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There are two types of motivation: 1) Positive feedback, and 2) Tales of horrible beginnings that end with miraculous success. Positive feedback can come in the form of making any kind of money with your craft, an industry professional complimenting your art, or simply seeing some progress in your life that came as a result of your hard work.
Those are few and far between. You're better off with the fables.
- When Elvis Presley performed at the Grand ?Ol Opry (his first and only time), the owner told him that he should learn to drive a truck or else he'd starve.
- Michael Jordan was cut from his high school basketball team. I lived in Chicago in the early 90's when The Bulls were just becoming the dynasty we all know, and some local news show interviewed that coach. They had to hide his identity and disguise his voice like he ratted on the mob.
- Dances with Wolves took 14 years to get made, and walked off with an Oscar for best picture.
- As a child, Sylvester Stallone was so frail and sickly that he almost died.
- Most movie critics site Citizen Kane as the best movie ever made, but that movie didn't even win the best picture Oscar the year it was released.
- The great wall of China started with just one brick, and now it can be seen from space without a telescope.
- Abraham Lincoln lost almost every election he ever ran in - except the one where he ran for president. He is routinely acknowledged as one of the two best presidents this country has ever had.
- Led Zeppelin got their name from a detractor who told them that they sucked so bad the band would "...sink like a lead zeppelin."
- Walt Disney was homeless when a clergyman let him live in a spare storage closet at the church. In exchange, Walt would draw a cartoon for the church newsletter. Wondering what he should draw, Walt found inspiration in the rats he shared his new living quarters with. From this, he built an empire.
- Sally Field won a Best Actress Oscar for her role in Norma Rae. It took her four years to get Places in the Heart made (for which she won another Oscar). Even producer Lili Zanuck, who is married to producer Richard Zanuck, who is part of the Zanuck family that built 20th Century Fox, had trouble getting Driving Miss Daisy made. (The lesson here, people, is that even Hollywood elite have problems getting projects off the ground.)
Here's some more words of motivation: Success is not a race. You gotta do what you gotta do, and don't compare yourself to other people and their success. Samuel L. Jackson was Bill Cosby's stand-in on The Cosby Show when he was 36. Up until then, he had had two acting jobs. From age 36 to age 42, he had a run of little parts where he routinely played a pimp, hustler, drug addict, drug dealer, mugger, or other lowlife. Finally, he got parts in Goodfellas and Jungle Fever... where he had noticeable, mid-sized parts playing a hustler and a crack head respectively. This lead to his break-out part playing a gun-toting criminal in Pulp Fiction.
Yes, we all have friends that had jobs waiting for them as soon as they graduated college, and we've seen 26-year-olds with their career paths perfectly paved for easy travel... but, THAT'S NOT YOU. In music, they have what's called The Sophomore Curse - a band full of raw energy, emotion, angst and testosterone hits it big and sells eight million albums. Now they have to release a second album, but instead of the passion that comes from chasing a dream, it's now a bunch of spoiled millionaires taking limos to each other's hot tubs - not exactly a recipe for the same magic. If you sell your first script at age 24, what are you going to write about when you're 30? You'll have lost touch with your audience by then.
You have to do things at your pace. The only thing worse than not being prepared when opportunity knocks is forcing it when you're just not ready and pushing that opportunity even farther away. There are writers who have won half a dozen screenplay competitions who have never had a movie made - never even sold a script. How many child actors have had HUGE success before they're 13? Lots of them, and we all know how so many of them turn out. History is littered with one-hit wonders and overnight success stories that disappear just as fast. In 1993, Colorado Rockies rookie Jay Gainer stepped up to the plate for his very first at-bat in the major leagues... and smacked a powerful home run. He finished the season with a less-than-admirable .171 batting average and dropped out of the game. Even home run super slugger Mark McGwire hit a .189 his rookie season. Bob Uecker had better seasons! It took McGwire 13 more seasons before he reset the home run record in 1999, giving him a solid place in sports history.
The bottom line is that either you're happy or you're not. Even though you may have similar career interests as those around you and you may be on the same path right now, your ultimate destination is your own... and how you get there will be your own journey.
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