NO GUTS. NO GLORY.

Transcription of “No Guts No Glory”

 

[00:00:00] help please. Mi Uh, wood cell. Uh, we’re working on it though. Sorry. We’re so, we’re working on our Chinese, so we’ll see you every time. See, these are gonna be translated into Chinese. Be gracious with us. We love Chinese. Yeah. So if I say you say right. That’s just somebody say, how are you Neha, or How are you?

[00:00:39] Hello. It’s, oh, so how you feeling and hung how Feeling pretty good. Yeah. And I say

[00:00:51] Well, this all works cuz I’m like finally back into the land of a living after in bed for two days. That’s right. He’s, he’s been sick and so he [00:01:00] comes in, we’re like, coronavirus, no, no, no. Got tested. No Corona. You know it’s the mar, it’s the Mar Coronavirus. Oh the Mar Coronavirus. So why whatever we drink Cali tea.

[00:01:09] We’re gonna forever, we drink Cali. That’s right. I plan on living forever. So far so good. Cheer. Cheers. . Cheers. So, Welcome to the Singing Success Show and, uh, Brett Manning, wood y Dustin . So Nina, which is n u. So, um, today we are going to talk about, actually, we’re gonna give a shout out first. Oh, yeah. Chanel student, we just had Chanel on, uh, previously talking about her journey, and, uh, a few of her students that she’s worked with.

[00:01:40] And, uh, we’ve heard great things that Mr. Uh, Chris. It’s gonna be on tour of Rascal Flats, one of her students. Uh, we’re really proud of that. Yeah. It’s fun to see them walk through the halls. It is, yeah. Because they’re like you and me, like they’re, you know, you touch ’em, they have a pulse and everything.

[00:01:56] Yeah. Yeah. You see ’em to walk by a mirror. The reflection is in the mirror and [00:02:00] they’re like, human. Yeah. It’s strange. Yeah. How that works. And then who else? Oh, Mason. Mason. Ramsey Mason Ramsey. Yeah. Yeah. He sang on the Grammys with, uh, Lil Naz X and that they, they did Old Town Road, right? Yeah, old Town Road.

[00:02:14] They, okay. He, he got up there and he just little known song. I think it’s the most downloaded song, song of, uh, of all time. Probably all time. At least 2019. We know that for sure. Yeah. I think it’s of all time. Isn’t not weird. Goodness gracious. Gosh, wow. This is a great time to be alive folks. You and I need to write the most downloaded song of all time.

[00:02:33] We may have already. We may have. We’re just waiting for it to pop, which is funny thing cuz we talk about. You know, the things we’re gonna talk about today is no guts, no glory. That’s right. You have, uh, as we’ve talked about in other podcasts, have been witness and privy to being around at the time of the release of Mastering Mix.

[00:02:56] Mm-hmm. , which is my fourth program or something [00:03:00] like that. I don’t remember mm-hmm. that I released. And, uh, watching it blow up. I mean, we had a great. It is the only program of its kind and it’s, I’ve lectured all over the world regarding this and, um, You know that as I’ve done all these programs, even my record that you were there with me, we didn’t, we didn’t do it in a couple weeks, did we?

[00:03:20] No, it was a few months. Yes. A few months of hard work. Actually we started like in February, went all the way through. Little mid. Yeah, it was May. It was one of those first sessions. I remember it was snowing. Yeah, that’s right. It was in, actually it was in January. Yeah. Mm-hmm. . So, uh, and it was actually being mixed.

[00:03:34] I remember cuz my birthday is April 27th. Everybody remember send cash, write. Steak or wine and, uh, you’ll be, you’ll be my friend. Or avocados. I like avocados. That’s all it takes. If you are what you eat, I’m eating an egg or an avocado. Yeah. So, um, clearly . I look like an avocado. Look at this. Um, but, um, so, uh, April [00:04:00] 27th and the record was done.

[00:04:01] Remember my friend had a surprise little birthday thing for me, my friend Katie. Remember Katie? I do. I do. When Katie, she wrote, uh, which one did she wrote to? Conflicted. Yes. Yeah, she wrote that with me. And then you. , listen to the man. Listen. Already you wrote this, which we’ve talked about be. Yep. Who? I think that’s the intro song on these, uh, yeah.

