“Fear don’t control me”
T.I., ‘What Happened?’
COUNT THE COST
I’m watching the 65th Annual Grammy Awards.. right before this, I was listening to the audiobook of ‘Hustle Harder, Hustle Smarter’ by businessman, and rapper, Curtis ‘50 Cent’ Jackson. One of the things he discusses in his book is the transition he had to make from the streets to the boardroom; as he navigated his entry into the music business, media industry, and Corporate America in general - a transition many of his music counterparts failed to make.
It’s a cogent point. The music business is fascinating to me, not simply because of the immense talent of creatives within it, but as James Brown famously said, “show business is two words, and business is the most important.” The music business is interesting because the individuals who make the main product are usually young, sometimes not formally educated, and usually unaccustomed to the political and economic machinations of the business world - this leads to interesting dynamics, which I’ve covered before, but this article isn’t about that.
This article is about the pivots, changes, and transitions we all, like those who choose to pursue a career in the entertainment business, have to make.
In the movie, American Gangster, Denzel Washington’s character, Frank Lucas, is having a conversation with Dominic Cattano, a mob figure, who says to him, “success, it’s got enemies, your success took a shot at you.. what are you going to do now? how are you going to kill it? What are you going to become unsuccessful?”
Regardless of how you define “success” (which I define as the fulfillment of personal and corporate goals), the road to success is filled with obstacles and active resistance.
I remember my high school yearbook quote was from Booker T. Washington, “success is to be measured not so much by the position that one has reached in life as by the obstacles which they have overcome.”
The funny thing is, if I had known what those obstacles would be, I probably would never have tried. I suppose the same may be said of future me.
However, the truth is that fear and doubt are two of the BIGGEST obstacles we must overcome in this life.
This doesn’t mean there aren’t ever rational reasons to be afraid or doubtful; sometimes, there are.. and someone who never feels fear is someone who often isn’t thinking correctly. For example, an individual living in a war-torn country has very real reasons to be afraid.
The key is not to allow fear to cripple you and inhibit your ability to make a decision.
In this life, the only things any one of us can control are (i) our thoughts, (ii) our words, and (iii) our actions. The key is to prioritize your ability to think, act, and speak in the face of fear. None of that discounts the presence, and opposing forces, of fear, doubt, and the causes of those forces, but by utilizing our God-given faculties, we can navigate and plan a course toward success.
How we choose to deal with threats and uncertainties is what defines and separates us from the rest.
In the Bible, there’s a passage that details an instance in which the city of Samaria was under siege by the nation of Syria; everyone in Samaria was trapped inside the gates of the city. Due to this, there was a famine since no one could go in or out. At the same time, there were four Samarian men outside the city gates (they were outside because they had leprosy, a contagious disease, and weren’t allowed inside the city). These men were stuck between a rock and a hard place. They couldn’t go into the city, and they, seemingly, were facing a threat from the sieging army and couldn’t move forward; but in the face of this threat, these men said and did something interesting.
“We will starve if we stay here, but with the famine in the city, we will starve if we go back there. So we might as well go out and surrender to the Aramean army. If they let us live, so much the better. But if they kill us, we would have died anyway.”
These men decided to go out to the sieging army’s camp, and, as the passage reads, they found the camp deserted; with the spoils of the army left behind. Their decision to think critically and not allow fear to cripple them ended up being their saving grace, and their bias for action ended up saving them - as well as their nation.
For us, the lesson is clear. Indecision is a decision. Danger and uncertainty are real threats we all face, but what defines winners from losers is how they respond to those threats.
LOSIN’ IT
A final thought, I’ve been on a bit of a Tom Cruise movie binge lately. One thing that’s stuck out to me is how he transformed himself from a teenie-bop, rom-com kind of actor to one of the biggest action stars in the world.. it’s funny because he’s not the prototypical action star.
Losin’ It
But it actually speaks to the power of intention. I’m sure if you researched it, you would learn about all of the time, money, and energy he’s spent behind the scenes in developing himself and his companies to produce the product we all see today.
The Last Samurai
It’s something I’ve been thinking about lately. “Everybody” wants the limelight, but it’s what’s done in the dark that really matters. A big part of that is leaving behind what you don’t what, and going after what you do want. It’s often the fear of the future, or even the fear of success, that makes us hold on to things that no longer serve us but feel familiar.
But caterpillars turn into butterflies and shed unnecessary waste. Snakes shed their skin, and eagles molt.. but we humans are thinkers and rational.. often too much so.
We often think, “if this doesn’t work, I need to hedge my bets.”
Sure, but in the words of Tom Cruise in ‘Risky Business,’ “sometimes you gotta say WTF and make your move!”.
ALRIGHT, ALRIGHT, ALRIGHT
The last example is from Matthew McConaughey, whose claim to fame came from the movie ‘How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days’, a rom-com that “grossed $177 million on a budget of $50 million”. This film cemented him as a movie star and made him a leading man, specifically in the rom-com genre - leading to other rom-com successes such as “2006’s ‘Failure to Launch,’ 2008’s ‘Fool’s Gold” and 2009’s ‘Ghosts of Girlfriends Past. which nearly all grossed over $100 million at the worldwide box office.”
But Matthew made an interesting decision; he decided that he no longer wanted to be pigeonholed as a rom-com actor, and he decided to accept these roles no longer, instead, deciding to pursue a different career direction.
“I said no to every rom-com script that came my way. I turned down one for $14.5 million. . no offers came in for almost a year and a half. I was now shaking hands with the fact that I may never work in Hollywood again. It pinched me a little, but I was OK with it. It was time for a new chapter in my life"
Matthew McConaughey
This decision paid off, leading to roles in movies like ‘Dallas Buyers Club’ and ‘Interstellar’ which grossed over $770 million.
Make the decision.
Elijah Adefope is a media and technology attorney and consultant. He is Lead Counsel at Substack, a media technology platform for creatives, and has written two books on the music and sports industries. He lives in Atlanta, Georgia. He can be reached at LinkedIn or at elijah@thrivesportsent.com