Comment by thejerz | Hacker News Reader

Comment by thejerz | Hacker News Reader

I knew Taylor Swift growing up.

Like Ang Lee, for around 6 to 8 years Taylor acted in musicals, sang at festivals, entered competitions, and recorded demos. She was bad at first (sorry Taylor!), but she kept working at it. Every day, she was writing another lyric, or taking another guitar lesson, or auditioning for another play, or switching voice teachers. The reason I knew her was that I went to school with her (she was maybe in third grade when I was in 7th), I acted in plays with her, and I ran sound and make background tracks for her when she was 10 or so. I knew her mom and dad and brother too. I got to see her bildungsroman firsthand.

Then came her "overnight" success. And the press talked about her like she appeared on planet earth overnight. She was a sensation. All at once, you couldn't walk outside your front door without hearing about Taylor Swift. It was surreal, having know the awkward girl from a few years earlier.

But what no one talked about was the years she forewent hanging out with other girls in middle school, watching TV and doing her hair with girlfriends in high school... all of the stuff that normal kids do. Playing sports, going on dates with boys... all of this was sacrificed. For Taylor, and Ang Lee, great sacrifice was made.

Success requires an obsession of sorts. You have to say, "I am going to accomplish this, come hell or high water." Failure is not an option... it's not even a word in the dictionary. There is only success. The buck has to stop with you; there's no room for blaming other people, making excuses, or avoiding harsh realities. Whatever it takes to be successful, whether that's hiring a speech coach, taking more classes at the university, learning etiquette, doing odd projects, finding a tutor, seeing a therapist, waking up at 6am to exercise... there is no limit. And that's just the point -- there is NO limit on what you have to be willing to undertake to achieve the goal.

I've grappled with what I'm going to say for years, but I now acknowledge it as a truism: If you stick with it, you'll be successful. It doesn't matter where you come from, who your parents are, what you know, who you know, or how you look. All that is required is a choice -- a commitment to excellence.

Therefore, there's only one rule in making it to the top: don't quit.

> If you stick with it, you'll be successful. It doesn't matter where you come from, who your parents are, what you know, who you know, or how you look. All that is required is a choice

I'm going to present a different picture of the world. I think it's a more accurate one. Not necessarily more useful.

There is no such thing as a guarantee of success -- at least, for a definition of success that includes broad recognition and financial rewards. No choice you can make, no enduring commitment, no talent you develop or have inborn can guarantee that "whatever it takes" will actually be enough in the end.

Determination, focus, talent, and years of effort may make you a success. They will markedly improve your chances, possibly even make them quite good. And shedding them or neglecting to cultivate them will all but guarantee failure.

But they're still no guarantee. And that's why the central message of the article about the intrinsic rewards is so important. Because in the end, the only reward you can keep for sure is the one that you take for yourself in terms of being satisfied with how you spend your time and the work that you've done.

> There is no such thing as a guarantee of success.

It's true there is no guarantee of success. But if you quit early there would be only guarantee failure.

True.

There are many great examples, but to take only one consider Larry Page and Sergey Brin who tried and failed to sell PageRank to Yahoo, Altavista etc.

The world does not remember them as two engineers who failed to sell their novel idea to BigCo and make a lot of money, but as the founders of a great company called Google.

You can fail as many times as you like. You only have to win once and the world will remember you for it. Only way to guarantee a defeat is to quit. If you can keep at it, you probably should.

> But if you quit early

The problem is we never know when "early" is. It could be past our patience, financial means, career window, or lifetime.

I would say sometimes qutting is good option. Not absolute quitting, but quitting from current plan. Being open to bending and open to modifications in the 'way to success'.

I remember Bruce Lee said, "Empty your mind, be formless, shapeless - like water. Now you put water into a cup, it becomes the cup, you put water into a bottle, it becomes the bottle, you put it in a teapot, it becomes the teapot. Now water can flow or it can crash. Be water, my friend."

If you quit while you still have passion, it's too early. If you spend your life following a passion, and never achieve "success", was that a life wasted? What is the alternative?

