Nike was Right
You can JUST DO IT.
If, when faced with a less-than-ideal situation, you find yourself immediately getting defensive or offering the million reasons (and people) who are responsible for your lack of action, movement forward, or success - then STOP. Stop everything.
A New Mindset
If you’re on this path the next thing that is going to happen is that I am going to start telling you motivating stories of triumphs without budgets, greatness without cash, grooviness in the face of everything. You’ll start retreating and reinforcing your position that all you need is a manager, an agent, a producer, and several budgets. We’ll go back and forth. Me, trying to convince you that the solution to everything lies within you, and you blaming everyone but yourself. Well... I'm not doing that anymore.
No, I'm not giving up on you but I’ve come to realize that my time is better spent helping the few that get it (or at least a bit of it) rather than smashing myself in the face with a recently stolen parking meter.
The glorious part of that is the amazing flower that blossoms and brightens the half dug up, oil-slicked concrete pock-marked car park (not the orchid that blooms in the temperature-controlled hydroponic environment).
The other way of saying that (literally in a less flowery style) is:
TRIUMPH IN THE FACE OF ADVERSITY
Sounds like something you'd print on a coffee mug and recite over the espresso machine on a bright sunny morning, doesn’t it? Like, “Triumph in the face of adversity - who wants the last blueberry bagel?"
Actually, it’s a phrase that’s going to be much more useful in the very pits of a lonely, stark, harsh reality-check bio-hazard hot tub, bubbling with despair, defeat, and hopeless sadness. Any fuckhead can survive an on-stage “catastrophe” of a broken string and waffle into the bar afterward and recap in horrifying microscope detail: "...And that’s how I managed to clip on the strap right before the middle G on Dave’s bass solo!”
It's easier to share the epic tale of "How I Survived a Broken Guitar String" than it is to talk about the messy, difficult, uncomfortable stuff. But, confronting the hard stuff and kicking its ass, especially when it seemed impossible, makes you grow.
For me, that's a lot of what Tour:Smart Bus Edition is about - showing people how to triumph in the face of adversity, helping them realize that they are unstoppable.
When we decide we want a career in music, we are equipped with instructions, advice, and guidance that is at best flawed, but more often non-existent, misguided, deliberately obtuse, or cloudy. It sometimes feels like giving a soldier about to land in a warzone instructions for Pac-Man. A fucking blender comes with more meaningful instructions than the desire to create a career in music or art.
The good news is, you don’t really need that instruction manual, and even if you have one, it’s likely outdated before you finish reading it. You just gotta do stuff, get your hands dirty, do stuff that scares you, fail spectacularly, and do it all again. If you start with the easy tasks ahead of you and seizing opportunity as it’s offered, you might grab the tenacity, ingenuity, sense of humor, and resilience you are going to need for so many of the other not-as-easy things.
The bad news is... Actually, there isn't any bad news right now - unless you want to make some up for yourself.
See you on the road.