Why, Santa Fe?

No answers.

How Much Risk Can You Stand?

Whose career would you define as “reckless and risky”?

Why?

What makes it that way?

What could you do to make your own career choices a little more risky?

What would need to be true?

Jazz is the Answer

…to the question of how we survive in the age of automation, how we thrive and grow in a world beyond work where the machines write the code, drive the cars and build our stuff.

Empathy is a Prerequisite

Before we “start with why”, we must “understand the who”.

What if…

What if we measured our days by the quality and depth of our connections versus the ephemera of our conditions?

Something Better Than Bad

Through the resistance. Out from the darkness. Questioning the value of even doing this. Writing is my resistance. Making sense of my thoughts. Editing while I write. Taking forever to post anything. Worrying about the feedback. Worrying about not worrying about the feedback. Worrying whether it’s wrong. Worrying whether it’s right.

What Comes First?

Do you struggle with this question? Ever?

I do. Quite a bit. I don’t always ask it explicitly, but it has a tendency to creep up on me and thrust me into a crippling paralysis. Sound familiar? The reason for that (I think) is that the answer is far too often “EVERYTHING”. Therefore, “NOTHING”. Deciding what matters most is simple ask, but like so many of the things that are truly valuable and meaningful in our lives, just because something is simple, by no means is it always easy. When we ask this question we often believe that we must reduce all of our commitments to ONE THING. The ONE and only ONE most important. It doesn’t have to be this way. Much has been said about how in the face of paralysis, it’s better to do something – anything – no matter how small or seemingly insignificant, if only for the reason of avoiding the inevitable vortex of “analysis paralysis”. I’ve spent a lot of time swirling in that vortex. Doubting. Asking yourself “what am I giving up?”, “am I doing the RIGHT thing?”, “am I hiding?” instead of acting, doing or creating. I don’t know why these questions constantly show up. Fear of commitment? Fear of failure? Fear of success? Yes. Yes. Yes. All of these things. And yet, aren’t they all really the same thing? Can’t these fears simply be reduced to fear of the unknown?

Today’s answer is a simple one.

What comes first is whatever comes next.

Give yourself time and permission to let yourself feel what it feels like to act, create or engage with something. It doesn’t have to be the right thing, because there is no ONE “right” thing, but whatever it is does need to be REAL. It needs to be put into the world where someone could touch it, read it, look at it or connect with it. It is inside of you and needs to get out. It doesn’t need to be perfect. It doesn’t even need to be good. It just needs to BE. There will be time to think, ruminate, reflect, reassess, evaluate, reevaluate and unapologetically bask in the glow of introspection, but that time is not now. That time is 15 minutes (or 5 minutes, or 2 minutes) from now, AFTER you’ve done SOMETHING. ANYTHING REAL. Right now, for me, what was next, what came first, was this post.

Writing Every Day is Hard! (or insert alternate title here)

I have an annoying habit of editing every sentence of what I write several times before it’s complete. I look at the red squiggly underlines indicating spelling errors and my OCD starts to kick in. I agonize over grammatical constructs (ending a sentence with “in”)? IDIOT! I confuse myself with the rules of language and often times find myself in the awkward position of having sent an email that makes exactly ZERO sense, because each sentence was half-pasted from another part of the message three times. It is so hard to write and write and write without editing. No matter how many times I hear Steven Pressfield or James Altucher in my head telling me just to keep writing and stop worrying, I am strangely drawn to look back. I fear the judgment of the desired recipient of my message. Was I clear? Was I too wordy? Did I ramble?

And then it comes to a stop. I lose my concentration, and my place, and I edit.

Or I don’t.

What was I saying again?

You Know What Seth Says

Blog every day. Blog every day. Everyone should have a blog and everyone should… BLOG EVERY DAY. I guess that means even if you feel like you’ve spent the entire day drowning in the proverbial fish barrel. Or at least in a morass of confusion and indecision. Thankfully, the universe gave me a present. THE PRESENT!

Music is Dead. Long Live Music! Spotify, Streaming and the New Music Business

I love music. I love musicians. I love my friends. I love Spotify. Lately, many of my professional musician friends have been lamenting, complaining about, or otherwise bemoaning the poor royalty structure currently offered by streaming services such as Spotify, Pandora, and Apple iTunes. While I am not currently a professional musician, I do understand their dilemma. They want to make their art and they want to get paid a fair amount of money for that art. It’s a very simple and clear desire and an understandable one. But no one can deny that the music industry has permanently changed. To borrow a phrase from the recent book “Bold” by Peter Diamandis and Steven Kottler, dematerialization, demonetization and democratization have happened to the music business. There’s no going back now. It started with Napster and Metallica, and has progressed into Spotify and Taylor Swift. Share all the infographics you like, but Spotify, Apple and Pandora have won. Now what? Lament, complain, and commiserate, sure, but at the end of the day (oh how I hate that phrase), a person has to eat, and if you’re a musician that means finding a way to make a buck when the casual listener won’t pay you, the label won’t pay you, the club owner won’t pay you, and the festival organizer won’t pay you.