- July 21, 2018 -
The Fab Four.
No, not the California-based band who impersonate the original Liverpool fabulous foursome.
I'm talking about the guys who inspired the mop-top haircut, regarded as the foremost and most influential music band in rock history.
For a music guy, I find something extremely interesting about the Beatles early years.
Between 1960 and 1964 John, Paul, George and Ringo traveled to Hamburg, Germany five times and played almost endless nights in bars and strip clubs.
+ On the first trip, they played 106 nights, of five or more hours a night.
+ Their second trip they played 92 times.
+ Their third trip they played 48 times, for a total of 172 hours on stage.
+ The last two Hamburg stints, in November and December 1962, involved another 90 hours of performing.
+ All told, they performed for 270 nights in just over a year and a half.
+ By the time they had their first burst of success in 1964, they had performed live an estimated 1,200 times.
That's extraordinary!
Most bands don't play 1,200 times in their entire career.
And do the math. 1,200 times 5 hours (minimum) and that's 6,000 freaking hours of playing.
That trial by fire was a gift that most musicians in that era weren't given...time to practice.
To hone their skill.
It's what made the Fab Four top musicians and songwriters.
And it's what Malcom Gladwell in his book Outliers refers to as the "10,000 hours of practice" rule.
10,000 hours of dedicated practice to master a skill. To become exceptional.
I've played the trumpet since I was in middle school...so according to the rule of 10,000 hours, I'd need to practice 90 minutes a day for 20 years!
Or I could blow a horn for 3 hours a day for a decade.
Another example...Bill Gates, the co-founder of computer software giant Microsoft.
He had rare access to a computer in 1968 at the age of 13, at a time when most of his buddies in Seattle were probably shooting hoops after school.
Or fantasizing about sticking flowers in their hair and heading to San Francisco.
Not Gates. He spent countless evenings and weekends with friends in the computer room, geeking out.
Giving him a head start in the area of programming and led to building his company at a much younger age than he'd ever been able to do in a more conventional time frame.
My point is...
Overnight successes are a smoke and mirror show.
How long does it take to become a doctor? A lawyer? An architect?
If you want to earn that kind of income in your business, you can expect to be in Hard Knocks University at least that long.
There's two times as much homework.
It costs twice as much.
And the drop-out rate is twice as high.
Starting a business is easy. Doing the work until success comes is hard.
But the graduation party? Best thing ever!
We know a thing or two about helping businesses become #1 in their industry.
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