First Monday of the month, new Hum Love playlist on Spotify and Apple
Putting together a regularly scheduled playlist is a free and it’s a productive way to click around for a while. Those clicks will lead you to listening to new sounds and songs, songs you wouldn’t have heard if you didn’t commit to making or updating a playlist.
Why not give it a shot this year?
If you go out ice fishing and aren’t catching anything you get really cold.
But you don’t get cold if you’re catching fish.
It’s not the motion of catching the fish that generates the heat to keep you warm. Rather, it’s the excitement of catching the fish that keeps you warm.
You might be in a cold season. And when the cold sets in it takes over. It’s the only thing you can think about. But then you switch from worms to leaches and you get a nibble and then a bite and then a fish…
It’s still cold but now you’ve got some heat.
I’ve never heard of or been a part of someone calling a meeting or getting everyone’s attention or speaking up excitedly to say, ‘Things have been going ok and let’s just stay the same and keep doing it that way’.
Rather…the ‘stay the same’ person only speaks up in response to someone else speaking up with excitement about the quest for something new and better.
It’s always a reaction. Because as a stand alone plan it’s easy to see how flimsy it is. But as a response to something new it feels safe.
It’s going to be really hard to build a great show if some of the people on stage don’t want to build a great show.
And this is tricky to navigate.
The first idea that comes to mind is to minimize the roles of the people who want to just keep doing the same old thing and don’t want to put in the work. But this is a pretty horrible way to start a quest for greatness.
The next idea is to let-go of some people who probably needed to be let go of quite a while ago…and replace them with those who are willing to get on board with the vision and even add to it.
But you don’t want to let anyone go. You’ve worked so hard to get to where you are and the thought of messing with the chemistry, even though it’s fractured, is terrifying. So what’s the best chance of getting everyone on the same page?
Show them the vision. Paint them a picture. Use words and emotion and connection and excitement to tell them how their life will be better if they put in the work. Talk about how amazing it feels to walk on stage already knowing you have a great show in your pocket. The feeling of walking off stage knowing that you delivered at an elite level…even on the nights when the crowd doesn’t cheer as loud.
And talk about how having a hundred great shows per year means a hundred great nights per year…and a hundred great nights per year goes a long way to building a pretty great life.
»» Unfortunately what usually happens when some people want to build a great show and some people don’t is that nothing gets said and everyone simply lives with a quiet constant tension and resentment. Don’t pick this option.
No one finishes a chapstick.
And there’s no glory in being the exception to that rule.
The point isn’t to make it through a chapstick…the point is to have it when you need it. If you don’t have it (because you lost it, not because you finished it), you spend a few dollars to get it.
No need to spend your willpower on a problem that is so easily fixed.