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What is success?

This is a subject that has been swimming around in my subconscious for many years, but until now, i've struggled to articulate. Hopefully this will inspire a really good debate

The psychology of success has always fascinated me. What is it exactly? what makes one seemingly similar person attain it & another not? could there ever be a manual for it? can it ever be under the control of just one person? where do we learn the principal from, can it be from birth? etc.

Having spent a good chunk of the last 5 years reading & watching docus about this very topic, i can honestly say i'm no closer to understanding it, nor have i ever seen anybody successful able to express the reason it happened beyond using cliches or words of wisdom; in other words NOBODY knows. Self-help books & famous autobiographies are constantly written & re-written & re-written & eventually published under a new title with exactly the same contents. Success is in demand like no other topic, we all want it, yet without being able to quantify it (why would another book need to be written if not), how can we ever know how to attain it?

Applying this to music...

In any genre, there are hits. Some are musically rich, some are novel, some capture a fleeting mood in time, some are total flukes, some involve stealing & some are nothing more than manufactured pop.

To add to this confusion, the majority of artists are unaware of what they have on their hands. The stories of hit records starting as a b-side, or even worse, close to not being released at all by the artist or label, are ten a penny & this is not in any way an exclusive trait. Choose any sector of the market & there will be a book worth of similar stories. This being a personal favourite...

"So we went to Atari and said, 'Hey, we've got this amazing thing, even built with some of your parts, and what do you think about funding us? Or we'll give it to you. We just want to do it. Pay our salary, we'll come work for you.' And they said, 'No.' So then we went to Hewlett-Packard, and they said, 'Hey, we don't need you. You haven't got through college yet.'"
Steve Jobs

The one factor i struggle to get my head around the most, is the general public & their critical participation in deciding what's popular & what's not. Our culture is so diverse & fast moving. History tells us that nothing ever stays the same. What's fresh today, may become obsolete the next day due to something worthy of a culture change (a war for example) OR it may be down to something incredibly petty, like a few unfavorable words from a particular person in the media. Advertising is a perfect example of the difficulties even huge corporations have in foreseeing the mood of the general public. John Wanamaker, a famous ad pioneer, once remarked "Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted; the trouble is I don't know which half."

My next struggle is the nature or nurture argument. If you look at athletics, natural born talent is undeniable. We are all born with a certain amount of muscle (& scope for muscle growth). Muscle can be looked at as having two specific types; slow twitch or fast twitch & both of these levels determine which event you will be naturally suited to…with the requisite gruelling work put into training of course. But what about musicians, are some of us naturally "better" at it then others?. It's also worth throwing into the melting pot, that we're all born with a unique ear canal & ear drum profile, therefore none of us ever hear the world in the same way, just as our vision.

My personal feelings on this have changed over time. I started out thinking hard work would get me close, but i don't think that's it at all anymore. I'm beginning to feel the path to it involves many many coincidences, most of which are far beyond anything we can claim to have power over. The rise of the "home studio" & the internet have drastically changed the landscape of music & i think we're still a very long way from fully understanding the implications of this meteoric shift. For me, there are far too many non-musical elements that all need to come together at the right time, that without an incredible amount of help from the gods in aligning all of these variables, even a masterpiece can be ignored. My outlook now is simple...

Apply all i can to a track, finish it, release it, start again.

I'm not looking beyond improving my skills & making sure anything & everything is put out there. It's nothing more than a glorified numbers game; the more you play, the better your chances are. It's like love; the minute you start looking for it, the harder it seems to find! so i'm gonna stop trying to sound like somebody else, or get down on myself for not sounding "pro" & get back to having some fun & hopefully improving my skills. If it happens it happens, if not, i can be content in knowing that it was probably never in my control anyway

So the question to my fellow TA's is this; what do YOU think it is? & how does it affect the way you live your life?

Look forward to your thoughts guys

Take it to music discussion, emo.

Just kidding, but what's with the navel gazing on here recently?

It's like the fucking 60's round here.

On topic and speaking seriously, it's a fucking mind-bendingly bizarre mix of talent, hard work, connections, luck all happening at once while the planets align.

I'm not joking. I can't tell you how much my life changed to the positive and in a musically professional sense in just one year - I went from working for a small broadcast PR firm in london, to working for arguably one of the biggest Hollywood composers in LA, working on all the big blockbusters, in just one year.

It was a mix of blind luck, happening to be in the right place at the right time, using connections I had made previously (that I had no idea would be of any use at the time), working harder than I'd ever worked before to get in that position, taking a huge risk, and then making your own luck, and not being afraid of any of it.