The same is true for the lottery, if you don't buy a lottery ticket, you're guaranteed not to win. But that doesn't prove you should spend all your money on lottery tickets.

There's a surprisingly good book by Seth Godin (sorry!) called The Dip about this dilemma.

http://www.amazon.com/Dip-Little-Book-Teaches-Stick/dp/15918...

The key thing, he says, about successful people is they quickly and accurately either choose to abandon something very very fast, or to pursue it through the depressing dip to sucess.

Hm. Does he prove that unsuccessful people didn't do that? If not, then it's just the usual selection bias.

Yes. There are probably some other NYU film classmates of Lee who tried just as hard and didn't make it.

I have the flip side of this story. I was good friends with two musicians in the early nineties. I went to their rehearsals, hung out with their friends, and saw most of their gigs when they played out in clubs. Videos, demo tapes, meetings with managers. They spent the better part of a decade trying to make it, and while they became absolutely phenomenal musicians, they never became famous -- for the simple reason that the music industry is full of amazing musicians, only a few of whom will ever become stars.

And this isn't just the case in music. I've been privileged to know several very big writers -- people who can sustain large houses and art collections on the strength of what they've written. But for every one "star" I know literally dozens of hard-working writers for whom the career has simply not clicked. The heartbreaking thing, in both writing and music, are watching the ones who almost make it, who pour all of themselves into a project and who, for whatever reason, just don't break through for their audience.

There's a thing called "sunk cost fallacy," where you've put so much of yourself into your chosen vocation that you literally can't imagine quitting. But the sad reality for most of us -- and why inspiring stories like Ang Lee's can be more damaging than helpful -- is that knowing when to quit can put you ahead of the game.

But what no one talked about was the years she forewent hanging out with other girls in middle school, watching TV and doing her hair with girlfriends in high school.

Ah the old "I knew Taylor Swift" card, hear it all the time. I will say the funniest thing about being from Wyo is how everyone in a 50-mile radius of my town/school apparently "knew" and were best friends with Taylor Swift before she left.

But yeah I agree, certainly a lot of sacrifice. Her entire family moved to support her dream and it fortunately paid off. You don't hear about the 1,000s of other families that move to Nashville and fail. So no, sticking with it is not a guarantee for "success", not in the slightest. Depends on how you define success of course.

Ha. Not from there, but every Icelander I've met "knew" Bjork, but that may be because it's half the size of Wyoming and is much, much more isolated.

Just for clarification, I think Wyo is this case is referring to Wyomissing, PA

I'm impressed that people on an online forum with visitors from all around the world think that abbreviating the name of some far out small town makes sense.

I get NY and SF, but "Wyo" for anything other than Wyoming?

Agreed, but I can only guess that Wyo is not a usual shortcut for Wyoming. Although I made that mistake as well.

The likely explanation is Taylor Swift is famous and some people are familiar with the full name of the town she is from.

Gah, I even Googled to make sure, guess I didn't do a good job. Thanks for that.

The problem is that there are a ton of people that do exactly that. I live in New York and over the past year I've dated a string of actresses, some moderately successful (several year soap runs, broadway), some less so (off broadway, guerrilla theatre, etc. . .) All of them have been outrageously dedicated and talented. Still, for all of that there is no guarantee of success at the end of that multi-year struggle.

It's a good lesson to learn that risk isn't a word that means "work really hard for several years and you'll get your pot of gold." Risk means that you could pour your heart and soul into something, be extremely talented, do everything right, and still end up with nothing. To think otherwise is to fall prey to the just world hypothesis.

Exactly. I live in NYC as well, and over the past year I've dated a lot of fashion models. All of these women are gorgeous and successful (signed with major agencies - doing runway, magazine, and mixed media work). Some still struggle to make rent. Models don't have long careers, and while they're all outrageously beautiful and talented, there's no guarantee of success.

I thought the usual exit plan for models was to use their beauty and talent to attract a wealthy husband. That said, I did know one who used her modelling money to put herself through med school, but that woman was a bit of an outlier in the brains department.

