(00:03):
Welcome behind the space bar episode for beat the resistance. Hey everybody, this is will Doggett. This is your first time joining me, then welcome to behind the space bar. If, uh, you're returning, you're returning visitor, then welcome back. Glad you're here. Uh, if you've never been here before, this show is all about tips and tricks for playback texts, musicians, anyone using able to live on stage. And we kind of talk about two different things. What I would call head knowledge and heart knowledge, and we have some episodes that are a little more head knowledge. They're a little more how to do this particular thing and able to live. Then we have some episodes like today that are a little more heart knowledge, that stuff that we gotta get, right? Uh, things that I think will help make you a successful playback tech as successful musician, a successful, uh, person existing in the world, having a job and making a living.

(00:47):
Okay. So, uh, today's episode, uh, actually wasn't planned and wasn't supposed to happen. Uh, today's episode was supposed to actually was never on the list of ideas. Uh, I had a great episode planned for this week, which is now being moved to next week. Um, but, uh, today's episode was exactly what I needed and I think it's what a lot of you need. And in fact, I, I would venture to say that maybe one of the most important episodes we've done or will do. Um, so let's start at the top here. The name of the episode is beat the resistance. Uh, some of you may know where I'm going. If you've, you've read the great book, the war of art by Steven Pressfield. And if you haven't, then you're going, what in the world is he talking about re this is like about Ableton live is what is he?

(01:25):
What is he talking about? I don't get it here, but we'll get there in a second. Uh, but no matter what role you play, if you are stepping on stage, uh, as a musician music director, maybe you're even backstage as a playback tech, maybe you don't even ever step on stage, cuz you're a playback tech serving off stage. But, um, if you are involved in the creation or the, the production performance of music in any capacity, then you're a creative individual, right? And you may be going well, you don't know me. I'm, I'm highly technical. Like I'm the production guy in the back. That's figuring out how to connect everything, how to solve problems. I'm not in the writing music. I'm not creative are creative. Um, you're, you're, you're in the process of either creating, producing, performing music. You're creative, right? And I think everyone is creative.

(02:13):
I think all of us have some creative capacity, but with that creative capacity, uh, with creating art and you maybe go on will you're you're really going off the rails here. I don't won't create art. I'm not an artist. Well, I like to follow what Seth goin, uh, kind of believes about artists, which is everyone is an artist. Everyone can approach their work as an artist. And, and as an artist, as opposed to a technician in a lot of ways, a technician is like, I need to do my job. Give me a list of tasks to do, give me the exact manual on how to do it. And I'm gonna of follow those instructions to a T, but there's nothing wrong with that. What Seth go says is artists are people that follow more of a compass than a map. They're people that walk into a situation and they need to, to troubleshoot, they need to solve a problem.

(02:57):
And they don't necessarily open up a manual and go read that manual and figure out how to solve the problem. They just go, okay, let me use the skills I've learned in the past. Let me use the experience I've learned in the past to see if I can solve this problem. So what I wanna get in your head first, before we talk about today's episode is you're an artist. You're a creative. If you're in any form of creation, production, or a forming of music on stage, you're creative and it doesn't matter the type of music, it doesn't matter. The venue. You're in a small club playing original music. You're in, um, a smaller club doing covers. You're in, um, a, a giant stadium playing original songs from a, a giant pop artist that we turn the radio on. And all of us would know who she is or who he is.

(03:40):
Uh, or you're a worshiper serving in a small church, big church, whatever it is. If you're involved in the creation production, performance of live music, you're creative and you're an artist. And there's this interesting thing that happens whenever you go to create art. Whenever you go to create something, is you create it. You feel this, this terrible fear before you release it. And then you finally release it into the world. And then you anxiously await. What's that first comment gonna look like? What are people gonna say? How are people gonna respond to it? And, um, in the process of creating in the process of, um, preparing, uh, in the process of rehearsing, you're rehearsing with our artist, uh, you will continually feel these moments of what Stephen Pressfield caused the resistance. Uh, if you've never read this book, I've linked to it in the show, nuts of this, it's called the war of art.

