Joy of Process
Several years ago, I went to a concert
Im not someone who goes to concerts
In fact, the only concerts I had been to before this one, I went because I wanted to try be cool
They didn’t go down well
(Seriously, I wore footy shorts to Nas, yeah homie)
Anyway, this one was a bit different
I was accompanying my mate who had been in an accident
Plus it was in the nosebleeds
So I knew I’de be able to sit down if I wasn’t interested
Which was likely
The crowd was a staggering eighty thousand people
I walked in with my baseball cap covering as much of the chaos as possible
It was going to be a long night
And then, some redhead walked onto the stage
And proceeded to blow my mind
Just him, his little ukulele, and some foot pedals
After the second song
And after coming out of my mesmerised state
I asked my mate
“Who the hell is this guy!?”
My friend had lost his ability to speak in the accident so he looked at me with as much confusion
Luckily, the person sitting on the opposite side overheard and informed me
“It’s Ed Sheeran you idiot”
I don’t have a TV or listen to the radio, so I forgave myself for happily living under a rock
But I spent the next ninety minutes as enthralled as the rest of the stadium
I was still standing by the encore
Not because I was singing along (I didn’t know a single word)
But because I had never seen such a pure transition of process
I mean, the guy could have been doing the exact same thing by himself in his bedroom
Just singing with a ukulele
But it happened to be in front of thousands
I caught the train home and listened to the whole album I had just heard again
I got home
Couldn’t sleep
Ed Sheeran
There is a documentary!?
Turns out his cousin and him had made a documentary about…
The process
Screw sleep
Click
The documentary opens with Ed walking off stage after performing to thousands
He gets a towel for his sweat
A water bottle to begin rehydrating
And he follows an assistant to a room about a 45 second walk away from the stage
He walks through a door
Inside is his producer at a computer
He is mixing some stuff Ed gave him before he left to do his concert
Ed literally just finished a concert and his first priority is to go make more music
An hour later
They are on the bus together
Off to the next city to do it all again
And instead of sleeping
Ed is writing a new song (this time its one which Bieber ends up buying and making a hit)
The entire doco is like this
It’s simply watching Ed’s process
But when I look at the process
There isn’t a single moment where I could honestly say
His process is reliant on fame or millions of dollars
He is literally doing exactly what he did for years
What I’m trying to get across here is…
I have never had a result which was more enjoyable than the process
And that if I’m not enjoying the process
Then that becomes my focus
To jiggle, update, reinvigorate things so the process becomes addictive again
A simple question which always seems to inspire me…
What if I did this the way I really wanted to?
Curious
The documentary is called Songwriter
I highly recommend it
Especially the first 9 minutes
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3cc2RlLK0YY&t=1285s
Something For Pressure
For those of you who want to be better under pressure
Here’s a free seminar I did
Performing Under Pressure: How to Find Comfort in the Chaos