Throughout that situation, there were times when the hard work I had put in a decade earlier in engineering school paid off, or things learnt or people met during the half-dozen or so jobs I'd had leading up to this that at the time just felt like a meandering path of bumping from job to job, but in hindsight, looks like some incredibly well crafted and plotted out path to this ultimate goal.

success is just as weird as it is incredible - don't question it, just go with it - as cliched as it sounds, you make your own luck and how you deal with situations and people has a lot to do with how far you will go. If you don't have talent you won't go that far. If you don't work hard you won't go that far. If you don't have luck, you won't go that far. If you give up easily, you won't go far. If you combine the mix of these, you should go far.

Re: What is success?

quote:

Originally posted by CalvP This is a subject that has been swimming around in my subconscious for many years, but until now, i've struggled to articulate. Hopefully this will inspire a really good debate The psychology of success has always fascinated me. What is it exactly? what makes one seemingly similar person attain it & another not? could there ever be a manual for it? can it ever be under the control of just one person? where do we learn the principal from, can it be from birth? etc. Having spent a good chunk of the last 5 years reading & watching docus about this very topic, i can honestly say i'm no closer to understanding it, nor have i ever seen anybody successful able to express the reason it happened beyond using cliches or words of wisdom; in other words NOBODY knows. Self-help books & famous autobiographies are constantly written & re-written & re-written & eventually published under a new title with exactly the same contents. Success is in demand like no other topic, we all want it, yet without being able to quantify it (why would another book need to be written if not), how can we ever know how to attain it? Applying this to music... In any genre, there are hits. Some are musically rich, some are novel, some capture a fleeting mood in time, some are total flukes, some involve stealing & some are nothing more than manufactured pop. To add to this confusion, the majority of artists are unaware of what they have on their hands. The stories of hit records starting as a b-side, or even worse, close to not being released at all by the artist or label, are ten a penny & this is not in any way an exclusive trait. Choose any sector of the market & there will be a book worth of similar stories. This being a personal favourite... "So we went to Atari and said, 'Hey, we've got this amazing thing, even built with some of your parts, and what do you think about funding us? Or we'll give it to you. We just want to do it. Pay our salary, we'll come work for you.' And they said, 'No.' So then we went to Hewlett-Packard, and they said, 'Hey, we don't need you. You haven't got through college yet.'" Steve Jobs The one factor i struggle to get my head around the most, is the general public & their critical participation in deciding what's popular & what's not. Our culture is so diverse & fast moving. History tells us that nothing ever stays the same. What's fresh today, may become obsolete the next day due to something worthy of a culture change (a war for example) OR it may be down to something incredibly petty, like a few unfavorable words from a particular person in the media. Advertising is a perfect example of the difficulties even huge corporations have in foreseeing the mood of the general public. John Wanamaker, a famous ad pioneer, once remarked "Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted; the trouble is I don't know which half." My next struggle is the nature or nurture argument. If you look at athletics, natural born talent is undeniable. We are all born with a certain amount of muscle (& scope for muscle growth). Muscle can be looked at as having two specific types; slow twitch or fast twitch & both of these levels determine which event you will be naturally suited to…with the requisite gruelling work put into training of course. But what about musicians, are some of us naturally "better" at it then others?. It's also worth throwing into the melting pot, that we're all born with a unique ear canal & ear drum profile, therefore none of us ever hear the world in the same way, just as our vision. My personal feelings on this have changed over time. I started out thinking hard work would get me close, but i don't think that's it at all anymore. I'm beginning to feel the path to it involves many many coincidences, most of which are far beyond anything we can claim to have power over. The rise of the "home studio" & the internet have drastically changed the landscape of music & i think we're still a very long way from fully understanding the implications of this meteoric shift. For me, there are far too many non-musical elements that all need to come together at the right time, that without an incredible amount of help from the gods in aligning all of these variables, even a masterpiece can be ignored. My outlook now is simple... Apply all i can to a track, finish it, release it, start again. I'm not looking beyond improving my skills & making sure anything & everything is put out there. It's nothing more than a glorified numbers game; the more you play, the better your chances are. It's like love; the minute you start looking for it, the harder it seems to find! so i'm gonna stop trying to sound like somebody else, or get down on myself for not sounding "pro" & get back to having some fun & hopefully improving my skills. If it happens it happens, if not, i can be content in knowing that it was probably never in my control anyway So the question to my fellow TA's is this; what do YOU think it is? & how does it affect the way you live your life? Look forward to your thoughts guys

Pop music is more or less formulaic. Listen to Top 100 from the past 100 years and you'll notice that it all kind of sounds the same.