(04:30):
Uh, the subtitle here is breakthrough the blocks. And when your inner creative battles, I will say, single-handedly, this is the most important book that, uh, I have ever read as far as a, a creative goes, you know, in my creative endeavors of creating content for the internet, being a content creator, whatever you wanna call it. Um, my endeavors of writing songs, producing music, doing sound design, uh, being a playback tech, um, the most important book I've ever read that's helped me understand issues. Understand what I'm going through is the war of art by Stephen Presfield in that book, um, Stephen presents this idea of the resistance and he basically says, whenever you you go to and he personifies it really well, but he says, whenever you go to create any creative art, whenever you go to create anything, do any creative task, there is gonna be this force in the universe that comes at you.

(05:21):
That's called the resistance and he person personifies it really well. But he talks about how it's this force that tells you, Hey, don't, don't do that video. You need to needs to be a little better. You need a better camera. You need better lighting. You need better audio. You need a better script before you can do that. You're in a rehearsal working with an artist. And, uh, you're just a hired gun. You have no real relationship with the artist. You have, um, you know, no real trust other than the fact that they hired you to do the gig. But in that moment you go, you know what, it'd be really cool if we did this and in your head, you're going, should I say something? Should I not say something? Stephen press will, would call that the resistance it's, it's doing everything it can to keep you from, uh, from creating your art from releasing your art, releasing your ideas in the world.

(06:06):
And so he throws out this idea of the resistance and the resistance is a real thing. This idea of when you sit down, put your butt in the chair to do the work, um, there will be something emotionally, there'll be something physically, there'll be things surrounding you in your environment. There'll be tasks that you have to do for your other job. There'll be so many things that come at you to try to keep you from doing your work. I, I, again, I'll make it very practical. So we're in 2022. If you're listening to this and it's 20, 26 and the world, it hasn't ended yet, uh, and word episode, whatever, we'd be then 400 or, or whatever. Maybe I think it'd be a lot longer to be at 400, but you, you get the point listening far in the future. 2022, I've committed in 2022 to release a piece of content every single day.

(06:52):
Now that's on top of releasing a course a month, releasing a patch a month, releasing a pad collection in a month for subscribers. Uh, those are people subscribed it from studio to stage. Um, and that that's been my commitment and we are on, uh, as I'm recording this it's January 20th, uh, Thursday, January 20th, this will release the next Monday. Um, and I typically record all my content on a, on a Monday for the week ahead. And then I have weeks where I get ahead. Uh, for instance, this past week I had a two day event. And so I recorded content for this week. That's airing as I'm recording this. I know the, the, this is confusing, but anyway, I record in one to two weeks sprints, right? Uh, capture on my content and then release it all on the Monday. And it trickles out throughout the week.

(07:37):
It's been working really, really well. I enjoy it. I've gotten a lot of really great feedback from you guys. Thank you for the text, those of you that have my number. Thank you for the messages, those of you message through the site, uh, emails, comments on YouTube. Uh, it's definitely encouraging. We'll talk about that in a moment as something to continue to do, um, not just for me, but for the other creatives in your life, but, uh, it's been going really, really well. Well, this week rolls around. Monday's a holiday. So I take Monday off to, to be with my family. The kids are outta school, so that was good. Tuesday rolls around. Uh, I had a couple meetings. And then after that, I had a troubleshooting thing that, that went a little longer, that I had to go drive, uh, to a campus to go fix.

(08:16):
Uh, so Tuesday was kind of shock my emotional state. When I got home, it was super tired. Uh, Wednesday rolls around and, uh, I have Wednesday morning off. So I'm like, this is great. I'm gonna shoot some content, come in the office to do it. And it's just like not happening right. In in fact, I turn the camera on to shoot the content. And I look over here at my monitor to see, to check it out. And I'm like, it's very clear that I'm exhausted. It's it clear? I should not be recording content right now. This is not gonna work. So Wednesday continues, uh, on, I have to go to some meetings. I come back that runs long. Um, and it's just like, Wednesday's not happening. So I finally roll around to Thursday and I wake up and I'm just like, you know what? I am just not feeling it.

