--:-- Mel Robbins: Hey, welcome to the Mel Robbins podcast. Oh, I didn't even tell you who I am. It's Mel Robbins, your friend. And welcome. Let's do this thing.
--:-- Mel Robbins: I'm all spun around. I'm sorry. I have had one hell of a weekend. I was in Tampa on Friday and I was giving the opening keynote at an event that my publisher Hay House was putting on. First event that they've put on in three years. The theme was "I Can Do It." And when they told me that my keynote was going to begin at around eight o'clock, my first thought was, "I can't do that. I am in bed by 9 p.m." I'm basically a great grandmother at this point when it comes to how tired I get at the end of the day. But I rallied. So I got on that stage and I delivered a really great talk about this sentence: "I can do it."
--:-- Mel Robbins: I want to break down this simple sentence, "I can do it." The reason why this is such a powerful sentence is because every single word has a very important meaning for you. "I" refers to the fact that you're personally responsible for your life. No one's coming. It's up to you. As soon as you embrace this very scary notion that "I am responsible for what happens next in my life," you will start taking responsibility for how you spend your time, what you do, and the goals that you have. That's really important.
--:-- Mel Robbins: "I can." "Can" is all about belief. "I can" means you believe that you can do it. So take responsibility, believe in yourself. "Do." I'm the queen of "do." And "do" means you got to do something. It's not enough to believe. It's not enough to say you're responsible. At some point, you got to put your money where your mouth is, put your ass on the line, and take action.
--:-- Mel Robbins: And now the last word: "it." "I can do it." What is "it"? If you don't have an "it," you don't have shit. Not that poetic, but it's true. The "it" represents your North Star. What I've found over the years is that almost everyone who gets stuck, feels lost, or wants to make a change is missing one of these four things. Either you're not taking responsibility for your life, or you don't believe in yourself, or you're not taking action, or you have no North Star. Or all four of them in some cases.
--:-- Mel Robbins: Today, I want to talk to you about the importance of a North Star. What is a North Star in your life? I'm going to give you a couple examples of two North Stars that I have. One that has been a North Star forever: The Rock. The Rock is a North Star for me. I'll explain more as we jump into this. The other North Star is a woman I just met. Hi, Michelle. I'd never met her before in my entire life. She came walking up to me in the lobby. She shared a story about how she is a major fan of this podcast and that she just completed a freaking... is it an Ironman? A marathon? She listened to the podcast as a way to keep her going for the race and for her training. Michelle immediately became my North Star: a woman in her late fifties, taking names, kicking ass. Biceps like taut, juicy Italian sausage lengths, not like these flabby sausages I've got that look like freaking meat wings. She was so ripped and vibrant. North Star, Michelle. Thank you, thank you, thank you.
--:-- Mel Robbins: That's the cool thing about North Stars. You don't have to know the person. They don't have to be famous. You don't have to have every aspect of their life be something that is your North Star. It could be just one thing that they do or one aspect of their business. There's so much power when you allow another person to be a beacon of inspiration and hope. We're going to unpack how you do that today.
--:-- Mel Robbins: I'm excited to have this conversation because I have a brand new, hot off the presses thing to teach you. I've only known about this thing for about 10 days. I learned it from my daughter of all places. The thing I'm referring to is: once you know you're "it," once you've identified a North Star that you want to point your life, effort, or energy toward, I'm going to hand you this super cool three-part framework. You could call it a process, you could call it steps. It is three separate phases you need to go through as you close the gap between you and that North Star.
--:-- Mel Robbins: To help me do that, I have invited Amy, who is a dear friend of mine. She is also one of the senior producers at 143 Studios. She's been on the podcast before. We know and love Amy.
--:-- Amy: Hey, everyone.
--:-- Mel Robbins: I'm also inviting our daughter, Kendall, to be here because Kendall has two North Stars for her career. She has also just been through a curriculum that she's going to explain to you, grounded in three pillars: how you close the gap between you and your North Star. Whether your North Star is somebody as enormous as The Rock, Beyoncé, James Patterson, Colleen Hoover, Taylor Swift, or anybody. Or maybe it's just somebody that has this amazing way about them. Today, we're going to break that down. We are going to learn from Kendall how to use this three-step curriculum as a framework for you to close the gap so you can draw those qualities that you love into your life and make them your own.
