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May 29, 2008

How many takes does it take?

What makes success? It doesn’t happen at the time. It takes just as much time to make a hit single as it does a miss. Success happens sometime later – or not, as the case may be.

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In the 1959 film, Some Like it Hot, Billy Wilder said Marilyn Monroe took 47 takes to get her first line: "It's me, Sugar", correct.

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Thomas Edison struggled to get the light bulb off the drawing board, people told him to give up because he had failed so many times. He famously replied: “I've not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work.”

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When Pinter’s play “The Birthday Party” opened in London, in 1958, it was panned by the critics and taken off four days later. Now it is revered as a masterpiece and your man Pinter has the Nobel Prize for Literature. The weekend that his play was taken off he sat in a café and decided to give up writing.

There is no way of knowing what you are doing while you are doing it, or even after you’ve done it, you’ve just got to have the courage of your convictions and leave history to do the rest.

Posted by john at May 29, 2008 01:26 PM

Comments

.........This is just what I needed to read this morning Thanks for that : )

"Whats the worst that can happen" I always tell myself .......... then scream very loudly Arggggghhhhhhhhh !!!!!!!! x

Posted by: paula at May 30, 2008 11:56 AM