(00:03):
Hey everybody. And welcome to behind the space bar episode two, humbly confident, humbly curious. My name's will. Thanks so much for joining me and welcome back to behind the space bar. Last week was our first episode back after almost a year which is crazy. And I really appreciate all the kind comments from you and people saying they are glad the podcast is back. That's always a great thing. When you take a super long break and come back and people are actually excited that you, that you're back and created more content. I also mentioned, I believe in last week's episode that I will be, be releasing new content every single day in 2022. Now this is an audacious goal. I mentioned last week, I still off the podcast cuz I was burnout. So naturally the best thing to do when your burnout is to over commit and do more than you did in the first place that caused the burnout.

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But we've got a great plan of action and have a good kind of distribution plan and editorial calendar buildout that I think is gonna make this completely possible. So 2022 is a year of a lot of really good content, but I wanted to say front that, thanks for the kind words from last week's episode, the comments on YouTube emails and messages through the site really, really meant a lot. So I appreciate that. Before I dive into this week's content, which is gonna be a super special episode and I'll dig into this and, and what humbly confident, humbly curious means in the first place. I do have just a couple ask a couple favors, one wherever you're watching or listening to this. Do me a favor, leave a rating in a review if you're watching over on YouTube.

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And if you didn't know that you could watch the visual version of this, which I'm sorry. It's nothing incredibly exciting. It's me sitting here in the studio recording, but if you're someone that likes watching people talk for 30 minutes, then you can watch over on YouTube. I've included links to the YouTube channel to do that. But wherever you're watching, wherever you're listening, do me a favor, leave a rating or review. That would mean a whole lot that really helps get the podcast like showing up in the search results, rankings, those sorts of things. Second thing, if you wanna watch then head over to YouTube to watch that the episode goes live every Monday morning, 10:00 AM central would love to have you there. I've also included a link to the YouTube channel would meet a lot if you subscribed, if you haven't yet hit the bell icon, you know, the drill you watch YouTube, you know, the drill hit the bell icon.

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So you're notified and liking the video obviously helps as well. Okay. I think that's all I've got for this week. Let's die dive into the content this week. We're talking about something that I've become very passionate about. And let me tell you kind of the origin story of this. So I, I think most people listening are familiar. The name of the, the podcast is behind the space bar, but the company that produces the content is called from studio to stage. So this is the site I'll include the link in the, the show notes of this. If you've actually never been to this site, I guess there is a good possibility that you're, you're watching this. And you don't even know it from studio to stages. I guess there's a, a possibility of that. Or maybe you saw me when I was at multi-tracks working there or you've seen my content on YouTube, but you're not really familiar with with what, from studio to stages.

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And this is not an ad, although it could be an ad cuz I'm in charge. I can do whatever I want, but from studio to stages a subscription platform it's a community where people can subscribe free tutorials switch. This is kind of part of that free tours podcast, free resources in depth courses. Okay. I'd say this is not an ad. I promise. But the reason I bring this up is I started from C no to stage. And I started to see this trend with people to where I would get people that would subscribe. People that I, I knew I had some history with. And and then I would see the, the, the people, it felt like the people were kind of splitting into two different categories and some people would cancel and that's fine. I understand there's certain certain things of my friends that they've created that I've subscribed and canceled.

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So it's not like a, it's not like a hard feelings kind of thing, but I would have some people, people that would cancel it, have some people that would stick for around for a very long time. Doug laws, he's a guy that from literally the first week I started the company and launched from studio stage at the time of recording this three years ago. He's been subscribed every day since, right. Doug's been around forever. So I started to look at people like Doug people that at I knew that I at least had a little bit of history with that had canceled and went well. What's the difference between these two types of people? I would look at people that are super advanced users that are playback techs that are out on the road with major artists that are part of the community and and people that are paying their own money and not saying like comp subscriptions, I'm saying people that are paying their own money and I would go, okay, this guy is a world class playback engineer.

