House Of Cards-4-6

"character: strength and originality in a person's nature"

New Oxford American English Dictionary

It's what you do when you lose.

Everybody's got a plan. But what happens when it goes haywire, when you hit roadblocks? Do you fold your tent or find another way, like water.

Water. Blocked one way, it will find another. And it doesn't care if you're awake or asleep, if the temperature rises or falls, it moves constantly. Like life.

That's what school is about. The separation of winners and losers.

I feel sorry for the underclass, going to the half-baked public schools where there's no money for a better path, never mind parents and teachers behind the scenes, pushing their students forward.

Yes, it's not about crying you didn't get 2400 on your SATs, but what you do when you don't get these results.

Don't worry about the winners, those who do achieve this number and go to Harvard or Yale. They'll fail. They won't make partner at the law firm, the hedge fund they're working for will close down, everybody meets adversity in their life, but what you do about it is the essence of your character. Sure, cry in your beer, complain to your buddies, and then pick yourself up and go at it again, it's the only way to win. And if you're not attempting to win in this world, you're gonna lose, it's guaranteed.

This is not an economy with guaranteed jobs. Hell, you're lucky if you can get food stamps. The safety net is eroding and it wasn't that good to begin with. You've got to be ingenious, you've got to find a way to keep moving forward.

And don't attack a problem the same way once again. If someone doesn't like your demo, don't send it along with a pizza. Ignore that person and make something happen on your own. Are you capable of that? Because that's what it takes.

What Irving Azoff has that you don't is he sees two steps ahead. Whatever he tells you he's going to do...that's already history, or just a stepping stone in the next project. That's why he's a winner. As for all you decrying his methods and personality...what did Don Henley say, "He may be Satan, but he's our Satan."?

And Michael Rapino... He was unafraid to go up against Michael Cohl, Live Nation's biggest shareholder. Fear is not acceptable at this level.

And yes, everybody's friends, just like Kevin Spacey feeds the protesters, if you can't get along with your enemies, you're going to have a very short shelf life.

But they don't teach character in school. It's something you get from your parents, it's something you gain from experience. If you're making up tales to explain your losses and disappointment you're missing the point. It doesn't matter if you got screwed, how it went down, you lost and now it's your job to win.

And winning rarely comports with societal standards, Howard Stern doesn't win awards, but he make more money than the rest of the deejays. And do you want the bragging rights of a SoundScan number one or a long career? Frequently, they're not the same thing.

If you're concerned about appearances, if you think the clock ever runs out, you've got no idea how the game works.

Character is built by adversity. It teaches you there's more than one way to skin a cat. And that just because you go hungry today, that does not mean you will starve tomorrow.

As for the acts... You don't want to meet them. Because they know these lessons better than anyone. Because it's almost impossible to make it. Talent? It's plentiful, dime a dozen. But the perseverance in the face of astounding odds, that's a different skill.

So many acts' histories are riddled with duplicity. They fire the manager who got them there, but the only way they can move forward is by upgrading. Sorry, but it's the act's one and only career, it must be done.

You've got to stand up for your rights. You've got to give to get.

Your goal is to get into the game and stay there.

Kevin Spacey knows that. At least his character in "House Of Cards" does. If I get one more e-mail, read one more report of a celebrity bitching about negative comments on Twitter and the general hate on the Web, I'm gonna laugh. It goes with the territory. It means people are paying attention. Get over it.

And sometimes you are wrong. Spacey's character is mocked by Bill Maher, correctly.

But Spacey neither complains nor fights. He knows it's just momentary chatter. That if you don't make mistakes you're not playing. That there's always another day.


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