[00:04:24] Yeah. The intro song on these and on my programs, the Listen to the Man, which is a nice message, but I think, so it’s a little deeper than that, uh, the meaning of the song. But you wrote that with me and already mine. Mm-hmm. and Oh. What else? Bunch of other songs. The worst at remembering this song. I know when you one’s written so many songs, one forgets, you know, oh, one forgets.

[00:04:46] We’re so humble. , you won’t find anybody more humble than either one of us . So, um, self contradicting state statements. I just. Thanks, captain Avi , [00:05:00] captain Avi, which his face, Earl Campbell was a great football player from the waist down. He had the best legs in the nfl. Okay. Madden, well, who had the best legs from the waist up?

[00:05:16] that’s a good point. From the waist down. Yeah. The best legs from the nfl. We’re gonna get in trouble for, not for, uh, not moving on with our, uh, subject matter here. I know we’re gonna get slapped by our producer over there. Yep. . I feel the energy coming this way, the heat. Ah, so we’re talking about, uh, there’s always more than you anticipate when you set out to do something.

[00:05:37] It’s very interesting. There’s a proverb that says, consider the cost of building a building. We really weird of, or constructing a building, if you want to say it that way. Mm-hmm. . , um, because people don’t consider the cost of doing a thing and they start. Now, that’s the expense. On one hand, if you don’t have the investment money to start your record or to finish your record, you don’t have the investment money to start a company, [00:06:00] finish your company.

[00:06:00] You need to have that. But consider the emotional, physical, spiritual cost, the. That you’ve seen me just have to pour en energy. And you saw me as the, the battle that we’re talking about with listening to man, that I had to go through a lot of emotional energy course for a certain battle that I was going through this two years and two months.

[00:06:19] Yeah. And thank God I won that battle. Yeah. But that was a very long battle. And I was like, just in it for the hall and your horse were frighteningly prophetic in that, that song that that bridge that you’re just like all of the innocent, remember that line? Yeah. Um, so. But I didn’t know what I was in for with that.

[00:06:38] Sure. I didn’t know what I was in for creating the original singing success program. Um, we recently did these vocal retreats, which we got another one coming up, so make sure you don’t miss it. We’re gonna keep doing shout outs to that for, um, June 7th through the 13th. And, uh, go on. Just watch the testimonies.

[00:06:56] You don’t have to listen to my take, take my word about it, cuz of course, I’m. [00:07:00] Pitch it. Well, , I’m gonna say nice things about me, but it doesn’t matter. It matters what other people say. Can folks reserve a spot yet? Yes, you can still reserve a spot, but you gotta hurry. Don’t drag your feet because actually the price gets, goes up the closer you get to the date, like any other event.

[00:07:16] So, um, so jump in and get your, your ticket to our weeklong retreat. But just talking about those retreats, they’re always more work than we think they’re gonna. And you’ve done like our project, you were, you were in the studio with me like 90% of the time working on that. Uh, working on drums and then helping me with writing and then also just a, a bro showing emotional support cuz it was a hard time for me.

[00:07:45] Yeah, that’s a lot. Yeah. And so, uh, and Malcolm was a workhorse. I mean, that guy would work till three or four in the morning and I’d seen BG vs at three in the morning just because. , well, oh, I guess I’m on now. Huh? That’s when it had to be done. Yep. Yeah. [00:08:00] Yeah. And so, you know, one thing is very common, and if you’ve watched some of these, or if you haven’t watched some of these, then maybe you’ve not heard this quote before.

[00:08:10] I don’t know if I’ve said it before about what excuses are, did I tell you about what an excuse is? You may have, but I never grow tired of hearing it. excuses are tools of incompetence. Ah, yes. The wrecked monument. to nothingness and those who use these tools seldom amount to anything meaningful. So rather than tools, you look for reasons, reasons why you can you re look for Reason resolve.

