The first 20 hours -- how to learn anything | Josh Kaufman | TEDxCSU (2)

You have to make sure they're available.

My ukulele didn't come with strings attached.

I had to figure out how to put those on.

Like, that's kind of important, right?

And learning how to tune, learning how to make sure

that all of the things that need to be done

in order to start practicing get done, right?

Now, one of the things when I was ready to actually start practicing

was I looked in online databases and songbooks for how to play songs.

And they say, okay, ukuleles, you can play more than one string at a time,

so you can play chords, that's cool,

you are accompanying yourself, yay you. (Laughter)

And when I started looking at songs,

I had an ukulele chord book that had like hundreds of chords.

Looking at this and "Wow, that's intimidating".

But when you look at the actual songs,

you see the same chords over and over, right?

As it turns out, playing the ukulele is kind of like doing anything,

There's a very small set of things that are really important

and techniques that you'll use all the time.

And in most songs you'll use four, maybe five chords,

and that's it, that's the song.

You don't have to know hundreds, as long as you know the four or the five.

So, while I was doing my research,

I found a wonderful little medley of pop songs

by a band called Axis of Awesome. (Whistles)

-- Somebody knows it. --

And what Axis of Awesome says is that you can learn,

or you can play pretty much any pop song of the past five decades,

if you know four chords,

and those chords are G, D, Em and C.

Four chords pump out every pop song ever, right?

So I thought, this is cool!

I would like to play every pop song ever. (Laughter)

So, that was the first song I decided to learn,

and I would like to actually share it with you. Ready?

(Applause) Alright.

(Music)

(Singing) Just a small town girl,

living in a lonely world,

she took the midnight train going anywhere.

I heard that you settled down, (Laughter)

that you found a girl,

that you're married now.

Every night in my dreams (Laughter)

I see you, I feel you,

that is how I know you go on. (Laughter)

I won't hesitate no more, no more. It cannot wait, I'm yours.

'Cause you were amazing, we did amazing things.

If I could, then I would, I'd go wherever you will --

Can you feel the love tonight. (Laughter)

I can't live with or without you.

When I find myself --

When I find myself in times of trouble, mother Mary comes to me,

Sometimes I feel like I don't have partner. No woman, no cry.

Yeah mama, this surely is a dream.

I come from a land down under. (Laughter)

Once a jolly swagman camped by a billabong.

Hey, I just met you, and this is crazy, (Laughter)

but here's my number, so call me

Hey sexy lady, op, op, op, op, oppan gangnam style. (Laughter)

It's time to say goodbye.

Closing time, every new beginning comes from some other beginning's end.

(Singing and music ends) (Applause)

Thank you, thank you.

I love that song. (Laughter)

And I have a secret to share with you.

So, by playing that song for you,

I just hit my twentieth hour of practicing the ukulele.

(Applause) Thank you.

And so it's amazing, pretty much anything that you can think of,

what do you want to do.

The major barrier to learn something new is not intellectual,

it's not the process of you learning a bunch of little tips or tricks or things.

The major barrier's emotional. We're scared.

Feeling stupid doesn't feel good,

in the beginning of learning anything new

you feel really stupid.

So the major barrier's not intellectual, it's emotional.

But put 20 hours into anything.

It doesn't matter. What do you want to learn?

Do you want to learn a language? Want to learn how to cook?

Want to learn how to draw?

What turns you on? What lights you up?

Go out and do that thing. It only takes 20 hours.

Have fun.

(Applause)