The Bag's "Chaos Menu" Thoughtfully...
The Bear's brilliance, MrBeast's ascension, Gucci Mane's output, NBA Youngboy's work ethic, Drew Maggi's persistence, Sports $, & Music $....
*Warning: Spoilers from the Bear Season 2*
“What’s my purpose, homie?” ~ Richie Jerimovich (The Bear)
I recently watched and then re-watched Christopher Storer’s masterpiece, The Bear Season 2, and like Season 1, the show evokes so many emotions. There’s a reason why it is breaking records for FX and Hulu while receiving so much fanfare.
I had forgotten just how raw, intense, visceral, and magnetic season 1 is and season 2 is a masterclass in character development and storytelling. The show is so unique, detailed, and brilliant. For all the luxuriousness and nepotism that Succession brought to the forefront, The Bear brings the grit and grind that most of us are more familiar with.
The show covers so many relatable themes: the inability to enjoy good things because something bad must be coming, struggling to find the balance to perform at your best while being there for others, processing your past while creating your future, the anxiety that comes with trying to build something, working obsessively to try and get ahead, and finding your purpose.
One of the other amazing things that The Bear does is that it shines a light on the journey and not the destination. It would have been so easy to start Season 2 with Carmy, Syd, and the team opening the new restaurant, but instead, the creators walked us through the whole process. All of the things that you have to do when you are building something from the ground up; creating budgets, finding the financing, renovating the space, passing inspections, hiring a staff, picking a menu…the list goes on and on.
If you are a founder, an artist, or an entrepreneur, I’m sure you can relate.
Moreover, the process that these characters go through to find their purpose and then dedicate themselves to perfecting their crafts once they do, is truly inspiring.
I never thought watching a 45-year-old man howling Taylor Swift in their car could put such a big smile on my face. Way to go cousin!
And like the show, success doesn’t happen overnight and there are no guarantees that it ever will happen. When you dedicate yourself to the process, there is a great chance that if you stick with it, there will be progress and something good will happen.
As the late great Nipsey Hussle shared, “I just didn’t quit, it’s the only distinguishing quality from me and probably whoever else went through this or is going through this…”
“It’s about consistency and being consistent. We can’t operate at a higher level without consistency.” ~ Carmen “Carmy” Berzatto (The Bear)
Most of us are trained to thrive on instant gratification. A world of likes and follows has trained our brains that if something isn’t moving now, it’s probably not going to work. But that’s not necessarily true. Sometimes, you just have to put in the work.
Take a look at MrBeast for example. As Tomas Pueyo shared in his enlightening newsletter “How to create a masterpiece,” on average, MrBeast put out a new video every 5 days for 10 years.
What?! A new video every 5 days for 10 years?!
While fans have gone back to look at his original videos now that he’s become one of the biggest content creators in the world, his early work wasn’t garnering millions of views until he was 5 years into content creation and hundreds of videos deep.
How easy would it have been for Jimmy Donaldson aka MrBeast to quit after year 2 and move on to something else?
Instead, he dedicated himself to his craft and persevered. He fell in love with the process and got meticulous about his content.
He now has 429M followers across platforms and is still growing at a rapid clip.
The best part, he’s only 25 years old. His fans are growing up with him and plenty of people are still discovering him.
Just look at his Youtube views for each year of his life. He keeps putting out new content and every step of the way he’s learning what is working and what’s not. No wonder he turned down $1B for his brand.
Marcus: “How did you get good at this?”
Luca: “Honestly, I made a lot of mistakes”
Marcus: “That’s the secret, just f*ck up?”
Luca: “It might be you know, f*ck up”
(The Bear)
Not everything we do is going to be our best work, but if you’re intentional and you get the reps in, you will most likely get increasingly better.
Someone who has fascinated me from afar is Radric Delantic Davis aka Gucci Mane. Admittedly, I’m not well-versed in a lot of his music. What I have followed closely though, is his unrelenting work ethic. The same rigorous work ethic he applied to his physical transformation, he’s applied to his music career.
In a 10-year span (2013- 2022), he released 109 projects on the DSPs that encompass 1,987 songs.
That’s just an insane amount of music that he put out. Whether or not some of the music is great or old doesn’t matter. It’s 2,000 songs. He’s taking a lot of shots on goal.
The more shots on goal, the more chances to score.
