4 Years of Guitar Lessons – THANK YOU!

This week marks the 4 year anniversary of Learning Guitar Now, and the success of this website has been amazing to say the least.

First, I just want to give a big Thank You to everyone who has watched a lesson, left a comment, made a purchase, or in any way, shape, or form has interacted with this website. YOU are the reason this website is possible.

Back in 2007 I made a decision to quit my part time job of packing CD’s into mailers and dive full time into the online guitar lesson arena. At that time, I was still teaching around 40 students a week, so I had some sort of income after leaving the part time job, but not enough to cover everything I needed to pay for since I was in so much debt.

I was also playing in a wedding band which would also help to pay for my living expenses in addition to the private lessons. Things were ok, but at the age of 33, I was thinking that someday it would be nice to buy a house, get out of debt, and get my income above the poverty level.

I felt like the way for me to achieve this was to start this website called Learning Guitar Now. I was determined to make a go at it, so I put my faith in God and started getting busy figuring out how to make this huge dream a reality.

Through the years there have been many ups and downs, successes and failures, but most of all, a time of learning and growing in regards to my business and personal life. When I started putting together the vision for this website, I turned to guidance from the writings of Zig Ziglar, Dave Ramsey, and the Bible.

I felt that if I put the principles from these 3 books into practice regarding the way I do business and the way I treated my customers, no matter what happened I would always feel good about the way my business was conducted.

The continued success has been like a slow uphill battle that just continues to move on. I guess I feel like the website has operated at a slow chug that never stops until it reaches it’s destination. I’m always reminded of the Dave Ramsey quote when I think of this. He says, “Every time I read the Tortoise and the Hare, the Tortoise wins!” I believe it’s good to grow slowly, because the foundation you build in the beginning is the key to you surviving those storms when they come. And man, they sure do come sometimes.

It’s always nice to dream of instant, big successes, but it seems like that kind of success can really be damaging if the right foundation is not built.

I know I’m going on here about things other than guitar lessons on this post, but I feel it’s important to share some of the feelings that have come up in me after doing this for a living for some time now. I feel very fortunate to have interacted with all the great people who have emailed me and I have been able to help them in some way or another.

In the times when I felt like quitting, and it seemed like there was so much negativity going on, somehow an email would always arrive in my inbox from someone telling me about how my lessons has had such a positive effect on their playing. These emails have continued to be a source for me to keep chugging along.

I appreciate everyone of you and feel honored that you would take a chance on my guitar lessons. For this I can’t thank you enough.

John W. Tuggle