Working Toward a Dream - The Temptations

Has anyone watched the TV movie, The Temptations? Talk about working for a dream. Those young men had a dream and the determination to make it happen. It took several years, many trials, errors, and hardships, but in the movie when they finally hit it big with ‘My Girl,’ I wept with happiness just like their wives and mothers.

If you want to see determination in action, watch the movie the next time it’s on. It’s a lesson to all of us on working hard and not giving up.

My Girl, a classic, on YouTube:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ltRwmgYEUr8

The problem is, Brenda, that working hard and not giving up do not automatically equal success. I'm not saying don't do it, but that there are more elements involved than we can put our fingers on.

I've known a lot of very hard working, determined, dedicated men and women who wanted to get into the entertainment industry, but didn't make it. I've seen a lot with more talent go back home while lessor talented people became stars, and in some cases, superstars.

I have long maintained that there is an unidentifiable something that propels some people in the limelight, and that there is simply not a formula that will guarantee success.

Long hard years of work, determination, and dedication only assures one of becoming very tired and, most of the time, completely disillusioned with the system. I don't like to call it luck, but the fact is that some make it, others don't, and there is a lot of truth in the old saying that some can fall into a barrel of poop and come out smelling like a rose. Take a group of 10,000 equally talented, equally hard working, equally determined and dedicated people, and one or two will rise to the top while the others won't make it. Most will never see their music or their books rise to the level of stardom, and that's just a fact. The few that do almost always claim that they made it because they worked hard and never gave up, but if that were all it took, then tomorrow morning there would be thousands of best selling books and number one records in the stores.

If anyone could find out how to identify and cultivate that X factor, they would become billionaires before the end of this year.

I agree completely Don. But every time I say it here it creates a LOT of dissention. So look out :-)

Yeah, I know. People have to have something to hold on to, and I guess one thing is as good as another.

It is when they believe that if they work hard and are determined and dedicated that their success is guaranteed that they eventually have a rude awakening. Or at least the vast majority of them do. Those that do make it continue to propogate the myth, as that is the only way they can find to claim that they and they alone are responsible for their rise to fame and fortune. Taint so, there be more to it than that.

I just posted a reply to this question on the Published Authors Group on LinkedIn:

http://www.linkedin.com/groups?gid=84480

When is Book Marketing Offensive?

Good question Frances! I set up this group and as moderator I have to authorise every member who joins. I receive email requests to join and I check on a regular basis for any new requests to join. Having invested more time than anyone else (authorising over 500 members) I probably have more right to complain than anyone. As it is, I simply ignore posts that have no interest for me and accept that the information may be useful for someone else.

Unlike many forum moderators, I take the view that the 'net is there for everyone to use and trying to own a slice of cyberspace is irrational. This is not the only group I have set up. I created the Published Authors Network on Ning and a forum connected to the network:

http://www.publishedauthors.org

On the forum, authors can add personal signatures with links to websites. Members can also promote on every board without restriction. The network has more than 800 members and the forum close to 300 members but only about thirty of those members post on a regular basis. This is something I don't understand. A forum set up for authors to use to promote their work freely and often is only used by one tenth of its members. There are over 200 book covers posted on the forum gallery by members who add their covers and then disappear.

So, if you give authors the opportunity to promote, they don't take it, while authors on heavily moderated forums disobey and break the rules. We have a saying in Lancashire: There's nothing as queer as folk.

~Shelagh

The fact is that not everyone does work to the same extent. I've just written an article that will be available online soon highlighting how, even for a small amount of success, you just have to hang in there.

Being in the right place at the right time helps.
Being prepared and being in the right place at the right time can make it happen. Simply giving up does not make a winner in any mode of life. Self-satisfaction is much better than temporary accolades that are gone with the wind.
At least that's my take.

Abe F. March wrote:

Being in the right place at the right time helps.
Being prepared and being in the right place at the right time can make it happen. Simply giving up does not make a winner in any mode of life. Self-satisfaction is much better than temporary accolades that are gone with the wind.
At least that's my take.

