Skipping To The Second Part

Last year there was a day when I accidentally only sent out the second half of the blog post I had written.

I freaked. Right after I hit send I realized what had happened. I thought the world was going to end right then and there. Everyone would think I’m a chump and unprofessional.

As it turned out, the second half of the blog post was all it needed. No one emailed me complaining that it was weird or confusing. The first part wasn’t needed at all.

It’s worth considering skipping the first part and going straight into what you mean to say.

***Often times the first part, the preamble, the preface is insulation for our fear of saying what we really mean to say.

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

Odds & Ends

Here’s a few separate ideas that all go together:

It’s not going to end up where you think it will and it’s going to take longer than you think to get there.

A plan is essential as long as you know that its purpose is to deviate from it.

The hope is we’ll mature to not only learn lessons in retrospect (i.e. learning from past mis-steps) but to develop intuition in the present for the present (i.e. learning and applying at the exact same time).

Don’t let a lack of understanding hold you back from taking action. Learning and knowing what action you are going to take will likely begin to grow your understanding while taking action.

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

Parental Approval

Of course your parents are your biggest fans.

If you could spend eighteen years with each potential fan, then they too would love everything you do and buy everything you make.

But you can’t. So you have to learn to shorten the eighteen years.


Ok so let’s bring this idea up to speed a bit.

Think about your last show. What is it that the people in the front row understand about you in an extra special way? And how did they come to that understanding?

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

Who Wrote The Book Of Love

At the end of each year in middle school choir there were regional competitions. Soloists and ensembles.

I chose to be in an ensemble. A group of four.

The previous year I had seen a group do a doo-wop version of Who Wrote The Book Of Love and the audience really seemed liked that one the best. But it didn’t win. Which was confusing. I  thought the ensemble must have done something wrong with it but that if my group did it we would get it right and definitely win.

So we rehearsed it up. I had the melody on the second verse. We were prepared. We went on stage and easily had the loudest applause of the night. Everyone was smiling. Everyone loved it. Four 7th grade boys brought down the house.

But just like the group the year before us, we didn’t win. We finished middle of the pack.

We wanted to win the competition. So we rehearsed to impress the judges. But it turns out there were two categories called ‘technical marks’ and ‘level of difficulty points’ that a doo-wop song at a formal choral competition just was never going to score very high on.

I remember being so confused.

Now I get it.

But it’s that exact same confusion (and defeated-ness) that creeps in all these years later when I don’t keep my eyes open.

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

See The Problem?

When we say ‘my problems aren’t that bad, it could be worse’ in order to feel better about our situations, it requires comparison. That epiphany will always require someone to be worse off than us in order for us to feel better. We lean on others misfortune (not in a malicious way…it’s usually subconscious) to get ourselves to feel resolve for our own set of problems. We compare for the sake of an illusion of solace.

On the other hand, when we say ‘there is purpose and beauty in my problems’ it doesn’t require a search for comparison. It’s not a relative scale. It doesn’t require anyone to be doing worse than you. It’s an appreciation of your reality.

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

(Almost) The Exact Same Time

It’s hard to get everyone to watch at the exact same time.

But it’s funny how everyone watches at almost the same time.

And by everyone I mean the people around you, your world, your people.

We don’t want to be left out by the people we care about. So we all do the same stuff. Maybe not at the same time, but nearly the same time.

As much as we want to have our own unique schedule and interests, we want to have shared interest even more. It’s more fun to be able to talk about the episode or song or article.


Taking this idea into business. It’s not about trying to get everyone to stream, listen, buy at the same time…it’s about solidifying your place within a group to where people would feel left out by not streaming, listening, buying your thing. ie. Making it extremely expensive (socially, relationally, etc) to not be on board.

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