The Vs. Studio Blog

“On May 2, 1972, Bruce Springsteen auditioned for the record producer John Hammond. Hammond had signed icons like Bob Dylan and Aretha Franklin—two of Springsteen’s heroes. “I would’ve been in a state of complete panic,” Springsteen writes in Born To Run, “except on the way up in the elevator, I performed a little mental jiu-jitsu on myself. I thought, ‘I’ve got nothing so I’ve got nothing to lose. I can only gain should this work out. If it don’t, I still got what I came in with. I make my way through the world as myself and I’ll still be that person when I leave no matter the outcome.’” By performing a little mental jiu-jitsu, by holding his dream of landing a record deal with a loose grip, Springsteen said that instead of panicking, he walked into the audition feeling confident. He performed his song, “It’s Hard to Be a Saint in the City.” “When I was done I looked up,” Springsteen writes, “and I heard him say, ‘You’ve got to be on Columbia Records…That was wonderful.’” Springsteen signed a ten-album deal and would go on to record with Hammond and Columbia Records for the next fifty years.” -excerpt from Billy Oppenheimer’s Six At Six Newsletter

… Well I was the king of the alley
I could talk a trash
I was the prince of the pauper
Crowned downtown at the beggar’s bash
I was the pimp’s main prophet
I kept everything cool
Just a backstreet gambler with the luck to lose -song, “It’s Hard To Be A Saint In The City” by Bruce Springsteen

“Playing with house money” is a gambling idiom used when a person is betting with their winnings rather than risking their original capital.

Another way to think about this is you’ve got nothing to lose. (Think of an underdog, Cinderella team going on a hot streak in the NCAA Basketball tournament.) As a result you play loose and free, perhaps, more aggressive.

This should be the approach for most things in life. Yes, it matters. Yes, you care deeply and want to win (or perform well, win the part, nail the job interview, give a great speech, etc…). Yes, you want to work hard and do everything you can to prepare.

But at the end of the day, (assuming you have your health and basic needs covered), you’re playing with house money.

So.

Be bold.

Be fearless.

Have fun.

Leave it all out there.

You’ve got nothing to lose.

Cuz you’re playing with house money.

Might as well go for it.

Go make your art.

P.S. – Click Here to listen to the Springsteen demo.

“The first rule of improvisation is AGREE. Always agree and SAY YES. When you’re improvising, this means you are required to agree with whatever your partner has created.” -Tina Fey

“Saying ‘yes’ begins things. Saying ‘yes’ is how things grow. Saying ‘yes’ leads to knowledge.” -Stephen Colbert

“Our first energy has to be “yes” energy, an acceptance of what is. From there we can move, build, and proceed, even if in opposition. We must choose the positive, which is to choose love.” -Richard Rohr

“Because the terms that you have invented, which you think describe and define you, inevitably collide with the facts of life. When this collision occurs—and, make no mistake, this is an absolutely inevitable collision—when this collision occurs, life offers you the choice, and it’s a very narrow choice, of holding on to your definition of yourself or saying, as the old folks used to say, and as everybody who wants to live has to say: Yes, Lord. Which is to say yes to life.” -James Baldwin

Just like every great improv scene starts with “Yes”, every great experience you will have ever have in your life, including the tough learning ones, must start with “Yes.”

You must say “Yes” to all that life throws at you.

It’s the only way to grow.

Open. Open. Open.

Yes. Yes. Yes.

“Build a life where you’re energized in the morning and exhausted at night.

Energized in the morning means you’re excited about the things you get to work on and the people you get to work on them with.

Exhausted at night means you gave your all to those things and people.

Your best life is built in that collision.” -Sahil Bloom

“This is the true joy in life, being used for a purpose recognized by yourself as a mighty one. Being a force of nature instead of a feverish, selfish little clod of ailments and grievances, complaining that the world will not devote itself to making you happy. I am of the opinion that my life belongs to the whole community and as long as I live, it is my privilege to do for it what I can. I want to be thoroughly used up when I die, for the harder I work, the more I live. I rejoice in life for its own sake. Life is no brief candle to me. It is a sort of splendid torch which I have got hold of for the moment and I want to make it burn as brightly as possible before handing it on to future generations.” -George Bernard Shaw

You need both energy AND exhaustion to have a successful day, and life.

If you’re energized in the morning, but not exhausted at night. That means you didn’t give it your all. Don’t let yourself off the hook. Do better tomorrow.

If you’re exhausted at night, but not energized in the morning, it means you’re not doing the work you’re meant to be doing. Spend time figuring out what that work is, immediately.

