Doing All You Can

Welcome back to another week at Graceland Ontario. Thanks for joining us and I hope we can improve your life today. This week we’re going to be talking about doing all you can even when people aren’t giving you the recognition you deserve, using Elvis’s life as example.

According to the book, Elvis Presley: Unseen Archives by Marie Clayton, Elvis has sold more than one billion records (more than anyone else in history) as well as,

• 32 Gold Albums
• 32 Platinum Albums
• 24 Gold Singles
• 27 Platinum Singles
• 6 gold EP singles, and,
• 10 platinum EP singles

Only in the U.S. (not including international sales)

For those who aren’t record-sales literate, gold certification is given to someone who has sold half a million units and platinum to someone who has sold a million units.

And the list goes on… Not to mention he directly influenced the music industry for all time by his influence of groups like the Beatles (for more info on Elvis’s achievements, check out the page about it at Elvis.com, Elvis Presley’s official site)

Yet, figure this, the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences (NARAS) took years to award Elvis a Grammy of any kind. Introduced for the performers of 1958 in 1959 by NARAS the Grammies are a set of the most prestigious awards open to a recording artist. And you’d think that being Elvis was so important and did so much great work, they’d recognise it. Wrong. It took the Grammies eight years to award Elvis his first Grammy in 1967 for the album “How Great Thou Art”. Then it took them another five years to award him his second Grammy for the album “He Touched Me” in 1972. Two years later they gave him another award for his live rendition of the song “How Great Thou Art” in 1974.

Elvis won three Grammy awards but they never awarded him them for rock ‘n’ roll, only gospel music, even though he was originally better known for rock ‘n’ roll.

But did Elvis’s singing get worse because he wasn’t awarded music’s chief award for eight years. No way (despite the quality of his movie songs). He sang with the same passion; He did all he could with his songs. And, finally, someone awarded him for how awesome his work was. Even though it took years.

So here’s the point, sometimes people won’t recognize you even when you’re doing a great job. Not at first. The challenge is keeping going even when you’re seeing people who aren’t at your level taking your awards. Getting angry won’t help. It’ll only make you look jealous. And working less because you don’t see the point of working hard if no one’s recognizing you won’t help either. Then, you’ll never win anything. And deservedly so. All you can do is work with renewed vigour to produce the best product possible. And, eventually, someone will recognize you. Someone will say, “this guy knows what he’s doing”. And eventually, you’ll win out overall.

Elvis’s Lessons:

It took Elvis eight years to win music’s chief award, the Grammy. But he didn’t give up or put less work out. Then he would never have been recognized (and his record sales might have gone down, too). Instead, he did all he could and eventually he was recognized. When you don’t get the recognition you deserve, it’s your job to do all you can, keep plugging away and some day you’ll win out.

P.S. If you're interested in hearing Elvis singing the song that eventually won him a Grammy, here's a Youtube video of him with "How Great Thou Art".

P.P.S. Remember to leave a comment below or email me at alexghilson@gmail.com to continue the discussion.