--:-- Mel Robbins: All right, let's do this. So let's start, Ken, by you telling everybody: what is that North Star, that goal that you want to achieve in your career?
--:-- Kendall: I would like to be a professional recording and touring artist.
--:-- Mel Robbins: One of the reasons why I wanted you to be in this conversation, Ken, is because you're in the middle of that process. You've just spent four years going through these three pillars in a program that is helping you get closer and closer to achieving that goal. For me personally, I love learning from people that are just steps ahead of me. It's so much more accessible to me when I see somebody that's been doing the work and they're on the road ahead of me. It's great that all these celebrities and recording artists and famous people get on these podcasts and tell us their stories. But often for me, when I'm looking at somebody that has already achieved the top of the top, it feels so far away from me.
--:-- Mel Robbins: For you listening, the reason why I wanted you to learn this three-step process is because I believe you can use this framework to help you achieve absolutely anything in your life. All change is an act of creation. Ken, I wanted to talk to you because you've just spent four years working on this. You're in the process. You still have a lot to do to achieve what you want to achieve. I just want to thank you for being here and for sharing what you've learned and what you have yet to learn on this journey to becoming a professional recording and touring artist. Can you explain to everybody a little bit about the past four years at USC and the three pillars of this creative process that you just learned?
--:-- Kendall: So I was a popular music vocalist at the Thornton School of Music. The process that I'm about to explain to you is the underpinnings of the Thornton School of Music program and the basis of our entire curriculum. I will give credit to Chris Sampson, the founder of the program. Love you. He's the one that shined some light on this process for me, gave it a name, and gave it context. So thank you.
--:-- Kendall: In order to tell you how I used a process that is the underpinnings of my entire program, a process you can all use to get wherever you want in life—whether you're an interior designer, a banker, a mom, a sister, or an artist like me—you can use this process in your life to close the gap between where you're at currently and where you want to go. It's what we do at Thornton for four years. Then we learn how to do it ourselves so we can create whatever we want. The process is three steps: emulation, assimilation, and innovation.
--:-- Kendall: Emulation means to imitate, to match or surpass some kind of achievement that you want. That means pick a North Star and break it down. Something that you're inspired by. Pick somewhere you want to go. Pick somebody who has more money than you that you want. Pick somebody that has a house you want. Anything. For me, I picked Sara Bareilles and Brandy, who are two of my favorite artists, and I broke them down. They're both strong, powerful, fierce. They both can songwrite. They can sing. They can play instruments. They can arrange. They can produce. They're advocates. They are powerful in their career. They collaborate, those kinds of things.
--:-- Kendall: Once I broke them down, then it was time for me to assimilate, which is step two. Assimilate is the 10,000-hour rule.
--:-- Mel Robbins: Step one, you find a North Star. You can't start the emulation phase until you have a North Star. I don't think so. Wow. You got to have somewhere to go. Can you start the emulation process by simply saying, "I just don't want to be where I am"?
--:-- Kendall: Yes. But I think it gives you an anchor when you have somewhere to go. It could just be the opposite of where you are. If you're somebody who is... you know what I'm saying?
--:-- Mel Robbins: Amy, what are you thinking?
--:-- Amy: I think the emulation phase is so brilliant because picking the North Star is something I think a lot of people don't even realize they can do. They just feel like, "This is me. This is who I'm always going to be. I can't change who I am. I'm not really sure about learning new skills." They don't even think about doing the research, looking at other people. I just think that alone is brilliant. That alone gives you that step up to the person who you want to become. You can just look at them and figure out how they did it. Brilliant. Like, duh.
--:-- Mel Robbins: Or say that you're the person you want to be more like, your North Star, whatever you want to call it, is Bill Gates. You might not want to be exactly like him in all walks of life, but there might be one thing he does that you want to emulate. It doesn't have to be their entire persona.
--:-- Kendall: For me, for my specific project, it was because I was obsessed with and in love with their artistry, which is what I want to emulate. But for you, it can be one tiny sliver of somebody's character.
--:-- Mel Robbins: I have somebody like that. Do you have somebody like that, Amy?
