Episode 49 · 27:08
How to Stay Focused & Energised for Gigs and Life!
After a run of demanding gigs, Dan and Tom compare the stamina required for music, public speaking and sport. They explore how performers manage energy before, during and after an event—and what happens when logistics compete with attention.
The episode treats focus as a limited resource that can be protected through preparation, recovery and clear cues.
The useful bits
What to take with you
- Prepare for the duration and intensity of the real performance, not an idealised version of it.
- Use a clear cue or ritual to shift from social mode into performance mode.
- Remove avoidable logistical decisions before the work starts.
- Recovery is part of sustained performance rather than a reward for completing it.
Watch the conversation
The original episode.
Full conversation
Transcript
Transcript generated from YouTube captions. Dan/Tom speaker attribution is AI-assisted and may occasionally be incorrect.
We should probably click in the fact that I'm pretty sure you said on this pod how you randomly thought imagine going on on gigs with Kim what would it look like what would it feel like and you actually doing I wonder what that is that would be quite cool about trying to align the video e read in I'm feeling super rough has it been building up over time or is it no it's it's bizarre I think it's just I don't know I think it might be.
Because I'm just like going outside like literally experiencing Life TV on oh failed because I think um obviously going out traveling you crossing paths with uh more people than ever right so yeah just feels like more intense somehow but I don't know I don't know how's the sound on this yeah good I'm just going to check my sound settings as well um it makes you really appreciate your health when you are good and then you only realize oh c like I need to carry.
On taking my vitamins and stuff so I might start up my heuel stuff again oh nice and I'm like maxing out on vitamins anyway um is the best stuff you found or is that just the thing that you've stuck with because I know there's a lot of things out there these days like some company called greens or something something greens or whatever ag1 and ag1 is some it is like the equivalent but I think I've done hu because the ag1 is more expensive I.
Think so I just done the hu stuff but yeah I don't know it's one of those things you kind of like doing it blindly right initially because you don't really know um what what you shouldn't shouldn't be taking it so I'm like cool I'll just take all this stuff who knows whether or not it's useful or not yeah it's been um I need to get back onto it so I don't get lill because I've been ill like twice consecutively in a.
Reasonably short amount of time so um I need to change that and I also burnt my hand like I um put milk in a cup put it in the microwave put it on for 2 minutes and then I'm like like you know when Homer Simpson has that like waging tongue thing like burnt my freaking it's always like it's always like burning your kind of like knuckle Edge you know like just on the edge of your knuckle so ouch.
Painful it is while you uh hold onto the cup and then you like put it down you're like cool let's not do that again so what what did you think of the just the chat then about the dyslexia app and the keywords and stuff yeah I thought it's was really good it's something that I have been thinking cuz I've noticed we've um we don't bother with it basically yeah we just throw it up and see what happens and see what sticks and.
I know from a um attention to detail guy I recognize that we haven't put any effort in on the sort of description and that type of stuff that has been on my brain be like could I have access to that to then hopefully relieve you from adding more stuff to your to-do list because it's just something that I guess to YouTube in the sense of okay you don't want to put all the effort all the time because it puts you.
Off but every now and then you'll have energy to up your game with the thumbnails or with the titles or or whatever um so it is sort of a I guess a re reminder of yeah actually by putting a little bit of effort there you'll actually reap the rewards rather than you might not necessarily need to do 10 apps and get a pound each you might be able to get 10 pounds for one app just by doing this thing so then when you.
Sort of build other apps hopefully you'll be able to build off that yeah I'm impressed with all these was it Indie hackers or whatever they're just building apps like like there's no tomorrow I'm intrigued when the transitional go over to like people well I don't know if it's people building their own apps or that you can design an app so easily that everyone has their own unique apps like when will it go to that amount of customization because at the moment I.
Still feel like we're at the macdonal stage slowly moving over to the subway stage if that makes sense McDonald's of his a manyu of the best things you go for your usual but I think as time gets on and people like UI design and realize things don't work then they flow to the third party apps that might be more of a Subway of you're picking and choosing your salad or your bread of what you like but it's going cool I wonder when.
