The April issue of Personal Strategy Compass is out, and this one took longer to find its frame than most. The image that finally unlocked it was Bruce Springsteen’s Tunnel of Love tour. Not the Born in the USA stadium spectacle that preceded it. The moment after, when he stripped the stage down to almost nothing and played to smaller rooms with a tighter band. Less machinery. More exposure. A different kind of intensity. That image kept returning because it names something specific: the difference between a stage that is full and a stage that is right. Most planning conversations never make that distinction. They assume more is better, or that clearing means retreat. The Tunnel of Love tour suggests otherwise. Springsteen did not clear the stage because he had less to say. He cleare