(08:55):
I do not wanna go record today. I don't wanna create content. And I've got an editorial calendar. That's got the whole quarter mapped out. Like, I know what I'm gonna be doing. I just have to do the work to do it. And, um, I was just reminded this morning of that idea that Steven pres will talks about, which is the resistance. What is the resistance? It's anything emotional, physical it's gonna get in the way in, keep you from doing your art. And again, you may be looking at this and going, well, you're getting too new agey. You're getting too artsy. Fary for me, I'm not an artist. I'm a playback tack that's on the road. I'm rough and tumble, dude. I'm not an artist. Uh, this is too emotional. It's too touchy feely for me. Right. Uh, but you are again, because, uh, in that moment, how you approach your work, you, you really have to be an artist to, to do anything, um, in live production because what's your job to solve problems, right?

(09:43):
If you're a production person, you're a technician. Your number one job is to solve problems. Yes. It's maybe to, to, to do back line for this artist, maybe it's to set up rigging for this artist. Maybe it's to be the lighting person for this is, and yes, that's your job. But ultimately your job is to problem solve and problem solve in a way that people don't know that there's a problem. Something comes up. You really quickly go, okay, this could be that, okay, it's this. And then you go and solve it, right? That is, uh, what an artist is. So you are an artist. Anytime you have that idea in your mind of something you wanna share, you wanna speak and you feel that fear of like, I don't know if I should say it, uh, it's not good enough yet. I can't release it, whatever it is, that's the resistance.

(10:23):
And so I want to wrap up this episode, talking about how we can beat the resistance, some very practical things. Again, you are an artist, whether you're a technician, whether you're actually creating the, the songs, if you're any way involved in creation, production, and performance of live music, you're an artist, right? Even if you're a technician, you are, um, problem solving and there's nothing more artistic than problem solving. So let's talk about a couple ways to, to beat the resistance. A couple practical things that, that I think are super helpful. And I've got some other or book suggestions here that I'm gonna bring up, uh, to mention that I think are super helpful. Number one, do the work every day. Um, I'll, I'll contextualize that to my situation. So for me, uh, I am releasing content every single day, but I'm not necessarily in the studio, in this studio here, recording content every day, but I need to be, I need to sit my butt in the, or do this work every single day, because what it does is it starts to build a muscle.

(11:22):
Seth, go to another, um, I mentioned him a little bit earlier, a great book that he's writing. I've got one more I'm gonna share is called the practice, uh, shipping creative work. And here's the thing with Seth Goden. My buddy, Aaron, who's editing this video. Hey, Aaron, uh, he'll tell you, I, I often send him a lot of Seth Goan books. He'll write, he'll read it to his credit. He'll read it and he'll write back you. I don't know, man. I just don't, I don't, I'm not feeling it. I don't agree with him here or whatever. And I really enjoy that process. Um, I know some people that if you read like the book reviews or some of stuff go and stuff, people will go, uh, particularly his book here at the top that you see, this is marketing. Um, you'll see him say, uh, people will say he, he provides no practical tips.

(12:01):
He provides no practical, uh, you know, suggestions on marketing. He doesn't talk about SEO. He blah, blah, blah. Well, that's not Seth. Seth is not gonna deal in the, how he's gonna deal in the why he, he's not gonna deal with the head. He's gonna deal with the heart. Right. And he's gonna talk more about getting the inside stuff worked out, getting that mushy touchy, feely stuff that none of us, well, most of us don't wanna talk about, especially, uh, I mean, it's a stereotypical, especially, you know, the rough and tumble guys. The, again, the guys that are out doing the, the technical things, uh, producing music, they're like, we're not into the touchy, feely junk. Uh, but Seth deals a lot with the heart stuff. And he talks about in the practice, um, how you do the practice, uh, not for profit. You don't do the practice.