It gets to then you're going to like the shops you're going to Aldi you're going to to find exactly what you need for this product or whatever or if it'll ever trans transition over to that um because the end a day we don't design our own um T like TV or films but there's a place of YouTube that there's like a lot more um yeah what was your thought yeah I think it's um sometimes all you need to do is do like a 20% effort right.
Uh to have like that Max like 80% reward for the effort so I agree we've just like thrown it up there for kind of like uh output sake or velocity sake so now having something that was like actually you could optimize this and get more for your money like more bang for your buck makes absolute sense yeah I think that's the thing is like even I've been in the world of marketing and stuff you sort of want to.
Hand over that detail to someone else so you can just jump onto the next idea or the creative plan because it becomes I don't know I guess a bit too it feels like you're more of an adult when you have to deal with the detail and make sure the keywords are right and make sure the spellings right and this is if you're prepping for an exam rather than you're in like CDT just making whatever you fancy whatever's in front of you and.
You could do loads of mistakes and it doesn't really matter because no one's going to see it unless you want forward yeah yeah for for sure cool so should we get going let's go we need one of those Snapper things yeah don't be a St don't be a stop don't and welcome back to another episode of door stop we oh yeah I'm shortening to doorstop okay cool that sounds good um welcome to another episode of door stop today I have a cold.
So I'm going to be all mopy and bar hurg and sighing and feeling achy I think through this episode so I forgive me if I cough into the microphone I'll try not to surpr you didn't do like a ah sound effect in the background because I notic you can do that on your side trigger the sympathy sounds so should do that just so we know what it actually is like on a pod at some point I think I've done it before and it comes.
In it comes in super loud definitely but yeah but today it's quite apt that I've got ill and the topic that I wanted to speak about today was no stamina focus and recovery so like earlier in the week played another gig um it went it went well I did have some technical glitches this time cuz my MacBook wouldn't click the track but got around it but um just like somebody that does something continuously like if you think about people touring like or or.
Sports people right because this is where where you'll be able to feed in like how do you let's say you have a game in the afternoon how do you like do a day and then you're ready to be focused at that time that the game is on rather than because obviously I drive up like you can of like set up and then by the time you come to your gig you kind of like have a dip in energy so how do.
You do that and then the second thing is like recovery of if if you're doing something consistently like we're not doing gigs every day let's say we were doing gigs every day how would you make sure that you had like a good kind of like recovery thing I thought like oh it'd be interesting to hear what you think about sports and if you know of any like other areas I think it's always difficult when you want to com is the.
Word compete is probably the best word or participate in two full on activities cuz I remember working like 9 to5 in an office whilst trying to play national league hockey and it's that element of you're either fully focused in work maybe it's my brain as well or like let's say you've had a training session on the Thursday and then you know you've got a game on Saturday or Sunday you might be thinking about what you want to do in the game what you did.
Well or poorly at training and then how do you change that or manipulate into performing well on the Saturday but then obviously your focus is drawn away from work so it is very difficult to I guess isolate well difficult for me to isolate my brain focus on whatever's in front of you I think it is practicing which I think I probably learned in more my uh older years in life of just grounding yourself of being present I think that's the best.
Thing that you're dealing with whatever's in front of you and leaving the more unknowns up to in our case it's God but obviously for other people it might be the universal or fate or whatever other word that you want to use that basically isn't yourself um so I think it is really hard I think sometimes it's thinking about it but not thinking about it too much so how you want to prep what what you want to what basically you've got control over you.
Might want to listen to the tracks beforehand to get you in the mood you might not want to bother you might want to have loads of Coca-Cola so you got energy or you might not want to and it's literally just a trial and error to find out what your systems are because I think it especially as well when you're younger your youth can override a lot of time your health because you have enough energy regardless of if you've gone out.
Clubbing the night before or you've had a game yesterday you could probably play today I think the older you get it's you're more aware of the the running up to the event but also the running like the calming down from the event a lot more so you need that warm up and warm down whatever that looks like I find a lot more but actually you can perform at the same level if not higher because you you're intentionally taking control of.
