Starting Big And Small

A month ago I went snowboarding for the very first time.

I started big and I started small.


I Started Big

About a year  in advance my friends and I talked about doing a snowboard trip together. We kept the idea going. We kept checking in with each other to make sure it was still something we all wanted to do. Then came checking dates. Checking with spouses. Scoping out locations online.

Then in the fall, finally the jump of buying plane tickets, setting up the van rental, finding the AirBNB, choosing a ski area, buying lift tickets, putting gear together.

And after all that, then came the actual day of going to the airport, security, hours on a plane, ginger ale, landing, baggage claim, rental desk, an hour drive to the AirBNB…thirty more minutes to the ski area…two more hours in the rental line because a couple of us didn’t bring everything we needed.

Just getting to the base of the mountain was a huge breathtaking victory, like we’d overcome the insurmountable odds, like we’d beaten Vegas ala Oceans 11.

I was now ready for…snowboard school.


I Started Small

I kid you not, the first line of snowboard school was “This is called a snowboard.”

Very funny I know. But honestly that was the appropriate place to start.

We spent the first several hours not on a bunny hill, but on the most subtle gradual incline in all of Colorado. I don’t think a marble would have even rolled on that, my first slope.

And that’s not to belittle the process. It was hard. I fell. A lot…yes on the most subtle gradual incline in all of Colorado.

By the afternoon we’d graduated to practicing our newly learned basic techniques on sections of the actual bunny hill. Not the whole bunny hill, just sections. Hours of more falling, getting it, falling a bit harder, getting it again, and so on.

But just before the end of a very long first day I felt it. The feeling. The snowboard feeling. Connecting a few turns and dare I say, cruising. That was the magic. I knew what I was doing just enough to have a little fun and to know how to do it again.


It took starting big in order to start small. Both sized efforts were necessary, in that order.

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The Thicker Sharpie

You just got done playing the festival and you decide to hang at the merch booth for a while.

Fans come up and buy CDs (this still happens at live shows) and want everyone in the band to sign the CD jacket.

There’s an envelope full of sharpies in the merch bin, so everyone grabs one and starts signing.

In the midst of autograph after autograph you start noticing…you’re signing your name with a classy, sheik, ultra fine tip sharpie, the kind that gets used to sign important contracts, cause that’s the kind of bass player you are…but the lead singer is using an giant over sized chisel tip sharpie. He’s sure putting a lot more black ink on that CD jacket than you.

When your elegantly written name is next to the thick letters of the lead singer, yours is barely noticeable.

The lead singer has it figured out…Big sharpies are just more fun…and easier to see.

And that’s the whole point :)

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The Next Melody

Do you go with the first melodic idea or do you let the first melody lead you to the second version? Do you stick with the second or do you let the second be the inspiration for the third?

And so on.

Whatever melody you decide to stick with, you’ll never know the one that was coming right after it.

That’s a huge part of being a songwriter. Making that judgement call. Deciding when it’s good enough. Forgoing the possibilities of the next (melodic) idea for the sake of finishing.

Professionals make the call. Professionals finish (that’s how they get paid). Professionals don’t always get it right, but understand that they’ll never know if they got it right or wrong until they finish.

At some point you have to make the call and be ok with not knowing what was behind the next door.

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Doing A Little Bit

The good thing about making a habit of doing a little bit everyday is that you can always do a little bit every day.

You may not be in the position to do a lot each day, but a little? Yeah you have time for a little.

***And it turns out that the hard part for doing a little everyday vs. doing a lot everyday is much the same hurdle: deciding.

Doing a little everyday is a huge leap.

Going from doing a little everyday to doing a lot everyday is the easy (usually logistical) part.

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While You Wait

What you do while you’re waiting is of utmost importance.

Waiting gives you the opportunity to do something else because there’s nothing else you can do about the current thing other than wait.

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