Top 5 Artists with Unwavering Self-Belief
Whether you call it ego, self-belief, confidence or arrogance, something inside you is needed if you’re to be a musical artist and performer, if only to cope with media scrutiny and online trolls (in addition to needing to stand on stage and entertain stadiums full of tens of thousands of people).
1. Madonna
In 1983 when a young Madonna was asked on American Bandstand what her ambitions might be, she said, “To rule the world.” And looking at her decade-spanning career, one could say she succeeded. This self-belief has carried her through the years – in 1991 she told Vanity Fair: “I am my own work of art” and in a powerful speech at the 2016
Billboard Women in Music ceremony, she proclaimed, “There is no real safety except self-belief.”
Focus on the things you can change and control and plan ahead for next time. Failures and mistakes are inevitable, it’s how you grow from them that counts.
2. John Lennon
In a candid and honest interview with Rolling Stone in 1970, just as he was about to launch his solo career Lennon famously said, “If there’s such a thing as genius — I am one. And if there isn’t, I don’t care.” We can’t argue with that.
3. Lady Gaga
There’s no doubting the talent and work ethic of this megastar and in her own words she was simply born this way, proclaiming in an interview, “Some people are just born stars, you either have it or you haven’t and I was definitely born one.”
4. Noel Gallagher
Both Liam and Noel Gallagher seemed to have the self-confidence gene, with Noel once being quoted as saying, “We’re not arrogant, we just believe we’re the best band in the world.”
He famously went on to say, “Look. I was a superhero in the 90s. I said so at the time. McCartney, Weller, Townshend, Richards, my first album’s better than all their first albums. Even they’d admit that.” None of them have admitted that and at Rock n Roll Business we don’t pick favourites – they’re all geniuses.
5. Kanye West
Number 1 was always going to be Kanye wasn’t it…
The king of self-belief has famously declared that he is, “God’s vessel” and compared himself to Warhol, Shakespeare, Walt Disney, Google and Nike amongst others. Kanye’s unwavering faith in himself has helped him thrive – he’s a multi-award-winning artist, producer, businessman, fashion designer and politician and is worth $1.8bn.
He famously said – “If I don’t believe in myself, how should I expect anyone else to believe in me”
This is absolutely right – you must believe in yourself before others do. If you’re not born with it then you can still try to build it and our business lesson on Self-Belief has lots of tips, from surrounding yourself with the right people to exercising a positive mindset.