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.

High Expectations

Check out the clip of Elvis’s rehearsal of “The Wonder of You” from Youtube below.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aSodZqm2rv8&feature=related

Through it’s an awesome song, hearing it three or so times is perhaps pushing it. It might even seem like a waste of time for a busy person like yourself. But Elvis didn’t.

Now, unless you’re an intense Elvis fan (like myself) then you might not listen to the whole clip, but you can still pick up the importance of what Elvis does in it.

This clip is from February 1970, a couple months before Elvis did the famous shows that went on to become part of the documentary film Elvis – That’s the Way it Is. You’ll notice that even at this early stage, Elvis and his band are playing very well together. Actually, despite a bit of messing about, the first rehearsal shot at the song would probably have been show worthy. Yet, Elvis and his band go through it again. Then, on the second rehearsal of the song, Elvis actually stops the band and tells them to change what they had been doing well to try something that he felt would be better in the long run.

On the third time through, the band plays once more, sounding better than it had either of the two previous times and with Elvis’s improvement added by the backup singers towards the end of the verse. Compare this to the version of “The Wonder of You” included in Elvis − That’s the Way it Is and you’ll see that in the couple months till those shows, Elvis and the TCB (Taking Care of Business) band had worked on it even more and, as a result, it sounded even better.

Sound like a lot of work? Something that took years for Elvis to build up the dedication to go over a song in rehearsal with a fine-toothed comb to perfect it? Well, no. Looking into Elvis’s past, we can see that he’d been like this years earlier.

When Elvis recorded “Hound Dog” in 1956, he went through 31 takes until he thought it was good enough to put out as a single. 31 takes! Think of going through one of your projects 31 times to get it right.

So, what am I saying? That you should go over something until you can’t stand it anymore. Perhaps not. But what I am saying is that Elvis kept himself to a standard. He would not stop practicing the same song until it was the way he wanted it to be. Then, coincidentally or not, it went out, people loved it as much as he did, and it became a hit. When you believe your work of a certain calibre and won’t settle for anything less, you are bound to keep that certain calibre of work because you wouldn’t submit anything less than that to the world. The higher that standard, the higher the calibre of work and the better the work, the more likely people will want to buy that work.

No, you don’t have to go into rehearsal for days going over a song. No, you don’t have to take 31 takes to have a song put out. But you certainly can go over something until it is a standard you find worthy of selling, enough that you would buy it yourself. Take it from Elvis, and your level of achievement will mirror it.

Elvis’s Lessons:

Ø Hold your work to the highest expectation and let nothing less be enough. Others will wonder why you are so good but you’ll know that your high standards are the ‘secret’.

Ø Keep on trying to improve your work, even if it doesn’t require improving immediately. Change happens one of two ways: you make it happen or it happens to you. It’s much less stressful and rewarding when you initiate change and improve in the way you want rather than being made to change by society and still not being on the edge of innovation.

P.S. If you're interested in hearing Elvis's performance of "The Wonder of You" from Elvis - That's the Way it Is, a couple months after the rehearsal discussed in this article, here's a link to a video of that scene.