Hey, guys, It's Marc here, back with you with just guitar lessons. And today had a mini capsule as we would send for. It's like a mini topic that just sprung to mind. I want to talk about being delusional in this Sounds pretty awkward in terms of like making progress on guitar that you'll see. Bear with me for a moment.
Welcome to Jazz Guitar Lessons where we help guitarists learn jazz faster, express themselves more fluently, and have fun along the way. My name is Marc, and if you're looking to learn jazz, form better practice habits, and especially if you enjoy a French accent, make sure to subscribe. There's a lot of us, and of course of us. I include myself in that category that we sometimes talk ourselves in or out of.
For instance, I'll never be able to do that. I look at giant steps. I look at the chord changes. I listen to the original John Coltrane 1959. Jane steps. You know, seminal recording. I'll go, I'll never be able to do this. And I may I may or may not talk myself out of actually working on the things that will make a difference.
Will I ever be John Coltrane? Of course not. Will I ever be at that level of innovation and trailblazing in the jazz world? Well, probably not. Can I study the changes to John Coltrane's Giant steps? And can I make progress? Of course I can. So the whole delusional aspect of this and of course, I've listened to a whole bunch of, you know, personal development, and I'm not a therapist, but the classic Henry Ford quote is whether you think you can do it or that you can't do it, you're probably right.
And it's cliche. It's been overused. But let me just bring a fresh perspective on that. If I tell myself, I'll never be able to do it. Is it true? Well, it's not any more true than anything else on the radar, Right. I'll never be able to do it. Or maybe I'll be able to do it somewhat. I can do that, but I can't do this.
Right. So any any thoughts, any patterns I have and are could be realistically anchored in reality. In truth? Yeah, for sure. On the other hand, think about this. If I'm delusional to the point of saying I will master this thing, I'm going to play with like John Coltrane and even better, and I'm going to be an innovator of jazz.
And I'm telling myself these things. That's also being delusional. So bear with me with with that thought here, which is whether whether I'm already defeated ahead of time or that I'm boasting, I think I'm better than everyone. I'll be the president of the United States. Well, in my case, prime minister of Canada or whatever, whether I say one extreme or the other extreme, I'm still full of B.S. This is not necessarily true.
But here's the thing in my mind, my the Georgian for this quick podcast and this this thought is it's it's they're both lies that I'm telling myself. Might as well pick up the one that empowers me, whether it's true or not. Because with that I would say more optimistic aspect of the of the thought pattern. I feel empowered.
I doubt myself less. I may be more confident. So it may mean that I will eventually put the time in and do the necessary actions to actually get better and move the needle. Right. So there's a lot of advantages to you being a bit delusional. It sounds a bit odd, but bear with me again, there's this blind, not blind faith, but there's this blind confidence that one's knee one needs to go up to, say, a jam session that a professional level and go, yeah, you know, I of all people here and of all the people that have ever been at the chance, I have something worthwhile to say and people should hear it.
You ought to be a bit out of your mind to think like that. But that's probably the only thing that that made me personally go up on that stage and jam with the other guys. Like, maybe I'm not the best in the world and maybe it's going to fall flat, maybe it's going to suck, but at least I'm going to try it because I think maybe there was a chance like, this is my lottery ticket.
Maybe there was a few things I'm going to say to be cool. I'm going to connect with the other guys and, you know, connect with the musicians, maybe people that are in the audience of that jam, or maybe, I don't know, any random event. Like the bartender is going to find me cute and we'll hang out and we'll date and then we'll get married, have children like you, just never know.
So the delusion, even if not misleading, this was about that. But even it's not necessarily anchored in reality, can be helpful. Of course, it's all a matter of of gradient. Like if I'm all the way at the end of the spectrum and I say, look, I'm going to go and colonize Mars in three months and come up with a new instrument and a new form of art, and this is all, well, maybe, you know, I'm not Elon Musk or whatever, but that there's a there's a healthy point of being delusional about my skill set and what I have to say.
And I heard the comic stand up say this as well, that he said you have to be a figure who he was, but said you have to be so blindly confident that your stuff is funny that it's going to prevent you from being scared of. That's just going to prevent you from doing the healthy thing, which would be, No, no, no.
People will laugh, but not in a good way. I'm not cut out for this. Right? So these thoughts can be and can be we can put a brake to these thoughts so that that's that the whole thing. And just in closing, reminding myself that these thoughts will not go away. The opposite of the delusion. Say my delusion is, yeah, I'm good enough to show up and it's going to be good when I'm doing my time is solid.
I hear everything and you know, f you, it's my time to. And so that's that's like confidence to an extreme. The other end of the spectrum which is a minute's R second before I walk on the stage, it's going to be that self-doubt. It's going to be, hey, people are going to laugh at you. You can't do this, you whatever.
This will not go away. And I think in ways I'm starting to make peace with that. Me making peace with the fact that that thought was actually useful wherever it came from, you know, childhood or whatever. I'm not a psychologist, but seeing, oh, this had a place in time in my life where it was actually helpful to protect me, say, and knowing that these will not go away, just say thank you.
I hear you. Thanks for trying to keep me safe. But actually, I got bigger fish to fry now, so thanks. This is ridiculous. I'm. I'm trying to do something here. So the I think the degree of awareness of the distance is pretty important. On that note, I hope you've enjoyed this mini capsule. Let me know if you have any questions.
Please make sure to like and subscribe. Also, if you leave me a review, if you're listening to a podcast on a podcast platform like Spotify or Apple, it really helps me when you leave five star reviews and you add comments to the episode. So it lets me know what else you want to hear. All right, on that note, I'll let you go.
I'll see you next time. Take care.