If you do not adhere to the pop song guidelines, then it won't become popular.

Napoleon Hill's conclusion was that if you want it bad enough, you'll get what you want.

read the title, thought about your question, sought reply button:

to rock the dance floor

Re: What is success?

quote:

Originally posted by CalvP The psychology of success has always fascinated me. What is it exactly? what makes one seemingly similar person attain it & another not?

Great subject mate.

Firstly I want to talk about what we mean by sucess.
So the happiest most content person I know is my Father in law. He is 'Mr average', never lusted for money or material possessions, just always found great contentment in the simple life. No desire for others to gaze his way or comment 'see him there, he's loaded'.

To me he is the pinnacle of sucess.

Think about people that admire lets say a famous businessman. What is actualy going on here and does it mean anything? To me it's all utterly meaningless (and I say this as someone who is a moderately succesful business owner). All it boils down to is one set of brains admiring another brain. Lets go deeper though. The very esscence of this admiration is nothing more than quantum level energy exchanges, interactions of chemical elements and thier requisite particles.
These fleeting electro - chemical reactions amount to zilch in Universal terms, just little whispers down the great deep well of time, all to be forgotton, all meaningless really.

This way of thinking for me gives extreme comfort as I can step back and just laugh at all these Human dots (collections of atoms that have never been, nor will never themselves be alive).


MUSIC>

Your latent natural skill is partly a reflection of your DNA coding that alighns the chemical and sub atomic processes of your entire body and partly a function of your life experiences.

All you can do in this regard is keep honing your skills with practice.

LUCK > The older I get the more I realise luck has a huge part to play. If I stayed with my first wife I'd be a multi millionaire with the best studio money could buy.

SELLING > never underestimate just what good sales people many sucesfull artists are. The Chancellor of Britains top art school, Goldsmiths, said invariably those that go on to have a well paid art career are the husslers and deal makers and by no means the best artists.
It's often the case that artistes and selling do not go together as selling is viewed by them as seedy and ditasteful, they want thier art to do the talking afterall.

THE PUBLIC TASTE> It's often said by producers they want to just have fun, period, but I'm not sure on this one. Why should an artistic endeavour always be fun, why? Was sculpting those ancient statues all fun? Was painting those church cielings fun?

For me it's fun + graft + annoyance. I don't always expect only fun.

As for taste, we producers are quick to critiscise the public tatse but then and again stop and think about your own consumption habits - do you always base them on good tatse? I bet you don't. You probably go with whats easy and familiar, just what works. So you don't seek out the very best artistic chef when you want to eat, many other factors play a role. So don't expect the public to recognise and want to consume good taste.


If I were forced to sum up the very esscence of production, I'd chose the words 'attention to detail'.

How bout that for a load of bull!

Re: What is success?

quote:

Originally posted by CalvP The psychology of success has always fascinated me. What is it exactly?

I think the main drivers of success can be funneled into money and pussy. When you break it down we're really talking about success in an evolutionary sense. Having that feeling of security in knowing where your next meal and your next lay is coming from. Everything beyond that is an ego-related thing.

Have you guys ever read this book called outliers by malcolm gladwel? in it, he describes that success isn't made through picking one's self up through one's own bootstraps. Luck definitely has a lot to do with it. Did you guys know that many pro athletes are born around the same month? The author postulates it's because the big kids are the ones that get the most attention, and kids are going to be bigger if they were born on the age cutoff date. Lastly, ass kissing has a lot to do with success too.

Want a nobel prize or tenure at a top university? make sure your name doesn't start with z because academic papers are mostly written alphabetically, and the first people on the paper are more likely to get better jobs and recognition.

What does this have to do with music? A lot of you guys probably could only afford the gear or the computer now at this moment. Look at all these wunderkinds that are popping up in dance music. What if you had parents who did not want you on the computer? What if your parents were hardcore rockists who didn't want to raise nob twidlers?

Re: Re: What is success?

