100 to 800

If you want to go from 100 people at your shows to 125, your brain tells yourself to just do a little bit more. Go a little bit harder. Keep doing the things you’ve been doing, but just a little bit better and you’ll get those extra 25 people.

And you will.

But if you decide you want to go from 100 people at your shows to 800 people at your shows…you can’t just do more of what you’ve been doing.  You can’t just try a little harder with what you’ve been doing in order to go from 100 to 800. 

Going from 100 to 125, you say “I need to do a little bit more of what I’ve been doing”.

Going from 100 to 800, your mind says “I need to change what I’m doing”.  Well actually your mind probably says “I can’t go from 100 to 800”….meaning: you just can’t go from 100 to 800 by doing the same things you’ve been doing.

The only way to get to 800 is to do something new…but something new might not work at all, and that’s why most people only focus on the 125 goal…cause at least you have an idea that you know works and you just need to squeeze a little more out of it.

But at some point you’re going to have to go big if you want to be big. 

Don’t miss a post. Sign up for free.

I’m always interested in your perspective, whether affirming or dissenting. Continue the conversation anytime: gabethebassplayer@gmail.com

Toys And Batteries

Lot’s of things need batteries. Electronics, toys, remotes…they’re worthless without the batteries that run them.

But batteries are a bad gift to give someone for their birthday.

You don’t give someone a 24-pack of AA batteries and say “Just imagine the possibilities!!!!!”

No…you give them the toy. You can get batteries everywhere.

Everyone loves getting the toy…because we’re excited about what the toy does, what the toy is all about…and now all we need is batteries.

(We would hate getting the batteries first…because they’re useless and unexciting and we’d have to look around and wonder ‘now if I could just had a fun toy’…which is a lot harder to find than batteries.)


You are the toy.

Ideas are the batteries.

Like the toy, we want to be excited about what you do, your potential, your function, your service, your purpose, that thing you do :).

Once that’s there, and all we need are ideas (batteries) to make this thing come to life…well batteries (ideas) are available everywhere, and everyone has them.

That’s the easy, fun part.

Add the batteries to the toy and now we have a party, a career, an active purpose, purpose brought to life.

Don’t miss a post. Sign up for free.

I’m always interested in your perspective, whether affirming or dissenting. Continue the conversation anytime: gabethebassplayer@gmail.com

Change What You’re Looking For

If you’re constantly looking for the reasons it’s not working, that’s what you’ll find. You’ll always find the broken parts, the letdowns, the un-met expectations.  And we’ve gotten pretty good at this.

AHHHH, Why isn’t this working?!!!!!!

Right? We’re all there sometimes.

But what if, rather, you could have just as much of a Jedi-sense for what IS working.

Why is this working? Why have I been able to make it to where I am right now?

Here’s the thing: You’ve made it this far. You’re here today reading this email at this point in your career because you have a career that has different points! You didn’t stay in one place!

Which means things are working.  You’re making it down your path.  There are good things happening right now!

There’s so much hoopla around what isn’t working…and then people are so surprised by their own depression, when all they focus on everyday is what’s lacking.

If you always go looking for the negative you always find it. You will always be experiencing it and it will rub off on you in all facets of life.

Perhaps you could use a break? Perhaps you can and will change what you’re looking for.  And then, in turn, you will change what you find.

Don’t miss a post. Sign up for free.

I’m always interested in your perspective, whether affirming or dissenting. Continue the conversation anytime: gabethebassplayer@gmail.com

Reaching For Soda And Cookies

You know that devilish look that a 1st grader has when they know they’re not suppose to have another sip of soda but they’re going to reach for it anyway.

You know…a little but naughty but not too much.

We need more of that in the artist community.

In the writing rooms, on the stage, in the interviews. 

Hand in the cookie jar.  That grin when you’re trying to get away with something.

Sure you’re not suppose to have another drink of soda or another cookie, but if you’re able to sneak it it’s not the end of the world, and it’s pretty sweet if it works.

Don’t miss a post. Sign up for free.

I’m always interested in your perspective, whether affirming or dissenting. Continue the conversation anytime: gabethebassplayer@gmail.com

That Thing You Do, Written By...

…Adam Schlesinger

Right after I got out of college I was working at the Courtyard Marriott on 19th Ave here in Nashville. I was a front desk agent.

(Sidenote: they CAN give you a discount, no one is getting charged for being an hour late for check-out, yes sometimes the wake-up call isn’t entered in correctly)

Being that the hotel is close to downtown, it would get booked by bands and artists playing the various venues or festivals that happen down there.  Even Evander Holyfield stayed there once…I shook his hand…his giant, strong hand.

But I was getting off my shift at 11pm one night and saw a long haired guy sitting in the lobby. Looked like a music dude, probably was, couldn’t really tell.  As I walked through the lobby (in my front desk vest, and baggy pleaded pants) he turned his head just enough that I could tell…it was Adam Schlesinger!

I knew what he looked like because I was completely obsessed with That Thing You Do from an early age, so I had already done all the research on who wrote it, yada yada yada.

So I stopped and said hello (painfully agonizing that I had to meet him in my dumb font desk uniform and not in my cool “I’m a musician too” leather jacket).

We ended up talking for ten or fifteen minutes and he graciously answered my million questions about the song and the movie.

He wrote it as an assignment from his publisher in a few days.  The assignment was to write a song called That Thing You Do for ‘a 1964 band who loved the Beatles’.  He wrote a few different ideas, showed some buddies, and finished the best one.


It’s easy to look back on success and say ‘of course it worked’. Of course Adam Schlesinger’s version of That Thing You Do (and there were 300 other writers’ submissions) was the best one and he was going to make lots of money from it and have a front desk hotel worker notice him in the lobby.

But all Adam really did was show up and work.  It was a writing assignment, that’s it. He’s a huge Beatles fan so he took a crack at it.

It is as boring and unromantic, and REAL as that.

Showing up and doing the work. Nothing magical…except that the magic decided to show up when Adam showed up! If Adam doesn’t show up, the magic would have been left alone in the writing room and we wouldn’t have the song that made the movie. 

Keep showing up. Keep digging. Keep finding ways to get recharged and make another go of it.

*This one was suppose to go out Friday. Sorry about that. I hope today is a good enough consolation prize.

Don’t miss a post. Sign up for free.

I’m always interested in your perspective, whether affirming or dissenting. Continue the conversation anytime: gabethebassplayer@gmail.com

Simply, The Wonders

“Next, this ‘Oneders’, with the O-N-E, it doesn’t work. It’s confusing. From now on you boys will just be, simply The Wonders.”- Mr. White

(Lenny: “As in I Wonder what happened to the O-Needers? :)

It’s so good.

Mr. White clears up all the confusion by being clear and insightful.  

Coming up with The Oneders is akin to spending five days deciding what font to use in your newsletter so you choose Curlz because ’no one does that anymore’.

Coming up with The Wonders is akin to using Helvetica for your newsletter because that was the default and you understand that the content of the newsletter is a million times more important than the font. 

Make the font decision quickly, spend more time on the content…both literally and metaphorically speaking.

Don’t miss a post. Sign up for free.

I’m always interested in your perspective, whether affirming or dissenting. Continue the conversation anytime: gabethebassplayer@gmail.com