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They're subscribed, they're paying their own money. They're sticking around. And then there's this person that they they're, they're good. They're, they're knowledgeable. They know what they're doing. They canceled like is, is there a difference there was mentioned, should mention too part of behind the space bar. It's a chill environment here. So if you got a cup of coffee, grab a cup of coffee, enjoy it, wherever your coffee's from. Leave me a comment. Let me know what, what you're drinking this morning or at night or whenever you're watching this. I mean, I guess you could be watching this. Doesn't have to be Monday morning. You could be watching, listening wherever, but the point is I digress. This is not a coffee show. I started looking at all the different subscribers, different people that, that had signed up. And I was trying to figure out the people that stick around, is there a common trait to them?

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Is there something about them that I could say, okay, these are the type of people that I need to get subscribed because, and be the people that stick, right? And when you look at a business, you, you try to reduce a subscription business. You try to reduce what's called churn, which is people canceling. And you try to build an audience and get them to download a, download a lead gen, something that's free. And then from there, you, you know, hopefully they purchase something that maybe eventually subscribe or whatever, but the goal in all that is you could go it's called creating a sales funnel or retention funnel or whatever you wanna call it. But it's this kind of idea of a funnel. And you want to get as many people as you can to the top of the funnel, but the trick is it's not just any type of people you wanna find the right type of people to get in the funnel that goes through.

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I tell this story I promise I'm getting to the point of today's episode, but over Christmas break, obviously the kids are outta school. My son who turned nine over the holidays went out and had a cardboard sign that said subscribe to from studio to stage honk if you're already a subscriber. And I don't know if it's cuz he is watching, you know, a lot of Mr beast or something or he just felt inclined to try to help dad grow his YouTube subscriber count. But I thought it was super sweet, but I was trying to explain to him that you know, it's great that he's doing that, but I don't necessarily need people that are driving it through my neighborhood to be subscribers. They need people that are musicians, playback, techs, worship leaders, that sort of thing.

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It's the right type of people. So anyway, I really started trying to figure out what are the type of people, the right type of people? What, what are the, the, the audience that I should be going after? And I, I saw in some people they had the strength, some people they didn't and what I, this down to this phrase I kind of came up with and it's stuck and it's been kind of an unofficial motto from Steve to stage is humbly confident, humbly curious, humbly confident, humbly curious. You can probably kind of pick up already what all that means and, and how it makes sense and those sorts of things. But what it's become more than an unofficial model for me. I think it's something for me that has really become a very encouraging thing and something where I see a tendency in myself to do certain things to, to tend to we'll talk about this in a second.

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I can tend to be a dinosaur and get, you know, stuck in my ways and, and stuck in way of doing things. And this has become a phrase that helps snap me out of that. It helps remind me and let me know, like always be looking for something new. So let's what I wanted to do in today's episode. We're finally getting into this about eight minutes into the episode is that I wanna break down those two things and talk about why I think it's important, particularly if you're a playback tech on the road, a musician out on the road a worst chip at a church music director at a church, wherever, wherever you are, whatever type of venue you're in, whatever type of music doesn't matter. I think this is really important. Let's talk about the first part humbly confident.

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If you're gonna be on the road, if someone's gonna hire you to be a playback tech, they need to have confidence that you know what you're doing and for you to know what you're doing, you've gotta have confidence in your setup. So what you don't wanna do is go out on the road and take out a brand new Mac Mac mini M one the first week after it's released, go out with Ableton live 11 suite the first week it's it's released and run both of those and stand on stage with new firmware on your interface. That's not officially supported by the manufacturer and stand out there and press play and just kind of cross your fingers and hope that things work well, right? That's not something we should do if we're stepping on stage, no matter again, whatever venue, whatever role you're playing that's not how we should approach things.

