Strange And Wonderful Things

Hey Guys,

We all have our ups and downs and sometimes we get stuck in the monotony of everyday life. But, we have hope. If there is anything we can learn from Elvis, it is this: strange and wonderful things can happen, even when you least expect them.

Sounds like the kind of thing you’d read in Charles Dickens or J. K. Rowling, huh (hey, what’s wrong with Harry Potter, after all?). Of course, you’re probably thinking right now that there’s a difference between the wishful imaginations of fiction writers and reality.

Well sure, we don’t have magic wands (or evil wizards trying to murder us), nor does life tie up quite as nicely as it does in a novel. But still, amazing stuff can happen − and it does!

Take Elvis: I can’t overestimate the unlikeliness of a poor kid from Mississippi becoming anything notable, let alone one of the greatest, most influential, well-loved individual in popular music.

I mean, so Elvis could sing, and well. He sang his heart out in the after-hours of his truck job. He kept singing. And then POOF!!! Positive things started happening. Like more people starting asking for his autograph. And more people came to his shows. And there were more requests for his records to be played on radio.

It wasn’t an overnight switch from poverty to riches, but it happened.

After all, if it could happen to him, why couldn’t it happen to you?

Now, before I sign off for another week, I’d like to talk about a second, wonderful thing that happened in Elvis’s life. One that didn’t tarnish (like his marriage) and that was uniquely his (unlike Graceland with its 600,000 visitors a year). I’m talking about the ’68 Comeback Special.

Yes, you’ve heard me talk about it before and I will continue to talk about it until I’ve got off my mind how awesome it was (and drummed into yours how awesome it was).

Elvis is in a dip. His movies aren’t selling the way they used to. Generally, the only tracks he records are for movies and they don’t compare to the ones coming out of the British Invasion from bands like the Who, Stones, Beatles or Kinks. I mean, musically Elvis was becoming a has-been. And, especially in the 60’s, that was no title to wear proudly.

So, Elvis decides he wants to do a show. The Colonel, Tom Parker, Elvis’s manager, wants Elvis to sing Christmas carols exclusively. Elvis doesn’t like that idea much and neither does the show’s producer and director, Steve Binder, so they decide that he sing some of his old songs mixed with some new ones.

You’ve got to understand the importance of this. Elvis’s film career looked like it was coming to an end, and soon. What does an out of work rock star do when he doesn’t have a film career or a music career (correct: they write a book). What was Elvis going to do? Go back to his electrician apprenticeship? Start driving a truck?

Elvis was in serious trouble of death by boredom, and he knew it.

But the rest is history. Elvis, out of some marvelous whim of fate, made a full comeback and did some of his most impressive work, including Suspicious Minds, afterwards.

Now, don’t let me give you the idea that it just happened. I’m a serious Ben Obi Wan Kenobi fan, especially when he says, “In my experience there is no such thing as luck. Elvis worked for it and he got it. Does it always work that way? Heck no. But it can. Both in the very beginning and during the Comeback Special, Elvis worked for success. And when you work for success something wonderful and unexpected happens − opportunities present themselves that you didn’t even know existed, the Law of Attraction works in your favour and you make history.

Elvis’s Lessons:

Ø Sometimes, wonderful and unexpected turns of fate happen, often when you don’t expect them. Oftentimes, even the direst situations have their ways of turning around. But you tend to have to work to get out of the rut. Diving into depression won’t help you but being proactive will. Get your own Comeback Special organized and get kicking. It worked for Elvis and if it worked for him, then why not you? And if you seriously do a show, send me an invitation. I’d love to see you rise like a Phoenix.

P.S. If you'd like to see some more Elvis from the life-changing '68 Comeback Special, here's a Youtube clip of him singing "Baby What Do You Want Me to Do" from the 'unplugged' segment of the show.

P.P.S. I've love to hear your feedback and stories. Please leave a comment or email me at alexghilson@gmail.com to continue the conversation.

