Tag / success

by whyididntwritetoday

Eighty percent of success is…

“Eighty percent of success is showing up”
– Woody Allen.

I think this is a very apt quote for a site called ‘whyididntwritetoday’.

Because if you don’t start writing or trying to write success won’t come anywhere near you.

Woody Allen started out writing jokes for people, and then decided that he’d be good at delivering the jokes himself.

So he started by getting bit-parts in TV shows that he wrote the jokes for.

But, because he wasn’t a big name, they used to give his funniest jokes to the stars of the show.

Woody didn’t like this.

So he decided to only go for parts where he could play the lead.

Which meant that he had his pick of the best lines, monologues and jokes.

Look at him now. It paid off.

by whyididntwritetoday

The Madmen who turned down Mad Men

Celebrity gossip sites, Instagram and the tabloid press are a constant reminder to us all of other people’s success.

If you’re waiting on success it’s worth keeping yourself in check and remembering that it doesn’t happen overnight.

Often a long and gruelling process.

Take for example the hit TV show ‘Mad Men’. Its 92 episodes ran for seven seasons – reaching audiences across the world.

It’s widely considered to be one of the best TV shows ever made.

But, Mad Men’s success wasn’t sudden. It took a long time.

The show’s head writer, Matthew Weiner, had been working on the concept for ten years before the pilot aired.

He was working as a researcher and staff writer for other people’s TV shows. 

But all he really wanted to do was work on his own series.

The future wasn’t looking good though. Weiner faced rejection after rejection. 

Company after company telling him that they didn’t think audiences would want to see a show about advertising executives.

So, night after night, once he’d finished his day job he’d sit in his study working on his ‘advertising project’.

Legend has it he’d even carry a copy of the pilot script in a briefcase with him wherever he went. Just in case.

Often he’d attend dinner parties and socials with his successful wife. 

When he’d tell her friends that he was a writer, they’d ask if he’d written anything they might have seen…his answer was always no.

And then…quite suddenly…after talking to enough of the right people…his script landed on the desk of someone who liked it. An influential someone, at that.

The rest was history. TV history. Now, Matthew Weiner is one of the most successful TV writers of all time and has definitely written something that you’ll have heard of.

 

 

by whyididntwritetoday

Outliers – book review

Outliers: the story of success

There’s something fascinating about success isn’t there?

I don’t know anyone who doesn’t chase it. Some secretly, some openly. Whether it be raising a happy family, gaining a promotion or making millions after finding a niche in the market.

“In fact, researchers have settled on what they believe is the magic number for true expertise: ten thousand hours.” 

It’s also easy for those of us who are still waiting for success, to look at people like Bill Gates and co with jealousy. Assuming that they bought their way to the top, or that they got ‘lucky’.

But Gladwell’s book blows the top off that, and leaves the reader with some fascinating insights into how situations and circumstances affect the success of your journey through life. Sometimes it really is as simple as being born in the right place at the right time…although, it’s often a little more complicated than that.

“No one who can rise before dawn three hundred sixty days a year fails to make his family rich.” 

After reading Matthew Syed’s ‘Black Box Thinking‘ and ‘Bounce‘ I was intrigued by Gladwell’s work – which is referenced by Syed many times. So I sought this one out, and was instantly drawn in by the flow of Gladwell’s prose. It’s easy to digest, but informative at the same time. A trait that many non-fiction writers lack in this day and age.

I devoured the first three quarters of the book in a frenzy of information and head-nodding ‘wow’ moments. The last part dragged a little for me and I’m not really sure why, as the tempo of the book was consistent. I had a few other books lined up to read and perhaps this made me hurry the reading process along.

My attention pricked back up by the last chapter, which recounts Gladwell’s own mother/grandmother’s story, and it was a welcome touch. I like it when non-fiction authors involve themselves in their works, it becomes easier to relate to.

“Success is not a random act. It arises out of a predictable and powerful set of circumstances and opportunities.” 

Overall a 4/5 for me – one of those books that’s fairly quick to read and full of interesting anecdotes and characters. All of them true. I’ll be reading Gladwell’s ‘Tipping Point’ in the near future. Consider me a fan.

P.S Check out Gladwell’s podcast ‘Revisionist History‘ if you’re into that kind of thing.
by whyididntwritetoday

The Pursuit of Happyness

Have you seen the film ‘The Pursuit of Happyness‘?

If you haven’t, I highly recommend it. Will Smith stars as struggling salesman, who’s trying to make ends meet for his wife and young son.

Luck doesn’t go his way, and he falls into a downward spiral – which hits a climax when he winds up homeless.

Things get so bad that he ends up sleeping in a public toilet cubicle one night. His young son lying beside him.

But, rather than feel sorry for himself (I wouldn’t blame him if he was), he looks for opportunity and clinches an internship as a broker in the city. It’s not a paid gig sadly, and it’s so competitive that only one person will end up with a full-time role.

What I like about Will Smith’s character in the film is that he continually visualises success. He knows that, given the right moment and chance, he can do it. It’s his belief that wins the audience over, and ultimately wins his employers over.

And I ask you, as an aspiring creative…how often do you visualise the success you want?

Whether you want to be the next Stephen King, the next Picasso or just a cool designer who has an office that overlooks a city skyline.

