Now if that title hasn’t got your attention, I don’t know what will!
As some of you know, I was on holiday last week. I went on a Caribbean cruise with a bunch of my family, and had a great time. It was an interesting holiday for a couple of reasons, which I will get onto shortly.
What interested me most was how the goings on highlighted some of the most important facts about success. And that’s what I’m going to talk about today. Hopefully, I’ll also get a few smiles, at my expense. You’ll see what I mean…
It’s A Small World…
I live in a little town in England, and there I was, on a cruise ship heading out of Fort Lauderdale. I went to take a look at the gym on the ship, and the receptionist struck me as somewhat familiar. I discounted it immediately (how on earth would I know her?), but then she started talking – she was English. Curious…
She asks me where I’m from, I tell her, and she freaks out. It turns out that she went to the same school as me, three years below. What are the chances? So we caught up, I got to learn all about what it is like to work a cruise ship (it’s a crazy life), and I’m sure we’ll stay in touch in the future.
What can you take from that? By simply putting yourself out there, things can happen. If I had decided that I couldn’t be bothered to go the gym whilst on holiday, I never would have bumped into my old schoolmate.
Success does not always come through deliberate action. There are more stories about entrepreneurs stumbling into success than I can recount, but they all shared similar circumstances – they were trying something. For every minute that you are applying yourself, in any way, you are inviting the opportunity for something special to happen.
From Small Things…
I do love a bit of karaoke, although I’ve probably only done it 4-5 times in my entire life. So I thought I’d give it a go on the ship. After a couple of “performances”, my dad suggested that I audition for the “Carnival Legends” show. I didn’t really know anything about it, but I thought what the hell – life’s too short, right?
In the end, I didn’t even have to audition – I “won” my role by default. Apparently, no one else wanted to perform as my character (bad omen, anyone?). Whilst everyone else had to audition for their roles, I was a shoe-in.
Here’s the thing – you don’t always have to toil away for opportunities. Sometimes they just land on your lap. That doesn’t make them any less valuable, and you should grasp them with both hands. When it was announced in front of a good 50 or so people that I had landed the role, I stood up and gave a bow. Why the hell not. Embrace the luck you are graced with.
The Performance
You may have guessed by now what the treat is that I have for you. Me, as Ricky Martin, performing in front of perhaps a couple of hundred people:
I can honestly say that I have never done anything like that before in my life. And I took two things away from it (apart from the ridicule of friends and family).
1. Most Things Worth Doing Involve Risk
I was pretty nervous before my “performance”. I did question what the hell I was doing, quite frankly. But I’ll be honest – it was great fun. I loved it (as you might have noticed).
Success is rarely achieved without there being an element of risk. There is a good question to ask when you are trying to push yourself – does what I am doing feel risky? Does it make me feel uncomfortable? If the answer to either question is yes, there is a good chance that you are heading in the right direction. After all, if you stay within the confines of your existing knowledge base and comfort zone, how can you expect to advance?
2. Roll With The Punches
When I was first “chosen” for the role, I was handed a little package with a MP3 player and the song’s lyrics. Two problems – the lyrics were for the Spanish version of the song, and the MP3 player didn’t work. I thought I had got around those problems by downloading the English lyrics and the MP3 via the cruise ship’s woefully slow internet connection. However, that wasn’t the end of it.
On the day of the show, we had the opportunity to run through the song once. I had listened to the MP3 a couple of times and had a fairly good idea of the structure of the song and the lyrics. Unfortunately, it turned out that the live band were performing a completely different version of the song. And I only got to hear that version once – in my run-through.
On the evening of the performance, I asked the guy who was taking care of us if there was a way of getting hold of the right copy of the song. Unfortunately there was not. His response was, “don’t worry about it, you’ll be fine”. Which is understandable, coming from someone who is used to watching people making fools of themselves week in, week out.
But I was hoping not to make a complete fool of myself. I had two options:
- Completely freak out about the fact that I essentially didn’t know the structure of the song I would be singing.
- Roll with it.
Fortunately, I chose option 2. I figured that if I listened to the live band and kept my wits about me, I could figure out what I was supposed to sing. And although I cocked up a bit at the end, it didn’t go too badly, all things considered.
What can you take from this? New ventures rarely run smoothly. It makes sense if you think about it – if you are getting into an unfamiliar area, mistakes are likely to be made. It’s all part of the learning curve. If you expect your endeavors to run smoothly, you will find yourself sadly mistaken.
You’re not aiming for perfection – you’re aiming for progress. A few cock-ups along the way need not discourage you – it’s all part of the process.
Would I Do It Again?
Hell yeah! Why not? It was great fun, even if I have been mocked endlessly by my friends since I published it on Facebook. I hope you enjoyed it too 😉
Not only that, I would be better. I’ve done it once, and now I know what to expect. Even if the whole thing had gone disastrously, I would have learnt a great deal from it. That reminds me of my first niche site disaster. I was essentially left with nothing, but the experience I gained was invaluable. Results aren’t everything.
Over To You
Okay – I’ve opened myself up to ridicule here. Who else has a similarly embarrassing story to share with us? it doesn’t have to teach us any lessons – we just want a good laugh! 😉 Let’s see them in the comments section!
Creative Commons image courtesy of Cristian Castro
Jeffrey Trull says
I’ve done karaoke many times before and I love it, but I’ve never done your variety of cruise karaoke! All in all, I thought your performance was well done and the dancers are a nice touch 🙂
Not much else is coming to my mind except for singing “Superfreak” in front of a few dozen people at Karaoke in Boston. I was really pumped up to sing it, then realized about 10 seconds in that I hardly knew the song. Oops! It turned out okay, and everyone had a good time.
