Transcript: Optimism and Gratitude

Rob Long on how to manage 'incomplete success' in hard times

This is Rob Long with Martini Shot for The Ankler.

The best thing about the entertainment industry, according to an old saying, is that they can kill you, but they're not allowed to eat you.

Which is a small blessing, I guess. Focus on the optimistic stuff, is a good way to go through life, I think.

Also: gratitude. Most things in show business — most shows and movies and scripts and faces — don't make it to the very top of the entertainment industry pyramid, and because the top side of any pyramid is sharp and tiny, even the things and people at the top are uncomfortably pierced and stabbed in the backside by the sheer violence it takes to hold on.

But because most things don't even get there, veterans of the business need to develop coping mechanisms for handling — well, not failure, but incomplete success.

Look, it's an amazing accomplishment just to work in show business and manage to pay your mortgage, let alone have a failed television show or disappointing movie opening. Getting something done — even something that turns off audiences, loses lots of money, and dies a fast death — is still a pretty solid deed. Something to be proud of.

But still, you have to develop preparedness.