I heard about this guy, Paul Potts, yesterday when I followed the links in one of Mark Hendrick’s (of 12 Days to Christmas fame) emails.
It’s a great story from the UK TV show “Britain’s Got Talent”. The audience expected nothing special from this cell phone salesman, Paul Potts, until he brings them to their feet with an amazing performance of an extremely difficult opera song – Puccini’s “Nessun Dorma”.
It’s unbelievable but within two minutes he shows more emotion than all the contestants combined. Usually, I’m not a big opera fan but even I had to watch this video a number of times and it brought tears to my eyes in the same way it happened to Mark. I just couldn’t help it…
Here is Mark’s email:
————————
Hi Detlev,
I was on a phone call with David Perdew a little while
ago and told him about a video of a guy who put a smile
on my face and tears of joy in my eyes.
Repeatedly.
(I’ve watch this video about ten times now, and it
happens every time
Granted, this guy is not in the same artistic league
as Luciano Pavarotti (you may have heard that he died
recently) — as an aside, in one of my earlier careers
I worked with Pavarotti, but that’s another story for
another time.
But I tell you what, I’ve listened to this young man
sing in this video and got more from his rendition
than ANY other I’ve heard.
(and I don’t really like this kind of music much)
He doesn’t look great, he’s kind of awkward, and lacks
self-confidence (can anybody ever relate to that?).
This amateur gets before the crowd and ‘hits a grand-slam
home run in the bottom of the ninth’ and wins the ball
game in my opinion.
As you will see, there are a panel of judges listening.
One of which is notorious for his negative comments,
but not this time — and rightly so.
Here’s the link, there is one video on this page and
at the bottom is another link to the followup video (watch
both for the full story, the first one gets me
everytime
Here’s the reason I’m sharing this with you:
It’s a real-life example of dreams coming true with hope
and hard work and persistence paying off…and when his
preparation met his opportunity, sparks fly!
I love it!
Paul Pott’s first appearance:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=9oxTy7KIAaA&mode=related&search==
They bring him back:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=rDB9zwlXrB8&mode=related&search==
The show finale (wow):
http://youtube.com/watch?v=9hIq_GGi1n4&mode=related&search==
AND…
He makes a news story on the TODAY show in America too:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=QBycEUZ0HIA
And here is his MySpace page:
http://www.myspace.com/officialpaulpottsmusic
Here’s a link to the English translation of the lyrics,
but you don’t need to read the words to understand the
emotion of the singer (just watch the video few times):
http://home.earthlink.net/~markdlew/comm/turandot.htm
Feel free to pass this email along to your friends, they
could use a lift, I know they will appreciate you thinking
of them too.
As always, my best to you –
Mark Hendricks
——————————————
If that didn’t touch your heart then I don’t know what will. As I said, I’m not into opera but I love hearing great voices and melodies and Puccini’s “Nessun Dorma” certainly has to be one of the greatest songs within that genre. It’s so full of emotions.
As I said in my email already: This just proves the fact that EVERYTHING is possible (“Whatever the mind can conceive and believe… it can achieve.” – Napoleon Hill, Think & Grow Rich) and that making a dream come true is not as far out of reach as you might think… It’s a true story about how hard work and persistence can pay off. This is true not only for the music business but for anything you do, especially in an online business.
Have a great weekend and I hope, I have shared something with you that will “make your day” and inspire you in the same way it made my own birthday even more special. So thank you, Mark, for giving me that wonderful birthday present – it was really appreciated (even though it was not intentional)!!
Detlev
P.S.: Feel free to post your comments on this post by clicking the “comments” link at the top of this post!
Thanks for sharing this story Detlev. I really don’t like opera, but this guy moved me.
Pavarotti’s death this week is a very sad event the world over and he will be sorely missed.
Perhaps Paul will become one of the world’s great operatists in years to come.
The final show where they announce the winner can be found here http://youtube.com/watch?v=mUyKYB4zYCQ
Detlev, That was a thrill of a lifetime, after just losing Pavarotti. It was superb and with hours and hours more practice, everyone in the world will know it, and appreciate him for the shrinking violet, come to life. Only he knew that that was inside of him, and had to come out. Marvellous!
Not sure if it says there but apparently he spent around £12,000 ($24,000) in lessons from the great Pavorotti himself.
It nearly bankrupted him but paid off in the end. And people moan about investing $97 on an eBook!
Hi David,
no, I didn’t know about this fact that he had spent so much money on his education. But yes, you are right: It just shows that in most cases you really need to invest both, your time as well as your money to become successful.
I can’t understand it, either, that most people just want everything for free or for cheap. Education costs money – it’s as simple as that!
Detlev
I just wanted to clarify an earlier comment.
In fact Paul spent £11,000 of his own money training his voice and was subsequently invited to a banquet in Italy where Pavarotti made an appearance and he gave Paul a few words of advice.
To suggest that Paul received singing lessons from the great Pavarotti is absurd.
I just looked at the cost of attending opera workshops in England and they come out at around £6,000 a time.
In terms of lessons Paul paid for, it amounts to just two workshops.