The Hustle Gene
“You can’t be serious”, I remember thinking. We were gathered in the university’s largest lecture hall– all students, contestants, and challengers, revving our engines at the starting line in a race to conquer the music industry. In that moment, 85 energetic freshmen, who were otherwise typically in pretty high spirits, were dead silent. We had heard something that shook every single one of us to our cores. Having been college freshmen for all of one week, we thought we knew everything. We trusted our intuitions because we all knew– knew– that music was our destiny. However, at this very moment, many of us stopped believing it.
You could have cut your foot on the sheer magnitude of shattered innocence in that room. All 85 of us were contained in this grand auditorium, corralled into this hall, so a truth could be laid upon us. The truth was as follows: “Statistically, only 25% of people will ‘make it’ in this industry. Realistically, none of you will.”
I’ve since pondered the true meaning of the phrase “make it”. I’ve therefore discovered just how much of a vague statement it is. What does “making it” even mean? Is it a hundred-thousand listeners? A million? How much money and influence should I have before I’m allowed to admit that I’ve “made it”? Never. I guess that was probably the point. It forced all of us, in perfect unison, to judge ourselves and each other harshly. It opened up new cavities of insecurity and animosity within all of us. Not one of us would simply remain friends from that moment on– we were now collaborators, business partners, and most importantly of all, opposing competitors.
What’s interesting is that this “25% concept” was relayed to all of us only once, by the professor at the beginning of the year. Every time the concept was discussed afterward was because we, as the students, kept it alive. Everyone knew the taboo of being called “part of the 75%”. It meant that someone thought you were going to fail (also a vague term).
The way I see it, we all perceived that we had only two choices from this point forth: dedicate every last strand of our effort and “make it”, or fail. I cannot emphasize how much space there is between those two concepts, which are both subject to interpretation in the first place. Because we were impressionable teenagers, this piece of information was fed into the binary processing system within us all.
We would think, “Am I going to succeed? Is my best still good enough? Do I have the ‘hustle gene’?” Oh, the “hustle gene”? I’m so glad you asked. The hustle gene is an apparent innate disposition for a superior work ethic, and therefore, success. We claimed this phrase in the exact same manner in which we had claimed words like “making it” and “failure”. It taught us that if we did not achieve this narrow and nearly-impossible benchmark of success, then we had failed– and we had failed because we didn’t try hard enough.
If one doesn’t ultimately support themselves with the music industry, there are literally a million potential causes. There are infinite factors outside anyone’s control, and any or all of those factors can result in an unsalvageable setback. However, this isn’t always such a bad thing. If you’re pulled away from something in favor of being pushed toward something else, I’ve felt that it’s often unwise to resist. I’ll say it now: I should not have stayed in the Drexel Music Industry program for as long as I did. Did I learn valuable lessons whilst in this program? Of course, I did. College, no matter how much it resembles an entertainment reality show, is still college. Some of my best memories in this program were times in which I had truly learned something. The knowledge garnered in class would reinvigorate my love and passion for the study of music and its business. My problem was that I preferred to see the study of music as an infinitely wonderful concept to be unveiled, rather than something that existed simply for the sake of monetization.
I’ve moved away from pursuing music professionally, but I refuse to believe that this makes me a failure… because I’m not. I’ve tread a different path, and I believe in my ability to make good decisions for myself. I can say that whatever comes to pass, I will find something that is at least equally fulfilling as any job I would have found in the music industry. This isn’t the case for everyone, but it is for me– and that’s okay.
I believe that we aren’t meant to do just one thing with our lives. The most interesting and multi-dimensional people have more than one passion– more than one drive– more than one motivation. I am satisfied to move about and experiment a little before shackling myself down.
If I were to offer up a piece of completely unqualified advice to my old program directors, I’d impart upon them that one’s love for music and learning can be a fragile thing, depending on the tool used to shape it. My fellow program members and I felt obligated to morph our passions into obsessions or be stuck working at Guitar Center for the rest of our lives. As such, it certainly wasn’t necessary to lay the weight of the world and the harsh reality of the industry on us (especially not during the first week). After all, that’s what internships are for.