[00:08:41] Give me another R one. Wasn’t a good R word for that. Mm-hmm. , reason? Resolve. Oh, maybe resilience. Resilience. Those are good. Yeah. And why are we alliterating? Because we’re songwriters. We have to alliterate. Everything happens. Sorry, folks. horribly happens. Um, [00:09:00] so, uh, we talk about a couple other things. Um, uh, China.

[00:09:06] Yes. You know, I went out there seven years ago and as you know, in, um, 2012 and then, um, 2019 mm-hmm. and back out there again. And I had no idea how much work it was gonna be. Um, oh, I can only imagine. But it’s what you do when you, when you attempt to do anything, well realize that it’s a series of uncalculated failure.

[00:09:33] you have calculated success. That’s the plan. Then you have uncalculated failures. That’s what you don’t plan for. Sure. But you can’t plan for those failures. You can only prepare for them. You can only decide to respond. Um, what’s your biggest failure ever? Oh, I guess probably, um, you know, it’s really hard to kind of pinpoint, but I guess I could summarize all of.

[00:09:58] You know, big moments [00:10:00] of, of disappointment as, um, uh, a lack of development in a certain area personally that led to a situation going south and then me having to realize the hard way that it was preventable. Wow. On my end, uh, if I would’ve just taken the time to mature and grow. And what happened as a result?

[00:10:18] The good deposit came out of it, um, developing better relationships with people. Hmm. Um, because I, I, I wasn’t focused on that and because of those, those, uh, I say I wasn’t focused on that. I, I, I never wanted to disappoint people on purpose. , I, I, I just wasn’t, uh, focused as much on other people, um, because I was so focused on trying, you know, we all get kind of, kind of confused and displaced in our minds and possibly physically in this town whenever we’re, we’re so focused on trying to make something happen that mm-hmm.

[00:10:50] we miss out on opportunities to help other people. Wow. Which could in turn, turn our whole situ. Upside down in a good way and, and, [00:11:00] and move things along the right path quicker, uh, if we just kind of get out of our own heads. And I think that would probably be my biggest regret in the last 12, uh, almost 12 and a half years of being here.

[00:11:10] Wow. So could I summarize that by saying your, your biggest failure LED has led also. Turned towards your biggest successes. Absolutely, and I’m hoping to continue to grow on that because the relationships that I’m building currently are leading to some of the things that I’ve always wanted to to be a part of, but it’d say it the things are most unexpected.

[00:11:34] Correct. Like we were talking about the little naza, who thought that could be the biggest song ever downloaded? That’s right. Unreal. And some of the successes we were talking about different students of mine that I wouldn’t listen to the radio Oh, oh boy, got a number one song. What? I thought he was just gonna be doing songwriting nights for the rest of his life.

[00:11:54] Yeah. And And he’s got a number one song. Some people do it for a long time and can’t ever get a leg up. Yeah. And [00:12:00] then over it seems like overnight success. Most of those overnight successes have been 10 years in the Macon. We talked about that on a previous episode as well. That’s right. In case you missed that emphasize.

[00:12:09] So we were talking about like, um, bamboo, like, I think it’s like something like 10 years or something like that. I don’t remember the number. Yeah. 10 years. It just sits there and deepens its roots and it’s growing downward, the stuff that no one can see. And then once the roots are strong, Boom, it shoots up and it grows like a foot a day or something crazy like that, real way.

[00:12:27] And uh, it is amazing. Every day you go out, you can almost watch that thing grow vis visibly in real time. And, uh, that’s what you see. You can watch these people, they just blow up and watch their counters shoot up, and then sometimes that’s artificially produced. We know that some people in the industry that they.

[00:12:45] Put their stuff out on YouTube just so that you know, as you’re, so you ain’t deceived about the things that happen out there. That there are labels that they ha send out from, they have like 20,000 IP addresses that just shoot, boom. Mm-hmm. , boom, boom, boom, [00:13:00] and they lo uh, load up the views. Um, I, I believe YouTube tracks how many come from a IP address that you can only get two or three views calculated in a day.

[00:13:11] I don’t know anything about these. The algorithms are a lot harder now, so I hear from, from, uh, friends and acquaintances that are, are YouTubers. It, it’s even harder now to make money. Yeah. Solely on YouTube. So they have to bring, they have to bring in sponsors and stuff like that as well, which I think actually kind of helps transition us to, uh, another one of our points was, is not focusing on your competition too much.

