Ten Million Streams

Think of a song of yours you don’t consider very successful.

Now add ten million streams to it.

Is it now successful?


What if the streams came from robots?

What if the person you’re trying to impress doesn’t care about streams?

What if ten million people tried your song once each but never liked it enough to listen again?

What if your label paid for the streams?

What if there’s no conversion to live concert tickets?

What if you didn’t make any money from the ten million streams?

What if all of a sudden everyone else has twenty million streams?

What if the ten million streams didn’t make any of your other songs tick up?

What if no one congratulates you on the ten million?


But by now maybe you’re thinking…yeah, whatever, it would just be nice to have an extra 10million plays on my song.

Why? What exactly do you need from 10 million streams?

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

Everyone Is Bored

The interviewer, the audience, the videographer, the bank teller, the barista, the check out clerk.

Most people are going through the motions. Just doing their jobs. They don’t expect too much, because having expectations leads to letdown.

So spice it up.

Their boredom is your opportunity.

You don’t have to do it right…don’t get distracted by trying to do it right…you just need to be spicy.

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

An Opinion On Leading

A painful part of opening my eyes has been this…

Having and sharing lots of opinions does not equate to leadership.

I thought having lots of opinions meant I was a leader.

I thought being a leader meant I had to state lots of opinions.

My apologies to many people I worked with in my 20’s :)

It’s an easy trap to fall into. Wanting to flex opinion and believing you’re leading by doing so.

***I’m amazed at how quick we to offer up an opinion…while relatively speaking we’re rarely actually asked for it.

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

Connecting Dots

It’s a lot easier to connect dots in hindsight. (This is what happened)

It’s tempting to constantly try and figure out how the dots are going to connect in the future. (This is what might happen)

But don’t forget…the most important dot is simply the next one. (This is happening)

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

Southwest Welcome Aboard Banter

You knew exactly what it was before you even clicked through.

Amazing.

How long did it take for them to create that reputation…that whey I say Southwest Banter we all start thinking of the same thing.

In truth, it’s probably somewhere around 60 seconds.

Again, amazing.

Four flights at about 15 seconds each of little quippy funny jokes during the Welcome Aboard speech is all it takes.

That’s pretty good. One total minute and now millions of people are all in on the joke.

It’s because we didn’t expect jokes during the Welcome Aboard speech.

It’s because we laughed a little even though we know full well the captain used the same line for the previous flight.

It’s because we like the fact that we fly an airline that’s known for being creative with their Welcome Aboard speech. It makes us feel like we made the right choice…because we’re smiling…and how can smiling and laughing be anything other than the right choice??!!!!

Southwest adds the 15 seconds of humor at no extra charge, but it means everything to us.

What will you add?

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

Pro Show Move

Towards the beginning of the show tell the audience something you’re going to do later in the show…and then later in the show, do it.

Something like…

“Later in the set I’m going to give a toast to this beautiful city.”

“There’s a drum solo coming your way later tonight, have your cameras ready.”

“Don’t worry people in the front row, I’m coming down to meet you in a bit.”


Verbalizing some of your own foreshadowing accomplishes a couple things.

It creates tension and anticipation.

It positions you as a person who comes through on what they say. You’re a keeper of promises. And people like those kind of people.

And it positions you as a professional. A professional remembers what they said they were going to do. A professional doesn’t make an empty promise.

Find your version of this and start doing it.

***The first way I gave this idea to an artist was “Tonight I’m going to give three toasts. The first one is…” This gave a great pacing to the night. The audience knew two more toasts were coming and that in order for the show to feel complete the toasts had to happen.  So when the artist comes through with a toast in the middle and another one at the end, it gives a sense of completion to a simple story, and made the artist look like a total boss.

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