I don’t care what it is. If you’re good at something and you love it, you’ll find a way to make money at it
if you persevere.
Whoever started Sprinkles Cupcakes was probably someone who loved making cupcakes. I saw a story on CNN about some girls in
Denver who do crochet bombing. Their mothers or grandmothers taught them how to knit, and now they go around throwing these
beautiful crochet pieces over lampposts and architectural landmarks and taking pictures of what they created. They even put
giant leg warmers on a statue of two dancers outside Denver’s performing arts center. It looked amazing. These girls have
a book out, and they’re actually making money off this crazy idea. So someone in that crowd, who maybe wasn’t as good at crocheting
as the rest of her crew, was more business minded and started thinking creatively about ways they could tell the world about
this new phenomenon they’d started. They said, “Guess what, we can make a video and put it on YouTube! We can go on CNN.”
They had their very own Shakim!
Most people don’t have so much talent that they can become a success all on their own. We all need people to help us and lift
us up. And other people need our help. When you put that together, you can create something really powerful.
When you’re trying to reinvent yourself, it’s important to connect with people who can bring out your strengths or who have
strengths where you have weaknesses. You don’t have to do it alone. There are so many creative people out there who are not
tapping into their true abilities, and they have people around them who are probably feeling just as lost and scared as they
are. Maybe they’re about to lose a job, and they’re wondering what to do next. But if you get together and talk about it,
you may be just one conversation away from a great idea. Do some research, go on the Internet, make some calls, put in some
time, and have the courage to take it to another level.
And don’t tell me you’re too old to try something new. The best teacher is a great student, so you should never stop learning.
I don’t care how old you are. My mother just turned sixty, and she’s taking piano lessons for the first time. When I was a
kid, I wanted to be a doctor. I’m not squeamish—I’m fascinated by the human body and anything to do with medicine and the
natural world. Anyone would assume that path is no longer open to me, but not so fast. One of my favorite reality shows is
TLC’s
Trauma: Life in the E.R.
, and a couple of years ago I saw an episode about a forty-year-old medical intern. Most of his peers were half his age. But
he just loved medicine and always wanted to be a doctor, so
midcareer he decided to go to medical school. He’s probably the
oldest intern in the country and much greener than doctors who are years younger than him, but he has a lifetime of experiences
he brings to what he does now, and that gives a whole other level of depth to what he does that his twenty-five-year-old colleagues
don’t have. And he brings a passion to his work, because he appreciates this opportunity he’s been given to practice medicine
later in life. He’ll be successful because he had the guts and determination to follow his dream and make it happen.
In these times, you just can’t assume that one job or career will sustain you for the rest of your life. Like Oprah said,
you have to jump off the ship before it sinks. Don’t be the person who stands there and watches it until it’s bubbling under
the water.
Ladies, I know I don’t need to tell you, there is no such thing as job security anymore. That’s why you shouldn’t let a job
define you. That’s just a part of who you are, not the whole package. That’s also why you need to diversify. Just like your
investment portfolio should have stocks, bonds, a 401(k), and a savings account, you need to mix it up so that if one thing
drops, you still have other stuff to fall back on. We’ve known this in the music business for a long time. A rapper who just
raps isn’t going to have much of a career. From the time he starts rhyming, he’s
thinking about ways to expand his brand with
merchandising and endorsement deals—if he’s smart. Record sales alone won’t sustain him for the rest of his life, unless he
happens to be Jay-Z, and even Jay makes his money from a million other things besides his music.
I never really planned to do all of the things I do. But I’m one of these people who crave variety. Case in point: I love
Asian food and tapas. My friends laugh at me when we go to a restaurant because I always have to order a few appetizers and
entrées to share. I always want to taste a little of this and a little of that, especially if it’s something I’ve never tried
before. The first time I went to Germany, I sat myself down at a local bar and tried nineteen different beers. Obviously I
didn’t drink the whole bottle, but I wanted to sample everything, because I’d heard Germany was the place for beer. I love
experiencing all the foods, music, fashion, art, and architecture of different cultures. But half of the people who are with
me will eat only at McDonald’s, because it’s what they know and they don’t like venturing into unfamiliar territory. What
a waste.
I feel the same way about my career. That’s why I called my last album
Persona
, with multiple versions of myself on the cover and a blend of different musical styles in each song. It was my way of saying,
“You
can’t define me.” And there are so many more things I want to try before I die.
People ask me how I managed to reinvent myself so many times over the years. They see all the things I do, and they assume
they are second, third, and fourth acts. But the fact is, all the things you see me doing-—my rapping, singing, and acting,
the talk show, my brand building—were things I always had in me. I just didn’t have the opportunity to show them all at once.
Reinventing yourself isn’t becoming a different person. It’s bringing out all the things you have inside of you in another
way. I knew I wanted to be more than just a hip-hop artist. I thought maybe I’d rap and have my own management business on
the side. But you never know where life is going to take you. There are so many roads, and sometimes they lead you to places
you’d never imagine. The thing about following your passion and living in the moment is that you’re able to see more openings
than most people and have the courage to jump through those doors.
I was lucky. I grew up in a home where my parents were always encouraging me to try my best and just go for it. Didn’t matter
what it was or whether I was brilliant at it, as long as I gave it my all. That made me unafraid to fail. I had the courage
to try different things purely out of a curiosity or a passion, and as long as I applied myself and gave it 100 percent, Mom
and Dad were always proud. I might have come home cut from a team or upset that I’d stumbled at something, but they’d dry
my tears and say, “Did you try your best?” And if I said, “Yeah, I did try my best,” they’d say, “Well then, good for you!
Be proud of yourself!” And I was.
