to just stand there.
I’ve seen it done. And I’ve seen it tried to be done.
The latter is painful, annoying and forgettable. While the former is mesmerizing.
Presence is powerful. And not everyone can have the same kind just by wanting it.
»» Presence, in part, comes from the way you connect to others and the way they feel connected to you.
»» Shout out to my guy Julio for our text exchange on this.
Zeppelin II
Star Wars Empire Strikes Back
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets
Perhaps the best ingredient to all of these was the gap between the first one and the second one. After the first one was heard or seen or read, the wondering began.
How is it going to start? What is it going to feel like? Who is involved? How similar is it going be to the first one? What happens next?
Now we can consume all the volumes all at once. We don’t wait nine months after listening to Zeppelin I before listening to II just because that’s what people had to do in 1969. But the fact that they did have to wait for it is part of what made it stick (and opening with Whole Lotta Love didn’t hurt).
When you’re playing a show, if you don’t have anything else to trade on, you trade on correctness (with a goal of perfection).
The correct words and notes and breaks and rhythms and chords. Easy to measure.
And boring
Trading on correctness is safe because if you play all the right notes no one can say it wasn’t good.
But if that’s all you have, you’re ignoring the main element that got you into music in the first place…emotional connection.
It’s a lot harder to measure but it’s the thing that can levitate a room. It’s the foundation for the magic. It’s the thing that makes all of us remember.
Southwest now does a credit card pitch in their opening monologue.
It’s annoying. It sours the rest of the speech.
And it used to be a pretty good speech.
The parts about the safety rules, they have to say it and it doesn’t hurt to hear one more time the way to manually inflate the life jacket.
The jokes and sarcasm and puns that they sprinkle in are a bonus, they’re not necessary but everyone loves it. It’s great marketing. We paid for the type of flight that has that kind of vibe.
But the credit card pitch. That’s for them. The magic erodes. They’re cashing in part of their relational capital to try to get new sign ups (just like all the other airlines do).
And the kicker is, the credit card offer they’re pedaling isn’t even as good as the one on the front page of the app.
Relational capital is so much more valuable and so much harder to get than credit card customers.
Are you the kind of operation that can have subs, or do you need 100% of your people all the time?
If the train doesn’t need to stop just because one person gets sick or is out on vacation, that’s worth noticing.
Pretty tough for Green Day to have subs. If one of the three of them is out they cancel the gig and everyone understands.
It’s much easier for the Nashville Symphony to have subs. If the fourth violin is someone different from last night, the audience would much rather the show go on than to cancel on account of one violin.
Embrace which kind you are. And if you’re the kind that can use subs…needing a sub is a bad time to go looking for subs.
Whenever he wants, whatever room he walks into, whoever is there, Steven Tyler can sing the word Cryin and the whole room changes.
He could say it, he could talk about it, he could teach you to how to sing it…but that’s not it.
That singer with that melody with that lyric.
That is the weird super power of singers and melody.