The sad death of amy winehouse today, really highlights just how important external factors can play a part in your overall success & happiness. It's also a pretty damning indictment on the music industry & fame imo too

quote:

Originally posted by Richard Butler

WOW i feel like i've just watched the power of ten again�& i didn't get it the first time around

The strange thing about your father in laws story (i mean this with the utmost respect), as somebody who has aspirations to setup my own business, do well etc what you describe is almost paradise-esque�i'm not really sure what to make of that? i realise none of us particularly LIKE stress, but there are many parts of my day filled with thoughts of wanting to almost jettison the burden of want. The desire to "make it" & become rich comes at a high price�what if all it brings is just a richer version of my belongings; a golden tap rather than a chrome one? & what's to say it will end at that? will that truly end the desire

Read a good quote today on selling which really resonates with what you described�

"To establish oneself in the world, one has to do all one can to appear established."
Francois de La Rochefoucauld

It's almost ridiculous the level of unease among most artists in selling a product isn't it? you work your ass off to get something great & then feel like a sellout trying to get people to listen to it as frank zappa said "The most important thing in art is the frame." he definitely had a point

I honestly think this thought has prevailed more & more in recent times. The "me me" notion that the only worthy things in life are the ones we enjoy. It's a difficult one to get past, but no pain no gain right

Touche on the public taste! I don't know what this means in the scheme of things, perhaps it at least explains the success of the black eyed peas

quote:

Originally posted by meriter

I never thought i'd see the words funnel & pussy in one sentence together in a crude sense i do agree with you. I suppose you could extend the phrase "build it & they will come" to "build it for the girls & the boys will come in there droves"

quote:

Originally posted by -FSP-

Thanks for the book tip, looks good

You raise a very valid point about birth date/name. It's actually a little scary to think how something as seemingly trivial, could potentially have an absolutely massive effect on somebody's life, especially considering that would be your parents decision�there's always deed poll right

It's funny i've never even considered your point about computers. Now a mobile phone & internet connection are seen as "essential" even by government in calculating relative poverty. I think it's great in a way though, anything that empowers children to think to themselves "wow i can do this" from the comfort of their own bedroom has got to be a positive thing

Succes for me is fulfilment and recognition
doesn't neccecarily need to financial gain. as long as you get out of it what you want and people appreciate you for doing it. Making good money is then bonus.

another question is, how many people are able to put their passion into a full time paid job? or being able to capitalize on "doing their thing"

True Success to me is when you touch the heart of thousands without compromise in terms of music and sound. You become your own fan out of self-acomplishment and people around you feel better thanks to you. True success is when the die hards as well as their grandma and/or kids can appreciate what you've done.

True success is when you don't need to lie or cheat with your music. True Success is when the music comes to you naturally, when you feel like pushed in the back by someone above you to go in a specific direction, against all trends, just because you think it's right.

And seriously who cares about sales after that...

The important think is the light in the eyes of your kids when they hear what you've done.

Re: Re: Re: What is success?

quote:

Originally posted by CalvP The sad death of amy winehouse today, really highlights just how important external factors can play a part in your overall success & happiness.

The trick is to not want overt and plentiful happiness. Re - programme ourselves to be contented and fulfilled. Happiness is over- rated and under fulfilling. Honestly don't seek to be happy too much.

I think the drive to be 'sucessfull' stems from somewhere 'we' are not even aware of. Which part of your brain is you?

Seriously, which part? Which part is the esscence of you? Is it the conscious part you think?

Well the conscious realm consists of 5% of your brain. What is the rest doing, which bit is the true you? How is it you, every last particle of it once resided in a chicken wing, fish scale, lettuce leaf, and all the way back to when all matter resided in stars and space dust. How can this atomic matter still unchanged, now reside in your brain. Those atoms of hydrogen are exactly the same as they were as when they lived inside a star, and yet here you sit pondering the universe.

So before you answer why this drive to gather success tokens exists, go deeper. This drive is actualy a chemical electrical impulse. It controls you. So where does this process emmerge and why?

You think your'e in control, yes?

If you answered yes, then answer this; why do you comb your hair a certain way, why do you hold the steering wheel differently to your Mum, why do you find certain things an irritant? Did you really decide to process the world the way you do? Does one person wake up on thier 13th birthday and chose not to like cauliflower? Of course not. Thier DNA and RNA process the impulses that the vegetable impart and process these signals in a way that some of your electrical chemical brain apparatus 'decides' that cauliflower is ditasteful. 'You' never had a seconds chance in this decision.

So I suspect your desire to gather status capital comes from an impulse that resides in the programming of your DNA, in fact it's a certaintly. Nothing but nothing happens without your DNA encoding it. Just as a computer cannot process without a programme of code to manage and direct it.