--:-- Amy: I have a tiny sliver example, but I want to hear yours.
--:-- Mel Robbins: No, I want to hear yours first.
--:-- Amy: Well, you look like you don't want to say it out loud. Now I'm like, why did I say this? Because I have to reveal my dirty secret, which is I used to watch the Housewives series on Bravo, like all the time.
--:-- Mel Robbins: Really?
--:-- Mel Robbins: Does our producer Andrea know that?
--:-- Amy: Yes, she knows. Because she used to be Andy Cohen's VP. She and I have a lot of deep conversations about that. Anyway, a very simple example. I remember there was one woman on the show that was controversial and messing things up, but also really super fun and kind. I noticed she would say a couple of words that I would never say to people. And it's not what you think. She would call people "love." Like say, "Hey, love, how are you today? How are you doing?" I just thought that was the kindest, most beautiful thing to say to somebody. "Oh, thanks, love." This is a super tiny sliver, but she was my North Star. I got up the courage to start talking like her and start being really open and being kinder to people. Now that's a part of my vernacular. I say that all the time. "Hey, love, how's it going?" That was not me in the beginning. That was not who I was. I'm really glad that I did that without knowing the entire process. That's what I did. I feel good about that.
--:-- Mel Robbins: Do you have one you want to commence now? A thing that I want to start doing now?
--:-- Amy: Probably get to the point a little faster.
--:-- Mel Robbins: I know. Yes. What is it?
--:-- Amy: It would be from the school of rock-hard bodies and incredible muscular abs. That's the school I would want to graduate from.
--:-- Mel Robbins: I want to do a little bit of a body makeover. You know what I mean?
--:-- Mel Robbins: Who would I emulate? Who's your dream body North Star?
--:-- Amy: I'd have to check my Instagram and get their real names, but yeah. Gwyneth Paltrow.
--:-- Mel Robbins: Okay. Or Jennifer Aniston.
--:-- Amy: More of a realistic for me.
--:-- Mel Robbins: Thanks.
--:-- Mel Robbins: I wasn't sure if we were going... Thanks, love. I wasn't sure if we were maybe going...
--:-- Mel Robbins: I like that. Same age. No, it was risky waters that you jumped into and you did it. So that was nice. Jennifer Aniston is my dream body.
--:-- Amy: Okay. So now we're on the same page. Now you know what I'm talking about.
--:-- Mel Robbins: Her and just go with it. The Hawaii scene.
--:-- Amy: There you go. You want to be like that.
--:-- Mel Robbins: I think I need to look that up now. I don't ever recall seeing her in a bathing suit. We'll stitch that in. Okay. So anyway, let's say that she is your dream body as she is mine. So you break her down. What does she do? She does a lot of yoga. A lot of yoga. And every single thing she does. You don't have to do every single little thing, but learn a lot about what she does and start to assimilate it. That's step two.
--:-- Mel Robbins: Start to weave it into your own makeup, into your own being, into your own everyday life.
--:-- Kendall: Do yoga more, eat more greens, whatever she's doing.
--:-- Mel Robbins: Then at the end, innovate. You're going to have to put your own Amy twist on it because what you need to do to get your dream body is not going to be exactly what she's going to do.
--:-- Amy: That makes a ton of sense.
--:-- Mel Robbins: Let's hear a word from our sponsors real quick. When we come back, Ken, I got another question for you because I'm really curious about this North Star moment. Once you determined that Brandy Norwood and Sara Bareilles were your North Stars, I want you to see if you can break down the exact steps that you took next. I think it'll help all of us apply this to our lives. Stay with us. We'll be right back.
--:-- Mel Robbins: Welcome back. I'm Mel Robbins. I'm so thrilled that you're here with us. I'm sitting here with two people I love: our daughter, Kendall Robbins, who just graduated from University of Southern California, and one of my closest friends, Amy, who also works for 143 Studios. We've been talking about identifying a North Star, which is a person that you really admire or want to emulate in your own life. Our daughter, Kendall, had just explained that she had identified that Brandy Norwood and Sara Bareilles were her North Stars when she decided she wanted to be a singer-songwriter.