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So we have to have a bit of confidence. We have to have confidence in our workflow. We have to have confidence in our gear gear. That's been proven gear that's roadworthy. We have to have confidence in our process. Like we know we've done this enough. We know that this is going to work. Or if, if we don't know this is gonna work, we're sitting underneath a teacher or the teaching of someone that is telling us this works, right. I have a lot of subscribers a lot of students that, that are just getting started with tracks and they don't have the confidence that this is going that, that their process is gonna work. But they have the confidence that the training that they're getting, the they're learning, the workflow, they're learning, they have confidence that that works right. So when you get on, on stage, you have to have a, a bit of you have to have confidence that what you're doing is gonna work.

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You have to have confidence that what you're doing is a somewhat proven process. And it's, you're not trying completely brain new. You're not crossing your fingers and hoping that things work. Like you've gotta have confidence that things work, but I, but I think paired with that is, is humble confidence. It's an acknowledgement that what I'm doing works, what I'm doing has been proven. The gear I have has been proven the process I use is quick fish, stable, flexible. But there's a sense of humility that there might be a better way, right? And so humble confidence is one. You've gotta process a method away that that works. The second bit of this though is humble curiosity. And that's pairing that confidence with, I've gotta process a, a way a means of things working and, and a way that I know that things are gonna work and are gonna work out.

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And it's a good process, but at the same time I'm questioning and going, is there a better way? Is there a more efficient process? Is there a better way to do this? That gives me more freedom and flexibility. I, the same time that I have a process that I know that works and I'm humbly confident in that, I'm also at the same time curious, is there a better way a new plugin comes out I'm I'm questioning, I'm wondering, huh? I wonder if this plugin is gonna work well for me, a new mini controller comes out. I'm questioning I'm one wondering, Hey, is this mini controller the, the best possible whole mini controller for me? Is this what I should be using? I have a mini controller that I love. It works really, really well. I'm super confident in that.

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I've used it for years, but something new comes out. I don't immediately go, oh, get away from me. This is scary. This is new. This is unproven. This is whatever. No, I welcome it. I encourage it. I see this in my friend, Mike McKnight and Mike is, is the godfather, the grandfather, whatever you wanna call it. I like godfather a little better of playback. The first episode of behind the space bar, when we did the more kind of narrative driven and stuff, the stuff that burnt burnt me out because it took so long to do. Mike kind of told the story of how he's been accused of, of creating playback and inventing playback. And he says, no, I, I didn't do that. But I have been doing it for quite a while. Anyway, Mike is a guy that I constantly and consistently see him trying new things out.

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I see him as someone who knows his rig knows his gear. But he's trying out new software. He's trying out new mini controllers. He's trying out new audio interfaces. He's trying out new process and he's not so afraid of the new that he stays in his, his, his way, his line a term. I mentioned this earlier, a term, my friend, Doug used to always use or phrases. He would say don't become a dinosaur. And what he meant by that is just someone who, and I wanna be very clear on this. This is not a ageism thing. This is not a thing that says becoming a dinosaur is being an 80 year old person. That's doing playback. That's not what I mean by this. A dinosaur is someone who stays put, they are stuck in their ways. They cannot be changed.

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They cannot try new things. This is the way to do it. This is the best way. And they cannot be convinced of, of anything else. Don't become a dinosaur and the way you, you, you don't become a dinosaur is I think one, again, you've gotta be confident that your way works. You've gotta have confidence that when you press play, things are gonna function the way they're supposed to, but the way you don't become a dinosaur, when something new comes out, you go, huh, let me investigate that you don't immediately shun it and, and, and push it away because it's brand new and it's not what you use. And it's not what you're used to. No, no, no. That's, that's not at all. What we do. Something new comes out and we look at that something new and we go, huh, I wonder how that could be integrated into my setup.

