Sometimes, it's a relief to realize that fame doesn't always protect you from the same neurotic behaviors we deal with. Today, Springsteen riles up his friends, and Mark Manson summarizes his book on YouTube. This is another summary of how to move pieces on your daily projects board to improve focus and the promise of new music. It's time to put one foot in front of the other.

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Reading through the Music Pubs for our daily story pulls, I ran across a story from Bruce Springsteen, who decided it would be a good idea to rile up his friend Bono. Vulture reported that Springsteen was on vacation in Ibiza and ran into Noel Gallagher; as Gallagher tells it, a few bottles of wine into the evening, Springsteen said, "Should we ruin Bono's day?" This was not a question for Gallagher, and they sent a selfie of the two of them to Bono.

Three storytellers who haven't been able to walk into a public place without recognition playing games with each other. It's nice to see Springsteen and Gallagher giving friends the same kind of grief regular people do. True or false, Bono's FOMO is a great headline!

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The Sunday newsletter was a mashup of several sources discussing identification and overthinking. Another source used to flush the story out is the author, Mark Manson, who takes a unique approach to mental health and self-perception. It's a combination of self-help with the confidence of a gut punch – you know it makes sense, and Manson helps you push some of the nonsense out of the way.

Manson writes a popular blog and books and provides courses on some of his concepts, and we recently found a summary of his book on YouTube. Manson has a good video stage presence and, in under 45 minutes, puts together a great primer on the book's highlights. 

Like the write-up on Identification and Suffering from Sunday, Manson talks about our misguided view of what it means to be happy and what we need to de-emphasize. Past the Title and Chapter descriptions, Manson asks the questions most ask, "Why do we continue to do the things or think the things that led to our discontent. Identification with the wrong things is one of the answers.

A story on InsideHook talks about habits and habit trackers that can help progress long-term projects. It starts with a suggestion from author James Clear from his book Atomic Habits, and it reminds us of the marble games we used to play in school. Clear uses paperclips, and if you are in sales and need to get through several phone calls in a day, start by putting the number of calls you need to make into a cup represented by paperclips and move each clip (call) from one cup to the next.

Visual cues can be helpful, especially if you have a lot of things to get through in a specific amount of time. You can do the same thing as a writer, using pages or words you want to write daily. These quick tricks help you know where you are at any time during the day. 

The article talks about digital habit trackers that will track more data and provide a road map to the overall goal you are trying to achieve. There is nothing wrong with playing a game if it gets you closer to where you want to go.

Regroup, check. Start a new tour, check. Release new music, uh… Tom DeLonge, one of the founding members of Blink 182, rejoined Mark Hoppus and Travis Barker last year and soon after released a new song and music video celebrating the return. Since then, the band has kicked off a short North American tour and is now in Europe to start a new leg of a world tour that will take them into 2024-25. 

Kerrang reports on the long-awaited new album, and the band has taken to social media to stoke the excitement.

The work begins.

Click on the Apple Music image to listen to the song on Apple Music or on the Spotify Image to listen to Spotify.

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Thank you for spending a few minutes with us. Here’s one for the road!

With A Shout newsletter is written by Johnny Christian with the support of a thousand idea bits and the help of many people.

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