The chance of winning...
Following the reporting on the site LeStudio1.com about the story on Celine Dion published in Paris Match (June 3 to 9), I received several comments from artists who were wondering why Celine is lucky and they are not? My answer: Life is like a hockey league... There are winners and losers!
But the more important to remember is that everything lasts only for the duration of a season; victories and defeats. There will be other competitions with other winners and other losers with new seasons.
The feeling of artists who do not understand why Celine win often is not only present in the art world and all sectors of life are facing this question. The losers, as the winners themselves, are always wondering: Why me? The answer is a set of timing, environment, resources, perseverance and especially luck.
I recently read the biography of Mark Zuckerberg and I could not help to see a certain resemblance between Facebook and LeStudio1.com. When I read the early history of Facebook, it closely resembles of LeStudio1.com because we both started around the same period in 2003-2005. At the beginning, and this in both cases, we started without too much hope and the concept was one among others. Mark Zuckerberg led from the front several Internet projects and Facebook was more a game a computer than an commercial enterprise. (the name of the concept was ThefaceBook).
When I started LeStudio1.com in March 2005, I wanted to return to the media circuit and the magazine gave me a public forum but I did not think of it as a commercial enterprise and I also worked as a consultant on other projects.
In the case of Facebook, Zuckerberg began to take his project seriously only in June 2004 when he left Harvard to go to settle for the summer with his three partners in a small rented house in California (Palo Alto). There he realized he had a promising project and he never returned to Harvard. In my case, it was not until 2007 that I began to believe that I have in hands a promising commercial project. I was in contact with a few rich people financially, one with substantial inflows in United States and I was in contact with some senior leaders of a large European publishing empire. I was confident that I had a successful winning hand considering my experience at Quebecor with Péladeau who had taught me a thing or two about the media. I also had some local partners among which the former artistic director of a major women's magazine in Quebec.
But I had not expected that the European leaders with who I discussed suddenly will lose their jobs following a restructuring and that my Senior Financial backer deceased forgetting to leave me funds to continue the project that we started...
My project died like a fireplace that turns off when the paper log is burned out and the logs have not been taken into flame.
Today in 2010, Facebook has over 500 million members and LeStudio1.com is a simple blog site and I'm looking for a job ... One succeeded, one failed!
There are sports teams that win playoff games and other who lose, as there are players who make the National League and other which will not exceed the junior leagues This is not because the losers are not good, it's because they have not met the good events and finally, for them, the luck has not been at the rendez-vous. One must have watched the playoffs of Les Canadiens against Washington, Pittsburgh and Philadelphia to understand that "luck" is the decisive factor between victory or defeat.
For one Celine Dion, there are thousands of other artists with great talent who only last for a few songs, before giving up in front of too many refusals. That is wrong to stop trying because we should never mourn our loss and must always continue to play elsewhere, in another season.
Do not forget that nothing lasts: no more failures than successes. It is acceptable to lose but you should never stop playing and always try to win, until the last minute of the game of your live! Celine Dion has understood this principle and her twins will be the result of a sixth test in vitro fertilization.
Life is a game, nothing more! As long as we play, we have a chance to win ...
-Bernard Bujold
Photos from top to bottom: 1. Mark Zuckerberg (photo D8 Conference); 2. René Angelil and Céline Dion (Photos by Bernard Bujold); 3. Bernard Bujold and mascots LeStudio1.com; Jaroslav Halak Canadiens goaltender (photo by FLICKR).
