Over the weekend my wife and I grabbed our bags and hit the road. We had a date night planned, something that doesn't happen all that much due to those little things in life we like to paint with a broad brush called "life". (see what I did there?)
We dropped the kids off with my mom and sister and then hit road baby! We drove a whopping 30 miles to Downtown Dallas, got checked into our hotel room and promptly got busy...... taking a nap. We needed the rest because we had a big night ahead of us as date night protocol would dictate.
Once we woke up, we ordered some food, chowed, got dressed, made some drinks and got prepped for our big night out. We hailed an Uber, jumped in and had a nice chat with our driver named Thomas. He told us stories of adventures as an Uber driver, concerts he had been too and his predictions for our hometown NFL team, The Dallas Cowboys. When we arrived at our destination, we jumped out, waved by to our driver and jumped in line to get in.
We were about to walk into the American Airlines Center to see the great Elton John.
Yes, I know this is my second blog post about Elton John and it's strange because I'm just a casual fan. My wife, LOVES him. I digress.
So there we are, waiting for Elton to come on stage and I started looking around at the sold out arena. We're talking 20,000+ people and this was the second night of his tour in Dallas. I read somewhere that is doing 5 nights in Los Angeles. FIVE! You know those are all going to be sold out as well. Every single one of his shows will be sold out... For the next 2 years! Amazing.
He came on stage and played songs.. blah blah blah.... It was a good show.
Now back to selling out arenas. The thought of selling out all of those arenas got me thinking about dedication and as it would be, Elton mentioned while on stage that he had been playing, writing and touring for over 50 years. That is dedication. He is a 71 year old man, who has more money than he knows what to do with, can be identified worldwide by one name, plays the same 40 year old songs every night and makes you believe this is the first time he has played them for a large audience. He doesn't need the money. He doesn't need the fame. He doesn't need new songs. He is dedicated.
Now, what if we, the little people of this planet gave our careers a fraction of the dedication Elton John does to his? Will we make ungodly amounts of money? Probably not. Will we be known worldwide by one name? Probably not. (you could go by two first names like me) Will we have people clawing over each other to shake our hands? No. But what we might get, is a solid career. A sense of accomplishment and worth. We may make an impact somehow. We may end up being happy with our jobs. And isn't that what we want?
Look, the point here is that there are special people that have a drive, a passion, a dedication that not many of us understand and those are the people that end up being known by simply their first name. The rest of us can admire and strive to be great but in order to be great you need to be dedicated. You need to set goals. You need to practice. You need to learn. You need to work your ass off. You need to be smart. Doing all of the little things the right way... That takes time, effort and dedication.
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