The warm ups and warm Downs cool Downs yeah I think um one thing I've noticed is like and this comes with public speaking as well sometimes you don't get that moment to like ground yourself and you have to be like ready to talk so when I was first doing public speaking I was like nobody speak to me cuz you you have a day of work you're then going to speak in the right nobody speak to me I need to get my head in the.
Game and then I'll do a talk and then I'll be fine afterwards and then I was like actually that doesn't like work you you can't always Silo yourself off um for a period of time before you do the chat or whatever and what I thought was cool is like there was this other leader guy this church leader that we went um abroad to like this uh event in I think it was um the Netherlands I think it was.
Some um and he was really really good with like chatting with loads of people meeting loads of people and being like super in the moment with the conversation and then all he did like oh I'm just going to take 5 minutes before I do my chat so he like went off did five minutes and then he came and did his talk and I was like oh that's a kind of like being able to do that is a cool.
Skill and then more recently when I've been doing talks I don't have the downtime so like the KN Trent ones you meet them you chat to them chat to your kind of like chaperon or whatever and then you go straight to the room and then you do you talk that there is no time to like collect your thoughts so it is a little bit of like trusting so firstly you want to do stuff that's not overly like do it aligned with your like.
Natural skill right so if you're if you're telling me stories it's not going to be hard because you know these stories you're just telling stories right it's your life it's your experience but if you were like conveying something else that wasn't your experience right um so I think it's like always trying to blend something to your experience or it's like just relying and like trusting the fact that you have done enough practice Yeah you know and trust trusting it a.
Little bit as well you can sort of ground yourself obviously it's quite difficult when you go to different events but if you're doing a talk I'm assuming there's always that host person that probably has a mini speech of Welcome today and and does a little Spiel and then be like and now we're going to bring up Dan if that's right at the start halfway through something or right at the end I guess to some extent it's it's recognizing I guess maybe it's a preas.
Is this going to be like a 30 second intro or is this going to be a half an hour intro cuz if it's like a that's 30 seconds then you go cool I've got 30 seconds to do a couple of breaths and get in my body and think about what I need to say and then just go it's that element of um you walk out into the pitch you do a mini team talk obviously some people really listen to it some people are.
Daydreaming and some people are focusing on their own game which is that time to be like right you need to focus now you've done your little warmup it might have been a really poor warmup it might be really rubbish it might have been amazing but it's the time to just collect your thoughts forget about how tired or or stressed or whatever you are and then it you you have that calmness and then you go um but obviously from a.
Sports point of view you know exactly when that whistle is going so it's a lot easier to build up to that point but obviously if you're at an event yes technically you're already in that mode because you're chatting to people but I guess if the if the event slash the Whistle the whistle is the intro to be like well is you standing up to do your bit so just before that it's the team talk or is the focus or it is the the.
Collecting of the thoughts or whatever but it's difficult because obviously you want to be engaging but maybe it is that that is the the norm to some extent yeah I think even um with bands and stuff obviously there's like cross over time like a change over time so you're like putting all your equipment together so there's a bit like cool in this moment I got to focus on getting the equipment right as soon as the equipment's right you'll be like cool.
Like now let's play the gig let's go yeah and again i' I found that like lots of my experiences previously has helped to to kind of like enhance these moments so it's not as if it's like crazy but then you have like the other flip of like you basically are so excited that you like get rough around the edges so you're so like buzzed that you kind of start to like make little mistakes one because like you're almost like too.
Adrenalized almost like you're too excited for the moment so you kind of like make little slippy like an in the like B basically because you're drumming you you're not NE sometimes you're not necessarily doing like super intricate stuff because you're on a stage and typically You'll Play simpler things okay but sometimes you'll like mess up like simple things because either the stamina is not there and you kind of like have a brain fart and you kind of like you're not like thinking.
Properly and you like mess up or you'll be so excited that that like yeah think things just like don't play off as well as as you hoped or or whatever cuz you're a little bit you're a little bit too too too much like nervous energy almost so you'll like do a little bit too much maybe or like or like slip up on something cuz you you just want to like relax and like sit back in the groove and rather than like.
