Lang and Renee Bliss at Diff’rent Wirld Productions are good friends of mine, I am posting a news letter I got today that is worth passing on:
“Renee and I have worn a lot of different hats during the years that we’ve been trying to do the thing that we believe God’s called us to. I delivered pizza, sold meat (out of a pickup truck…no, not a good job), glued styrofoam toys together, worked at Starbuck’s…. the list is long. We’ve been songwriters, musicians, performers, worship team members and more, on the music side of things. But we’ve always interacted with other artists and musicians I think, trying to encourage them in their callings.
Are You Too Sexy For Your Shirt? Do you remember when that song, “I’m Too Sexy For My Shirt, too sexy for my shirt …” was huge,
We were writing for BMG at the time and there were “encouragements” to write a hit like that. I was about ready to ralph and it made me start thinking about what is success really all about. Well, I was asked a question that made me think of that…
“How do we expect to be successful artists if everyone else around us is trying to be? Is it really possible for everyone to be the next Slipknot or Mariah Carey? How does that work?”
Now, I know that we’re speaking to a much broader audience than just musicians, so in other words this same question has been asked by a lot of other people and it goes kind of like this:
But What About Them? “How can I expect to be successful when there are a bunch of other people trying to do the same thing I’m gifted at and they’re probably better than I am?”
Well the question, I think, really gets to the core issue of how badly do you want to do the thing you believe that you’re called to? I don’t mean to sound cold-hearted, truly; we’ve been pursuing a career in music for 25 years and had times when we looked more successful and more times when we didn’t. You can’t really worry about the odds if you have any intention of staying committed to your pursuit. In every field whether it’s music, baseball, law or plumbing, there will always be other people going for it. Certain fields will have more people trying to succeed in it than others, so if you want your success to be based on less competition, your question makes a lot of sense but if you’re driven by passion and that “God thing” and you just have to do it, then the argument of other people doing it as well just falls to the ground.
You Be You. No, not everyone can be the next Slipknot or Mariah or “the successful person” in the field of your choice but once again, you don’t do it to be them do you? You want to do it because you love it. Leave the success of your pursuit out of the equation (at least for the beginning) or you’ll get frustrated when you don’t see enough of it. Let your passion and God’s direction be the motivator and learn all that you can about how to be successful and then just do it trusting God with the steps you should take and when. But don’t compare yourself to others; you’ll always find someone else who’s doing it better and with too much of that info, you’ll want to quit. We want you to stay at it pursuing what you’re made for”.
I would have to agree with Lang about the song “too sexy for my shirt”, it is right up there with “if you think I’m sexy” written by a friend of mine who is a little strange to say the least, but the song bought him a yacht 🙂 These songs will come and go. The constant changing tastes in the music consumers out there will always be a mystery to me. Thank God, for those songs that will stand the test of time.