(12:43):
Um, uh, really for any other reason than the, the practice itself. The, and, and it's the idea of, you've gotta sit down. You've gotta do the work every single day, because if you do the work every single day, then you're gonna build that muscle. You're gonna build the muscle of like, um, I even feel it for me again, I recorded all of my content that went out this week, a week ago or longer. And so it's been almost a week since I've set my butt in this chair to record content. And I I've been doing this for, I dunno, 15 years or something. Uh, it's not like it's a struggle for me to sit behind a camera and talk. And I have plenty of words to say, but every time I would sit down, I I'd just go. I don't know what to say. You know, like I'm not feeling it, I'm not in the mood, but the more you do the work, the more you consistently sit down and say, every day I'm gonna come into the office, I'm gonna do the work.

(13:28):
I'm gonna commit to the practice. The better you'll get. So for you, I don't know exactly what that looks like. If you're a technic, uh, again, if you're someone that's going, well, I can maybe buy into this, but I still don't think I'm an artist. Uh, and you're going, I'm just there to, to set up cables. I'm just there to do backline. Like, uh, there's no art to my job. Um, I think there is, I think there is, and the art for your job you're gonna find is in problem solving. And so, um, I think one of the ways that practice that you do the work every day is why don't you just show up? You're just practically there doing it. You commit to doing it. Uh, even when you're off, there's something that you're pursuing, you're pursuing knowledge. You're going to, to, you're trying to find, um, solutions to problems that, that you're, uh, you're, you're discovering, uh, solutions to problems that, you know, are, are coming up.

(14:16):
Um, again, maybe something as you're on the road. And, and I think Seth talks about this really well with the idea of what an artist is. Um, instead of just saying, I'm just gonna show up, I'm gonna do my job. I'm gonna do it well enough to get a paycheck and I'm gonna leave. That's not being an artist. That's being an employee. That's being an hourly employee clocks in, clocks out. You go home and artist walks in and goes, and you notice, you look around and you go interesting every time that the artist that I'm working with, the, the, um, the person who's paying my bills, essentially every time they're backstage, you know, they're doing a wardrobe change or they're backstage during a break, they're always wondering, you know, they always want a bottle of water or they always need more light to see this or do that.

(14:58):
Well, if you're an artist, even if you're the person backstage plugin in cables, you know what you do, you go solve a problem that no one asks you to solve. That's doing the work every day. So I think part of that practice doing the work every day is just simply noticing notice problems that you can solve. You're used to solving problems, you solve problems for a living. That's all you do. That's all we do when we're in highly technical things, you solve problems. So try to solve problems that no one asks you to solve. Now don't be a nuisance don't get in people's business. And you know, this you're, if you're listening to this show, you're a smart person. You're not an idiot, but don't get into people's business. But at the same time solve problem of people, didn't ask you to solve. That's a good way to do the practice.

(15:34):
Um, I, I think tied into that and Seth really talks about this in this book in particular, uh, he talks about, uh, and this is called linchpin, are you indispensable? This is, uh, along with the war of art. These are two of the books that have really shaped my entire life, the direction of my life. Uh, pretty, pretty drastically. Um, this book, I remember reading this when I was in North Carolina, sitting in a Starbucks and I did a early release of this book. And Seth sent it to me with a note, which was really, really cool. I think he did a kickstart for this book if I remember correctly. But, uh, and I have that giant book behind me that has the, the, uh, what is it, ducks or whatever on it. Uh, that's a Seth go to book that came with this book. That's neither here nor there.

(16:15):
But, um, anyway, I remember sitting in the Starbucks in North Carolina, reading this book and it completely shaped how I approached my work. Again, you look at the title, linchpin, are you indispensable? That's what I'm talking about. Even if you're a technician, you're solving problems that no one asks you to solve, uh, it's super important. But one of the concepts, Seth sense in that book, and I believe this was the first time I heard him talk about this. You know, he's, he's a guy who writes a blog post every single day. He is a marketing guy, entrepreneur, uh, business leader. But, uh, this is the first time I heard that concept is he said, I don't believe in writer's block. There's no such thing as writer's block. And people go, well, yeah, there is cuz I struggle to create, you know, I'm blah, blah, blah. And he's is like, no, it's just resistance.

