BSB 114
===
Speaker: [00:00:00] Welcome to the Bite-Sized Brilliance podcast. I'm your host, Dr. April Darley, and this week I wanna share a story with you about something that upset me, a great deal. Don't worry, I'm fine. But I wanted to share this with you just in case you were struggling with a similar issue. Last week I had a meeting with someone that I have admired for years.
I've followed their work. Been a big fan, a super fan even, and a cheerleader to the max, and when I had the opportunity to sit down with them one-to-one, I was very excited and slightly nervous as you would be. Unfortunately, when I left that meeting, it was an entirely different feeling and it wasn't a good one.
I decided to take a walk to decompress a little bit because honestly, I was a little overwhelmed and shellshocked and a bit disturbed. While I'm taking this walk, a lyric pops into my [00:01:00] mind from the singer Pink and it's from her song, _Don't Let Me Get Me_, and it goes like this. " _LA told me you'll be a pop star. All you have to do is change everything you are." _And there's a reason that lyric popped in my mind because it sums up how that meeting went so beautifully. Basically, the advice I was given was to change everything but my name. It's pretty shocking, right? When someone you admire tears apart your entire practice, your identity, your reason for being. It sort of hits home and not in a great way.
Now, if you're not too familiar with the story behind the song, Don't Let Me Get Me, I wanna share that with you now. When Pink was coming up in the music ranks, she was actually part of a band, a group, a girl group. But when she came to the attention of producer LA Reid, he told her, you've got to go solo. Cut these other girls [00:02:00] loose, and with a lot of guilt and with a lot of thought, she did. And that was where the first bits of angst began for her. LA Reid produced her first album, and if you remember that album, it was actually really good, but the musical style was so different. That first album was R&B/Pop and she was being promoted as the alternative to Britney Spears, like a competitor to Britney Spears.
And that is exactly what her record label wanted her image to be. But Pink was very different. She'd always been rebellious, had that punk rock vibe, and she knew deep in her core that she was nothing like Britney Spears. And she was even taken to an industry dinner to meet all these other executives.
And the feedback she got there was, _"You're not feminine enough. You're not pretty enough right _[00:03:00] _now. You actually need etiquette lessons because everything you are is a little too rough. It's too raw. It's not the image that we want for you"_. And that was another level of angst . It's that feeling of someone that you respect and admire going, _"yeah, this that you've got going on._
_Yeah, that is definitely not working. I will make you a star, but we're gonna have to change everything you are". _And she began to feel the conflict in that. So when it came time for a second album, she begged LA Reid, please let me make this album my way. Singing my kind of music. It's not going to be pop.
It's gonna be more rock confused. And LA Reid agreed on one condition. He said, if this album flops, I never want to hear another word about changing your image or your style. You have to do everything I tell you [00:04:00] to from there on out. This is your one shot. And she agreed. The problem was no one else but Pink believed that this album was worth it.
So she sought out extra help from Linda Perry, you may remember her from the group, the Four Non Blondes with that great song, _What's Going On_? And so she brought this concept to Linda Perry and even Linda Perry was like,_ "girl, I don't know. I don't know about this. Are you sure?"_ But pink was so adamant.
She's like, I know this album is going to be a huge hit, not just for me, but for you as well. This is a new trajectory for our careers. It's going to be big. And so she and Linda stayed the course. And you know what? That album was big. She got to prove all the naysayers wrong, who wanted her to go in a different direction to change her image, her style, her sound, [00:05:00] her very essence, and she said no, and she was right.
That is such an inspiring story, and I truly believe that, call it what you want, my higher self, my intuition, my spirit team in that moment wanted me to remember that story and it took a lot of guts for Pink to push back and here's how it happened in a few ways. She was able to do that. Number one, because she was really strong in her identity.
She knew exactly what she stood for and what she wanted. She was specific. She knew her core values and she wanted to stay true to herself. The second is she understood that in the past, up until that point, she had been letting someone else write the story. And I can understand she's a young girl and she did that to open the door and give herself a chance.
But at some point, when you let someone else write this story [00:06:00] for you, it creates such an inner conflict that it actually begins to insult your soul. Your very nature begins to rebel, and some might even call this a soul sickness. Because your soul doesn't stay quiet when the conflict is that big. It will express itself in some way.
You may express it or you may experience it physically greater anxiety, depression, paranoia, even. Some people will turn to coping mechanisms like drugs, alcohol, binge eating , or sex. Think about every Hollywood story, and I'm sure you can probably name at least three people off the top of your head right now who you know got caught up in the churn of living somebody else's story.
And you can do that for a while until you hit this tipping point, until your soul becomes so insulted. The inner conflicts are [00:07:00] so big, you actually have to confront it in some way. And when that happens, it's about going back and really thinking about who am I at my core? What are my core values? What do I stand for?
