{"id":4139,"date":"2011-05-08T13:44:03","date_gmt":"2011-05-08T21:44:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/?p=4139"},"modified":"2011-05-08T13:45:38","modified_gmt":"2011-05-08T21:45:38","slug":"what-it-takes-to-make-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/2011\/05\/08\/what-it-takes-to-make-it\/","title":{"rendered":"What It Takes To Make It"},"content":{"rendered":"

I’m reading an article on the Navy SEALS.\u00c2\u00a0 It recounts Hell Week, wherein you either pass or fail, make it or don’t.\u00c2\u00a0 Only 21 of the author’s class of 220 survived the test.\u00c2\u00a0 What does it take to succeed?<\/p>\n

"What kind of man makes it through Hell Week? That’s hard to say. But I do know – generally – who won’t make it. There are a dozen types that fail: the weight-lifting meatheads who think that the size of their biceps is an indication of their strength, the kids covered in tattoos announcing to the world how tough they are, the preening leaders who don’t want to get dirty, and the look-at-me former athletes who have always been told they are stars but have never have been pushed beyond the envelope of their talent to the core of their character. In short, those who fail are the ones who focus on show. The vicious beauty of Hell Week is that you either survive or fail, you endure or you quit, you do – or you do not."<\/p>\n

Sounds like an audition for "American Idol".\u00c2\u00a0 Did you see that article wherein the stars of "The Voice" were shown to have appeared on previous TV shows? <\/p>\n

\n
The Stars of ‘The Voice’–Where You’ve Heard Us Before<\/a><\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n

That’s taking the easy way out, that’s a desire to strap yourself onto a rocket to the moon, real stardom demands more.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s not a lucky break, it’s all that preparation when no one is looking. Making it comes when you least expect it, when you’ve almost given up but are still slogging along on sheer adrenaline.<\/p>\n

It is about character.\u00c2\u00a0 Much more than talent.<\/p>\n

\n
\n"Some men who seemed impossibly weak at the beginning of SEAL training – men who puked on runs and had trouble with pull-ups – made it. Some men who were skinny and short and whose teeth chattered just looking at the ocean also made it. Some men who were visibly afraid, sometimes to the point of shaking, made it too."<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n

You can’t predict who is going to be a star.\u00c2\u00a0 That beautiful girl with the fantastic pipes in high school, where is she today? Your buddy who could wail on the guitar?<\/p>\n

Making it is like becoming a Navy SEAL.\u00c2\u00a0 You’ve got to endure all kinds of horrific abuse, when no one is watching.\u00c2\u00a0 Are you gonna flake out for the doughnut or hang in there?\u00c2\u00a0 Used to be getting a record deal was like becoming a SEAL, the beginning.\u00c2\u00a0 Now even that doesn’t count.\u00c2\u00a0 People wanting record deals are pussies, they want someone else to do all the work.\u00c2\u00a0 Today, if you want to survive, you’ve got to do the work.<\/p>\n

It’s a battle.<\/p>\n

Very few can make it in music.\u00c2\u00a0 Even fewer than can make it in movies.\u00c2\u00a0 You can fake it in acting (Arnold Schwarzenegger?), but you can’t fake it in music.<\/p>\n

Oh, don’t complain about the pretty faces with Top Ten hits written by the usual suspects.\u00c2\u00a0 Everyone knows they’re not real. Which is why they can’t sell a ticket and are forgotten almost instantly.<\/p>\n

And the old labels don’t want to do the hard work and neither do the concert promoters.<\/p>\n

The old labels just want to plug you into the system.\u00c2\u00a0 Get you TV and radio exposure, play online games to make you famous.\u00c2\u00a0 If the labels wanted to do the hard work, they’d sign people who sounded nothing like what’s on the radio and break them.\u00c2\u00a0 That’s what they used to do, but now it’s too hard.\u00c2\u00a0 Just try getting a deal at a major label if you don’t make Top Forty music.<\/p>\n

And once upon a time, promoters broke acts.\u00c2\u00a0 Before consolidation, when agents and managers were loyal.\u00c2\u00a0 Now promoters are conglomerates focused on the bottom line, it’s about anything but music.\u00c2\u00a0 Live Nation trumpeting the success of the Charlie Sheen tour?\u00c2\u00a0 Would Bill Graham have promoted that?\u00c2\u00a0 Money doesn’t trump everything.\u00c2\u00a0 Let’s see you try to book ANOTHER Charlie Sheen tour.\u00c2\u00a0 In the old days, the acts started small and ended up big.\u00c2\u00a0 Charlie Sheen started out big and ended up small.<\/p>\n

The reason we haven’t had many new breakthroughs, in both music and business, is it’s so damn hard to do.\u00c2\u00a0 Techies want instant returns and so do the acts.\u00c2\u00a0 No one wants to put in the hard work.<\/p>\n

What struck me about all the e-mail regarding the Outsiders was that this was not everybody’s first band.\u00c2\u00a0 Jimmy Fox was in many before forming the James Gang.\u00c2\u00a0 Greatness takes a while to pan out.\u00c2\u00a0 You don’t make it immediately.\u00c2\u00a0 You keep slogging on, rejiggering, practicing, refining, getting it right.\u00c2\u00a0 To the point when people discover you you look like an overnight success, yet you’re anything but.<\/p>\n

On some level, that’s what’s wrong with America.\u00c2\u00a0 No one wants to do the hard work.<\/p>\n

But some do.\u00c2\u00a0 And they’re the ones who succeed.<\/p>\n

\n
The Seal Sensibility<\/a><\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n

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I’m reading an article on the Navy SEALS.\u00c2\u00a0 It recounts Hell Week, wherein you either pass or fail, make it or don’t.\u00c2\u00a0 Only 21 of the author’s class of 220 survived the test.\u00c2\u00a0 What does it take to succeed? "What kind of man makes it through Hell Week? That’s hard to say. But I do […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[2,12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4139","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-music-business","category-television"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p96vPs-14L","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4139","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4139"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4139\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4143,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4139\/revisions\/4143"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4139"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4139"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4139"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}