[00:13:33] Yeah. Because you never know. I mean, that’s exactly what we’re talking about. Like, you never know who’s. You know, all the plugins kind of pushing numbers up that aren’t real to begin with. That’s right. So, well, I think, I believe my quote on my Instagram story yesterday was, uh, uh, our producer, we, well, hey, our producer, can you, um, over there, would you mind, uh, looking up my Instagram story [00:14:00] and shout it out to us from off.

[00:14:02] Because it’s a great look quote. This is fun. We’ve got our very own, uh, like Joe Rogan’s got, uh, Jamie. Jamie. Look that. Put that up Jay. Jamie, look at that up. Who you pull, pull that up Here. We got our very own as well. This is, wow. You’re fun. There’s no reason to be insecure is what I said. Yeah, what they said.

[00:14:20] There’s people hotter than you. More talented you, richer than you who are completely and utterly miserable. , so you’re fine. You know, and, and that’s like we say, comparing. That’s, it’s, that’s a timely quote for this, uh, comparing yourself to your competition, looking at your competition, always looking over your shoulder.

[00:14:39] You know, my friend Kent Coddle. Yes. I feel like you’ve met. Yeah. Mm-hmm. . So you know about his track story, right? Yes. Where he just, some guy beat him in the stretch. Mm-hmm. . And, uh, he’s, uh, had, uh, I think he was around 44 when he won the men. Well, he would’ve won the men’s masters, but somebody jumped out and leaped ahead of him because he kind of celebrated too early.[00:15:00] 

[00:15:00] Mm-hmm. . Yeah. And sometimes, uh, sometimes it can be you look over and say, I’m beating my competition. You can’t, you gotta look, you gotta beat yourself as hard as you can. Yeah. And, uh, so when I’m on a, a, a, you know, this morning was on the bike and I said, I’m just gonna do five miles. Well, how was I start warming?

[00:15:18] Okay, I’ll just do seven miles. Well, I usually do 10. I’m already almost there, so I did 11. Yeah. What’s for me? So, and at the very end, I decided to just turn it into just as hard sprint on the last, about eight mile, eight, nine, and 10. Just, just as hard as I could for, uh, probably about two miles. Just hard sprint because I picture myself beating.

[00:15:40] Me, you know? Ah, yeah. And if I can beat me, if I can improve my goals every year, I want to be tougher now. So my goal is that every time I get in the shower, I’m gonna, before I used to do 50 pushups every time. Then I eventually, I was doing 60, then I was doing 80. Now I’m gonna do 90 pushups every time I get in the shower.

[00:15:58] Within a week. Wow. That’s a big [00:16:00] shower.

[00:16:05] Where can I get one before I get out, before I get in the shower? . And eventually I want to be able to do a hundred pushups just to make the things regular, just, but I can’t look over my shoulder at some, cuz there’s some guy. That’s not really that impressive cuz it’s just, there’s people tougher than me, stronger than me, faster than me, and better looking.

[00:16:24] I just don’t know what was, oh, there’s one. But, uh, , no, i, I, I call it like zooming out is, you know, like getting out of your own head is like, you know, zooming out and taking in everything around you and, and, and I think it’s a healthy comparison. You know, there, there is a point where it becomes unhealthy.

[00:16:42] You could be on a track of, of improvement and honestly be doing yourself, uh, a lot of favors and doing really well, but you can’t rest on your laurels as you know, like they say. Um, so there is a time to look at your competition. Correct? There is a time, but, but knowing a healthy limit to that mm-hmm. you have, you [00:17:00] have to be able to gauge but also not again, get in your own head too much cuz that’s gonna prevent improvement.

[00:17:06] Cause you can’t do anything but focus on others. Always looking over your should. Instead of looking forward like stalwart, just like, you know, driving, especially in the midst of the game. Like if you’re on stage and you’re singing, you’re doing a songwriter night mm-hmm. , and you’re too worried about the guy next to you, what do you, what happens?