--:-- Mel Robbins: So Ken, once you had those two identified, what the heck do you do next? What's the step-by-step process?
--:-- Kendall: Now it was time for me to learn how to be a producer, how to be an arranger, how to be an advocate, how to collaborate, all of those kinds of things that I didn't already have. That will be the biggest chunk of your journey and will take a long time. For me, it took up to four years. It's a lifelong journey. It will take for the rest of my time on this earth.
--:-- Kendall: Once I was done assimilating those qualities that, for example, Brandy Norwood and Sara Bareilles have in their artistry and in their humanity, it was time for me to create something of my own. Once I had all the skills to be a producer, an arranger, an advocate, a collaborator, a songwriter, and a singer, I then went and created my own music. Inherently, it will have my own twist on it and my own flavors of Kendall Robbins on it that Brandy Norwood and Sara Bareilles will never have. That's just the beauty of creating something of your own: it will always be a reflection of you because you're the art.
--:-- Mel Robbins: This process—I'm going to line it out for you one more time. Emulation, number one. Assimilation, number two. Innovation, number three. I think this is fascinating. I can see how I can do this in my life, which is why I'm glad we're talking about this, especially with the example that you gave, Amy. But for the sake of everyone listening, can you make this even more granular, Ken, especially that first part? I know that's where we're all going to get tripped up. How do you get started once you have the North Star, that kind of person or that thing that you want to emulate, that phase where you start imitating? How do you get moving on that?
--:-- Kendall: I can explain my program and how it's structured that way.
--:-- Mel Robbins: In the three pillars. Will you do that?
--:-- Kendall: First and second year of USC in my program, it's popular music performance. There are popular music performance vocalists, popular music performance songwriters, bass players, drummers, guitar players, piano players, etc. Instrumentalists and singers. Our professors put you into bands: one drummer, three singers, one bass player. They assign you different songs per week. The repertoire begins in the 50s all the way through early 2000s into present day pop songs that we cover in class.
--:-- Kendall: On the first week of class, you get songs from the 50s and the 60s. They assign these songs to you and you learn them. You learn how to emulate them, how to imitate them. You were graded on if you're a drummer, can you imitate that drum technique and pattern of that exact artist? They're making it down to the 16th note, down to the millisecond of the song. How accurately can you imitate it? How accurately can you replicate what the original instrumentalist or artist or group of artists did together? You're graded based on how accurately you can emulate it.
--:-- Kendall: For me, it was the intonation, the phrasing, the riffs, the runs, the notes. For the first two years of my program, that's all we did. The 10,000-hour rule. Every single song we were assigned, that was the objective. It wasn't to sound like Kendall. It wasn't to be the best I could be and do all my runs and do all my riffs and belt as much as I could. It was to sound exactly like the artist. The point of that is so you can start to understand the building blocks of popular music.
--:-- Mel Robbins: For any of you listeners, it could be to just understand where you want to go. You talked about closing that gap, Kendall. When you see the gap from somebody like a Sara Bareilles or a Brandy Norwood, I still feel very, very far from that. I'm not going to sugarcoat it. But is there a difference in how you view the gap?
--:-- Kendall: I'm already there.
--:-- Mel Robbins: What do you mean?
--:-- Kendall: I feel like I already have all of the skills that I need to have to be a professional recording touring artist. I'm just getting closer and closer to her and building and building and building. I think I already have the skills and the tools and the knowledge. It's just figuring out how to apply them in a way that gets me to where I want to go.
--:-- Mel Robbins: I don't think that we should call it a gap. "Gap" implies that it's a loss, and it's not.
--:-- Kendall: Yes. The most beautiful thing in life is that space because you're going to grow, you're going to learn, you're going to fail, you're going to screw up, you're going to meet people you love, meet people you hate, meet friends you don't want. But thinking about it as a gap, you're never going to get there if you think about it as a gap. It's the road you get to travel. It's about the journey.
--:-- Mel Robbins: Think about it as gaining something.
--:-- Kendall: It's like a lily pad effect. Every lily pad you light up is yours now to keep.
--:-- Mel Robbins: One of the things that I found to be really interesting is that Sara Bareilles and Brandy Norwood were your North Star, but then you divided them into three categories: character, skill, and what was the other one?