Tom Ewer says
Hey Jeff,
The dancers definitely were a nice touch 😉 but we’ll leave that there! 🙂
Any self-respecting karaoke singer has been in your shoes – “oh hang on, I don’t actually *know* this song very well, do I…”
Cheers,
Tom
Jesus Ramirez says
Tom,
Loved the video!
LOL, that’s great man. I didn’t know Ricky Martin was popular in England.
Tom Ewer says
Hey Jesus,
Glad you liked it 🙂
Well this cruise was in the US, but he was pretty big over here, once upon a time.
Tom
Bon Crowder says
I’m not sure what “cock-up” means but it looks like you did just fine.
But of course that’s the point.
🙂
Tom Ewer says
Cock-up means not doing something well, or getting it wrong. That kind of thing. I thank you for your kind words 🙂
Michelle says
Hahaha!! What a great way to start my Saturday morning off!
Saturday is my work day… working totally on my niche sites for 8 hours (I have a full time job during the week) and you’ve given me the chuckle I need to start my day off positively.
My embarrassing story is that I also sang in front of a couple of hundred people… but they were all my workmates (one of the big banks in Australia), I sang The Blues Brothers, Shake Your Tail Feather WITH the dance moves. I’m still not sure if that stunted my career path or helped it!?!
Doesn’t matter either way because at the end of Jan 2012 my husband and I with both quit our jobs and move to Thailand to work on our business, with greatly reduced living expenses.
I’ve just started following you and it’s been so encouraging seeing someone else who is exactly where we are. 🙂
Michelle
Tom Ewer says
Hello Michelle!
I’m glad I could give you a good start to the day. I’m guessing you’re in Australia or New Zealand? And I know all about weekends, so don’t worry, you’re not alone 😉
Blues Brothers – awesome choice of song, and kudos for dancing too. My “dancing’ was limited to a bit of shuffling. In my defense, the dancers told me to stay on the spot so that I didn’t bump into them!
I am so excited that you’ve stopped by and said hi – I’d love to know how you get on in the New Year. Please stay in touch! 🙂
Cheers,
Tom
Steve Purves says
It looked pretty good actually Tom, I think you nailed it 🙂
Tom Ewer says
Thanks Steve, I gave it my best shot 😉 it’s been a while – how are you doing?
Steve Purves says
Good Thanks Tom. Couple of weeks off now so some time to devote to other projects.
I’d read your post on you taking your first niche site down and thought my first site had headed the same way, but its just bounced back to #8 for the primary keyword..(!) a nice start to the holidays so going to plough some more work into it over the next few days and see if is can get bounce rate improved 🙂
Sounds like you had a good break on your cruise though!
Tom Ewer says
That’s awesome news! Glad it bounced back. Perhaps mine would have too…we’ll never know now! I wasn’t going to hang around waiting and hoping…
Jason Fonceca says
Thanks for this!
Amazing stuff Tom, sounds like you understand a lot about success. Glad I found your blog 😀
I love it 🙂
I liked some of your lines in the beginning of the article especially.
“Success does not always come through deliberate action.”
“You don’t always have to toil for success.”
Basically, success is easy, but who wants to admit that? 😉 It’s true though.
I forget who said it, but I always think of “success lies just beyond your biggest fear” — it’s hard, and you stay stuck in failure, when you want move past your big fear, but it’s really so, so easy. Hard is remaining stuck, and letting that fear bully you around.
Great food for thought man.
Tom Ewer says
Hey Jason,
Welcome! I’m glad you’re here 🙂
I don’t think I’d go as far as saying that success is easy, but I’m guessing you said that tongue-in-cheek 😉
One thing is for sure – success is far more attainable than most people dare to think (or want to admit?).
I really appreciate your comments.
Cheers,
Tom
Jason Fonceca says
Hahah… I say a lot of things tongue-in-cheek, but that controversial sound-bite is not one of them 🙂
Success IS easy.
It’s easy in concept:
1. Have passionate desire.
2. Aim it at a single, clear, definite purpose
3. Decide, commit, have faith.
4. Grow your desire + repeat.
It’s even easy in practice, as long as you make peace with one thing:
You MUST adore expanding your comfort zones, if you adopt this attitude, it is really easy to follow the above steps.
I’m a success-coach, I teach success all day long, and it really is easy 🙂
Does it ruffle feathers when I say it? Yep. Do people sometimes want to argue? Yep.
But then, are they busy arguing, or busy expanding their comfort zones on new ideas… and succeeding?
🙂
Tom Ewer says
I agree – if you are totally driven and dedicated, success can be easy. However, I would say that getting to that place where you are driven and dedicated can be really tough. And I’m guessing that’s where you come in 🙂
Jason Fonceca says
You got it, Tom 🙂
The way I see it, as children we are born with all the ingredients for easy success…
…we then spend much of our lives muddying up and confusing and forgetting about those ingredients as much as possible…
…finally we rediscover them and apply them, and our success ryzes 😉
That *is* where I come in, I’m not perfect but I’ve spent my life studying this stuff, and I can definitely help people on their success-journey, with powerful, fulfilling results.
Thanks for the warm welcome, Happy New Year!
Steve Roy says
Tom,
Well done buddy! It took some balls to get up there and then to post it. Getting out of your comfort zone is vital to personal growth and I’m glad to see you working on it..
Tom Ewer says
Hey Steve,
I know you major on that concept and I couldn’t agree with you any more. I read your post a few weeks back about the kind of stuff you were made to do to get out of your comfort zone, and it served as no small inspiration!
Thanks for dropping by 🙂
Tom
Tom Watson says
Tom,
Really enjoyed reading your blog. You talk a lot of sense mate. Wish I had picked your brains more at the wedding now!
Tom
Tom Ewer says
Hi mate,
Glad you like it! You can pick my brains any time you like 😉
Tom