The Only Game In Town

How many streams

How many likes

How many followers

How many viewers

How many dm’s

How many listeners

How many verified listeners

How many emails

How many click throughs

You might not be trying to win the game…very few claim to be trying to win it. You might not even admit you’re playing the game at all. But you sure don’t want to lose the game. But it feels like the only game in town and you certainly don’t want to feel left out of it.

What would it look like to play a different game all together? Maybe a game that didn’t have minute by minute ups and downs. Maybe a game that wasn’t so easily confused with your identity. Maybe a game where, if you win, everyone wins.

»» It's entirely possible to be paying some attention to these metrics but playing a completely different game.

Hum Love on Spotify and Apple

Above The Threshold

You might be at the point where you don’t need to get any better. You’re above the threshold.

So while you don’t have to get any better, you do have to keep being that good.

And the best way to do that is to keep getting better.

»» And if you’re above the threshold and still not getting the desired results, focus on connection, taking responsibility, and coming through for people.

Hum Love on Spotify and Apple

Cool Enough...

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.

Hum Love on Spotify and Apple

Anticipation

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).

Hum Love on Spotify and Apple

What You're Trading On

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.

Hum Love on Spotify and Apple

The New Southwest Speech

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.

Hum Love on Spotify and Apple