If you want to be a writer, write everyday. By yourself, with people, on your phone, on paper, in the park, on the edge of your bed in your undies.
Same goes for so many creative endeavors.
Don’t over dramatize it.
Do the work.
The things we do everyday, that’s our lives. And if you want ‘being great’ to be part of your life you’ve gotta do that thing everyday.
First Monday of the Month, new Hum Love playlist on Spotify and Apple.
The music rules have been lifted…so no more complaining.
The last song on this month’s playlist is also currently the number five song in the world on Spotify.
It starts out acoustically in 4/4 time…and if it’s to a click it isn’t tight. Then it speeds way up, big electric guitars, big vocals and 6/8 time…the verse that was played at the beginning of the song is now adapted into the new time signature before another huge chorus and a mellow outro. And the lyrics are solid.
This is not the type of song that gains traction. This is not the type of song you’re suppose to promote. This is not the type of song you write and release to get famous.
Great songs and a great team. Those are the two things you need to build if you’re the artist.
No more complaining. Your weird music can make it. Your normal music can make it. It just has to be really good and your team has to work really hard.
When we get to motivated state of mind we think it’s going to stay forever and we over promise…to ourselves and to others.
I’ve been at the lunch meetings, the dinner meetings, the venue meetings, the bus meetings, the late night hang meetings…and it’s easy to truly get motivated and feel a desire to do commit to carrying out a bunch of plans.
But before you commit you need to consider whether or not you will carry out the plans when you feel unmotivated. Because the unmotivation is coming. It always does.
Imagine yourself waking up on a Tuesday morning tired and cranky and uncaffinated and ten voicemails already and fifty emails already. And completely unmotivated. Will you work on the plans and promises you made with the same tenacity and commitment to excellence even when the motivation isn’t there?
Motivation is helpful but it can’t be relied upon as a constant companion to get to where you want to go.
If you had to give a little public speech at the end of each week about something important to you, you’d start gathering ideas at the beginning of the week.
On Monday something major happens so you write it down. But by Friday will it still be major enough to include in your speech? And then there’s the ideas you have on Tuesday, the exciting work you did on Wednesday, the interesting conversations you had on Thursday and the podcasts you listened to on Friday.
It wouldn’t be surprising if the speech ended up being about whatever you thought of on Friday…because, all things being equal, Friday’s events and ideas have had the least amount of time to decay.
But I would argue that the problem isn’t coming up with ideas to give a little speech about. There are plenty of ideas. The interesting problem is to find the type of ideas, concepts and thoughts that don’t decay in the course of a week…and even more so, don’t decay over months and years but rather build in the potency and staying power.
»» If the thing that’s really major and important on Monday doesn’t have at least five days of staying power, maybe it wasn’t that major to begin with. Maybe that Monday energy would have been better spent somewhere else.
We spend a lot of time paying attention. Scrolling, clicking, listening, reading, watching.
So it’s worth asking…what do you want to pay attention to?
Our time, action and attention are too valuable to not consider our answer.
»» Keep in mind…the list of things we care about is very long but the list of things we care FOR is very short.