Happy Mondays
Leading life and happiness coach
THE Shakespearean quote “To thine own self be true” is one of those sayings that loses its potency through common use. Who else are we to be true to if not ourselves? But knowing who we are, what we want and what we stand for can be a lifetime’s journey. We never get to the end of ourselves.
There is a huge responsibility for each of us to know who we are and to follow our own path and not get lost in the comfort but cowardice of the herd. There is also great reward for those who dare to discover their unique path and life’s purpose: living in one’s values makes for a life of authenticity and integrity.
Last week Brit singer Sam Smith, below, scooped four Grammys at a prestigious awards ceremony in LA. At just 22 he seems like a precocious new talent storming the entertainment world but Sam’s success has been a long time coming, via several circuitous routes.
From the age of 12 he was spending time after school having singing lessons mimicking his vocal idols Luther Vandross and Aretha Franklin and for years struggled to fi t in and get professional recognition as a singer.
Finally deciding to slipstream into his own experiences of heartbreak and unrequited love, to come out as gay and to accept his own body shape ( after trying many diets) he wrote the soulful ballads which have become his trademark.
It takes courage and faith to fi nd one’s own voice and style and understand the primal truth that who we are is “enough”. It was a similar story for Scots artist Jack Vettriano. He’s the painter behind the ubiquitous The Singing Butler – a favourite for wedding anniversary greetings cards. His works now sell for six fi gures and Jack Nicholson, among others, is an avid collector. But he was once the painterly equivalent of a hack turning out passable copies of old masters and mimicking the style of the greats, earning peanuts and getting nowhere at the speed of light.
Eventually he took to his garden shed studio and sat there in isolation for three months asking himself some big questions. Then he started to paint again, only differently. This time it was in his own style and conjuring up images that excited and inspired him and represented his vision. In short, creating works that were the essence of himself.
It was a huge risk but he turned a corner and fame and abundance were his.
Author Truman Capote, working as a teenager on The New Yorker magazine in the 1940s, was getting nowhere with his short stories, aping the style of the top writers of the day. Returning home to small town Alabama he decided to concentrate on what he knew: the quirky characters and sultriness of the Deep South which bordered on the supernatural. His fi rst novel Other Voices, Other Rooms teleported him into what appeared to be an “overnight” international literary success. Cutting through the psychic monkey chatter, identifying and honouring our true voice and daring to commit to it is an act of naked bravery that really is our duty to discover and invest in for ourselves.