Michael Jordan failed. Try it sometime.
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When I auditioned for Cirque du Soleil on April 16 2010 I had one thought in my head: I am prepared to fail. I wasn’t going to accept failure but if I didn’t make the cut it wouldn’t be because I didn’t give it all I had.
When I arrived at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe for the first time in 2005 and began competing for audiences with the thousands of other unknown shows I was prepared to fail. The first night I did my show at the Gilded Balloon in Edinburgh there was no one in the audience. Zero. For the first two nights I performed my 60 minute show to an empty theater. The average audience at the Edinburgh Fringe is 5 people. By the end of the second week the show was selling out. I had won the Fringe First award and we were turning people away. Why? Because I stayed up until 2am handing out flyers. On the fifth night there were 8 people in the audience. One of them was from The Guardian.
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Since I began performing on stage in 1988 I have learned a few things about perseverance and expectations:
1. It is impossible to succeed without failure.
2. It is impossible to fail without trying.
3. If I don’t at least try, everything is impossible.
Which told me that as long as I don’t give up, I’m a success. Right?
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I wish I could say that people expected me to get this far in my career. A severely abused lower class black kid with a high school education and a two year degree from the Community College of the Air Force?
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The high school psychiatrist (with a Doctorate) gave me my projected career choices when I was 15: Addict, jail or dead. Michael Jordan inspired me to try and my wife gives me strength.
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Who inspires you?
Kahlil (at) gigsmacked (dot) com