[00:17:29] We sing harder than we’re supposed to sing. Yeah, we sing, we push louder. Have you ever hear the story about I was playing once and this guy get gets up there and he goes, yeah, I don’t really do singing lessons. I said, yeah. And he was like, wow, ouch. You know? I go, no, no, it’s all right. He goes, yeah, well, I just don’t do that.

[00:17:48] I mean, I, I respect what you do. I said, no, it’s all right. You don’t, it’s cool. Yeah. You don’t, you don’t respect what I do. If you did, you wouldn’t say, I don’t really do singing lessons. That’s unfortunate, man, because, but there’s so much more [00:18:00] improvement that could be there, clearly. Well, he got up there and he got his guitar in his first note.

[00:18:03] He goes, yay, yay,

[00:18:08] yay. You know? Okay, good. All right. And I’m on the piano going going. Go on Mary A. Little lime Sweet baby.

[00:18:29] Maryanne Little please.

[00:18:43] Where?

[00:18:48] Oh.

[00:18:56] And then got to the whole thing about Mary and the real Mary. [00:19:00] Mm-hmm. had to watch her son suffer on a cross. I like that. And everybody went, gosh. I mean, you’re seeing Mary had a little, but it didn’t sound, Mary had a little length. This dude was like, oh my gosh. Well, the focus is on the wrong thing.

[00:19:14] Clearly. Yeah. Yeah. That’s, that’s why it had so much impact. It has nothing to do with actual talent. It’s all intent. Ooh. Talent versus intent. . That’s a big rabbit hole. Yes. Well, what happened with this guys? Instead of looking over my shoulder at him and trying to compete with him, I just, it’s like, like we talk about in Jiujitsu, if so, you grab some really hard, the temptation grab my heart real, just real strong.

[00:19:38] It’s just not very satisfying. If I’m just no loose, I’m not having fun there if I stay loose. But if you grab me like this, then it’s like a struggle. But somebody grabs you and you’re just like, Second, when someone pushes you and you just kind of relax and then you have a plan for the second time, they push you in which you’ve seen.

[00:19:56] Don’t do it again. Don’t do it again. Ain’t laugh, but it, but it’s the [00:20:00] idea of as they come aggressive, you like this, so you push in your own space. You don’t compare yourself to others except for this, the idea of a challenge. You can have challenge, correct? Like you say, you gauge where you’re at because competition actually, Inspire you, correct.

[00:20:20] Inspire, fire you up, inspire you up. Uh, but if it trans, if it, um, Translates into, um, uh, terror that mm-hmm. , because some people, like I say, I’ve seen people in these songwriter nights. You’ve seen ’em too. Somebody just blows your mind. The next person’s like gets really nervously. Oh gosh. And that’s the, the number one killer in the American Idol singers too, is Yeah, they’re hearing through the wall sometimes, or, or like on the voice, they get to hear the other people mm-hmm.

[00:20:49] and they get in, there’re like, oh my gosh, she’s so good. And they say, I’ve got to sing, like, It’s just kiss of death, man. It’s too, and it’s too late. Yeah. At that point, you’ve [00:21:00] already psyched yourself out. Well, and it’s too late in this sense too. It’s too late to suddenly improve yourself while you’re there.

[00:21:07] Exactly. You actually have to do exactly what you’ve done. I mean, have you ever, I, I know you’ve ha this is a rhetorical question. Am I answering you a question that I know the answer is Yes. But you’ve been on stage, like whether you’re playing guitar, piano, cuz you play all the instruments very well. Oh, whatever.

[00:21:22] Uh, and then he does and then, uh, playing or playing the drums and suddenly you just. I want to impress, so I’m gonna try something. Mm-hmm. . And it didn’t work. It fell on its face. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Instead of trusting what you know, you thought, oh gosh, so-and-so’s in the audience. I’ve gotta impress him.

[00:21:39] Mm-hmm. . And so we try stuff that we’re not ready for. We try to hit notes, we’re not ready to hit. And that’s the kiss of death, man. I’ve actually got a wonderful example, if we have time, please. Uh, but CRS was last week, I believe. Right. I played a, a show with a group I’m working with called, uh, Essex County.