Good story, thanks. Though I'd say pursing a dream as a child/teenager is different from doing so as an adult with a family to support. As Ang Lee wrote in his letter/essay (someone linked it below) it felt 'undignified for a man' to have his wife bring in 100% of the income while he stayed at home.

Just pointing something out that I think is a key difference. Not to take anything away from Taylor Swift as everything you said is 100% true - but I think the stress in Ang Lee's case was probably (significantly?) higher.

Perhaps part of the point is that having children (or choosing the noble path of actually supporting them) is also a choice.

If you really, really want something bad enough, sacrifices can be made.

It helps tremendously to have whole-hearted support from someone who believes in you:

> It got so discouraging that Lee reportedly contemplated learning computer science so he could find a job during this time, but was scolded by his wife when she found out, telling him to keep his focus.

Jane (his wife) was supporting the family during those fruitless script-writing years. She believed in him perhaps even more than he believed in himself.

Oh man, I don't know. I've seen tons of people enter the feature and TV writing business, and devote their entire 20s to trying to make it. A few have been successful and have ended up with amazing careers / filmographies. But many others didn't, and dead-ended in their mid-30s with no other skills.

TV writing is a young person's business, so basically you are up or out. Because there is always someone right out of college who is pretty good and will work for almost nothing. And feature writing is totally unpredictable. Getting your movie made, and made well, is like oil drilling.

If you aren't really good, it's a tough decision to make - to spend 10 years in the industry trying to make it.

And then, if you are really good.... I think producing and writing are reasonably opportunity-rational paths, where you get a ton of swings at the bat. But if you're an actor or a director, you can be really great and still goose-egg your 20s.

Tough business.

The sad thing is that there are probably at least hundreds if not thousands of girls that did this....and still there is just a few successful singers.

I will go along the lines of having a life purpose and work to get it, the person you will become because of this will be the reward, not neccesary the destination.

I suppose that makes sense. So many of her songs are fuck you to ex boyfriends even in her 20s.

There is something to be said about creating a product people can relate to.

Well, Adele apparently got a lot of money for being dumped as well. (she also probably dumped a couple, but unfortunately it doesn't seem to be profitable for the men)

Amalgamated breakups worked out ok for Gotye, in "Somebody that I used to know".

Well said! I just had to reply since the vast majority of replies on your thread don't agree. I agree 110% with you. It boils down to will power, and applying yourself consistently in the right direction!

I agree with your statements, but I would like to add that you need to define 'success' before you can know you have achieved it.

clarity of purpose is a vanishingly rare stroke of luck

and even then we just don't hear much about the countless midwestern girls who sacrifice it all to the talent circuit but never amount to anything

survivor bias. you just don't see all the other people "sticking to it" and never making it.

you're discounting luck, chance, etc.

one bad decision or just bad luck moment and you're toast. and for female singers - if your genes made you butt ugly, no career for you, no matter how great you sing.

I'm not saying she's ugly, but Susan Boyles made a huge impact at the "Britain's Got Talent" show when she was nearly 50. Today, her voice makes her millions. Even women can be successful at any point in their life. I don't know what it takes to be successful (different people have different definitions of that term), but being pretty is not a necessity.

Sorry to burst your bubble, but she's hardly a celebrity in Britain anymore. Like most of the winners on these "talent shows", she has been milked of all profitability and is now forgotten by the wayside.

Of course, all she had to put up with was a total nervous breakdown.

" and for female singers - if your genes made you butt ugly, no career for you, "

Music is not limited to the payola crap pumped on most stations you know

And I'd say it probably gets better with music sharing over the internet, the ones complaining are usually the executive heads.

Do you know how sharp the fall off in income is as you move down in popularity from "Guaranteed Billboard Chart Topper"? I suspect by "career" the GP was referring to financial success, which, if you're an ugly woman, is almost totally impossible (Something that's not nearly as true for ugly men).

Yes, thousands upon thousands of people still make amazing music with very little concern for profit (and I'm as grateful as I suspect you are for their passion) but they do it for a pittance based on love of the craft.

Cesaria Evora is far from beauty canon, I'd say.

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