--:-- Mel Robbins: Career. By dividing it into categories, you now made it concrete. What are the skills that I need to gain? What are the character attributes I need to gain? What are the aspects of their career in terms of their experience that I need to gain?
--:-- Kendall: Let me just correct you: not "need," "want."
--:-- Mel Robbins: Great. That I want to gain. Why is it important to say "want" versus "need"?
--:-- Kendall: Because "need" implies that if you don't have it, you're at a loss. You don't need it. You just want it. And that's beautiful.
--:-- Mel Robbins: I think one, it's more motivating.
--:-- Mel Robbins: I'm curious though, because not everybody wants to be a recording artist. Some people listening are like, "I just want to date somebody" or "I really want to be healthy." For me, I see this applying these three pillars and these three steps to how do I get my personal financial life in order. I've been living in this mode of scarcity and fear ever since your dad and I were nearly bankrupt well over 15 years ago. I want to graduate from that. I want to commence a whole new way of operating. There's a lot of skills that I need to gain on the road ahead. I would love to hear you talk about: okay, you identified Brandy and Sarah, but what was the next step in trying to figure out how to break apart who this person is to help me start to think about what I want to gain?
--:-- Kendall: For me, it didn't require very much research because I feel as though I have an intimate relationship with these two artists, although they don't know that I exist.
--:-- Mel Robbins: Why do you feel like you have an intimate relationship?
--:-- Kendall: I've been listening to their music for all of time. I've spent thousands of hours on YouTube watching their interviews, reading articles about them, reading their books, just consuming everything they put out into the world. For all of you people that maybe want to get into a relationship, start eating healthier, make more money, and so on and so forth, you might not necessarily have as crystal clear of a North Star as I did.
--:-- Kendall: For example, for you, you want to graduate from your scarcity mindset and your finances. You might not necessarily have a Brandy or a Sarah, an actual human being that exists on this earth that you want to be more like. So what instead you could do is think about that future version of you. What does the future version of Mel look like who is financially abundant and has an abundant relationship to it? What are her characteristics? What does her career look like? What are her skill sets? Imagine your future self who's eating healthy. What does she feel like every day? How does she talk to her friends? How does she move through the world? How does she wake up in the morning? Break that down. You can create it from nothing. Or you can look at Women's Health Magazine and pick someone from in there and break them down and do the same thing. There are North Stars everywhere. If you're feeling lost, the first step is finding somebody, something, or someone—and it can be the future version of you—to inspire yourself.
--:-- Mel Robbins: For me with the financial thing, I didn't have a North Star. I just knew I was sick and tired of feeling either out of control, irresponsible, or very reactive in that part of my life. I wanted to graduate from that and commence something new. The second that I made that decision—"I got to end this, I got to start something new"—North Stars start to show up. What I liked about your particular process is I think those three columns are genius. I want to make sure you listening have these.
--:-- Mel Robbins: Declare what you want to graduate from so that something new can commence. If you don't have a North Star, simply saying "I don't want to do it like this anymore." For me, it was just like, "I'm done operating like this. I got to figure this out. I want to be proud of myself in this area of my life." I didn't know what that meant. Just declaring it started to have all kinds of stuff show up. The first thing that happened is Ramit came onto the podcast. Suddenly the guy, "I Will Teach You to Be Rich." That got my wheels turning. The second thing that happened is I spent a weekend with a bunch of women that are friends of mine that have similar businesses who are way more successful than me. As I sat around listening to them, I'm like, "Wait, you do what? Depreciate what? What do you do? You have a what?" Then because you had shown me this three-step thing, I'm like, "Wait a minute. I got to flip this. I can gain these experiences. I can gain these skills. I can gain this character that I don't have right now."
--:-- Kendall: Let's make it clear that we're in emulation phase still.
--:-- Mel Robbins: Emulation phase. Yes. But there is something deeper in this step one process. You asked me what's an example of a North Star for me. It's probably the same North Star that a lot of people have. I will share with you who it is after a short break from our sponsors. Stay with us.
