way to adapt the mitt work for more than just punching practice. It could be a way for a trainer to devise an entire strategy in the ring and demonstrate it to his fighter in real time. It could revolutionize and revitalize the sport itself. Roach began to develop this with the stable of fighters that he now trained. He instructed them in maneuvers that were much more fluid and strategic.

Within a few years he had impressed enough young boxers with his knowledge to set up his own business. Soon he left Futch to work on his own. He quickly established a reputation for preparing his boxers better than anyone else, and within a few years he rose to become the most successful trainer of his generation.

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THE LESSON:

It is a simple law of human psychology that your thoughts will tend to revolve around what you value most. If it is money, you will choose a place for your apprenticeship that offers the biggest paycheck. Inevitably, in such a place you will feel greater pressures to prove yourself worthy of such pay, often before you are really ready. You will be focused on yourself, your insecurities, the need to please and impress the right people, and not on acquiring skills. It will be too costly for you to make mistakes and learn from them, so you will develop a cautious, conservative approach. As you progress in life, you will become addicted to the fat paycheck and it will determine where you go, how you think, and what you do. Eventually, the time that was not spent on learning skills will catch up with you, and the fall will be painful.

Instead, you must value learning above everything else. This will lead you to all of the right choices. You will opt for the situation that will give you the most opportunities to learn, particularly with hands-on work. You will choose a place that has people and mentors who can inspire and teach you. A job with mediocre pay has the added benefit of training you to get by with less— a valuable life skill. If your apprenticeship is to be mostly on your own time, you will choose a place that pays the bills—perhaps one that keeps your mind sharp, but that also leaves you the time and mental space to do valuable work on your own. You must never disdain an apprenticeship with no pay. In fact, it is often the height of wisdom to find the perfect mentor and offer your services as an assistant for free. Happy to exploit your cheap and eager spirit, such mentors will often divulge more than the usual trade secrets. In the end, by valuing learning above all else, you will set the stage for your creative expansion, and the money will soon come to you.

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Did you like this article?

It’s just the first of a 6-part series on apprenticeship, provided exclusively for this blog by Robert. Here are links to the rest, all of which teach different lessons and approaches using real-world examples:

Part II
Part III
Part IV
Part V
Part VI

Robert’s Mastery examines the lives of historical greats like Darwin, Mozart, and Henry Ford and distills the traits that made the masters. It is an excellent complement to The 4-Hour Chef. Robert also authored the massive international bestsellers The 48 Laws of Power, Art of Seduction, The 33 Strategies of War, and The 50th Law.

35! I’ll turn a glorious 35 this week.

It’s going to be a great natal year–I can already feel it. Perhaps it will be good luck for you, too. In this post, I’m giving away a round-trip ticket anywhere in the world.

But back to that strange birthday gift…

Much to the chagrin of my momma-san, I’ve become quite difficult to buy presents for. Some friends even think I’m impossible to find presents for. Not so. I love handwritten letters, homemade brownies, and–most of all–when people do something nice.

You, dear readers, have a record of being nice and making it count. In fact, you’ve changed thousands of lives with small acts of kindness!

For my b-day in 2010, you all raised more than $100,000 for high-need public school classrooms in the US. Then, last year, you helped build libraries overseas (See the construction progress on Cambodia, Nepal, and Sri Lanka here, as well as the completed schools in Vietnam.)

In lieu of gifts this year, my birthday wish is to help poor youth in developing nations finish school. This breaks the cycle of poverty and creates problem solvers in places with problems that affect communities, entire countries, and the world at large.

And there are a few fun twists…

First, think Kiva.org for education. Unlike last year, we’re actually giving loans. By using loans, only the most hard-working and ambitious students participate. Vittana.org, the organization I’m partnering with, currently has an astounding 99.8% repayment rate! That means you should actually make your money back, and you’re giving a hand up instead of a hand out.

If you prefer to “donate,” you can opt to have the funds automatically reinvested in Vittana, which is what I do.

Here’s how it works:

1. Join my 35th birthday challenge by clicking here. It’s worth clicking through just to check out the site.

2. To get your engines started, I’ve put in $10,000 of my own money, primarily into women studying to be programmers and teachers. Under “Find a student,” you’ll see “Students we’re helping.” That’s the gang.

3. If the spirit moves you, please make a $35 loan (or whatever you can: $1, $35, $1,000, etc.) to the student of your choosing. Click on “Find a student” to search outside my group. Even a $1 can make a big difference to these students!

4. Over the next several months, your (and my) students will finish school. They’ll then find jobs and begin repaying their loans.

Vittana’s impact is incredible, and your good karma compounds over time. Take a girl like Ana Lizbeth for instance — with a $713 Vittana Loan, she became an IT administrator and doubled her income. I’m so excited about Vittana that I just recently became an advisor, joining supporters like Google, Tim O’Reilly, and Mitch Kapor, among others. It’s really awesome.

So, to get this party started in force…

Sweetening the Pot…

- If you all help raise $50,000, I will personally foot the bill for another $50,000. This means that if you get the total to $60,000 (as I put in $10K already), I will pay the remaining $40,000 to get us to $100,000. The deadline for this is 11:59pm PST on Friday, July 27th.

- I’m giving away a free round-trip ticket anywhere in the world that Star Alliance flies, which is just about everywhere. There is no expiration date on the trip, so no rush on deciding where or when to go.

Now, here’s how to get it:

- Spread the word however you can. Send people to this post or to my Vittana donation page.
- Leave a comment below telling me what you did (Facebook, Twitter, blog post, e-mail blast, e-mail signature, encouraged employees/friends to do the same, company donation matching, etc.). Measurement of any type gets huge bonus points. This comment must be put up no later than 11:59pm PST on Friday, July 27th, 2012.
- Lastly, answer one question at the very top of your comment: “What does education mean to you?”

I’ll pick the top five promoters, and you’ll all vote on the winner of the round-trip.

Fun!

But the best reason of all…

Beyond the bribes, you’ll feel awesome about yourself for doing real good for people who have so little. People who, without education, might not have a future at all.

Trust me. It feels great.

Will you pause for a moment and step up, even if for $1? It would mean the world to me. I’ll share updates as I get them.

Again, here is where to go to loan/donate $35, $1, $1,000, or whatever you can.

Thank you for reading this post. You are all rock stars, and I continue to write on this blog purely because of you.

This will be a short post as, sometimes, brevity counts. I want to let Neil Gaiman speak in this instance. Neil is one of my favorite authors, and I first became fascinated by his imagination with The Sandman comics in the 90′s. So much so, in fact, that I imported The Sandman from different countries to help me learn languages.

The Sandman from Brazil. Wonderful for studying Portuguese, as I have identical English editions.

My love for his work grew from there. From Anansi Boys (my favorite audiobook of all time) to Neverwhere, the list of favorites is long.

The above commencement speech, mandatory listening for anyone who hopes to be creatively successful, is right up there with Steve Jobs’ 2005 Stanford commencement speech, which I’ve embedded below. I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments on either, as well as links to any favorite speeches of your own.