|
Success and fame are two very different things. After all, you can be successful without being famous and you can be famous without being successful.
Certainly myriads of people are successful and we've never heard a whit about them. And, well, Jack the Ripper is famous, but not successful. Oh, and the Kardashians too.
(Please don't argue that the Kardashian's are even technically successful. Their father was a successful lawyer with only marginal fame. He died. The family parlayed his money into fame and rode that fame to make more money. That's not success, that's simply rising with the tide of unearned notoriety. Paris Hilton, same deal.)
I was in Nashville, Tennessee last week speaking at the Healthcare Manufacturers Management Council's Executive Conference and had a terrific time doing so. Great group of people.
Tuesday night I went for a walk. I've been to Nashville a number of times but have never wandered downtown.
Now I took 45 minutes or so. It's not real big. The main strip is about three city blocks long. But in those three blocks I strolled past bar after bar after bar. And in bar after bar after bar there was band after band after band playing live. Every single bar had a band. Had to be twenty in that one strip. I guess that's one reason why it's called the Music City.
I strolled to one bar after another, never venturing in, but standing at open doors and windows listening for a beat or two.
Some bands were better than others, but most were really pretty good. There were some voices that, if you closed your eyes, you could, without question, imagine on the radio. But they're not on the radio.
I crossed the street and stopped for a hot dog and a bottle of water. I slapped some mustard on the dog and snarfed it while I walked.
The pleasantness of the music was interrupted for a moment by the gruesome blare that attacked me from the open windows of a karaoke bar. That guy was awful...but I got past it.
As I took in the kaleidoscope of musical sounds coming from all around me I was reminded about all the latent talent there is in this country. There is so much brilliance in unseen places that is left unrewarded.
It always makes me wonder why. Why do some rise to the top and others, just as talented, don't?
I'm not talking about fame so much. As I said, one can luck into fame or get fame for nefarious reasons. Not so success. Success is earned. Why do some succeed and others don't?
And so I mused in Nashville.
Of course, success begins with us defining what that means for ourselves. No one can define it for us. And then it's usually some combination of talent, hard work and relationships that ultimately makes for our success. (Yeah, don't forget the relationships part.)
Standing in Nashville, watching a street performer set up his drum set, I recalled years ago interviewing Kate Shindle on the radio. Kate had been Miss Illinois in 1997 and then Miss America in 1998 when I talked to her. (Tough job, but someone had to do it.) It was actually one of the last radio interviews I did before transitioning into what I do now.
She told me the story of her climb to the top and then of the contest itself. And then she said this to me:
"I really don't think I was the prettiest, or the smartest or even the most talented. I think I just outlasted them all."
Of course, sometimes there's that.
| 
