To be yourself in a world that\u00a0is constantly trying to make you something else, is the greatest\u00a0accomplishment.<\/p>\n
Ralph Waldo
Emerson<\/p>\n
Among my shiny ghostwriting clients,\u00a0I\u2019ve been fortunate to work with some of the most influential singers\/songwriters\u00a0of my era. Diana Ross. Kenny Loggins. Grace Slick. John Densmore. I\u2019ve taken away\u00a0some powerful lessons from each of them that have permanently influenced my\u00a0life.<\/p>\n
Diana Ross taught me to ignore the\u00a0rumor mill. I\u2019d heard she was difficult but that wasn\u2019t my experience. She\u00a0couldn\u2019t have been lovelier, worked harder or been more respectful.<\/p>\n
Kenny Loggins showed me how to be a\u00a0leader with someone who is used to leading. It took perseverance to keep him within\u00a0the parameters of what we were doing and to stay on the same page.<\/p>\n
John Densmore, drummer of the\u00a0legendary Doors, showed up with no rock and roll ego. He cared about the\u00a0poorest of the poor, and he had a great sense of humor. I worked with him on \u00a0two of his books and I hope there are more.<\/p>\n
Grace Slick, lead singer of\u00a0Jefferson Airplane, taught me the most important lesson of all. To be myself.\u00a0No compromises. When I worked with her, I got to witness someone who was\u00a0unapologetically authentic at all times, for better or worse. She was
consistent and I never had to wonder what she was feeling.<\/p>\n
I went to see the Bob Dylan movie this\u00a0week, \u201cA Complete Unknown.\u201d Timoth\u00e9e\u00a0Chalamet was brilliant. I\u2019ve never seen an actor embody the man he was playing with more skill and consistency. Dylan\u2019s music was one of the backdrops of my life in the seventies and I recalled his dedication to being totally himself at all times. As I watched the movie, he reminded me of Grace as he continuously, never deliberately, pissed people off. Nothing threw him off his center, not in his youth or as he aged. He didn\u2019t care what people thought of him or asked of him. He never swayed from who he was.<\/p>\n
It’s a gift to be who you are, but we\u2019re\u00a0not always sure. Being authentic is hard to define in a society of comparisons\u00a0and one-upping. Who has the most money? Who is the prettiest? The most
handsome? Who is the smartest? Who has the biggest house? Who has the most\u00a0famous friends? Who has the most followers? Whose life is better than mine? I\u00a0never saw an Instagram post where someone talked about the worst day of their lives.\u00a0About feeling like shit and being depressed. It\u2019s hard to be real in a world\u00a0where people try to appear happy and strong, even when they feel sad and weak.\u00a0If we think we\u2019re supposed to be happy all the time, that\u2019s a recipe for unhappiness.\u00a0If we think we have to be strong all the time, we won\u2019t learn how to soothe\u00a0ourselves.<\/p>\n
For me, being real is not a thought\u00a0or a New Year\u2019s Resolution. It\u2019s a feeling. A vibe. A sense that you\u2019re not battling\u00a0with yourself. You\u2019re not comparing yourself to anyone else. You\u2019re accepting yourself
and seeing how it feels to be in your own skin instead of trying to jump into\u00a0somone else\u2019s. To know what you want and what you don\u2019t want. To say yes when\u00a0you mean yes and no when you mean no. To be yourself whether or not you like it and whether to not anyone else likes it.<\/p>\n
The thing that is really hard\u00a0and really amazing,<\/p>\n
is giving up on being perfect,And beginning the work of
becoming yourself.- – Anna Quindlan<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
To be yourself in a world that\u00a0is constantly trying to make you something else, is the greatest\u00a0accomplishment. Ralph WaldoEmerson Among my shiny ghostwriting clients,\u00a0I\u2019ve been fortunate to work with some of the most influential singers\/songwriters\u00a0of my era. Diana Ross. Kenny Loggins. Grace Slick. John Densmore. I\u2019ve taken away\u00a0some powerful lessons from each of them that […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":2595,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2596","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2596","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2596"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2596\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2597,"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2596\/revisions\/2597"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2595"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2596"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2596"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2596"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}