Who Wants to Be Called "Fat"?

Thank you success-searchers and Elvis fans for tuning into Graceland Ontario! Today, we’re going to turn to fitness, how it influences your chances of success and how Elvis modeled this.

I got an email only the other day from a woman who she felt “cheated” when she found a guy she’d gone on a date with had been hiding his large stomach under his suit. She proclaimed no out-of-shape guy would have any romantic chance with her. Of course, she was marketing a fitness product.

Now even if I told you (and I am telling you) there are a large number of systems on creating attraction that have nothing to do with your physical shape, the woman does have a point. I mean, being fit in no way ensures attraction, in business or life, but it can be a nice simple way to spark it. And no one’s going to complain about doing things the easy way (when there is an easy way), are they?

Elvis time! When Elvis was young, he was in decent shape. Not a barrel of bones, like James Stewart, but he was fit. He tried out for football in high school and later took up karate (Elvis was a black belt).

And remember, people weren’t just attracted to Elvis’s singing and music; they were attracted to Elvis. They screamed and mobbed him. Sure this had something to do with his awesome persona, but his looks also played their part.

Elvis was thinner during his stint in the army and heavier during his mid-movie career, but he kept in pretty steady shape.

Between 1968 and 1970, Elvis might have looked his best. He was lean and handsome, exceptionally for a man in his 30’s. But going into the late 70’s, he packed on the pounds fast. Really, he wasn’t even that bad compared to some people in their early 40’s, only bad compared to his old self.

Now I won’t once again point out the correlation between Elvis’s declining body and his declining career, but I will mention something else; you ever notice that whenever someone wants to be mean to Elvis, they never say “that punk who messed things up” or “that has-been who dressed up in leather”. These would reference when he was in the 50’s or 60’s, when he was in good shape. No, they say “‘fat Elvis’, the guy who was so heavy he died of a heart attack just getting up from his toilet”. Brutal, eh?

You know what’s even worse? Even though Elvis was in pristine physical shape through most of his life, they always colour over everything else with the ‘fat’ tag, even in the times when he wasn’t. Heck, even when he was in better shape than plenty of others.

It’s not my place to tell you what to do. I can only advise based on what I see, and that’s it − a bunch of narcissistic hypocrites who rip apart others based on looks and then, like the woman I mentioned earlier, sell products about it.

So what do you do? Start exercising. Doesn’t have to be much (I’m a big fan of walking) but do something. And watch your diet. I don’t mean go on a fad diet; I mean eat wholesome foods with nutrients in portions that make sense. And drink lots of water. When I started getting my health act in gear, nothing helped more than plain ol’ tap water.

You can learn from the past, from others who experienced pain first hand. A good body is not the key to success, but it and the discipline it takes fostering one helps. After all, who wants all their achievements tainted with ‘fat’ preceding their name?

Elvis’s Lessons:

• Getting into shape can help your career as well as your overall lifestyle. It doesn’t have to be extreme; a little walking, watching what foods you eat and drinking water can go a long way to shaping you up.

P.S. If you need some positive and negative inspiration, here's a video of Elvis singing "Jailhouse Rock" when he was in his best shape, in 1968, and another when he was in his worst, in 1977. They're useful for comparison.

P.S.S. When I was getting in shape, this free website was a lot of help. It's called Scooby's Workshop, named after its founder. I hope it can help you do the same.

Accept it How It Is

Most people, as you’re showing by reading this post, are interested in becoming widely successful individuals with great business, personal and spiritual lives, or at least something close to that. We want to be the best and get to the very top.

But like it or not, when you’re going to the top, you find yourself a long way from the ground so when you fall, you fall far.

Elvis is one of the most successful men in history; he broke records that stand over thirty years after his death, let alone when he set them. And he had a legion of adoring fans. At one time, he even had a perfect (seemingly anyways) family.

But when you’re at the top, you can fall a long way. His marriage broke up, his physical shape deteriorated. It must have distracted him because even his musical success was not what it had been.