Abe, I'm not sure if you read into my post something that mentioned giving up. I certainly never said that. I know for a fact that becoming a success takes something more than hard work, determination, and dedication, else there would be many more million selling authors of songs and books.

Shelagh seems to cling to the idea that everyone can be a best selling author if they have the right amount of HW, D, & D. Forgive me, Shelagh, but it just isn't true.

I believe that one first needs some degree of talent, and then that they have to work hard, remain determined, stay dedicated, and do all that they can to place themselves in the right place at the right time. However, I know from first hand experience that this is not a sure route to stardom. Once again, take a group of people and, given the exact same degree of those elements, some will make it, most won't.

Being a realist means you have enough sense to see things as they are, and to know that sometimes dreams don't come true and there is absolutely nothing you can to do to make them. Giving up has never been for me, but neither is beating a dead horse.

I agree to an extent, Don, and I totally agree with you, Abe.

I'd much rather work toward my goal than quit. But I'm also working hard toward my goal, such as learning this technique or that one, working toward improving my chances, investing the time and energy to learn something new that might help me tell my story in a better way.

For me, working hard isn't just doing the same thing and hoping for different results; it's learning this or that to help me improve. Sometimes it's nothing but refresher courses, but each time, I do learn something new. Sometimes it's simply understanding something I'd learned before, but understanding it better.

And one day, when I get 'THE' idea for a book, and if I've improved enough in my craft so that I can write it well enough, I'll make it. So can you, so can anyone.

Yes, the chances are less today than before, but that won't stop me.

I will not quit.

Shelagh, I'd like to read your article, so please let everyone know when it's available.

Congratulations!

Or there is always that other way of looking at things: If at first you don't succeed, the hell with it.

Love both comments, Don S & Dick. Hmmm, wonder if our talented songwriter, Don H, could turn that - Don & Dick - into a song...

D. J. (Don) Stephens wrote:

Success is simply a matter of luck!



Just ask any failure!

Love it!

Don, I don't think that everyone can make it and the Spice Girls are wonderful examples of a modicum of talent going a long way.

Brenda, I'll let you know as soon as I know!

Just because one does not produce a best seller does not make that person a failure.

Excuse me, there is far more to living than book writing.

I am almost glad I don't need to worry about
Amazon ratings any more.

To the best selling authors--Congratuations! I am happy for you. I do think you a have a talent and work very hard also.

I worked hard too.

I realize my reason for livng is not my book sales.

I was rehospitalized after triple coronary by-pass surgery for sterum trouble.

A doctor's good night question was, " If if you stop breathing do you want to be revived? We may break you ribs."

" By all means revive me," I said, "I promised to make my grandchildren apple pie.

When in England I went to the Beatrice Potter museum. her books became a huge success after she died.

I agree with E. Don.
"Don't give up easily, but don't beat a dead horse."

You know, Don Stephens may think that people who believe in luck are failures. He needs to tell that to the guy who won the powerball a few weeks ago, or to the winner of this season's American Idol. Which, of course, is a good example of what I've been talking about.

American Idol starts with a lot of people who want to audition for the show. Some of them can't sing a note, and audition just because they think they may make the television show. Some can sing a bit, and some of that bunch will make the show because they have to have some who will get sent home early. Some, however, will have some real talent. Most of those will be people who have worked hard to get where they are. They've been determined and they've been dedicated, and they've managed to be chosen. Along the way some will be voted off sooner than others. Doesn't mean they can't sing, only that they didn't get the votes they needed. In the end, however, it is not always the best singer, the best looking, or the one with the best stage presence that wins the top prize. It is the one who somehow manages to get the most votes. No body knows the formula, if they did, they'd have someone there that wins every time. As each contestant takes to the stage, one of them will somehow manage to send out exactly the right signals to the voters, and that person will evenutally win. And of course there is an element of luck involved, but the ones who don't win are certainly not failures. Some of the "losers" go on to record contracts and huge record sales, and some of the "winners" will fade away almost as soon as the newness wears off.

