Rising up in Buffalo, New York, Caley Rose assumed that having constructive vanity was an inherent high quality she simply didn’t have. “[I thought] that cool woman in French class simply had that ‘it’ issue and that confidence, and I used to be simply out of luck,” Rose says.
Even worse, she was bullied in center faculty, experiences that altered the best way she noticed herself for greater than a decade. When Rose finally grew to become a Billboard-charting pop musician and singer-songwriter, her lack of self-confidence negatively impacted how she carried out on stage and in social conditions. After graduating from school, she was decided to shed her insecure center faculty self and develop into the assured particular person she wished to be. “I wished to develop into somebody who may like myself and love myself,” says Rose, who now lives in Los Angeles together with her husband and two younger youngsters.
By remedy, self-development programs and analysis, she lastly achieved her objective. Now, Rose is spreading the gospel of self-love throughout the nation by means of Music with a Message, a program devoted to empowering college students and ladies by means of music. By partnering with baby and teenage psychologists, Rose designed an interactive, music-filled meeting that blends her motivating upbeat tunes with approachable strategies for stopping bullying and constructing self-confidence. “[Music with a Message] began actually simply based mostly on, ‘That is what I wanted as a child, and that is what I hope I will help younger ladies by means of,’” she says.
Since Rose based Music with a Message about three years in the past, it has reached greater than 100,000 college students in prekindergarten by means of twelfth grade. Rose has additionally introduced her messaging to ladies’s shelters and even took this system on a cross-country tour in an Airstream together with her household in 2023, stopping at completely different colleges to carry out. On the high-energy assemblies, college students are inspired to stand up and dance and sing—parts that set Music with a Message other than different confidence-building packages.
Rose rewrote a few of her common songs centered on feminine empowerment to enchantment to audiences of all ages and genders. The lyrics are filled with constructive messages and affirmations—brief statements that individuals repeat to themselves to enhance their vanity and confidence—which Rose hopes will keep on with college students by means of adolescence and maturity. For instance, considered one of her hottest songs, “Courageous Ones,” options the strains: “While you really feel like giving up / While you really feel such as you’re not robust sufficient / You’re one of many courageous ones… I’m robust / I’m sort / I’ll get by means of / I’ll get by means of.”
“Music lasts with us our complete lives,” Rose says. “It really works on our unconscious by means of affirmations. If we begin to hearken to music that has phrases in it, like ‘I’m robust / I can get by means of this difficult time,’ we begin to search for that in our surroundings and search for extra proof to show to ourselves that these affirmations are true.”
College students go away Music with a Message assemblies with catchy, encouraging tunes of their heads to assist them reframe their unfavourable ideas to give attention to prospects. If the attendees are youthful children, Rose focuses this system on what traits make them “courageous ones” and small issues that may assist them construct confidence all through the day, resembling serving to out a mother or father or pal.
For center faculty and highschool packages, Rose provides classes on how one can implement a progress mindset. This mind-set, which acknowledges that information and expertise will be developed by means of onerous work and assist from others, will help kids develop into resilient and domesticate a love of studying. (Conversely, people with a hard and fast mindset view intelligence and skills as steady and unchangeable traits and sometimes shrink back from challenges.)
The response to Music with a Message has been extraordinarily constructive, Rose says. “I’ve had some unbelievable tales informed to me by the older college students,” she says. “I feel by means of exhibiting my vulnerability and telling them about my darkish occasions, they’ve felt snug coming ahead and sharing their very own.”
Self-confidence and having a progress mindset aren’t simply very important to success in people’ private and personal lives—it could actually save lives. The Facilities for Illness Management and Prevention reported that the suicide fee amongst younger individuals ages 10-24 elevated 62% from 2007 to 2021, whereas the American Psychological Affiliation famous in 2023 that an rising variety of adolescents reported emotions of loneliness, hopelessness, unhappiness and suicidal ideation.
“I didn’t assume that I might be speaking about taking one’s life by suicide after I began this journey with Music with a Message, however that’s what it’s develop into, and I’m so grateful that I will help individuals keep away from that—particularly younger individuals. When we have now self-confidence and we possess a progress mindset, that’s one thing that’s going to get us by means of adversity.”
In 2024, Music with a Message gained its first sponsor, which allowed it to start providing scholarships and partial scholarships to colleges who’ve little or no meeting price range or are coping with bullying points and hardship. Rose was additionally capable of increase her staff, which incorporates a number of working mothers, and rent one other performer for assemblies to increase this system’s attain. “If there’s an meeting at 2 o’clock in Philadelphia that I can’t get to, she is going to have the ability to go there,” Rose says.
Rose additionally says she launched an album, titled Courageous Ones, in early 2025 and hopes to finally deliver Music with a Message to colleges around the globe. She says, “I wish to attain each single faculty, each single scholar.”
How one can develop into a ‘Courageous One’
Want a self-confidence enhance? Right here, Rose shares 4 suggestions.
1. Settle for that loving your self is feasible.
“Wanting to love ourselves is step one after which discovering methods to understand ourselves,” she says.
2. Keep in mind that your ideas aren’t who you might be.
Rose typically walks college students by means of a meditative train to assist them observe and hit pause on their ideas. “If we will discover a tiny area in between these ideas, whether or not they’re unfavourable or constructive or bizarre, we really can uncover that the essence of who we’re isn’t a unfavourable thought or a constructive thought,” she says. “It’s really the calm and the silence beneath these ideas.”
3. Title the positives.
Rose encourages people to look within the mirror and title three belongings you’re grateful for or like about your self each day. “In the event you select to give attention to these constructive issues, once more, these constructive issues will increase and develop into what we give attention to extra,” she says.
4. Maintain going.
“With college students, I’m continuously saying a very powerful two phrases which you can bear in mind right this moment are ‘maintain going’ as a result of it can get simpler in case you determine to work on your self and also you determine that you just wish to work on loving your self and liking your self and rising your self-confidence.”
Photograph courtesy of Caley Rose. This text initially appeared within the Might/June 2025 difficulty of SUCCESS journal.
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