What hurt Elvis more was not the event of, say, his marriage breaking up but how he reacted to that event and how that event then ate into other places in his life.

Man that sounds terrible! But it’s unavoidable, right?

Yes and no; The bad stuff will happen, but you don’t have to give up on life because of it. A way of staying positive when this happens in your own life is accepting an event how it is.

Robert Schuller, founder of the Crystal Cathedral, put it wonderfully in one of his books about positive thinking. He said that if you look at life as an experiment, there can’t be bad or good. There can only be feedback. And the nice thing about feedback is you can learn from it for more successful trials in the future.

When something bad happens to me, I have a little breathing technique I do to get over it.

You want to know what it is?

Alright, let’s do it together… Take a deep breath and… let it go. Let it all go. All the pain, the suffering. Everything that happened yesterday that still haunts you today, even when it logically is past.

What?

Let it go. It sucks and we hate it and if we could change it, we would. But for now, it’s over. That’s the nice bit about the past; we can learn from it and use it to guide our present to a better future, but it’s done.

We either catch the next ball and forget the shot we missed or we throw the whole damn game away because of one stupid play.

Elvis went into a decline over his marriage with Priscilla that only death stopped. We can learn from the pain he endured by realizing that the only way to get out of a really sucky past situation is to learn from your mistakes, take a deep breath and keep going.

I hope this article will help you keep going, no matter your past.

Elvis’s Lessons:

• When something bad happens to you and keeps on holding you back, even when it’s far in your past, take a deep breath and keep going. You can learn from the past, but you can’t live in it. Living is for the present, and the present shapes the future, not the past. Skip the suffering Elvis had over his broken marriage and learn to accept the situation how it is, and keep going as best you can.

P.S. If you’re interested in seeing Elvis from those good years before he accepted the desperation of his broken marriage, here’s a clip of “Patch it Up” from the 1970 documentary, Elvis: That’s the Way it Is.

So, When You Say Growth, You Mean Height… Right?

Hey Guys,

Do you like:

Ø Learning new subjects?

Ø Meeting new people?

Ø Visiting different places?

All these activities share one commonality: you’re learning and, therefore, you’re growing.

Elvis became a giant among men despite possessing a relatively normal physique. And it wasn’t because he was bigger or better than everyone else. Not even close. In a fight against a professional boxer, like Muhammad Ali, chances are he would have been slaughtered.

Many people are under the impression that you stop growing when you hit your final height. These people assume that since you never peaked 5’8” that you’re finished. Well, perhaps height-wise you are, but you still keep on growing in more important ways.

Other people will follow me to this point and say, “That’s right! My fingernails still grow and so does my hair and, if I ever had the time, I could even get my biceps to grow!”

Right. But Elvis didn’t have bigger biceps than everyone else. You can take a look at a youthful Arnold Schwarzenegger from Elvis’s Vegas period and, body-wise, Elvis is no competition to the Governator.

This isn’t the type of growth I’m talking about, and this stumps many people. Oftentimes people forget perhaps the most important place to grow − your brain.

There are many way to grow your brain. Several of them are listed above; you could also add reading and doing things you’ve never done before like, for example, rock climbing.

I heard something very interesting the other day; someone was talking about showing the difference between living and non- living (that’s right − dead) things. They talked about food and water, how we need them and rocks don’t. But they mentioned something else − they mentioned growth.

Think about this: a person who stops training their brain from the moment they leave high school prevents their brain from growing very much, if at all. And, considering growth is a characteristic of a living thing and the opposite demonstrates a non-living thing, people who leave their brain to rot are slowly becoming non-living things. They walk and talk, like zombies, but, as their brains stagnate, they aren’t fully live.

This isn’t a new concept in the business world; the adage “if you’re not growing, you’re dieing” is well-repeated in entrepreneurial circles. For those of you who want literary proof of this, I can recall reading it in Robert Herjavic’s book Driven, but I can assure you I’d heard it long before then.

