The topic for today’s blog on originality is “gatekeepers.”
Gatekeepers affect just about every aspect of your life. Everything you see in a store was selected by a “gatekeeper,” that is to say, someone that you may have never met has purchased wholesale items because they have analyzed you and they put out stuff that they think you will buy.
Gatekeepers are not only key to the chain of retail sales. There are gatekeepers for higher education (admissions committee), and of course gatekeepers abound in the world of the arts and literature. If you want to do anything truly original at a professional level, you must have some skill in dealing with gatekeepers. Unfortunately, these skills are rarely if ever taught.
I am starting to think that I could write a whole book on the science of the psychology of gatekeepers, but this being a blog I will try to keep it short. I will stick to areas with which I have some actual experience, i.e., speaking and writing and the classical music industry.
In the music world, you don’t really notice gatekeepers at the beginning, as any kid whose parents are willing to pony up money for a student clarinet and a series of lessons “gets in.” In the amateur/civic realm, gatekeeping is largely just a vague collection of policies and political issues… it doesn’t get really interesting until you start to get to the professional gatekeepers.
The real gatekeepers are, of course, the big-time talent agencies and professional performing organizations. Suddenly, gate keeping gets very very serious. Anybody can pick up a clarinet and play it, but if you want to get paid real money to play the clarinet, somewhere, a gatekeeper has to pick you over all of your competitors.
Just before getting to the professional realm of something artistic, there enters in a new player, and since they have no name, I will name them “vanity gatekeepers.” You see these people everywhere if you have ever made an attempt to do something artistic. As an author, every time I copyright something, I get a flurry of envelopes in the mail of people offering me an easy “in” to the world of publishing. They never guarantee anything in terms of actual sales. Everything is couched in “nurturing excellence,” “this will help you move closer to your goal,” “make your work the best it can be,” “we will submit your manuscript to 500 agents (or search engines or what ever)”… Their optimism about everyman’s chance to write a bestselling novel is just wonderful. Sort of. Sadly, all their coaching tends to turn you into a not very unique entity, as you become what they think will sell, not what you are.
If you have enough money, you can create a fantasy world where people are editing and critiquing your books, your manuscript is being submitted to literary agents right and left, and your headshot and bio are being sent to every television and radio station in the country. As a speaker, I am endlessly dunned with e-mails from various pay-for-our-service outfits that offer endless seminars and DVD’s and weekend retreats and advice on how to become, not just an adequate or pretty good speaker, but a million-dollar speaker.
I have no objection to people offering educational or coaching services per se, but at a certain point, given that the ultimate real market is a very finite one, the implied promise of success that these people offer smells a little funny to me.
What vanity gatekeepers are really about is avoidance of rejection. Unlike actual gatekeepers who are largely unfindable, and when you find them they slam the door in your face because they just don’t need any more people than they already have right now, vanity gatekeepers will keep your hope alive. For a fee of course.
I confess, when my only gig for a week is a speaking appearance at the Eaglejaw Junction senior center, these grandiose visions of success offered in these vanity gatekeeper e-mails make me feel somewhat small and inadequate in comparison. But then I simply remind myself that I’m actually hustling up genuine gigs, and I’m actually selling my books, and most of all, money is coming in, not going out. And that is really the test.
Finding and romancing real-life gatekeepers is a devilishly tricky operation. Vanity gatekeepers imply that they can make this process simple, direct, and immediate. While there may be an instance here or there when that actually happens, such events, if they ever happen at all, are statistically insignificant. (One of my favorite disclaimers: “results not typical.”)
Speaking about the music business for a moment, I occasionally hire orchestras for recording gigs (see “the heart of an orchestra contractor,” right column) … and the first time I did that it was the first time I found myself in the role of a serious gatekeeper. And I was amazed at how inept most musicians were at dealing with me.
It seems to me that any legitimate training program for arts professionals should include a serious amount of thought and information about dealing with gatekeepers. But unfortunately, there’s so much money in vanity gatekeeping that they have actually taken over most of that business, and they will probably continue to crowd out the hard-core information, as the real truth, that in reality, you probably won’t make it in this business… is bad for their business of selling (mostly false) hope.
If you really want to succeed, the real story is an old one and a simple one: you just keep at it. You just persist. You polish your craft and you improve. And the more you persist and the more you improve, the greater you have a chance of getting a “break.” Real gatekeepers, for the most part, are all full up with all the talent they need, but every once in while somebody dies or moves out of town or retires, and none of their relatives want the job, and that magical looking glass into professional whatever-ing opens just for a moment. At that moment, that gatekeeper needs you desperately, and you need to understand that they are a customer, and since they are paying you, the environment and the rules and the etiquette and protocol are completely different.
Actually, your average real-life gatekeeper leads a life of quiet desperation, because they are usually working for someone else and they are under immense pressure to deliver a quality product, and really good quality anything is so hard to find. But it is also important to note that they are all very different unique people– some will hate you no matter what, others will see your ability and give you a shot.
Gatekeepers can often seem very frightening and unapproachable, but they are human and they are vulnerable (and oh how I wish someone had taught me that when I was a student.) If you understand what they need, and don’t look to them as surrogate parents whose job is to recognize your otherwise unappreciated genius, you will succeed where others, with those beautiful press kits that cost $500, have no chance.
© Justin Locke