There is no formula for success, and don't think for a minute that just because you come up with "the" idea for a book, and that you work your butt off you are assured of being the next best selling author. It just doesn't work that way, and anyone who thinks it does is hanging on to a pipe dream.

So, Don, it takes a lot of talent, it usually takes a lot of hard work, dedication and determination, but it is a fact, not a guess mind you, but a fact, that it also takes that something else that a few find, and most don't. Call if luck if you will, but whatever it is, it exists, and without it, there would be almost no superstars.

You cannot rely on luck to get you to that stardom, because that would also be a formula, but you can't rely on hard work, dedication and determination to get you there either. Once again, all you can do is work hard, hang on, learn all you can, try to place yourself in the right place at the right time, do everything you can think of to help yourself, and then hope for a generous helping of luck. Or, if you're so inclined to believe in it, a good bit of divine intervention.

You're not going to make it without all of the elements, and that includes the one that nobody can put their finger on.

Breada, even I wouldn't try to write a song about Don and Dick. Or any combination of the two names.

Part of it is what is marketable, what are people looking for. But learning and practicing are important as well.

And being in the right place at the right time is a good thing.

And sometimes you figure out that what you want isn't so great after all.

Carol

You won't write the Don & Dick song? Boy, is that ever a letdown.
But your summation of Americal Idol sure is on target.

This is really a facinating topic. The truth lies somewhere in the middle. Being good helps, but is not everything, a lot of writers are good. Being in all of the right places might not mean much if you are not good. Let me give you two recent examples of people getting somewhere by guts and gall.

Joe the Plumber, love him or hate him, was just a another guy on his stret when Obama came to his neighborhood. Joe or Sameul could have stayed in the back of the crowd but he pushed to the front and engaged in a conversation that was cought on national TV. What is his particular skill, nothing, but he is still milking his 15 minutes. He has a book out now, terrible reviews, but hey, he'll probably do reality television and so on.

The lady in Florida that lost her house, spoke up at a town hall that the President held, someone saw her and let her move into a home that they owned.

At some point, hard work on the craft levels out, then getting someone's attention may be the most critical factor. The world seems to have evolved into a notoriety driven society in what is given any attention.

DT, Joe and the lady in Florida were not the only people at those meetings, nor the only ones who spoke up, and yet for some reason, not of their own doing, they were chosen by fate to move on and perhaps up. This was not due to hard work, dedication or determination on their part, nor was it due to talent. They came to the meetings, they, along with some other people, spoke up, and that X factor I've been talking about smacked the two of them right in the kisser, but it skipped over the rest of the people who were there that day and probably had just as much at stake as Joe and the lady.

Joe will get his book published, but had he just written it like we did, what are the odds we'd be hearing about it now?

There are several elements that must be in place for something like this to happen, and without all of them, especially the one we can't define, nothing takes place.

E. Don Harpe wrote:

Breada, even I wouldn't try to write a song about Don and Dick. Or any combination of the two names.

How about Breada, Din and Dock?

Just started another thread, check out

THE BALLAD OF DON AND DICK

E. Don Harpe wrote:

I believe that one first needs some degree of talent, and then that they have to work hard, remain determined, stay dedicated, and do all that they can to place themselves in the right place at the right time. However, I know from first hand experience that this is not a sure route to stardom. Once again, take a group of people and, given the exact same degree of those elements, some will make it, most won't.

I couldn't agree more, Don.

Music is a perfect example.
Some songs just don't do it for me, while others will hit me so hard, I'll never know when to stop humming them. And I'm talkin about different songs from the same artist here...

Shelagh, Breada is Brenda's evil twin robot sister, who lives in the UK and will be calling on you sometime later tonight. Be careful, she's on my side, and she is not gentle.

BTW, she is the one who put the idea for the song into Brenda's head, so you can see how evil she truly is.

Boy, that evil Breada gets around, doesn't she? I think she leads a more exciting life that I do.