Learn · the 2×2 · solve it
Solve the 2×2
One intuitive layer, one algorithm you may already know, one finishing move. An evening of practice, and it never leaves you.
Hold the cube with the white side down. The first layer needs no algorithm at all: pick the corner with white, green and orange on it, hold it at the front-left, and bring the other three white corners next to it one at a time, matching side colours as you go. A corner in the top layer drops home if you set it above its place and turn it in. This is worth doing slowly and badly a few times; the fumbling is the learning.
Flip nothing. With white settled underneath, look at the top.
Turn the top yellow. One algorithm does the whole job: the Sune. The only skill is how you hold the cube before each go. Exactly one corner showing yellow on top: put that corner at the front-left. No yellow on top at all: turn the top until the front-left corner's yellow sticker points out to the left. Two showing: turn the top until the front-left corner's yellow faces you. Then play the seven moves and look again. A computer check of all 27 ways the top can sit, with the unluckiest choices allowed at every step, says this rule never needs more than 3 goes.
Finish. The top is yellow; some corners may still need to trade places. Find two finished corners side by side, hold them at the back, and play the finishing algorithm. If no two corners look finished together, the swap you need is the diagonal one: play the same algorithm once from any angle and it turns into the side-by-side case, which is not luck but arithmetic. At most two plays end the cube.
Checked by simulation before publishing: each position shown plus the moves shown must finish the job, every orientation claim is proved by enumeration of all 27 reachable tops, and the worst-case counts are computed, not promised.