That approach provides the groundwork for a breakout hit to occur, like:
“Both” featuring Drake (RIAA-Certified 4x Platinum)
“Wake Up In The Sky” featuring Bruno Mars and Kodak Black (RIAA-Certified 5x Platinum)
“I Get The Bag” featuring Migos (RIAA-Certified 6x Platinum)
Another artist who keeps shooting in the gym is YoungBoy Never Broke Again. He plays by his own rules. He doesn’t tour. He doesn’t do a bunch of press or interviews. He doesn’t make songs that play on the radio. He’s a rapper that lives in Utah.
But guess what? He feeds his fanbase constantly. And since he’s willing to continually make music and put it out, he’s already generated 2.3M units in total consumption at the halfway point of this year. That makes him the 5th most consumed artist through the end of June, according to data from Luminate.
You really have to love what you do to have this type of work ethic though. It’s not for everybody.
Richie: “So, why do you do this?”
Chef Terry: “Respect. I think time spent doing this is time well spent.”
(The Bear)
One of my favorite stories this year is Drew Maggi’s. Maggi spent 13 years playing minor league baseball before getting called up to the majors and getting his first at-bat at age 33. That’s 1,154 minor league games played, nearly 4,000 plate appearances, and over 10,000 balls and strikes before stepping into the box in the big leagues.
https://twitter.com/sportingnews/status/1652472240804622336?s=20
I’m so happy that he got a hit, that he got a chance to feel that joy, because it hasn’t been easy.
Salaries in the minor league range from $400 - $700 per week and are paid only during the regular season meaning that most players have to get part-time jobs in the off-season.
To put yourself through that for 13 years? You must feel like it’s time well spent. You must love and respect the game.
At the highest level, the paychecks are a little different. The average MLB salary is around $4M a year and the majority of the time, teams carry an active roster of 26 players. That means there are 780 active MLB players at any given time.
When you think about how many people have hopes and dreams of not only making it to that level but also staying there and making a career out of it, the odds are so slim.
It’s slim for all of the professional sports leagues and music too.
Looking at the major record labels’ websites, there are 1,052 acts shown. Yes, I realize there are deals that aren’t announced and websites that aren’t updated. Even if the number of acts is 2x what is shown on the websites, directionally speaking, this gives us a picture of just how small the odds are of joining a major record label. And to be clear, I’m not saying that’s the only way to make money from music.
Take into account the following from Spotify’s Loud&Clear:
9 million people have uploaded music to Spotify. Out of those 9 million, 200,000 are considered professional or professionally aspiring recording acts.
How does Spotify define a professional aspiring recording act?
Based on this estimate, you could calculate that more than a quarter (29%) of professional or professionally aspiring artists generated $10,000 in 2022 from Spotify alone (and likely over $40,000 across all recorded revenue sources).”
While there are other revenue streams for artists outside of streaming, the odds of making professional sports money are reserved for a select few musicians.
1,060 artists generated $1M+ on Spotify in 2022. Using a generous royalty rate of .004 per stream it would take 675M streams on Spotify to generate $2.7M. If you are signed to a major label, your royalty rate is probably in the vicinity of 16-20% unless you are a major star not on your first contract. This means that you are going to have to generate billions of streams annually to see average NHL salary money from Spotify while being signed to a major.
Of course, there is Apple and other streaming services but according to Midia Research, Spotify has 31% of the global market share while Apple has 15%.
The odds continually get tougher with each pinnacle. In the rarest of air, the odds are extremely slim.
Domingo Germán threw a perfect game for the New York Yankees at the end of June. To date, this was the 24th perfect game ever pitched out of approximately 235,500 MLB games played. Extremely rare.
What’s even more rare? An artist having a Diamond single. There are 110 songs that are RIAA-Certified Diamond in the United States. At the end of 2022, Spotify had over 100M songs on its platform.
It’s simple, the higher you climb, the harder it gets.
Not to mention, we all stumble along the way. Just as Kenneth Rooks did two minutes into the 3,000-meter steeplechase at the USA Outdoor Track and Field Championships the other week. He could have thrown in the towel. It was a huge moment and he was suddenly in last place.
Instead, he picked himself up, and like Carmy’s older brother Mikey says, he “let it rip.”
Do you want to be the best version of yourself?
Find your purpose and make sure that every second counts.
Insightful and motivating. Thanks!
Great read, great perspectives, and information.