--:-- Mel Robbins: Welcome back. I'm Mel Robbins. I'm so thrilled that you're with us because we're talking about who we admire in life and how to use them as a North Star to inspire you to change your own life. I just promised that I was going to reveal who my North Star is. I've admired this person for a very long time. Drum roll, please. It's The Rock. Okay. It's The Rock. Who doesn't love The Rock? I'm so inspired by him.
--:-- Mel Robbins: There's a particular aspect about The Rock that I love. It's so clear that he's such a great guy. It is so clear that he is a person that's out there for the everyday person. It's so clear that he's so generous and humble and kind. I also admire him in that he has such diverse businesses. It seems like anything he's interested in, he's like, "Whoop, pivot. Energy drink. Whoop, pivot. We're doing shoes. Whoop, pivot. We're launching the XFL. Whoop, pivot. I'm going to do this superhero movie. Whoop, pivot. I'm going to go do this thing." I love that about him.
--:-- Kendall: You're fired up.
--:-- Mel Robbins: I think this is a good example of North stardom that I want to commence. So yeah, you got the fire in the belly about The Rock. I've never been able to get past North Star. I can think about the moment when I was like, "There's my North Star." It was a singular Instagram post where he had a photo of him at this huge board table. It was him and the person that runs Seven Bucks, their production company. The origin of which is that when he moved to LA, he only had seven bucks in his pocket. He had this huge team of people launching the tequila brand. I realized I got to get serious about doing step one of emulating, doing this research, and breaking this all down.
--:-- Kendall: I think one of the things I like is also that you talk about how you look at The Rock and you're kind of like, "Well, how do I get there from here? How do I do that?" This process gives you, "Okay, break it down." I feel like there are a lot of different parts of this process where people stop. Number one, they would stop by not knowing that they could get a North Star. Number two, they could stop by being like, "Well, how do I get to be like The Rock?" You could stop there and be like, "You know what? I'm just never going to be like him." But then we have this breakdown. What's his character like? What are his skills like? What's his career like? Okay, I could put my hooks into that. I could do that homework.
--:-- Mel Robbins: These are things that I want. Like Kendall saying, "These are things that I want." You're not going to be him. You're going to get closer. How good is that going to feel? That's going to feel amazing.
--:-- Kendall: You must have felt great during this process. Or no, did you?
--:-- Mel Robbins: No, no. I mean, to be completely frank, the process that I just went through—emulation, assimilation, innovation—it's the way not only that artists create, but that humans create. This is literally the way that we move through the world. It's the only way.
--:-- Kendall: The first step is emulate, which means to match or surpass a person or achievement, typically by imitation. That's the first step. In order to do that, to match or surpass an achievement, you've got to break it down. You need to do the research. You need to understand it. Assimilate means to take in information, ideas, or culture and understand them fully.
--:-- Mel Robbins: So how is that different than the process of studying this North Star? You study your North Star, for example, yours is The Rock. You say, "Oh, I love that he has nine businesses." You look at his nine businesses and you pull them apart and you see what they do. That's emulation. You have every little detail of the business. How many people work for them? What are they? What are they registered as? How much money are they making a year? What's their target audience? All that kind of stuff.
--:-- Kendall: You haven't started doing that for yourself yet.
--:-- Mel Robbins: I haven't done shit. No, I've sat and watched and been in awe. I think I've been in the... take in that information, that idea, that culture and understand it fully. Or you're not going to graduate now. To understand it fully means to digest it, means to put it in an EpiPen and shove it in your leg. Understand it, consume it, practice it, get in the library, read the book, figure out how to grow your audience to the exact same size that The Rock has. This is like if you're watching a movie about this, this is the music montage moment of the change, right?
--:-- Mel Robbins: It's like that moment where the girl gets the ice skates time and time again, grabbing the ice skates at six in the morning, going to the rink, sweating it out, taking a shower, going to school. It's the 10,000 hour rule. To master something, it's a music montage. It requires 10,000 hours of practicing it. And I did that over four years. I took classes. I took lessons with my professors. I studied in my room. I sang 100 million songs.
--:-- Kendall: This is my favorite part. This is the longest part of the journey. And it's the most beautiful part because so many other things come to you while it's happening, while you're trying to take all of these qualities and characteristics of your North Stars and put them into yourself. You're going to find new things out about yourself that are part of your journey that you'd never known.