Whatever you’re doing right now, take a moment to visualise the success you want. I know it sounds cheesy, but if you don’t know what your destination looks like…how can you get there? How can you know that you’re making progress if your path is murky and blurred?

I once heard about a guy who visualises success so much that when he’s driving he pretends that he’s being interviewed about his novels and speaks about them as if he’s talking to an interviewer.

Ahem…I promise you that guy isn’t me…

by Ashley Brown 2017

 

by whyididntwritetoday

Hamburg, the Beatles and the sweet music of success…

As regular readers will know, I’m a big believer in the theory that it takes 10, 000 hours of practice to be good at something.

But, while practice makes perfect, there are other factors that can control success and give some of us an exceptional advantage over others in our field. While I don’t claim to be successful just yet, any talent I have when it comes to writing stems back to the hours of practice I put in as a youth.

My parents’ house was so far out of town I had little else to do on some evenings but write and be creative.

But, let’s use a more interesting case study…’The Beatles’. If you haven’t heard of them…then…where have you been? They defined popular music and elevated it to the dizziest contemporary heights imaginable.

Many people still wonder, even now, what it was that made them so good. I believe that part of it was due to some gigs they played in a German city…

An unlikely twist of fate took them to the city of Hamburg when they were very young…and it was that same twist of fate that helped give them something of an edge over the other bands and solo artists of the day.

beatles

Back in the day, as a small band of high school kids, The Beatles were lucky enough to get an invite to play in Germany. And, they took it – one of the reasons being that they had access to a lot of alcohol and sex over there. The other reason (more relevant to this post) is the access that it gave them to clubs who wanted them to play live music to big crowds.

When it came to gigging, the Hamburg clubs differed to the English ones in a key way. Back in Blighty the guys were asked to play a set for an hour, or maybe two if they were lucky.

But, in Hamburg, the club promoters wanted them to play all night – meaning that they’d often be going for 6-8 hours!

Imagine that…gigging for eight hours! I can only imagine the sweat.

Not only that, but as the guys’ popularity skyrocketed in Germany, the Hamburg clubs wanted them to play every night of the week. Some fifty-six hours of performing. In total, after several trips, they played for 270 nights in just over a year and a half.

This meant that the guys had to improve their stamina, their stage presence and, above all, they had to learn more songs.

They couldn’t get by with just playing their go-to ‘hits’ they had to learn loads of new songs and even different genres – such as a few jazz numbers. This gave them a discipline on stage that other bands at the time just didn’t learn – plus, it gave them plenty of time to practice until they made it perfect.

As John Lennon said; “in Liverpool we’d only ever done one-hour sessions, and we just used to do our best numbers, the same ones, at every one. In Hamburg, we had to play for eight hours, so we really had to find a new way of playing”.

So, as someone who wants to make it as a creative – you need to look out for your Hamburg. Something special that gives you an edge or an experience over the others. Whether it be using weird dreams you had as a kid to influence your art, or maybe booking a month off work and going to your grandparents’ quiet holiday house on the coast to write uninterrupted.

The research for this post mostly came from Malcolm Gladwell’s fantastic book ‘Outliers‘, I thoroughly recommend it to anyone interested in success and talent.

by Ashley Brown 2017

 

by whyididntwritetoday

A kinder, gentler philosophy of success…

It’s weird sometimes to think that, even in this digital day and age, we have philosophers.

But…we do. The guy in the video, Alain de Botton, is one of the ones that I like the most.

As a creative you may well berate yourself at times for not quite being where you want to be right now.

I know I do.

So, watch the talk above and see how it makes you feel!

by whyididntwritetoday

Lessons from Charlie B…

“I don’t make movies for critics, since they don’t pay to see them anyway.”
– Charles Bronson.

It’s funny how sometimes the simplest quotes make so much sense, and that they’re often the ones you remember. A family friend, while really ill, said the simplest thing to me a few years back, “the one thing you need in life is good friends”. He’s sadly no longer with us, but that quote – as simple as it was – is one that’ll stick with me through the ages.

Once in a while you do just need someone to point out the obvious to you, or the things you think you already know – because sometimes you take that knowledge for granted, to the point where you don’t even apply it.

However, that’s not what this post is about – although maybe I should do a blog on that subject too! I don’t know if you’ll recognise the chap in the featured picture (mainly because, dear reader, I don’t know who you are!) – but, just in case you don’t his name’s Charles Bronson.

He was in loads of westerns and crime movies from the 50s through to the 90s and was perhaps the most hard-bitten, anti-hero to ever walk amongst the reels and projectors of Filmland.

This simple quote about critics has stuck with me since I’ve read it. Sure we may all want critical acclaim, but the critics don’t control things as much as they used to – the power of e-publishing and open media has changed that.

Plus just getting a book published means it’ll make its way onto the New York Times Bestseller List anyway so…

So yeah, write for your fan-base, write for the people who want to read your books. There are thousands of great writers who churn out classic after classic just for their fan base, and they likely make a decent buck or two from it.

Think of all those terrible Mills & Boon pulp romances – they sold 3.3 million paperbacks in 2010, and god knows how many online editions. If you love money, there’s a love story in buying some shares in those guys!

Success comes in many formats – receiving a gold mark from someone who is paid to be critical (and not to enjoy) is just one of them.

Of course, if you’re a blog critic please feel free to give this blog a great review and heads-up so I can become the greatest writer who ever did live.

That was your lesson, class dismissed.