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Transcript

Don't Be a One-Hit Wonder · The Daily Writer

• 0:07
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome to the Daily Rider, where we share a lesson each day to help you cultivate the habits for creative success.
• 0:14
  SPEAKER_00: These lessons are inspired by great artists, authors, and thinkers, both past and present.
• 0:20
  SPEAKER_00: For more, you can visit us at dailywriterlife.com.
• 0:28
  SPEAKER_00: One of the staples of the modern music world is the Greatest Hits album.
• 0:32
  SPEAKER_00: When an artist has been around for a while and they've had at least a few hits, it's customary for their record company to release a new album that repackages all those hit songs.
• 0:43
  SPEAKER_00: But have you ever thought about all the work required to actually create enough songs for a Greatest Hits album?
• 0:49
  SPEAKER_00: If you look at the albums of any popular artist, you'll see that they generally only have a couple of truly hit songs from each one.
• 0:57
  SPEAKER_00: Occasionally you'll have an artist with four or five massive songs from one album, such as Richard Marks' 1987 album, Repeat Offender, which had at least four massive hits, or you'll have a true superstar like country legend Garth Brooks, who was on such a hot streak in the 1990s that almost every song that he released was a huge hit.
• 1:19
  SPEAKER_00: And of course, let's not forget the Beatles, who were so far above everybody else that almost everything they touch turned to gold.
• 1:26
  SPEAKER_00: But the exceptions prove the rule.
• 1:29
  SPEAKER_00: Most of the time, a band or a solo artist making traditional albums only has a couple of hit songs for every 10 songs they put on an album.
• 1:37
  SPEAKER_00: What's more, they often don't know which 20% of songs will be a hit as they're making the record.
• 1:43
  SPEAKER_00: They're just in the studio doing the work.
• 1:45
  SPEAKER_00: The same success rate holds true in other industries.
• 1:48
  SPEAKER_00: For example, the Major League Baseball batting average for 2019 was 252.
• 1:54
  SPEAKER_00: That means players are quote unquote successful less than 30% of the time.
• 1:59
  SPEAKER_00: In fact, if a pro baseball player has a 300 batting average, they're considered excellent.
• 2:05
  SPEAKER_00: Well, have you ever written something and expected people to immediately love it?
• 2:09
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe you wrote an article, a book, or a social media post and you felt disappointed that it wasn't a quote unquote hit.
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_00: But if you look to other industries such as music and baseball, you'll see that you're considered a success if you have a hit less than three out of ten times.
• 2:26
  SPEAKER_00: So does this mean the other seven attempts are failures?
• 2:29
  SPEAKER_00: Not at all.
• 2:30
  SPEAKER_00: Every time you step up to the plate or you go into that recording studio or you sit down to write, you're putting in the work.
• 2:37
  SPEAKER_00: You're developing your craft and you're getting better all the time.
• 2:41
  SPEAKER_00: After all, you can't control whether somebody else will love your work.
• 2:45
  SPEAKER_00: There are so many factors at play that it's nearly impossible to engineer a hit.
• 2:49
  SPEAKER_00: But when you do the work on a daily basis and you do it over the years and over the decades, you're almost guaranteed to have a collection of hits.
• 2:57
  SPEAKER_00: The legendary jazz singer Tony Bennett reiterated this idea in his book Life is a Gift when he talked about focusing on a long-term collection of hits rather than momentary success.
• 3:08
  SPEAKER_00: He said this The public might get the impression that singers only want number one hits, but that has never been my premise.
• 3:16
  SPEAKER_00: Instead of being number one, I only wanted to be one of the best.
• 3:20
  SPEAKER_00: I just keep being myself, and I never compromise.
• 3:24
  SPEAKER_00: I never strived for a hit song, some novelty tune that would hit it big but be forgotten in weeks.
• 3:30
  SPEAKER_00: I wanted a hit catalog.
• 3:32
  SPEAKER_00: If I do something, I want it to be top quality.
• 3:37
  SPEAKER_00: So what can we learn from this?
• 3:39
  SPEAKER_00: Well, here's the lesson.
• 3:40
  SPEAKER_00: Don't focus on being a one-hit wonder.
• 3:43
  SPEAKER_00: Instead, focus on doing the daily work that will create not just one hit, but a whole collection of hits over the years and decades.
• 3:52
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks so much for listening to the Daily Rider Podcast.
• 3:55
  SPEAKER_00: We really appreciate your support and hope you enjoyed this episode.
• 3:58
  SPEAKER_00: You can find more at DailyRiderLife.com.