--:-- Mel Robbins: Yes. I love that. I love that you said it's the most beautiful part because I think that's the part I'm most in love with too. And I think there's a romantic aspect to it of you taking on a different way of being in your own life, and that you're purposely doing it to feed your own happiness, to explore a skill and deepen it. I just think there's so much beauty to that.
--:-- Kendall: Okay, so I know I keep going granular, but I love this three-step process because I love a framework that helps you locate yourself inside of something that takes a long time.
--:-- Mel Robbins: I haven't even started the emulation phase because I haven't done the research. I've admired, I've longed for, I've felt the gap.
--:-- Kendall: Well, that's step zero.
--:-- Mel Robbins: Right. But I haven't done the research. How do you know when you get to that part when you stop looking at that North Star and realize that you've become it?
--:-- Kendall: You'll never become it.
--:-- Mel Robbins: Really? I'm never going to be Sarah and I'm never going to be Brandy and you're never going to be The Rock.
--:-- Kendall: No, but don't you become your own North Star when you start innovating?
--:-- Mel Robbins: Well, what I'm going to say, which I think you need to include in the podcast, which is why I'm going to debunk the statement you just said, is that this process never ends. It's not a gap. It's a circle. It's not, "Okay, circle's done. Check. We're good. We're off." No. I wrote a song two weeks ago. I found a new artist I'm falling in love with. Process starts again. You create that business that The Rock starts. Boom. You see a tequila company that you want that has nothing to do with The Rock. The research starts again. Emulation, assimilation, innovation. It's a circle inside of a circle inside of a circle inside of a circle over and over and over and over and over.
--:-- Kendall: Which to me means that you've always been the North Star. You always will be the North Star. And it's just a trusting in the fact that you're just expanding. It's not getting somewhere. I think about Brandy and Sara Bareilles as a directional signal, not a destination. The process that I just went through—emulation, assimilation, innovation—if Brandy and Sara are over here, I'm expanding this way. But then I boom, it's just a constant expansion of yourself. If it helps you to think about it in a one, two, three, so be it. But I think the beauty of this process is that it's not about the destination that you get to because you're never going to arrive where you want to be.
--:-- Mel Robbins: This is something that my professors always tell me, but people like Bill Gates, people like all of the Motown artists that created some of the greatest records in the world, they're still making music. Some of the greatest scientists in the world are still trying to figure out different hypotheses that they come up with every day. Why do you think they're still doing that? There's always more to create. There's always more to get to. There's always more that you're going to want to be. And if they thought they'd figured it out, they would have stopped. There would be no more music in the generations.
--:-- Kendall: Well, it's not about figuring out. It's about the creative process itself.
--:-- Mel Robbins: Yes, exactly. And that's what this is. It's not about becoming the North Star. You are the North Star.
--:-- Kendall: Yes. It's about just figuring out what you want to figure out in the world. And it's about figuring out what that even means.
--:-- Mel Robbins: Yes. I'm my own North Star, but who am I? That's what this is about. Not to get all...
--:-- Kendall: No, I love getting all. I love that. Who am I? That's what we're kind of here to figure out. And that's just what everyone else is trying to figure out. And I would say that the reason why the Motown artists continue to create music and the reason why researchers continue to research and the reason why people that have won Pulitzer Prizes continue to do what they do is because it's not about the song or the prize. It's about the process itself that brings so much into your life. It's about the expansion.
--:-- Mel Robbins: Yes. Yes. And I've noticed that about you. I don't know. I'm about to get really...
--:-- Kendall: Don't get emotional.
--:-- Mel Robbins: Well, I'm about to get emotional because you used to be—and some days still are—but you used to be the most tightly wound, gripped. It's got to be right. I'm scared. Like, it's got to be right. It's got to be right. It's got to be right. It's got resisting this process. And you know how you can see in somebody that you're very close to what their gifts are? Like I can see that Amy can just open up the portal and tap into this higher power in just an extraordinary, magical, magical, magical way. And I could say that about Jesse, who is one of the kindest, most thoughtful, like the biggest heart I've ever seen in a human being. For you, I've known since you were born that you're an artist. And it's painful to watch somebody resist their own expansion. And what I witnessed that day watching you deliver this senior project is I watched you really own it. And I personally believe that it was the framework that he revealed and the process that you went through. And it's no surprise to me that days before you're giving this presentation, he's like, "Well, what you're describing is these three pillars." It liberates you from gripping because you can always locate yourself in it.
