That Person On Stage

You can’t be that person all the time.

The person up there is a dramatically heightened version of the usual you. You get in the zone. You turn it all the way up. All eyes are on you and every little nuance is being absorbed by a room full of people. You are leading an audience of strangers into a unified emotional experience. This is not normal.

That’s why it’s called a performance. It’s not meant to last forever.

Sometimes it’s hard to get up for the show…and most artists I know have spent a lot of time figuring out how to get up for the show.

But coming down is a skill unto itself. You’ve been this inflated version of yourself for ninety minutes but now what? How will you come back to earth?

The audience needs you to get up for the show. And you should.

Your life needs you to come down from the show. And you should.

Hum Love on Spotify and Apple

Peaking

It’s easy to think that since you’re an artist and David Bowie was also an artist that the peak must be the same. That all artists have the same potential (and astronomical) peak.

But as reality has shown us time and again, most artists peak without breaking through the ceiling. The peak just isn’t big enough.

The project starts with excitement. That excitement turns into action. Action into magnetism. Magnetism into opportunities…and then comes the expectation that new and bigger opportunities will keep happening forever until you’ve surpassed your wildest dreams. But they don’t.

It’s confusing because the thing was on an upward trajectory. You were doing everything right, putting in the work, getting the desired results…and then the project peaks and all the equations that were working out in your favor stop.

It’s not fair but it’s true.

So not every project has the same peak but you’re also not beholden to one project forever.

Hum Love on Spotify and Apple

Make. Have. Give.

If you make a good show, then you have a good show.

If you have a good show, you can give a good show.

You can’t give what you don’t have.

And as it pertains to consistency, professionalism and greatness…you can’t have what you don’t make.

Most artists aren’t willing to make a good show. If you’re going to rise above the others you’re going to need to do the thing that most aren’t willing to do.

Hum Love on Spotify and Apple

George On The Roof

George didn’t want to do the roof top performance.

But when Mal came up with the police offers and turned off George and John’s amps to tell them what was going on…George turned his amp back on.

He had the perfect reason to stop but he wanted to keep going instead. Now maybe it was just to be a team player and finish the song for the sake of the film crew…but judging from the body language, he turned his amp back on because it was fun to be up there performing. He was right.

Hum Love on Spotify and Apple

Fun Chit Chat

It’s fun to speculate about what this or that will look like in five years. It’s fun because everyone gets to be right…or rather, no one can be proven wrong. So at dinner parties and lunches and meetings it’s an easy way for everyone to chit chat about meaningful things without any real consequences or responsibility.

The more helpful conversation is what are we going to do right now…both in the face of reality (how things currently are) and how the macro ideas of five years from now might affect our tiny portion of the world.

Hum Love on Spotify and Apple

Attain vs. Maintain

The maintain is harder.

You’ve succeeded (attained) in raising the bar to a point where things are going well. All the thankless work, long nights, long years, the emotional rollercoaster…you’ve done it all and have made it through…not unscathed, but still alive. You’ve achieved a level of success that others in your field only dream about.

Now comes the hard part. Now you have to maintain the excellence that got you there. And excellence is a lot easier to achieve than maintain. There is a thrill to attaining that maintaining doesn’t have. Once you’ve attained, the thrill of attaining loses its power as the driving force. And when it goes away are you willing to maintain?

You built it, now go take care of it.

Hum Love on Spotify and Apple