(16:54):
It's fear. And he said, plumbers, don't get plumbers, blocked plumbers, just show up to someone's house. And they do their job and they go to the next job and they do their plumbing work. And then they go to their next job and they go home. And he said, the reason riders think you get rider's block and you may feel resistance to that. Let me know in the comments, if you're watching this and you're like that pull crap, you know, writer's, block's a real thing. I haven't written, blah, blah, blah. Well, what Seth says and there's some really good interviews. I'll see if I can dig some up and link to 'em with between Seth and Brian Coman. Um, I forgot Brian's podcast now, but it's really, really good. And they kind of argue, Brian argues the side of he's a screenwriter, highly creative guy. And he's like, no, writer's block is a real thing.

(17:34):
Seth would argue and say, no, writer's block is not a real thing. It's a fear induced thing. It's the resistance coming at you. And the way to, to defeat writer's block is to keep doing the work. And he says, um, writer's block is just your fear of you created something and you think I'll never create something as good as that ever again. And the solution to that is keep creating, uh, Austin Cleon talks about it. Uh, again, I forgot the name of his book. I'll, I'll look this up and, uh, and link into the show notes, but it's the idea of, um, if you need to release an album of 13 songs, you don't write 13 songs. How many songs you write, maybe a hundred, 150. And then now out of that, you get to those 13 songs that are really good art. You think about Pixar, watch any documentary about Pixar, uh, how they create, they don't just come up with a perfect storyline and then just create it and do it.

(18:20):
Uh, yes, they've created movies for what, 20, 30 years, whatever it is now. Um, and they still struggle. They still create crap at first and, but they keep going and they keep trying and they keep releasing it. And they're good to go. Um, so number one, do the work every day. Uh, number two, here's my second tip. And then we'll wrap up is, uh, create a sacred space. And what I mean by that is wherever you go to create. And I know this is maybe a stretch, cuz some of you are highly artistic and I'm not saying you're an artist, but you're maybe highly artistic and you're a so and writer and you go to write songs and that's how you make your living. Some of you are, uh, playback texts and you're a musician and um, you're a musician and you do playback for an artist.

(19:00):
Some of you again are maybe just more on the technical side and you're going, you know, what the heck are you talking about? A sacred space will this right here that you're looking at in my office, this is my sacred space. And what I mean when I come into this place, I try to keep it as clean as possible, which sometimes I do better than others. I see some stuff behind me. I can maybe tidy up. So some days I do that better than others, but I've got it set up so that I walk in, I press one button on my phone, my lights turn on, I'm ready to record in my sacred space. It's set up and it's prepared for me to create. It's prepared for me to do my art. It's prepared for me to do my work and I try to limit the amount of distractions.

(19:34):
Now I've got my phone next to me, cause I've gotta run to a meeting in like 10 minutes. So I gotta lay in the plane here, wrap up this pod, uh, here, here quickly. Um, but I try to keep my phone out of this space. I, I try to, I definitely, I'm not on social media. So I try to, uh, I don't have to worry about that, but I know some people, people that work in an office and they leave slack open on their monitor the whole day. Like there's no slack in this room because this is a sacred space. It's a space where I walk in and I close the door and the resistance is not allowed in the door because I've created and made this a sacred space. I hope that makes sense to you now. I don't know exactly what that looks like for you.

(20:11):
Maybe it's just literally putting your AirPods in when you're out on the tour, you're on the bus and that becomes your sacred space to listen to an audio book, to listen to music, to grab a piece of paper and go, what are ways I can get better? What are ways I can do my job better? Um, what are ways that I can fight through apathy on one of the other podcasts I have called volunteer friendly and that's uh, just for, for worship leaders, people serving in a church it's fully directed to that. But one of the things we talk about in, um, in this season, I can't remember exactly what episode cause it hasn't launched yet, but it's prerecorded talking about fighting apathy and, and I think one of those ways to fight apathy, one of those ways to fight, like you're just showing up, clocking in doing your job clocking out, uh, to get a paycheck is constantly think, how can I do my job better?