Elvis is living (well, not anymore) proof of this. Notice the times in his life when he grew the most;

Ø Back in ’56, with the new record contract and the first LP

Ø In ‘60, when he got out of the army and was revving for a new start in Hollywood

Ø In ’68 when he was returning to the music industry, newly married with a new child.

Take a look at some material from these times. Never before or afterwards did he look so vibrant and act so fresh with so much energy. These were the times when he was growing the most, when he was doing new things and meeting new people.

Then look at the time when he was at his worst, say ’74 on. He was growing; he still read, and he did some new material, but not much. His career went into a slump and his physical condition reflected this. He didn’t have much to look forward to. When he wasn’t growing as much, he didn’t seem as alive.

So, what am I saying? People who don’t grow their brains aren’t fully alive, and the more steadily you continue to grow, the more alive you are. Interesting, perhaps hard to believe, but Elvis demonstrated it noticeable for all to see. Now, it’s time for you to learn what he showed.

Elvis’s Lessons:

Ø “If you’re not growing, you’re dieing”. When you learn and you grow your mind, you are most alive. Ways to grow include reading new books and doing things you’ve never done before. Now, go to the store or library and have fun with your new book…

P.S. If you’re interested in seeing Elvis during one of his highest growth periods, 1968, here he is, performing “One Night With You” at his best.

P.P.S. I'd love to hear your feedback. Don't be afraid to post a comment at the bottom of this post.

"Image Scrimmage"

Hey Guys,

Have you ever been told that you have great hair? That your eyes are bright and beautiful? That you’re so tall or so small? Well, all these things contribute to one thing about you, and no, I’m not talking about self-esteem. I’m talking about image.

“Image scrimmage… why should I care about that?”

Because it’s what makes you unique. And people remember others who are unique or original. People who look normal will be treated like normal people − they’ll be ignored. Someone who’s different, on the other hand, stands a good chance of being remembered. Being remembered by new acquaintances, being remembered by new business opportunities, being remembered when they get read about in the press.

So, let’s go back to our pal Elvis Presley. He really had an image, and knew who to swing it. Let’s examine parts of this image, shall we…

Sideburns

Sideburns were not very popular in the 50’s. Take a look at ninety percent of the movies coming out Hollywood at the time (minus the Elvis ones) and you’ll notice the leading men, including Humphrey Bogart, Marlon Brando, James Dean and Frank Sinatra, did not sport sideburns. Hollywood’s portrayal of most attractive, modern men did not wear them, as they hadn’t in the 30’s or 40’s, as well. Elvis took a piece of facial hair that was out of fashion and by wearing it made himself unique while taking sideburns to a whole new level of interest. I mean, how many men inspired by Elvis grew sideburns in his example. I did…

Voice

Nobody talks like Elvis, but a lot of people attempt to. Elvis had such a versatile voice, which is probably why he was such a good singer. He could hit those low notes with such power while at the same time belting out the high ones. He could be mumble out an old 50’s ballad or yelp out “Burning Love” and still sound good, still sound like Elvis. And when he talked, he had that unique southern accent; fun loving but conservative − soft but full of expression. With the advent of the Elvis Impersonator (now, commonly, the Elvis Tribute Artist (ETA)), that voice has been heard more times than ever before. But we know one thing; every time we hear that sweet southern accent, it represents one man − Elvis Presley.

Clothes

Elvis had pretty typical suits in his youth. There was the time when he wore a ‘suit with tails’ on the Steve Allen show, or the time he wore the Tupelo Gold suit, but on the whole it was those popular 50’s sack suits. But wait until 1968, and in his comeback special came the birth of the Elvis jumpsuit. It was tight and black and leather, well fitted to the king’s curves and giving him full range of motion while he sang. It was such a hit that the white cloth one replaced it in the early 70’s in films like Elvis: That’s the Way it Is. Later on, they got fancier with more gold and jewels like the jumpsuits seen in Elvis: Aloha from Hawaii and all the way to the end of the King’s career. These outfits were so unique. Nobody used them but Elvis and when people did start taking to them, it was obvious who they copying. The jumpsuit became such a symbol of Elvis that it is still uniquely Elvis’s, even all these years after his death. People still associate it with him. That’s how strong an image can be.

