Fun and Games

It’s all fun and games until the game starts.

It’s fun to get the likes for your perfectly posed picture on Instagram.

It’s easy to fake like you can sing in tune on your records.

It’s cool to go out and hang with the cool crowd, act like the cool crowd, dress like the cool crowd…and maybe even BE the cool crowd.

But when you have to go up on a stage…you are left with you and your songs. None of the other stuff matters at that point. It’s real. It’s serious business. Everyone is going to see what you really have.

This is the real game to be won. Because if you can win the game on stage you’ll never be a loser.

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Blender Height

When I wash the blender pitcher I then put it back on the base. After that I wash the lid and put the lid on the pitcher. But the pitcher and lid are still a little bit wet…so I put the lid on upside down on the pitcher and that way everything can air dry.

After I perform this sequence comes the grand finale…sliding the whole thing back under the cabinets until next time.

And it fits under the cabinets. Just barely. A miracle. A miracle?

It’s like they knew. Like they knew what the standard counter top to cabinet height was…and to come in just below that with the lid flipped over…so that I could put it away while it was drying.

If it was a half an inch taller I would have to leave the whole thing in the middle of the kitchen counter until it was dry. Not the end of the world and doesn’t affect the blender’s performance in any way.

But no. It’s better this way. It doesn’t have to be but it sure is nice.

It’s worth considering how the things we make will play out in real life…and what features, while (maybe) having nothing to do with the thing itself, would make it better for the people who buy in.

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The Great Thing About Playing The Huge Show

Is that it reveals what you know is true…you can do it too. That while a big gig is way different than a small one, they’re pretty much the same.

It’s a stage, some speakers and a microphone…just bigger and louder.

It reveals that the magic never came from the size of the venue or the size of the crowd but the communication and connection of music, artist and audience.

Playing that huge show for the first time strips away all the mystique and then adds more mystique than could ever be understood.

The huge show doesn’t provide a huge leap in confidence but it does provide a bigger mirror for reflection.

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A Huge Show's Worth Of Confidence

If you get to play a really huge show, you don’t get an equally really huge boost in confidence because of it. You simply get one show’s worth of confidence because of it. And it’s a real building block but it’s probably smaller than you were hoping for.

You may have some natural talent that tends to work well in the marketplace…but most of your staying power will come from staying with it…letting the tiny incremental breakthroughs pile up.

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When The Coach Quits

The coach doesn’t quit because suddenly there’s a distaste for teaching and mentoring and pursuing a common goal and the high’s of winning and the shared heartbreak of losing.

The coach quits when the things that distract from the things mentioned above get too loud…the complainy parents, the too nosy athletic director, school and coaching politics and bureaucracy.

Our own pursuits are probably similar…

It’s not that the good parts go bad…it’s that other things infiltrate the good parts and make the good parts harder to focus on, harder to keep at the top of the priority list, harder to derive positive energy from.

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Strategies For Not Feeling Like It

What are your strategies for overcoming not feeling like it? Strategies for getting into it?

The good thing is…if you know your strategies then you can get better and faster at them. And as you get better and faster you’ll become more efficient and effective with time and opportunities.

Hum Love on Spotify and Apple