(20:56):
That's being an artist. That's doing your, your job in a creative way. Right? So find that sacred space for you. Again, it may be a physical location that you have kind of primed and try to keep it as clean as possible. Try to dedicate it to a, uh, single use space if you will. Um, maybe it is for you. Let me think of another practical way that, um, that I've talked to people a lot, particularly folks that are playback taxes, maybe your sacred space is just devoting time every week to going, uh, remember last week's episode where we said humbly, confident, humbly curious, maybe it's devoting time to going. Hmm. I wonder if there's a better way for me to do this or going, Hey, you know, I know NA is right around the corner. Let me pay attention to what new gear comes out.

(21:39):
Let me pay attention to what announcements are made. Um, and see, you know, I wonder if I can include that piece of gear in my setup and make that happen. That's a sacred space, cuz you're devoting time to figuring out how to do the art better, right? Figuring out how to do your job better. So if you wanna beat the resistance to practical ways, I know number one, uh, do the work every single day, sit your butt in the chair, do the work right, uh, on riding by uh, Steven King. He talks about that. Like you gotta put your butt in the chair and do the work. Um, number two, create a sacred space, find a space, whether it's a physical location, that's a single use single purpose space like this studio is for me. Um, or it's, it's just you putting AirPods in and, and, and blocking out an hour a week, trying to figure out how to improve your playback rig.

(22:24):
Maybe it's you practicing as a guitar player every single day and, and come bitting to, I'm gonna work my way through this, uh, Berkeley, jazz, you know, workbook or whatever it is you're doing. Maybe you're a technician and you go, um, I want to continually be improving. And so I'm gonna take this class, this certification I'm gonna continually every gig we're in, make sure things look super, super neat and clean. That's something I struggle with, make it super eat and clean. Uh, and I'm gonna find problems. No one asks me to solve and I'm gonna solve them. And I'm not even gonna look for the recognition. Uh, it's kind of like on the office about the wrap up here, but it reminded me of the story. It's kind of like on the office when Dwight leaves and Michael goes, you know, why are all the planes dying?

(23:03):
Why are the toys on my desks not arranged? And they go, well, Dwight did that. And he never did it for the recognition. He just did it because believe it or not, Dwight shoot true is an artist. He's a creative. And so he went in and said, I'm gonna solve problems. And no one asked me to solve that's I think what we're called, uh, to do. Um, so that's it again, I think this may be one of the most important episodes we've done on behind the space bar. It's more heart than head and we'll get to some of the stuff that's more head than heart. So bear with me. It's not all gonna be artsy Fary on the show, but I think this is a super important one because you are an artist, you are creative. So keep creating, keep pushing through, keep doing the work.

(23:41):
Um, as a wrap up here, I wanna let you know if you're a playback tech music director, musician using tracks on stage and you want some extra help. Um, you want some free resources to help you do that. Uh, a little better, maybe a little more efficiently. Maybe you've got a problem. Your wishing to solve then head to from studio to stage.com/free from studio to stage.com/free. And as the title says, you could probably guess how much those resources cost us. And that is a big fat zero because they are free. And we got a lot of great free resources there. You can see all the other content we, uh, I release and again, releasing it every single day in 2022, I'm gonna punch the resistance and the teeth and keep going and keep fighting. Uh, and so head to from city, sage.com/street, if you're interested in that, um, and always, uh, if you're enjoying the show, share it with someone that means a whole lot. Um, leave a rating review on, uh, apple podcast, wherever you're listening. You're watching on the YouTube, give us the thumbs up, hit subscribe, hit the bell icon. And uh, if I don't see before, then I'll see you next Monday 10:00 AM central, same exact place. You're watching this same exact play. You're listening to this. I'll see you there. I'll meet you there. You just open up your podcast app, open up your phone. I'll be right there waiting for you. So see you next week. Next Monday 10:00 AM central take care, everybody.