A Goal Achievement Tip From Presley – Reg Presley!

February 2013, and singer Reg Presley has died after some years of illness. In this article I’m going to draw goal achievement lessons which should make you smile…

Being born with a name like Presley, Reg was always likely to end up as a singer. Ok, ok, he wasn’t born Presley, but Reginald Ball, but it was as Reg Presley that he found fame as the lead singer of The Troggs.

They had a huge hit with their version of ‘Wild Thing’, and Reg made a lot of money when his song ‘Love Is All Around’ was recorded by Wet Wet Wet in 1994, becoming a hit around the world, and spending 15 weeks at number 1 in Britain alone – those songwriting cheques soon add up!

That’s another article though, and this time I want to go back to the 60s, and a recording session The Troggs were doing. The tape captured the band having a, er, firm discussion, about how a song should go.

Ok, let’s not mess around, they were having a row. If you listen to the tape, be ready for some very strong language. It’s the language that makes it funny, but it’s goal achievement in action…

Never mind the goal achievement they’ve already had, being number 1 pop stars and all it took to get to that stage, if you listen past the language there are some interesting things going on.

All the band members want the same thing, to make another hit record, but they can’t agree on the next step forward. Reg says they need to put some fairy dust over it, and that’s an example of the basic structure being in place, but it needing something else added to it to get to the goal.

Reg has an opinion about how the drums should go, but he’s not the drummer, while the drummer is getting annoyed by someone else telling him how to do something in his area.

The band themselves admit that they need a coach, which in this case is a producer. They recognise that because they are all chipping in with ideas, no firm decisions are being made. Nothing wrong with that, trying different things to see what works is good, but without decision it can just go round in circles.

They remind themselves how the producer of their number 1 hit would make the decisions – just telling them what to do and then deciding when it was finished, with hardly any input from the band, if any!

‘Musical differences’, or ‘creative tension’ is hardly new with bands, in fact it would be more unusual *not* to find it, due to the nature of creative minds coming together.
The row might sound fierce, but in the big wide world of music it’s fairly gentle, and the odd laugh here and there is a sign of that.

Brace yourself for the language and listen to the tape – it makes me laugh and hopefully it will you too.

If you want to take goal achievement lessons from it, then that’s great – think to your goal and ask yourself if maybe you need a coach to guide you, if maybe you need to add some fairy dust to what you’ve done so far, and maybe if you need to take action to get into the studio in the first place!

By the way, the song they are recording was called ‘Tranquility!’

If you don’t want to listen to the full 11 minutes, the listen to the first 30 seconds of part, then go to part 2 when the row gets tasty – let me know if it makes you smile too!

‘Til Next Time,
Health & Happiness,
Gordon
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P.P.S. I write more lessons like this in my motivational book ‘Transform Your Life in 21 Days!’