Festival Walking

Summer. The height of the music festival season. The height of…

“Is this band any good? I’m going to decide right now as I walk past the stage for thirty seconds…”

It doesn’t matter if you’re a well established act or a new act. No one gets a pass. You get the time it takes for someone walking past the stage to be compelling enough for them to stay. You gotta be good.

The truth is…you’ve probably got thirty seconds but their question is answered within five. And that interaction is what they’ll carry with them forever and tell their friends about when your name comes up.

Hum Love on Spotify and Apple

How To Treat The Closed Door

If you stick with it there’s a chance a new thought or idea might arrive that will help you exponentially.

On the other hand, when you quit something, your conscious and sub conscious gets aimed elsewhere and you won’t come up with the new thought or great idea that would have greatly helped you in the thing you quit. It’s a bit of a self fulfilling prophecy. You treat the closed door as a closed door rather than as an obstacle to open or work around…therefore the door will always remain closed…so you were right in your quitting. Or were you?

It’s one of the reasons quitting or sticking with something is so powerful. We’re always thinking, noticing, tweaking, searching. So where we direct (and don’t direct) that energy makes all the difference.

Hum Love on Spotify and Apple

Just Commit

I recently invited a friend to an event. He said he wanted to come and didn’t have anything else going on but that he didn’t want to commit because then if he flaked he didn’t want to be known as the guy who flaked on a commitment.

He came to the event.

Just commit. Practice committing. One way or the other. Yes or no. You don’t need practice waffling and holding out for something better or cooler (your probably already pretty good at that)…you do need practice committing and bringing your full strength of character to your commitment.

Hum Love on Spotify and Apple

A Word About Success

Success distracts and relaxes.

All the work you did to get to the success was done under strain.

Don’t concern yourself with success as much as mastery of your skill (i.e. keep writing…sure it gets easier but it’s always hard). Mastery of the skill is the prize you can hold in your chest even as you keep pursuing it.

Hum Love on Spotify and Apple

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