My dad, Lancelot Owens, was determined that I would never cower in a corner. If I wanted to try something, he told me to just
go out and do it, no excuses. When we were growing up, my father treated my brother, Winki, and me as equals. If Dad and Winki
were playing football, I was playing football. If Winki was going to a dojo to take a martial arts course, I was gonna learn
a few defensive moves, too. Why not? Because I was a girl? Didn’t matter. Dad wanted to build up the competitor in me. He
was a cop and a Vietnam veteran, and he wanted both of his kids to develop a certain strength of character.
He wanted me to
have the confidence to be able to stand up for myself in the mean streets of Newark. He used to say to me, “Dana, just because
you’re a girl, don’t ever let anybody tell you that you can’t. I know you can!” For a black man of his generation, that was
pretty progressive. My dad’s always been about equal opportunity. And like equality, opportunity isn’t limited to gender or
race or anything else. You make your own opportunities.
My parents gave me the foundation. But I was especially fortunate to have Shakim with me from the beginning. He always knew
what I was capable of. We’ve been friends since I was fifteen and he was sixteen going on seventeen. He was a student in my
mother’s art class at Irvington High School. He’s seen me sing, rap, act, joke around, and hold my own in conversations with
people from all kinds of backgrounds. He’s seen me be outgoing. He’s seen me show up when it was time to show up. He knew
me in a way the rest of the world had yet to witness at the beginning of my career. He knew that the acting bug bit me when
I was in a school play, and he encouraged me to pursue it. He knew that I didn’t want to be just
an R&B singer and that I
loved jazz. He knew before I did that I’d be just as capable of hosting my own talk show as I am at developing a new line
of cosmetics or perfume or clothing. So what looked like reinventions were really just moments when I had the right time and
opportunity to let all these things inside me out into the universe. A lot of the time, Sha’s job is to make sure those doors
are open to me. He’s been amazing at providing me with a road to follow.
We all need someone in our lives who can see what we’re capable of and bring it out in us. So don’t shut anyone out. Everyone
can be a friend, and anyone might be able to help. There’s an old saying, “A wise person knows many things, but a successful
person knows many people.” We can’t do it alone. Other people can change our lives and take us a lot further than we ever
thought we could go. That’s what Shakim did for me.
A lot of people in my business are surrounded by yes-men and -women. There’s always someone around you to pump you up and
tell you everything you do is great. They blow smoke up your behind and tell you, “Oh, you’re so cool, you’re so funny,” you’re
so this, you’re so that. You rarely hear the word “no.” And what that does is create a false identity. When people are telling
you “yes” all day, you never get a sense of who you are or where you really stand. But I have
real people in my life who let
me know. They pat me on my back when I do good and spank me when I do bad. That’s Shakim. He always tells me the truth. He’s
my barometer.
I’m very involved in my career and pretty clear about where I stand, but Sha helps me stay close to what the truth is. He
lets me know when I’m deficient in something, and he tells me what people think and what the temperature is on certain things.
He helps me keep it all in perspective, so I never think I am bigger or smaller than I really am.
You need to start with that. It’s important for us to figure out who we are as quickly as possible. We need to be clear on
what we are and are not willing to stand for, deal with, or put up with. We need to decide who we want to be seen as. The
quicker you figure out your insecurities, deal with them, and learn how to love yourself, warts and all, the better off you’ll
be. Because then you’ll be making decisions and choices based upon your authentic self. You’ll have the confidence to chase
down your dreams instead of phoning in whatever it is you think you’re supposed to be doing.
I have confidence to spare, but that doesn’t mean I’m great at everything I do. I don’t make a record expecting to go platinum.
I make music because something inside me is aching to get out, not because I have to make the top ten on the
Billboard
charts (although a hit is always nice). My first records only went gold, but they were enough to launch a twenty-year career.
One of the albums I did,
Order in the Court
, didn’t turn out like I’d hoped. To be honest, it was pretty mediocre. The record label was going through a whole regime
change, and the album didn’t get the kind of support it could have. And musically, I was trying to do something a little different
that didn’t quite work. But I was okay with that, because I know I gave it everything I had, and the experience taught me
things that made me better.
My talk show wasn’t a raving success, either. If it was, I’d still be doing it. Things got really heavy with my guests and
the studio audience. Every day I felt like a doctor going into the ER, and you lose patients sometimes. It’s exhausting, because
after that you have to go home, process what happened, dust yourself off, and come into work the next day ready to save lives
again. Again, I tried my best. But you can’t beat Oprah at her game.
The movies I made weren’t always huge box office or critical successes. Sure, I want them to earn millions at the box office
on opening weekend, but it doesn’t always work out that way. I show up on time, prepared and ready to go. I remember my lines,
hit my marks, and deliver my performance to the best of my ability, with all the heart, authenticity, and emotion that the
role requires. I work well with my co-workers, shoot the stills, go on the press junkets, and do everything I can to promote
the movie in every possible way. I can’t say what the studio does or what the director, producer, or some other actor does,
but I sleep at night knowing I did my best. If a particular movie doesn’t go so well, I can’t say anything about the audience.
Maybe ours was released in eight hundred theaters and another one was released on the same day in two thousand theaters. But
two years later, if people find it on cable and decide it’s their favorite movie from me, I’ll know it’s because I did my
best. It’s going to show.
It might not be when or how you want it to happen, but you don’t have to feel bad about it. Try your best, then you can let
that thing go and try something
else. Just be sure to finish what you start. See it all the way through, and don’t give up
so easily. It’s human nature to want immediate satisfaction, but sometimes these things work out best on God’s schedule, not
your own. And sometimes His plan is a lot more interesting than anything we can come up with ourselves. It’s hard to see it
at the time, but maybe losing a job is a blessing, because it frees you up to pursue something that you find more fulfilling.
Maybe you wouldn’t have done it if your back hadn’t been against the wall.