Push a little or whatever it is yeah is hard to explain but I think it's very similar to sports to some extent because you can have that buzz of either you're playing a team that used to be a part of or you're playing a higher team that you want to get into or you started a new team you can have that nervous energy particularly if you I guess haven't practiced that situation before or if you're paying for your country for.
The first time or whatever and I think a lot of the time you might have that little bit too energy that you pass the ball a bit too hard or fast in front of people exactly and that's the thing it's literally you got to have I think the difference with let's say sports game particularly with hockey let's say you do a bad pass well you got a couple of seconds just to pause and be like right make sure the next one is good that's.
All I need to focus on but I guess with druming you can't just randomly pause at a song well maybe in some zones if you know the song well enough and there is a bit of a pause you could get away with it but a lot of the time 80 90% of the time you probably can't so it is going cool what is my default if I get something wrong and maybe it's more practicing a call I'll go back to the.
Bare minimum so instead of doing a quick beat you go back to a simple just loud or whatever and then build up back up to your level um it's sort of going yeah instead of been hyperventilating you're going cool how do I just get back to my normal level and then I can build up to whatever I need to go from there yeah it is the whole like you're passing too quick it reminds me of cricket you know.
In cricket when they um you basically have fielders around the sides and what they do is they pass the ball around the left and they pass the ball around the right because they want people to have like held the ball thrown the ball that that they're not coming in cold so at least then they could like cool theyve caught a ball similar with football right you kind of like want to pass it to a couple of people so they' not.
Coming in calls so so then when they need to do their moment they they've touched the ball and they like are okay kind of thing yeah but um yeah with drumming once the Train's left with station literally there's no there's no coming back so yeah you have to like hold it hold it together as it were yeah it is really fascinating all these things that there's um you know the guy from Scream With citizens Jake Jake Wood Wood Wood Wood Hall yeah so Jake's.
Touring in America right now okay and I'd love to message him um because he's been doing little Vlogs of how he's been getting on with like the tours and so he did like a vlog of him in Japan um now he's touring America with the foo fires so he's done a couple of gig I'm not sure if every gig is with the Fiers um but yeah he's been playing ahe of the fighs which is cool but I've been.
Wanting to ask him about like you know staying focused because a lot of the time you'll you'll have your day and then you'll play in the evening right so yeah how do you do how do you like stay focused and kind of like get yourself distracted but not too distracted that your tie then for your like 8:00 slot or whatever and then um and then also like what does he do for Recovery because he is touring maybe every two he is playing every two three.
Days probably like way more like intense intensely yeah um so yeah it' be really really interesting to to see how that how that pans out I think it's the element of what's difficult is if You' got someone that's touring let's say for argument sake he's getting the millions then his suggestions might be completely different he might be like I go to the nicest Spa in the area and I get a a sports massage because that's what's good for your muscles especially if.
You're a drummer and I think it's going cool there's a let's say you're earning pounds and you can't afford that sports massage it's then figuring out okay what is the alternative version it might be like a foam roller or a massage gun but then it might not quite work the same um degree so it is quite tough finding your remit that works to push that recovery time the best you can um but it's probably doing the basics of sleeping.
Chilling out not stressing out the best you can eating well drinking well you're also going drinking water you're also like going and meeting a bunch of people you go like you experiencing a bunch of different cultures like loads of different people so it's like actually maybe um like making sure your immune system is at a good level is probably like the basic thing cuz after that like everything comes from like like feeling nourished basically right it's like yeah you might.
Have a bad sleep or you might you might like because obviously if you're traveling or you're in a different bed or whatever wherever so yeah it's all all these intricacies but he I'm really enjoying it I'm really enjoying it it's just these intricacies of like ah these new opportunities to like refine and learn and stuff um so I I've um we should probably C in the fact that I'm pretty sure you said on this pod how randomly thought imagine going.
On on gigs with Kimmer what would it look like what would it feel like and you're actually doing yeah I wonder what that is am that would be quite cool we'll have to use AI to search the copy to go through yeah I think we're coming up to 50 videos now as well which is pretty intense but I'm like that's great CU it's the longest ever podcast I've ever done so that's cool yeah it is like I'm really enjoying it and it I'm.