Elvis’s Lessons:

• Get yourself an image! It’s not as hard as it might seem as in many cases it’s only emphasizing what you already have. For me, people notice my brown curly hair, my height, my eyes and my English accent. You can use anything essentially: hat, clothes (as Elvis did), hair, eyes, facial hair (as Elvis also did), a habit (such as running or reading), ANYTHING! But once you have a couple, people will remember you for what you are associated with (the image) as well as what you are, perhaps more so. You’ll become more distinctive than ever before, people will bear you mind and since people tend to be friendlier (or meaner, given the reputation) to people they now of, your success will be influenced by your new, distinctive image.

P.S. If you want to see Elvis sporting his sideburns, voice and jumpsuit, here's a Youtube link to Elvis singing "I'll Remember You" from Elvis: Aloha from Hawaii.

P.P.S. I would love to hear your ideas and memories as well as any feedback you have to my posts. Please make full use of the comment section!

Cool Down!

Hey Guys,

Thanks for tuning into Graceland, Ontario for another week of Elvis-teaches-success awesomeness!

This week I’m going to talk about something a bit more qualitative than I tend to. No names or dates being dropped here. But it will do wonders for you once you put it into action.

This week’s article is inspired by an article I read in John Alanis’s daily newsletter. John Alanis, for those of you who don’t know, is a direct marketer and a seller of attraction guides for men with unsatisfactory romance lives. His daily newsletters deal with the problems men create when they show unattractive behaviours to women and what men can do about it. Needless to say, reading it is always a highlight of my day.

In the article I read a couple days ago, Alanis points out that people buy Apple Ipads not for functionality, but because they’re cool. Not only that, people will actually buy expensive Ipads year after, despite limited use, to be considered cool. And more than this, no copies of the Ipad are considered half as cool as it is. And they flop, consistently, trying.

It kind of reminded me of something my Mum and Uncle once said about the fashion climate in England, where they came from. They said that it was always changing, not only annually but seasonally, too. And if you didn’t have the latest gear, well, you weren’t quite in vogue. You weren’t quite cool.

Now John Alanis, Apple Ipad’s and English clothes got me thinking: why do people like Elvis? I mean, he did have a great voice and watching him onstage was incredible but there’s something more than that, a reason why people have followed him even after death.

He’s cool.

Simple as that. Even when there were these other acts back in the fifties, like Eddie Cochran, trying to take his fame. Elvis was cool. It’s not that Cochran or Buddy Holly weren’t, but though they were newer, they couldn’t take away the King’s electricity.

And even in the late sixties, when the Beatles were rocking the world with the White Album, or in the early 70’s when Led Zeppelin was out. The only reason Elvis could compete was he was as cool as they were.

I mean, he had the clothes, he had the looks, he had the shades. People wanted to, and still want to be, like Elvis. They are more interested in taking a share in his coolness than trying to be cool themselves. Perhaps they think it’s harder being cool when you can simply use someone else’s cool persona.

They’ve got part of the idea right, about emulation, but not the part about lack of identity (I must write an article on identity soon). You see, like the Ipad, copying something cool directly won’t work. It’ll make you look like a copy and people will think that you aren’t genuinely cool, only pretending to be.

So, how do you be cool? As John Alanis writes, you simply state it. You state it and you don’t sweat the small stuff and you act cool. You know what cool is. You’ve been brought up with it. And you certainly know that Elvis was it. You only have to act like it and you will be it. It’s subconscious.