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Something new comes out and you go, well, I am using this mini controller. I wonder what that mini controller would let me do. And now maybe you're in a, a situation financially where you're able to go and buy that. Today I saw an email actually for a company that at released a, a mini controller. And again a new mini controller, a new version of an existing mini, or maybe is a better way to do that. And again, my, my tendency this phrase humbly confident, humbly care, really drives home, rings home for me because I can tend to be a dinosaur. I can tend to be stuck in my ways. And I saw this email and they were mentioning this new feature of the mini control. And I thought that's stupid. No one would ever use that. Like, that's a terrible idea, blah, blah, blah, blah.

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And I kind of caught myself because I knew today I was gonna be recording this episode. And it kind of hit me. It kind of hit home that it's like, I'm being a dinosaur right now. I'm not following this right now. And so I want to go back and look at that mini controller and go, okay, I can see from experience why this new feature is potentially a bad idea. I could see the situations and scenarios where this cannot work well for people in life performance, people in a worship service. I understand that, but does this new thing open up some cool PO possibilities and, and thinking of the, the mini control? Yeah. I could see how that could open up some neat and cool possibilities. And so what I'm trying to get at here is again, when I look at subscribers that have stuck subscribers that have been around for a while, subscribers that whether they're brand new or they're pros doing play by act or whatever, they're doing, musicians, playback, texts, whatever it is when I look at them and the people that stick it's because they embody humbly confident, humbly curious, one, they are confident in their process.

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They're confident they have a, a method away that works, but they're constantly asking, is there a better way, is there a better tool? Is there a more efficient tool? Is there a more efficient process and a way to do this? I'll, I'll kind of in wrap up the pod with again, I mentioned last week, pod is the cool term, and I don't know if you knew that or not cool term for podcast, but I'll wrap up the pod this week with a bit of kind of my history and why I I've am really attracted to this phrase and why I have to be careful. When I started getting into able to live and running tracks became able to live certified trainer, and I was doing this primarily in the kind of houses of worship church fancy way to say church, this marking speak for at church market for worship leaders.

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And so I was running tracks then, and the way I was running tracks is in session view. And I would create stems and actually people, a lot of people weren't really using stems in multitracks in because they weren't easily and readily available. So multitracks.com was was called interactive worship live back then, if you, if you remember those days, lube community was a free form to upload content to UX forum was a big place where everyone went. Most people weren't using Sims in multi tracks, they were rendering like MP three S right. Just give you a sense of when this was. So this was 2004, 2000, probably 2002 to 2004. So I went to college 2004 graduated 2008. But around that time yeah, I, I believe 2010, something like that. I became a certified trainer.

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I can't remember the date. Exactly. I need to look wow. 12 years. That was 22. I got the thing here. This certificate says 2013, but it was before that my twins were born in 2012. Yeah. I think it was 2010 anyway. Became a certified trainer. I had this process down, was running tracks in session view. And I went around kind of preaching the gospel of running tracks in session view. And I was really confident and really like, this is the way to do it. There's no other way to do this. My way is the right way. And then I ran into a guy the guy who started interactive worship live, which became multi-tracks. And he was teaching running tracks in a range of view. And I thought, this makes no sense. A range of view is not built for this.

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And then I went to a conference and that guy was kind enough and humble enough to let me teach the conference alongside of him. And in doing that, I, I kind of saw a couple things he was doing and I went, oh, that's really interesting. And I started to go from blocking out a potentially other way of doing things because of my insecurity started blocking out all the, you could definitely not do this. And I started going, oh, I wonder that that would be interesting. Actually, if I did tracks an arrangement view, then I could do this. I could do that and ended up and landed. Obviously eventually at that company multi-tracks was there for a while. And and through that process, and in that transition, I started running tracks in a arrangement view. And I remember one time when multi-tracks bought my company at the time that I had started and I sent out a press release and I saw someone say like a guy email in and say you know, you, you you've changed your ways.