[00:21:55] Yes, check ’em out on Instagram, Essex County Music, you won’t be disappointed. Essex, E [00:22:00] s s e x County. Three. Three. Amazingly talented brothers from the uk. Um, they’re about to sweep this town on its feet. Can’t wait for that. Mm-hmm. . But we got to play a really cool show down at, um, bar lines at the, at the Omni.

[00:22:13] And uh, there was apparently lots of radio, uh, people, lots of label people in the audience. , there were whisperings of, uh, people around us that were like, oh, did you see so-and-so’s in the crowd? Or, oh, look who’s sitting over there? And I said, no, no, I didn’t notice that. And they’re like, what do you mean?

[00:22:29] Like, I, I don’t look at the room before I perform. I don’t want to know who’s out there. It doesn’t matter. Wow. I want to do the best, uh, performance that I can do so that the guys on stage or girls can do the best performance they can do. It doesn’t matter who’s watching. It really doesn’t matter. Why does it matter?

[00:22:49] Right? It’s, it’s, they’re just people sitting there. It’s just a body and a seat. So, uh, Know that if you’re going to enter into the realm that you and I are participating in, [00:23:00] the work ethic is, is hard, and no guts, no glory means there is a time when you just have to stand up there and sing, eat, or play even when you shake.

[00:23:08] I’m sure first time, a couple times you, you’ve ever played drums live. You’re hands shaking. You just can’t stop them from shaking. Yeah. Monkey gripping and Yeah. Yeah. Squeezing really hard. Play terribly. Or playing piano and your hands are sweating. Mm-hmm. , or you’re playing guitar and your hands are, and you’re like, wait.

[00:23:21] Remember that? You go. Wait. Oops, wait. You remember? Uh, it’s a movie, a great example of. Just friends with Ryan Reynolds. Oh, what a great movie. What a great movie. And that guy comes in and he’s like trying to talk to that girl while he’s talking to her already. Yeah. Yeah. He’s, he’s a heavy nerd. And this guy’s like, is it Dusty?

[00:23:39] Was his name. Yeah. Dust. What a dusty. And he comes in there and he goes, I wrote you this song. You know, he is got the, the zits on his face. And then you later on, he’s a handsome kid and he. Good, but, but he first thing, he goes like this, wrote you the song. He goes, when does he say he’s, wait, wait, wait. He, he wait.

[00:23:55] And he goes, yeah, can Dusty, you can just go now. You know? And then he [00:24:00] comes back later and he is got this 12 string guitar and a double neck guitar. And he’s playing. He is like, this guy’s got six hands, . And he’s a virtuoso. But you have to go through that place where you sweat really, really bad. Like I remember going, learning this piece that I was just like, my hands would go, I.

[00:24:30] And I remember trying, and that’s how I played it after I had learned it and I just got like panicking and I go,

[00:24:49] Feels good and it obviously sounds much better too.[00:25:00] 

[00:25:01] That song, that turn that I learned a long time ago. . The interesting thing is now I play like that without music, not without reading music, right, but without knowing this, without hearing a song. I write at that level, and you’ve been around me when I’ve done this. Mm-hmm. , where it’s like, because you’re comfortable.

[00:25:22] Well, you became acutely familiar with the opposite feeling and that’s the only way you got past it. Oh, that’s a good quote. We gotta put that in the description. I became acutely familiar with the. Feeling and say that again. That was brilliant. Well, just, just the confidence, you know, you not having it and getting, getting to that place where you’re, you’re so, uh, afraid and locked up.

[00:25:49] You, you get sick of that feeling like, I can’t, I can’t do this ever again. I’m either never gonna play music or I’m gonna figure out how to get past this cuz I can’t do anything in between the two. Wow. You [00:26:00] just get fed up with that feeling and you, you figure out a way to become. Aware of it and almost almost comfortable with it at the same time, which really is what you’re saying, truly is the no guts, no glory.

[00:26:12] I think So, I think that’s a good way to put a pretty bow on that. That’s a good way. So I’m Brett Manning. I’m Dustin Small. See you next time.