I love music. I’ve played the guitar for about 30 years now and a few years back I used to play gigs around London. It was all solo acoustic stuff. 

It was great fun and I (mostly) enjoyed it, but it also taught me A LOT about confidence and getting the best out of myself. 

Here are three of the lessons that I continue to use everyday. 

Number 1 – Don’t be rushed, go at your own pace – this is a small one that can make a big difference. When you are playing a gig, you’re sat in front of everyone. The only sound that’s being generated is coming from you; if you aren’t playing, it’s all quiet. Imagine that awkward silence in a conversation.... but 100 times worse because there are a lot more people looking right at you! In those circumstances, it's easy to feel pressured to hurry up and play something; you can get rushed. I got rushed, didn’t collect myself between songs and again performance was impacted. As I learned, I slowed it down, took a sip of water and started the next song when I was ready. People are happy to wait. Take your time.   

Number 2 – Don’t be distracted by what’s is happening around you – this is a big one for me and I use it all the time when giving presentations. When I was up on stage and playing a song, to begin with I used to notice every movement or conversation in the crowd. I’d think, if they got up to move, they thought I was rubbish. This impacted my concentration and focus which ultimately affected my performance. But then after one gig, someone who I’d seen chatting, came up to me at the end and told me how much he enjoyed it and bought a CD. This then happened again and again, and I realised that humans do just chat and move from time to time. I stopped letting the crowd impact my performance.  

Number 3– Practice your performance like it’s the real thing– Because I'd played the guitar for a while and I was playing my own songs, I thought ‘I know what I’m doing let's just run through a couple of songs and I’ll be ready for the gig’. Wrong; I wasn’t prepared enough. The pressure of being on stage and relying on myself to remember how the song went on the fly, meant I was uptight and prone to mistakes. From that point on, I always practiced my set from start to finish. I could then relax and enjoy it more and of course as a result the performance was much improved. Prepare what you’re going to do and the practice it like you are ‘on stage’. 

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