Reassessing your identity to that point, because when you want to do something different, it requires an evolution, an identity, an energetic evolution. You can't think the same. You can't act the same. Even feeling will require something different to get you to a different place. And she also had an incredible amount of courage to keep the boundaries firm and to believe in herself when literally no one else believed in her.
And I am sure she had so many people going, girl, what are you doing? This is LA Reid, he makes stars. If you wanna be a star, you follow the [00:08:00] plan. And in that meeting that I had, that was exactly what was told to me. This person said, _if you do everything, I am telling you right now, you'll be a star. And if you don't, you'll go nowhere_.
Ouch and untrue. Now, I am wise enough to see, once I've processed, that every experience is a teacher, and there are lessons in that if you are open-minded and wise enough to see. This person gave me some good advice. There were elements of it I may actually take. But there were large chunks of that strategy that I absolutely know at my core would lead me to a dark place eventually.
And the thing is, the strategist didn't care. And, I'm not saying that to malign this person in any kind of way, it's just that they saw a path. They had a formula to get you on that [00:09:00] path, and if you followed the path, they knew they were gonna get results. LA Reid and this person had receipts.
They have stars under their belts. They absolutely can do what they are telling you they can do. But here's the thing. You can do so many things, but do you want to? Are you willing to? Are you willing to do what it takes to get to that place? And it is absolutely okay if the answer is no or if it's, I'm willing to do this piece and this piece, but I can tell you for sure this piece is not a match.
And to do that, you need to know yourself, know your core values. Really sink into your identity. Be open for change. Be open to the wisdom, but have some boundaries. Have the courage to push back and go, no, there is more than one way to get the same result and to have that courage to pursue the [00:10:00] way that you want to go.
Even if there's no one else in your life that understands it. They might even judge you and tell you, you are crazy, an absolute fool, because these people are star makers. Don't you want the path they're offering? And here's the truth, if I had had this meeting 10 years ago, I would've done the path as this person suggested because I wanted it then. I think I was hungry then. I wanted the star power. I wanted the fame. My ego just would've ate it up. But this chapter that I'm at right now in my life, I can be really honest and go, I don't think I need those things. I don't even think I want those things.
It's just not important to me, and so I had to really process that. And I'm not gonna lie, I cried in my cornflakes for that night. I was, I had a [00:11:00] ticket on the pity party, express and toot toot. I rode that thing to the end of the line. I called some friends and I told them what happened, and I'm like, please tell me, you know, give me your take on it.
And am I being foolish not to accept this plan immediately? Is there truth to what I've been told, because I felt a little gaslit almost, and completely misunderstood, and I needed to be grounded again. And I love my friends for holding the space for me because it's so important. We have these people in our lives that are our ride and die besties that know us, the real us.
They can provide a little grounding and some loving feedback when the feedback you've gotten from others is painful and it hurts. Doesn't mean it's necessarily wrong, but it may [00:12:00] just sting a little . And so I very much appreciate these ride or die besties that could hold the space for me, because that is the role I usually play for other people.
I am the one that holds the space for others. And so there's a lesson in that too. You don't always have to be the strong one. Reach out to people when you need it, and we all need it because we're all human. But I hope you found value in this story. And if you're going through something similar where you are feeling judged a little beat down by someone in your life or by the world in general, that you're feeling like a misfit, that you don't belong, that people don't understand you, I promise you there is a way forward.
And there is a way out of that. And if right now you need someone to be your ride or die bestie and to hold that space for you because you feel you can't admit it to anyone else. Or you just don't [00:13:00] have someone in your life that you can cry in your corn flakes about that is going to still respect you when you're falling apart. I wanna offer myself as tribute, okay? I want to offer myself and my services to you to be that space where you can do that in a safe way, who can bring you back to grounded wisdom help you see the real you, and to discard all these pieces that are in essence someone else's opinion and someone else's story.
So I can help you find your own story by navigating all through the subconscious stuff. The programming, the conditioning that you may have taken on throughout many experiences in your life. We'll dig it out. We'll examine it. We'll release it, and we're gonna rebalance you in a way that makes you feel good again, not like you're beaten down by life, because I don't [00:14:00] like feeling that way, and I don't want you to feel that way.
So if you would like to learn more about how we can work together in that way. Go to aprildarley.com and book a free consultation with me. You'll learn about my one-to-one coaching program, *Decode*. This is a private space. I meet you where you're at, and we really get to the heart of you and your story and help you let go of all this junk that is not doing you any favors. It's acting like lead shoes on your own star power. When you are ready to go bigger, faster, better, and when you just get rid of this junk, you get there. Alright, my friends, I am wishing you so much love this week and I'll see you next time. Bye-bye.
