Turning Up What's True

Queen putting “No Synthesizers” on their liner notes.

Steven Tyler and Joe Perry as the “Toxic Twins”.

The peanut butter label reading “Gluten Free”.

Queen wasn’t the only rock band not using synths. Steven and Joe weren’t the only set of two people using lots of drugs. And peanut butter is naturally gluten free. These things were true before they were advertised.

Highlighting what is already true about something is a great way to get attention from the people who think that thing is important.

What is true about you that your people think is important?

Turn it up.

Hum Love on Spotify and Apple

Good And Famous

Do you want to be good?

Do you want to be famous?

Do you want to be good and famous?

Time, energy and resources. We all have them and there are always limits.

If you only want to be good, work on that. You can become famous by simply being good but don’t be disappointed or surprised if it doesn’t happen.

If you only want to be famous, work on that. But it helps to be ok with the fact that you are simply good at being famous and probably not the thing you want people to believe you’re famous for.

But I’m guess you want both. To be good (skilled at your thing) and famous. So you’re going to need people working on both.

»» It also helps to know…What does good mean for you and what does famous mean for you?

»» Most artists I know want to be famous but won’t say it. But if that’s what you want, go after it. Admit it, define it and get the team together and go get famous.

Hum Love on Spotify and Apple

There's Always A Come Down

The chorus can’t last forever.

The tour can’t last forever.

The group can’t last forever.

The summer of love can’t last forever.

While you’re in it, enjoying it, it’s hard to tell that you’re inside of something you’ll later wish could have lasted forever. And of course once you’re looking at it in retrospect it becomes something different all together.

But maybe, if you keep your eyes open, you can spot it in real time. It won’t mean you’ll be able to make it last longer, but you will be able to experience more of the richness.

Hum Love on Spotify and Apple

I've Been Here Before

It helps when you can say ‘I’ve been here before’. Because you’ve been there you know your way around, you have better intuition of what comes next, you can show the new comers the lay of the land, you know where the puddles are and can keep your feet dry.

But the only way to build up your I’ve been here befores is to be willing to step into more ‘I haven’t been here befores’.

Hum Love on Spotify and Apple

Winter PSA

It’s winter. It’s cold. It gets dark early.

Don’t make huge decisions if you’ve been inside under a blanket for a month.

It’ll get warmer soon and you’ll be able to think clearer.

Hum Love on Spotify and Apple

Trying Your Hardest And Doing Your Best

It seems to reason that you do your best when you’re trying your hardest.

‘Go do your best’ has been around for a long time. And then when ‘best’ doesn’t happen, the follow up is ‘try harder’.

So more effort is put in as a means of ‘doing your best’.

But I venture to guess that when most of us have done our best…we’ve simply done our best. That we weren’t necessarily trying our hardest or straining like we’ve never strained before. We did our best when we showed up, did our work and the best happened as a result.

Maximum effort doesn’t necessarily yield maximum results. Especially in creative fields.

This is not to say you shouldn’t work hard or work till all hours of the night sometimes. But it is to say if you’re not getting the results you want, ‘trying harder’ might not be the ticket you need.

Hum Love on Spotify and Apple