And once you’re cool, well, you’ve changed the ball game. Now, like Elvis, you will be the one people want to emulate, the go-to person in the group, the people your friends want to be like. All of a sudden there’s something about you that is so appealing, so attractive, yet others can only imitate it, or mirror it. You’ll have that edge that no one else can portray like you. You’ll be different.

You’ll be cool.

Elvis’s Lessons:

Ø Take it from Elvis, and John Alanis − be cool. People will flock to you when you are unique in a group of people. But how do you be cool? State it. Once you declare (to yourself, not to the world) that you are cool, people will feel your vibe and subconsciously agree with it, or be jealous. It sure as heck worked with Elvis. Why don’t you give it a try today?

P.S. If you want to see an example of Elvis being cool, here he is joking about during a press conference prior to his Madison Square Garden concerts in 1972 (Youtube video).

P.P.S. If you're interested in some of John Alanis's attraction products, here's a link to his site.

It's Quicker with Experience

Hey Guys,

Coming back at you from Graceland, Ontario, this week’s article is in some ways the opposite of last week’s article, but both are essential to your success. Last week, I talked about having a standard and going over something until it reached that standard, however long it took. An example of this being the 31 takes it took Elvis to record the single version of “Hound Dog”. Though it might be empowering to think that you are good enough to have a standard, it’s daunting to constantly be going over things, proofreading for the rest of your life instead of enjoying the exciting, creative part of your work.

This is the second part of this lesson. Like the previous one, it seems simple but people too often overlook it to escape short term pain. They worry that they will always be on the wire and instead they start letting things go, dropping their standard. And they become inferior.

In 1959, three years after “Hound Dog” was recorded, Elvis went into the studio to record “Big Hunk O’ Love”. Elvis was still in the army but these recording sessions during his leave were his way of staying in the record-buying public’s radar while he was in army fatigues. The final take of the song is full of rock ‘n’ rolling energy. It topped the Billboard Hot 100 for two weeks. It was a big hit.

And how long do you think it took Elvis to record? Considering the amount of time he put into “Hound Dog”, was it 40 takes? 50 takes? 100 takes!?

Nope.

It took Elvis four takes. The final recording was a splicing of the third and four takes. And though perhaps not as iconic as “Hound Dog”, it did well. It did very well.

Then, years later, in 1968 during his comeback from the movies to the music industry, Elvis walked into the recording studio with a different track; an older, more mature Elvis with larger sideboards went in with a different track. Elvis sang the song that changed his mind about music, his comments being that, “I'm never going to sing another song I don't believe in”.

Francis K. Green, a reviewer of Elvis’s ’68 TV Special, mentioned Elvis’s “…three unflagging takes of "If I can Dream"". The song that changed Elvis’s mind about the music he would sing for the rest of his career was done in three takes. Impressive.

Even “Suspicious Minds”, possibly Elvis’s most well know single of the sixties was recorded in six takes. Not 31, six. Both “Hound Dog” and “Suspicious Minds” are examples of Elvis’s best music but the recording he did all those years later took so much less time than the earlier one.

So, what am I saying? Elvis had to put a lot less effort to achieve the standard he wanted later in his career than earlier on. Sure, people will say that technology played a part in this, and it’s true. But Elvis recorded “Big Hunk O’ Love” only three years after “Hound Dog”, not much time for technological innovation to take root. And he recorded the former track in 27 less takes.

Experience does count for something, even in the King of Rock ‘n’ Roll’s case. The more he practiced recording in a studio, the less effort it took to achieve the same results. And boy, could Elvis create results.

So, are you going to give up on your dreams because of the amount of time it takes to enjoy them at the moment? Hell no, because you know that it’s getting better. It’s getting better all the time and the more you do it, the easier it gets.

Elvis’s Lessons:

Ø After years of practice, life gets easier (or at least work gets done quicker). Experience does count for something. Take it from Elvis.

P.S. If you're interesting in hearing the original recording of "Big Hunk O' Love", here's a link to it on Youtube.