Wednesday, February 18, 2015

LEARNING HACK: BE PERSISTENT

In 1955 singer Fats Domino performed in Ottawa, Canada. Before the performance, he was surprised to find a kid in his dressing room. The youngster insisted on performing a song he had written for Fats Domino. The famous performer had no time to listen. Security tossed the kid out of the building.

Somehow the boy made his way back inside. He was tossed out again and again he somehow managed to get back inside. Finally, if only to get rid of the youngster, Domino's manager agreed to listen to a recording that the boy had.

The boy had performed his song on the demo and to Domino's surprise it sounded great. He had his manager contact the boy's father. The fifteen year old persistent lad was offered a recording contract and that demonstration record became the biggest hit of the year.

The boy's name was Paul Anka. He went on to record a string of hit songs for himself and the theme song to the “Tonight” show when Johnny Carson was the host. . Among his most famous tunes was “My Way” which became Frank Sinatra's signature song. We may never have heard of that boy, if he had not been persistent.

It couldn't have been easy getting past security time after time and it would be even more difficult today in our much more dangerous world.

But like Paul Anka, we owe it to ourselves and to the world to try and get our songs heard.

Keep reading, In future columns, I have some suggestions to help you get beyond the gate keepers.

Persistence pays off in school work too. Sometimes you think you will never grasp that math concept or remember that punctuation rule.Keep at it. You'll learn; you'll succeed.

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