Long. Flash. Famous.

If a long career is what you want, get good at things that will build a long career. A couple tried and true tactics that go back many years: great music and putting on a great show.

If a flash in the pan is what you want, be meticulous about the latest avenues that promote quick hits, fast assents and great short term money .

If a famous and long career is what you want, the most important thing to add to great music and a great show is an uncanny ability to hire the right people at the right time.

The tools for any of these paths are quite literally at your fingertips.

Hum Love on Spotify and Apple

Treasure

The treasure is more fun when it’s lost.

Found treasure becomes normal treasure and eventually we forget it’s treasure at all.

Found treasure is on display somewhere and anyone can buy a ticket to go see it.

Found treasure has completed its tale. It has a bookend to its story, an end to its lost-ness.

But lost treasure? Lost treasure incites adventure and risk and living on the edge and the attractive uneasiness of the unknown.

Chances are you got into the thing you’re working on because you liked the fun of lost treasure more than any promise of finding it.

Hum Love on Spotify and Apple

Get The Gold Top

Going from a Les Paul Jr. to a Les Paul Gold Top doesn’t make you a better guitar player.

But the upgrade might make you think you’re a better guitar player.

Thinking you’re a better guitar player might unlock the confidence to act like a better guitar player.

And once you start acting like a better guitar player, you’re well on your way.

So get the Gold Top. It’ll be great. But remember the Jr. has the exact same notes.

Hum Love on Spotify and Apple

Potholes

Nashville. Very hot and humid in the summer. And a handful of of icy cold days in the winter. All this amounts to some very deep, tire-wrecking potholes.

And where do the potholes almost always show up? The same place they were last time.

A quick fix for a deep problem works for a short time. But although you can’t shut down the highway every time there’s some bumps, eventually you need to do the hard work.

Hum Love on Spotify and Apple

The Itch

For those who know me well this is perhaps the most Gabe predicament I’ve ever disclosed…

Sometimes when I’m on a long trip and the conversation has died down, my phone has nothing left for me and there’s no more snacks, I just sit there. I stare out the window. Just thinking. Just seeing what comes up.

Sometimes I get an itch. An actual itch. Maybe on the back of my neck or on my elbow.

So what do I do?

I see how long I can go without scratching it.

Sure I could just scratch the itch and everything would be fine, and there’s certainly no prize for holding out on the scratch. But why not play a little game?

Here’s what I’ve found…There’s an arc to the itchiness. I notice the itch. I decide not to scratch. It intensifies. It calls out to me. I refuse. It burns. I will not show weakness. It reaches its peak. I almost give into this most trivial of obstacles. It goes away. And I’m back to being a guy staring out a window.

The only itches that didn’t go away by themselves are the ones I scratched before they went away.

Moral of the story: Until you stare out the window you’ll never know what will come up when you do.

Hum Love on Spotify and Apple

Lots And Most

Lots of people is a lot different than most people.

No one has ever had most people.

But lots of people have had lots of people.

So you don’t need most but you may need lots.

Really what you need is enough. Which may mean lots but it definitely doesn’t mean most.

Hum Love on Spotify and Apple