The Right Place At The Wrong Time

Leah Leach has an entry in her blog about her early attempts to make it in Hollywood.

At the fresh young age of 18 I packed what ever I could into my little Chrysler Neon and headed from the Midwest to California to become the next Quentin Tarantino. I had one really bad script but most importantly I had passion.

Her story is a common Hollywood tale. Lots of people follow that path and end up with nothing to show for it but a drug habit and self-destructive behavior. Luckily it sounds like Leah walked away with richer wisdom and her head squarely on her shoulders. She even still pursues her artistic habits, but now she does so in a smart way.

I found that timing wasn't everything.  Preparation was.  I wasn't ready to be in Hollywood. I didn't have a clear definition of who I was and what I wanted to put out into the world. I had passion but I didn't have vision. The vision came when I was ready.

Read the full posting here.

There are piles of success stories that involve someone who was in the right place at the right time and got a lucky break. What people tend to ignore is the time the "lucky" person spent perfecting their talent for years before they were in the right place at the right time.

As for the "it's all who you know" theory, I think we are all closer to the people we need to know than we realize. You already know somebody who knows somebody who knows somebody who knows the person who could give you your break. One big mistake people make, though, is to try to hit the big time when their skill level is still small time. That ends up closing doors that might have been open if you had truly been ready to walk through them.

Here is my prescription:

• Put in the work first.
  
• Pay your dues.
  
• Hone your craft.
  
• Hold yourself to a high standard and continually raise the bar on yourself.
  
• Concentrate on the work more than you concentrate on the reward.

I fully believe that anyone who approaches their work this way, will not only have people take notice, but their work will always continue to be personally rewarding.