The day I got FIRED & almost QUIT guitar...

hi what's up everybody I just surpassed 1.3 million subscribers here on YouTube thank you all for that it may look like everything is going smoothly for me but that wasn't always the case I feel like when I'm moving forward I generally feel good about what I'm doing but let me take this milestone to not only celebrate but also look back at different times the time when I got fired and even almost gave up on a career in guitar the year is 2011 one year and a half after I graduated from college for music I'm pretty sure he had collected feedback in 2011 right I was playing in some bands from original work to cover bands but my main income was to teaching I left in a very cheap home which made it possible for me to make ends meet and in that year 2011 I applied for a job where I would be teaching at an elementary school as a sort of extracurricular lessons not only did it pay better but the hours were much sweeter no more hasty microwave dinners hashtag blessed so I applied for a job over there and we had a nice chat about what the work entailed how they as a company worked and some other business aspects I would get the call before next day exciting I got the job awesome these kids were ranging from age 7 to age 12 multiple groups of 10 to 15 kids each sweet so this time I was already teaching for like 4 years I had quite the experience will be mostly with private students the company said it would provide me with a curriculum they used which was super helpful I had no experience with teaching bigger groups so I wanted these kids to be excited about the instruments but the sentence it didn't go quite as planned was an understatement first of all the curriculum I was supposed to work with it wasn't there a few days before the lessons started I just got a list like week one the guitar week to picking week three picking two and so on that's hardly a curriculum now handouts no lessons no exercises I had to make all of these lessons myself very last minute but I had no idea about the pacing about how teaching a group this big would go the first class I had to teach were around twelve kids and they were testing me right from the get-go seeing how far they could go before I lost my patience at the time I just wanted to be the cool teacher they wanted to share their love of the guitar little did I know that it wasn't the way to go I just I couldn't keep order at the conservatory I learned about didactics but never on how to be a real teacher in front of an entire class so picture this me standing with my guitar in front of a dozen kids trying to get them to play the first string while they were literally bashing each other's handed with guitars shouting screaming running around it was terrible and I'm not exaggerating this is really how it was I remember they calling me names and just being very rude in their behavior I think this partly has to do with this very neighborhood I'm walking in right now where the school was it wasn't the best neighborhood no offense so here I was trying and failing to get control over these loose projectiles and trying and probably also failing to teach him guitar so every once in a while I had a breakthrough as I went along I learned about the kids about teaching them but then another thing made it impossible for me to properly teach so all these kids had a guitar but there wasn't one single guitar that was actually playable so I dug around in my emails and what I found was this so here's a screen Kevin chose one he mail I said to the company and I translate this for you the guitars on school are in terrible condition there's not one single guitar and it has all the strings and multiple guitars just aren't playable most of these are just the toy guitars you know you can find in that toy store each time I had to go back I felt more and more reluctant to go I remember waking up on the Wednesdays not again today not today and that's where I got back home I felt like just super happy that I had a whole week off before going back to that place so this was so far from why I started to pursue a career in music and I had the feeling I was going nowhere and as I said before I'm going forward I'm a happy guy well this was going absolutely nowhere let me tell you that but then I got a call from the company saying maybe it's good if we talked about what's going on at the school and all I could think was hell yeah with heads talk I think it's absolutely terrible so I said it'll turn down I don't feel like I'm at the right place I'm a guitar teacher not a school teacher I never was trained for this nor do I have the experience well they felt the same way about it they probably had some complaints from the school it just wasn't working out I got fired this is the place that was one upside though during recess they got to sit in the Sun for 30 minutes yes and getting paid this was a small relief for a while but getting out of this job of course also didn't bring me any further in my career or life so now let's talk about the second part of a title almost quitting guitar I felt like things just weren't working out the dream I had as a kid it just wasn't this too much teaching too little paid gigs barely making ends meet I felt like I used so little of my potential as a person not even as a musician per se but I just wasn't doing what I felt like I was good at I didn't have the inspiration or the energy to take on new projects this for me was assigned it I wasn't at my place so I decided to apply for a desk job yes sitting behind a very different desk and the one I say that today I remember it vividly I applied for a job at a big web shop selling instruments online yes very nice the idea was that maybe this way I would find the love back for my instrument while earning a living the romantic idea of this musician working a day job to support his art well let me spoil the ending for you I did not get the job my background wasn't relevant at all they'd probably rather hire a marketeer than a musician which I understand but let me tell you I'm beyond glad it did not hire me because if they did chances are I wouldn't have been here it was after this rejection that I felt like I had to do something for myself instead of being a guitar player for a band or teacher for a music school or the office worked for a company I wanted to build something for myself and that's how I rolled into what I've been doing for the last four years another big step back to Chris needs that I developed an online guitar course and that beginners or people that are feeling stuck so I didn't stop teaching bigger groups after all if anything with all the teaching I did everything I went through maybe it all that up to me making that course so maybe I'll see you around in the course it's called learn practice play checking out at learn practice play calm up to today now I really feel like I'm moving forward which makes me a very happy guy I never thought that when I started the YouTube thing it would become what it is today 1.3 million subscribers I mean that's just nuts but I think it's working out because I followed my guts in my heart and because I love doing it but just know that it hasn't always been like this I struggle too and maybe that makes me even more appreciative of where I am right now day so thanks for watching this video and my channel in general it's what keeps me going and maybe this video can inspire people that also are someone in the same boat that I was in a few years back so take care everyone um feel free to share in the comments with keeping you busy these days if you got struggles or maybe you've overcome these struggles help each other out that would be very much appreciated for everyone I think take care everyone bye

Channel: Paul Davids

Views: 363,612

Keywords: paul davids, fired, guitar lessons, children, kids, elementary school, story, 1.3 million, milestone, celebrate, quitting, guitar, quit, quit guitar, paul davids guitar, lessons, musician, teacher, lost my job, job, school kids, school, chaos, happy, subscribers, special, learnpracticeplay, didn't go as planned, didn't go quite as planned

Id: XCffQlGaIbY

Length: 8min 15sec (495 seconds)

Published: Tue Sep 03 2019