In other words 'you', are being compelled to process the world and want sucess thanks to a programme of DNA, which itself is a chain of just 4 chemicals. The more sucesful you are at gathering prey (capital nowadays), the more likely you will attract a mate, survive in tact long enough and pass on your DNA.

In the end it's just that, nothing more.

Having said all this I'm quite ambitious and have achived some business sucess, but I never take it too seriously at all, it really does mean very little indeed.

Setting a goal & achieving it = success.

Success is not having to ask, or care, what success is.





Or, maybe not. Hell I don't know or care.

Jennifer Lopez in a Zebra Print Spandex.

getting laid with 2 women = success

quote:

Originally posted by orTof�nChiLd getting laid with 2 women = success

2 is for wimps, 3 is where it's at.

quote:

Originally posted by Richard Butler 2 is for wimps, 3 is where it's at.

quote:

Originally posted by Richard Butler 2 is for wimps, 3 is where it's at.

Unfortunately only the privileged few have access to 3 dirt box divas at one time

Here's a rather intriguing article to add some fuel to the fire...

Study shows teenagers subconscious knows whether a song will be a hit

quote:

the results were the same whatever the subjects' personal preferences were. The brains of both those who like the tunes, and those who didn't, reacted in the same subconscious way. the research subjects' personal preferences, rated on a scale of one to five, did not correlate with future sales of the songs - or the strength of their brain activity.

EMI's focus groups will never be the same again

quote:

Originally posted by CalvP Unfortunately only the privileged few have access to 3 dirt box divas at one time Here's a rather intriguing article to add some fuel to the fire... Study shows teenagers subconscious knows whether a song will be a hit EMI's focus groups will never be the same again

I figured that there's a deeper psychological response despite what people's preferences really are. If people's preferences were accurate, there would be some movies that repulse people just based off of the music alone, but that's clearly not the case.

There are genre breaker tracks, that draw in fans that claim to only listen to genre x.

When my life draws to a close hopefully 100 long ones from present I might contemplate how successful I've been, but right now I just wanna live without evaluating myself in that way. Speaking of success though...

I gotta agree with Rich. My thoughts on this are what I imagine to be fairly mundane thinking: to associate success with happiness, measured relatively of things like managing your expectations, taking ownership and securing choices, experiences, correlations with other human beings, travels, leaps of faith etc., etc. Life has many attributes worth investing time in, many of which involve no need for human interrelation: chilling on a beach, in the forest, on a mountain, painting, writing, music and its counterpart, silence, which distorts my perception of time, allowing me to unload in temporary haven... I think every human ought to swiftly retreat from modern living when the chance to relax presents itself.

Yet I've noticed how dismissive of these aspects some people seem to be. Living a rigid, recycled lifestyle would eventually kill me. For me, success is relative to happiness, and happiness means having broad ambitions that will present lots of opportunities.

Great post

quote:

Originally posted by Owsey Life has many attributes worth investing time in, many of which involve no need for human interrelation

Can i ask how you balance your life in this area Owsey ? i'm currently re-building my social life after illness, so this is particularly pertinent for me right now!

quote:

Originally posted by Owsey silence, which distorts my perception of time, allowing me to unload in temporary haven... I think every human ought to swiftly retreat from modern living when the chance to relax presents itself.

It's funny, i have only just started realising this very fact myself & it all came through practicing mindfulness. I was amazed at just how slow a single minute can seem if you sit perfectly still in complete silence! it's even stranger when you break the spell & continue with your day, you find 30 minutes seems to go by in an absolute flash i find myself craving it more & more now, i turn my radio off in the car now for example...it's a shame silence is such a hard thing to achieve in our busy society, but not everyone wants to stop & think & i do appreciate that

Defying pessimistic outlooks.

I'm hoping I can look back on my life and not feel too much regret. So far I'm not doing all that well in that regard but I'm getting better at seeing opportunities when they present themselves and learning to trust my instincts. On a shallower note I would like a nice cabin in the woods with a screened-in porch.

quote:

Originally posted by CalvP Great post i turn my radio off in the car now for example...

A source of huge joy for me was discovering Radio 4. Don't laugh. Stephen Fry and others say it's the greatest thing there is.

Just put it on and leave it on, don't turn off when you think a show will be dull, go with it. You end up in all sorts of miraculous places and learning a shed load. You also get an incredible inner calm from it - listen how uncompressed and quite and equisitely recorded everything is.

Wierd, I go from pounding up to the minute techno to a Radio 4 show about seagulls or weaving.

EDIT: Essential, per the topic.

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