Patrick O'Malley is a guitar teacher who teaches people of all ages to play guitar. We had a great discussion about the health benefits of playing a musical instrument. It doesn't matter whether you've ever played anything before or whether you've got an innate talent for it, simply DOING it can help you reap these amazing benefits:

* Improved mood & reduced levels of anxiety and depression

* Maintenance of language & speech skills

* Improved multi-tasking ability

* Increased ability for Injury recovery and brain rewiring

That last point - brain rewiring - is fascinating! Neuroplasticity is something that I've been interested in for a long time, and Patrick spoke about the fact that musicians have more grey matter than non-musicians. The ability of the brain to form new connections (rewire itself) is a key factor in the brain's ability to recover from trauma or injury. He wasn't making this up - he shared the scientific studies that prove all of these benefits and triggered his own curiosity to discover them for himself. 

Patrick has been teaching guitar for years (20k students have enrolled in his online guitar courses). He told me that during the pandemic, around a third of the emails he gets from students are people who have retired and started to play guitar for the first time after years of wanting to do so. 

"People often believe their hands or too big or small or that they are just not musical enough," Patrick says "but really the key factor is that nobody wants to spend days sounding terrible at an instrument to finally become good in the end. So I have created a course that's fun and rewarding - YOU CAN SOUND GOOD WITHIN YOUR FIRST HOUR OF PLAYING. That's the big secret right there."

For a limited time, you can get his beginner's program for 50% off: http://bit.ly/guitar-retireabc