--:-- Kendall: Thank you for saying all that. And I appreciate you seeing my progress and seeing me. But I also think I can speak from my own personal experience. The expansion that I've experienced over the past four years, I thought and wanted to look a very different way. For example, when I got to USC, I was just a singer. And when I left, I expected to have an EP and 25 original songs and maybe to even have played a bunch of shows and to maybe be going on tour, who knows, dreaming big. That's what I wanted my expansion to be. But through this process and through surrendering to this process and trusting in this process—emulation, assimilation, innovation—I've experienced expansion in ways I never knew that I would and in ways that I'm so grateful for and would not trade 25 songs for in a heartbeat.
--:-- Kendall: This process works. Yes, you can use this process, but you've got to trust that even if The Rock is your North Star, if it pulls you in a completely different direction, you've just got to trust that if you stay in the process and you stay present and you stay grateful, it's going to lead you to where you need to go. Because I've learned so much about myself and about my artistry and about my humanity through this process that I never even knew was possible. And I still don't have 25 songs and I'm still not going on tour and I still haven't played that many shows. And I'm sure those are coming for me, but I would not trade those for the knowledge that I have about me and where I'm at and where I'm going for the freaking world.
--:-- Mel Robbins: What's the most surprising thing you learned about yourself through this three-part process?
--:-- Kendall: I would say that my biggest takeaway is understanding that my gift is not just my vocal cords and it's not just my ability to sing. And yes, that is God given, that is universe given. And that is something that I'm so grateful for and have no idea why someone gave it to me. I'm so excited to use it and see where it takes me. But I've realized that my gift and my artistry is so much more complex and so much more dynamic than just these two little things in here. And that's true for every single person on this earth. I mean, my professors say this too, but you work on your artistry your whole life. You work on your career your whole life. You work on your family your whole life. But the art isn't that. The art is you. We are all works of art, and living this life and figuring out how to live and figuring out how to be more like your North Star is just chiseling away at the sculpture that is just you. And I think USC has really helped me to actually see myself as that work of art and to see that I'm just hopping on this ride of emulation, assimilation, and innovation. And I'm going to ride this till I'm in the ground, babe. And see where it freaking takes me.
--:-- Mel Robbins: Well, I'm going to hook my caboose to that train because the moment that you said, "We are all works of art and living this life and figuring out how to live and figuring out how to be more like your North Star, it's just like chiseling away at the sculpture that is you." That is so beautiful, Ken. You are the artwork. You can create it. You can paint your own life.
--:-- Mel Robbins: Wow. That was so cool. Thank you, Kendall. Thank you, Amy, for being here. And thank you for listening. And I have one more thing I want to add to this because I just realized, you know how I end every episode by telling you that I love you and I believe in you? Well, I'm doing that through this same three-step process. Twelve years ago, I heard Linda Cliatt-Wayman speak, and she talked about how she transformed this school by taking the speaker system in a public school and telling the students that she loved them and believed in them and expected them to be back in public school the next morning dressed and ready to learn. Because she believed that all anybody needed to learn and to succeed in life was hope. And hope comes from knowing that other people believe in you. And I was so moved by that, that I started emulating it. And then I assimilated it and tried it on in different ways. And then I innovated it. And so my sign off to you was inspired by someone else. And I hope today, my mission today was to have this conversation to inspire you to use this three-step process to find North Stars absolutely everywhere in your life and start to emulate, assimilate, and innovate those characteristics, qualities, and skills and make them your own. Because when you do that, you have the tools to creating a better life and a better version of you. And that's why I always tell you, I love you and I believe in you and I believe in your ability to do everything we talked about today. Now go find that North Star and use it to inspire yourself to create a better life. I'll see you in a few days.
--:-- Mel Robbins: Oh, one more thing. It's the legal language. This podcast is presented solely for educational and entertainment purposes. It is not intended as a substitute for the advice of a physician, professional coach, psychotherapist, or other qualified professional.
