A whole lot of luck and a little bit of location

One of the most common daydreams is becoming famous. Becoming rich and famous. Do the two always have to intersect? Sometimes I think so, but I also think you can be rich and not famous. I’m not sure if you can be famous without being rich, though. When it comes to daydreams, neither matters.

What matters, I’m told, is the hours you put into practice. Fame is built on roots sowed young, so young the roots are so deep they seem endless. Maybe a better way to phrase it is to say that fame blooms from the bud that grows from those deep roots. What matters is the hard work. The blisters, the 4:00am practice and the 4:00 pm practice scheduled for after school, the weekends spent on a team bus. In an auditorium, in front of a keyboard or notebook, on a field.

Those aren’t the only things that matter. Where your roots were planted is another thing that matters. In some places, there aren’t a lot of opportunities. American Idol auditions don’t come into town. Concert series don’t come through the city. Talent scouts don’t attend the football games, and aspiring writers don’t sell books. Based on historically high-paid famous actors, athletes, authors, comedians, and musicians, there’s no suggestion there will be anyone on the Fortune 500 list anytime soon. Or in the near future. There are other places, of course.

Hollywood comes to mind. The sparkling lights of the Red Carpet city, the glamour of the people. Living so close to seemingly endless opportunities to find stardom means a higher chance of finding fame. Either that, or it has to do with the population of California – one or the other. It seems like most A-listers are born and bred out of California, or they’re New Yorkers. I used to think it was hard work and money that made you famous. But now? I think it’s a little bit of luck.

Does it matter if your home address is in Georgia, but your music was discovered in Virginia? Not too much, at least not until your songs are number one on the Billboard charts. It might matter then, but unlikely. And until then, your hometown isn’t on the map. They say lightning never strikes the same place twice but that’s not true. It can and sometimes it does. So why would it seem strange to think that the small town in Ohio where some phenomenal basketball player made the financial deal of a lifetime, someone else couldn’t also find fame?

I think it has to do with luck and opportunity. Sometimes opportunity is what you make of it; actually, that’s true all of the time. Circumstances are what you make of them, and some people are comfortable using their network to move forward. That’s what networking is for, isn’t it? It is. And so as they move forward, they’ve essentially capitalized on someone else’s opportunity.

Someone else’s luck.

Maybe there’s no one-size-fits-all recipe for success. Maybe there’s no one-stop-shop to fame, a single ingredient mixture. It’s a little part hard work, it’s part money, it’s a bit of where you’re from and who you know. The rest? It’s luck.

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