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You're, you're using arrangement you now. And it's all because multitracks forced you to and blah blah, and told you, and, and I'm like, bro, you are like, I mean, he was a conspiracy theorist before being a conspiracy theorist was cool. And I don't remember who the guy was, but the reason I switched was not because some company that acquired my company and that I started working for, forced me to, I switched because I realized it was a better way to do it. And so if I had stayed very, no, this is the way to do it. Then I would be stuck. I would be wasting, still wasting tons and tons of time as opposed to going, oh, I think there's a better, easier way to do this. So I, I share that story to say, you know, now I feel like I have the right way to do this.

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So, but as I'm teaching people to run tracks and arrangement view, and why I think that's better most of the time than running tracks in session view, I'm also at the same time constantly going in. Is there a better way? Is there a better tool? Is there a better resource for doing this plugins, like set list TAs able set come out and I don't wanna look at them and go, no, get away from me, get behind me, Satan. I'm not gonna use this plugin. I'm, I'm, I'm a purist, you know, I have my process. I'm constantly gonna look at those and evaluate those and see how they fit and go for me in particular, this doesn't work well or this works well, or this thing is good, this thing isn't good. I'm gonna constantly be looking at those now and going, is there a better way to integrate them?

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So here's what I wanna wrap up with for today. Look at this in your particular context, no matter where you are, as you're listening to this as a playback tech on the road, as an artist, as a hired gun in a band whatever way you are, look at your current process and go, am I confident in my process? And if not, share that up, figure out what that is, right? Cause if you're gonna be on the road, if you're gonna be paid to do things, you've gotta be confident. You've gotta have a good process, a good workflow. But then two, ask yourself, is there a better way, are there better tools for me to do my job? Is there a better process for me to get this done and explore that now don't go immediately change your process.

(20:59):
Don't immediately change things like it's really hard for my friends that are out on the road to implement new tools and, and new things. And that's good for them cuz you need something that's consistent, but when you get that break take some time and explore it, explore it while you're out on the road, maybe don't implement it till the next tour or the next time you get a chance to do a rehearsal. The next time you get a substantial weekend off or a week off or whatever it is start exploring, start asking, is there a better way to do this? And I think we can apply this in our lives in a lot of different ways. Like hold, hold strong to the things that you hold to be, you know, that you see as truth as values as things you live by, but be open minded enough to go.

(21:45):
What if I'm wrong? Like what would happen if I was wrong? And honestly, man, the way I think about it, as I'm thinking about it now, it's like, I think we would maybe be in a different, a bit of a different world if we applied this and all of our life, right. All of life right now is two camps. You're pro you're, you're against this you're anti you're four, you know, it's like there there's these two kind of divisions. And I think both sides are typically arguing the same thing coming at different points. And if we could be humbly confident in, in what we believe to be the truth, but humbly curious to go what really is the truth? Is there a better way for us to do this than maybe things would be better now? I don't want to end every podcast, preachy being preachy like that.

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And I didn't intend to go there, but just as I was think, I'm like, man, this, this applies and this is more than and bigger than just software and tracks and that sort of thing. But anyway look at your life, look at your process, go, is there a way that I could be more humbly confident, humbly curious, and it and if you want to come join us over on from studio stage, we would, we would love to have you I will mention as we wrap up this podcast if you are looking for free resources for running tracks and finding better ways to run tracks things that you're interested in that would help then head to from studio to stage.com/free from studio stage.com/free. And we've got tons of free versus running tracks and live and things that track template, click track guide cues.

(23:15):
If you're a worship leader, pro presenter seven mini cues, all sorts of things that will help you instantly upgrade your sound and help you become a pro be a pro improve as a pro running tracks with Ableton live. Hey, thanks for hanging out. Thanks for stick. Getting around for episode two of behind the space bar. Again, do me a favor wherever you're listening to this podcast give us a good rating review. That super super helps a lot. Let anyone that you think would be interested in listening to this, let them know, share it with them, which would be great for watching on YouTube hit subscribe, like hit that bell icon, you know, the drill. And we'll see you next week for the next episode of behind the space bar. Thanks again so much watching everybody. I will see you next week on the next one. Take care. Bye.