“Better late than never.”

Yes, this ancient proverb (From the Latin…”Potiusque sero quam nunquam….The historian Livius first recorded in 27 BC) is true. It is better to accomplish a goal or arrive at your destination late than never at all.

But the proverb is not an excuse to turn in lazy or careless work.

If that’s the case, then you’re “better never than ever.”

“You’ve got to find what you love. And that is as true for your work as it is for your lovers. Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven’t found it yet, keep looking. Don’t settle. As with all matters of the heart, you’ll know when you find it. And, like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on. So keep looking until you find it. Don’t settle…

Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.” -Steve Jobs

“Plan your future in detail. Imagine it. Break it into goals. Make them tangible. Write them out.
Now, pick the 3 most important goals and break them into timelines: 10 years, 1 year, 1 month, 1 week, and 1 day.
Every night, look at what progress you made toward these 3 goals and write down the one thing you can do tomorrow to make progress toward each.
Repeat.
Goals set direction, but only execution moves you closer.” -Shane Parrish

It’s hard enough to achieve your goals amidst all the inevitable obstacles that will come your way.

It’s impossible to achieve other people’s or society’s goals that they have for you.

What do you want to do?

Why do you want to do it?

Take as much time as you need to figure out the answer to these two questions. Get clear.

Then, set specific and tangible goals. That way you can see the fruits of your efforts pay off, even if just a little bit. Incremental progress will keep you going.

Now, go execute.

.

“You’re one pitch away!” the coach exhorts from the dugout.

Okay, so you’ve walked three batters. Bases are loaded. (You do have one out though.) You’re struggling with your control on this next batter.

Stop.

Walk around the mound.

Deep breath.

Gather your composure.

Reset.

And remind yourself that as bad as this inning started, you’re one pitch away from ending it. (You can get the batter to ground into a double play ball.)

Nothing that came before matters.

All that matters is what you do on this next pitch.

Believe in yourself.

You can do it.

“You’re one pitch away!”

Go do it.

(Of course, this baseball metaphor applies to all of life.)

“We suffer more in imagination than in reality.” -Seneca

The task is the task.

Don’t make it any more than what it is by thinking about how much you don’t want to do it. Or why you have to do it. Or how arduous and long it’s gonna take.

Just start doing it.

Almost always you’ll find the actual task wasn’t all that bad. You might even enjoy it. Especially if you can be completely present and give yourself fully to it.

“In an information-rich world, the wealth of information means a dearth of something else: a scarcity of whatever it is that information consumes. What information consumes is rather obvious: it consumes the attention of its recipients. Hence a wealth of information creates a poverty of attention and a need to allocate that attention efficiently among the overabundance of information sources that might consume it.” -Herbert A. Simon, Nobel Prize-Winning Economist

Stop trying to optimize and maximize every single area of your life. You will drown in a sea of choice and indecision. Which will lead to unhappiness.

Instead, satisfy.

Know your priorities and order your values. Separate the essential from the non essential. Do a bit of research if you must.

Then, just pick something and go.

P.S. – This NYT article

If you enjoy the play the first time you see it, then go see it again (and bring a friend).

Not only will your support mean a whole heckuva lot for the artists and theatre company, but you yourself, will enjoy the show that much more. You’ll notice and appreciate things you didn’t catch the first time out. Everything from story beats to design elements to subtle nuances in the actors’ performances.

Speaking of which, I saw Ironbound again last night. I loved it on opening night (post show photo above), but I loved it even more two weeks later. There are three performances left and one of those is sold out (Sunday closing). If you haven’t seen it, go see it Thursday or S. Click Here for tix/info. Use discount code “VS” for $25 tix. And if you’ve already seen it, go see it again. You’ll love it that much more!

P.S. – Shout out to JJ and Cindy for seeing it twice including our “Vs. Live” outing yesterday.

“The biggest myth about creativity is that it needs freedom. It doesn’t. It needs constraints.” -David Epstein, Inside the Box: How Constraints Make Us Better

“Constraints breed resourcefulness: The highest form of creativity is found by improvising within a set of restrictions.” -Ryan Holiday, The Obstacle Is The Way

“I don’t need time. What I need is a deadline.” -Duke Ellington

“A goal is a dream with a deadline.” -Napoleon Hill

“Freedom is the freedom to choose your constraints. Not the freedom from constraints.” -Justin Welsh

You think you want and need more time, autonomy, and choice.

You don’t.

You just need more intentional and better-designed constraints.