Really enjoying the variation of like place things obviously I need to have my moment of focus like in the in the recent one it happens to be called Focus up Rex like I thought we were on stage one where actually we were on stage two so I'm like putting my stuff ready to go I'm like cool I'm I'm prepped and then turns out we're not in this room we're in another room so it's just like funny like just little things that you do in.
Preparation and then there's like a surprise but then you're fine with that surprise and you manage so yeah it's like lots of like really good experiences um and I'm really happy with my setup and at some point I'll have to do like a video of my setup um cuz I'm fully in control of my own iners which means I don't have to rely on some sound engineer and all that stuff and again that gives me confidence to know I know.
I've got what I need to hear to play well yeah so it's good I guess like when you are slowly making it you probably just have full control over you and then when you've made it you have more control over the event cuz I guess if Beyonce was in the wrong room well you probably just move the whole Gig if you want it to some extent it's that element of people move for you so then you don't need to necessarily care for your own.
Individual stuff but I guess as you're building up you probably have to hyperfocus on is the equipment easy to carry what is the bare minimum I need to have what do I need do I need ab and I guess you become more anal in those specific thoughts Logistics control and Logistics on you because that's the big you have full control over until like you're a mega star and then people want to bend over backwards to make sure you.
Got your blue M&M's or whatever yeah and also you have team members and you have like finances to finance somebody to do it cuz I'm the one doing the driving and we're typically trying to drive in the day cuz like if you drive in the day before and you spend in a hotel then like like that evaporates the money you get from the gig so it's always trying to find a balance of of um things in the early stages and you're right I'm.
Becoming everything so I I'm essentially I'm conversing with the sound guy because I know my sound setup and I know Kim's sound setup I'm also like carrying all this stuff I need to get one of those you know those trolleys that they take to festivals with like the big wheels like the bucket thing I need to get one of those I've recently bought a drum kit as well yeah a to a t bus T bus I've recently bought a drum kit.
Which is like it's cool cuz it's the second drum kit I've ever bought like ever kind of thing like acoustic drum kit and it's nice and green and then I've paid for a custom skin with the words Kim otong on it um so that would be cool cuz that's like first time ever that I've done something like that that's cool so yeah now it's like cool got to get bags for it got to get thing like one little trick is um you get a.
Matte uh for the drum kit to stay on so it doesn't slip around and you can put like color uh tape where the stands are and stuff because another thing I realized like when you're playing like at song three there's a particular like Groove that I'm playing that I need like a decent gap between my high hat and snare because if I don't then I I kind of like Miss the snare okay or like like do a Duff hit um but I never practiced.
That song Sor I'm going to sne excuse me I never practiced that song before we play so I'm like it comes to the third song and I kind of mess it up and I'm like ah I should have done this stuff so I'm like cool when we do line checks I should play that Groove to make sure that the equipment is in the right place yeah and it'll be better when it's my own stuff obviously you're playing other people's kits.
Predominantly but I need to like not start until I've done those things and there's plenty of time to do it because you got like 20 minutes like do that thing then I can feel like adjust it if I need to adjust it and then I'm like cool song three doesn't give me a problem now because I'm like I I can play it and it doesn't like I don't get caught like my high hat and snare is too close or whatever but yeah it's it's.
Interesting I'm really enjoying the experience of like variation of places and people and stuff so that's cool it's good fun that is good fun yeah we'll have to I just need to keep on practicing some footage of the uh you druming in the Pod some footage which will be quite cool oh yeah we can put in some portrait one and we'll just blow the background yeah sounds good so did that did we cover all your topics stamina recovery and focus and.
Focus yeah any closing thoughts before we wrap up um I feel like we need to ask questions more at the end to get the comments going to get Dave Logan commenting on stuff I guess what Dave What Makes You focus well or what hinders your focus keep the questions short and sweet I guess you don't want to ask him too many questions so what makes you focus well and what distracts you I guess that's the opposite of focus on that not keep hammering those.
Nails bye for now stop.