Hard Work Over Talent

A lot of people say, 'I wish I was just good at something.'

A person goes on stage and sings a beautiful song. People watch and when it's finished they say, 'That person has talent.' I don't say that. If a five year old does it, I do say that, and that person who is now an adult started off with talent, but talent alone did't put them on that stage, hard work put them on that stage.

The hours of practice that you didn't see, the hundreds even thousands of performances that you didn't see. The heartbreak, the pain, the rejection, the failures that all led up to that glorious moment on stage.

Some of us will never get there because they believe they don't have the talent. What you don't know is hard work can just be as good and better than talent. I don't believe you need talent at all to be honest. You just need to be brave, willing to put in the hard work everyday, be vulnerable and show it in a public space.

When you look at a piece of contemporary art that looks messy and effortless as if the artist put no thought into what-so-ever and your first thought is, 'my kid could draw that.' You should stop and remember that the person who did draw that was a kid once and they're bringing that experience with them. They also probably went to art school and drew thousands of pictures of hands, legs, arms, bodies, portraits, apples, rooms and whatever to the point where they made a decision, a choice to paint that particular work and paint another and another just like it.

Your kid drew a picture just like that because it is all they are capable of doing, right now. As they grow up they will improve and move forward. You should teach them the value of hard work over talent. Just because Tiger Woods picked up a golf club when he was three and won tournaments by the age of five that doesn't make his story the formula for being good at golf. Thousands of other kids picked up clubs and worked their fingers to the bone to be good and never amount to the level he has achieved.

It takes passion, it takes time. If you haven't become successful by the time your twenty-eight doesn't mean you should give up. Don't believe that you have to be young to be successful. All the 30 under 30 crap is just motivation for someone else. It's not for you or you should spin in a way that does motivate you and there's always something they did that you can learn from also.

Reading through some old notebooks from my days at the University of Akron, I came across a quote from one of my mentors at the time Michael Spiro. He said, "It's not magic, either you put in the time or you didn't." Meaning you either sat in the room by yourself for hours at a time putting in the hard work or you slacked off and didn't, no matter what art form of discipline you're working in.

Preparedness + Opportunity = Success

This is one of the principals of success I believe and it is true. You have to be prepared to earn success, that's not the hard part in my opinion, the hard part is the opportunity.

If you have a degree in history, but you have been designing your own video games and want to switch over to a career what do you do? Having knowledge of history would be great if the company was making a historical game, but without experience or a portfolio that shows off you skills then you are doomed to be overlooked again and again.

So maybe you should just make your own game and put on the App store for people to play for free.

If you share it with 100 people and they share it with 100 people and they share it with 100 people then eventually you will get to 10,000 and that is the magic number according to Seth Godin to have a substantial tribe. Then that tribe will want to have more and your next project you can sell to them and make a living, or get noticed and hired and make a living and do the things you love.

Learning to Write with Spec Scripts

If you're going to build a house, you should know what a house looks like, right?

If your going to write within a documented universe, then you should study the universe. I'm mostly talking about Spec script writing for a TV show, but should apply to anyone writing fan fiction.

'Why are you writing a Spec for on-air show?' You may ask, 'You should be working on original material.' You're right and I am, but the major network writing fellowship programs require a spec for a show currently on-air.

Luckily, I have some favorite shows that I am invested in and have some stories to tell within their universe. It used to be the standard in getting the job as a TV writer. Anyone who listens to Nerdist Writer's Panel have heard some of them from writers working today. One story I remember is from a lady, whose name I can't remember, getting a job with a spec script of Sex in the City.

Writing specs for current shows should be somewhat standard for learning to write a show. Why? Because it is a show that is on air, its on air for a reason. It's something you can watch and learn from, get the characters voices in your head and see how the story works in multiple episodes.

Then when writing something original, something personal, you would have a strong fundamental of writing characters, storylines, drama, action, jokes or whatever strange and surreal imagery that you may have swimming around that beautiful brain of yours.

Knowing what a script is will help you do all that, just like knowing what a house looks like will help you build one if that was something you needed to do.