Motivated State Of Mind

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.

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Giving A Little Speech

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.

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Question Of Attention

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.

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Punting On Second Down

No football team punts on second down.

Even if it’s 2nd & a mile and the chances of moving the sticks are almost zero…there’s no need to say, ‘it’s probably not going to happen so let’s just get it over with and punt now’.

There’s two more chances worth taking.

Because an almost zero chance and zero chance are very different.

You may have to admit temporary defeat at some point but no need to rush it.

»» All of this is predicated on the idea that you’re playing the game you want to be playing.

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The Vibe On Stage

What do the people on stage think is the reason for playing and performing?

It’s a mixture of all the things listed below but in each crew there’s one or two that really dictate the attitude and vibe on stage.

We’re here to have fun

We’re here to get all the notes right

We’re here to connect with the audience

We’re here to look cool

We’re here for the art

We’re here to be the best

We’re here to be charming

We’re here to relax

We’re here because we like each other

We’re here to play a bigger gig next time

We’re here to make people dance

And there’s a thousand more reasons that all get mixed in. But the couple that are at the top of your list go a long way toward understanding how the world sees you. And if you’re playing for an audience, then how they see you matters.

»» If you take the time to dig into this exercise it’s tempting to pick the one or two that you *want* to be at the top of the list rather than what is actually at the top. Don’t make that mistake.

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Trying To Please A Boss...

without having a job description.

This is the essence of work place disfunction and disappointment.

And if you’re an artist, songwriter or any other type of freelancer it gets even more tricky because you are the boss who didn’t write the job description for the worker (also you)…so with no description of what your job is, you don’t know how to please the boss, which makes the boss upset with you, so you get upset with the boss…and now neither you nor you know what to do next.

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