I love the scene at the end of Ocean’s 11 where they’re all standing victoriously in front of the Bellagio. The music, the swaying water, Brad Pitt. It’s all so magical.
But the fountain scene doesn’t last.
That’s why there had to be sequels.
They couldn’t stand at the fountain forever, they needed to go back to work.
The work is where the action is.
Of course you’re going to get tired.
The real question is how long does it take for you to recover?
If you need a month to decompress and re-energize before you book the next writing session, it’s going to be tough to write for a living.
If it’s going to take a year to recover after the exhaustion of putting out an album it’s probably best not to try to do this as a profession.
If you need two minutes to mentally rest and prepare before you can perform the next song, a touring career is probably out of the question.
You can streamline technique and technique can be a path to strengthen presence but you can’t streamline presence.
So when you copy someone’s presence you are reproducing technique, not presence.
Presence trumps technique.
»» And this isn’t to undermine technique. Learning new tips and tricks and moves and best practices is vital. But it’s easy to think those things are going to (quickly) change the feel of the air that surrounds you when you walk into a room or onto a stage. You can’t trick your presence.
If you know you’re going to go one for three, where do you want the one to go?
Say you have three basketballs to shoot from half court and you want to impress the onlookers…
If you make the first one it’s big cheers and then disheartened sighs when you miss the next two and when you finish they say, ‘Well at least you made that first one’.
If you miss the first, swish the second and air ball the third they say, ‘Great job’.
If you were close on the first, closer on the second and then swish the third they say, ‘That was amazing! You did it!’
In every case you went one for three but the story and sentiment that permeates the audience changes depending on the order.
Here’s the deal, it’s a raw deal but this is what we gotta do…
There’s a raw part in every deal. The goal isn’t to evade the raw deal but to pick which one you’re going to sign up for so that when you get to it you aren’t as surprised and it doesn’t act as a deterrent but rather a guide post that you’re on the right track.