I recently interviewed Grammy Award winner Carly Pearce on my podcast, Thirty Minute Mentors. Here is a transcript of our interview:
Adam: Our guest today is a Grammy Award winner with four number one country radio hits. Carly Pearce is a country music star who has won both CMA Female Vocalist of the Year and ACM Female Artist of the Year. Carly, thank you for joining us.
Carly: Thanks for having me.
Adam: You grew up in Taylor Mill, Kentucky, a small town outside of Cincinnati, and you were performing when you were eight, and performing professionally across the state of Kentucky by the time you were 11. Can you take listeners back to your early days? What early experiences and lessons shaped your worldview and shaped the trajectory of your success?
Carly: I’ve always known from the time I could talk that I wanted to be a country music singer, which I think is a blessing and a curse when you know exactly what you want to do for your whole life. And I had very supportive parents. That’s a very key part of my story. They were really in tune with this dream that I had and were very aware from a very young age of my drive and tenacity, and they helped to facilitate some of those early opportunities, whether it be recording in a recording studio, or getting me a vocal coach at six years old, or making my outfits for the local talent shows, or driving me around to open mics when there used to be karaoke nights. All of these things led me on this path as a kid to what became my pursuit to make it to Nashville.
Adam: You knew what you wanted to do at an early age. You were on this journey from an early age, but despite your early success, it wasn’t a linear journey. You’ve had ups. You’ve had downs. What were the keys to getting to where you are today? What have you learned along the way?
Carly: I’ve definitely had a wild journey. I moved to Nashville in 2009 and was an Airbnb cleaner. I worked retail. I had a publishing deal and a developmental record deal. Lost both of those. Was a backup singer at one time. All of these different things, and I think the thing that really became what I’m known for even today, 17 years later, is my ability to push through hardship, my ability to take direction and criticism, and my tenacity. I’ve always believed if you outwork people, God will give you the desires that you have. They may look different than maybe you expected, but I believe hard work will breed success.
Adam: To be successful, you have to have natural ability. You have to have passion for whatever it is you’re pursuing. In your case, you clearly have a lot of natural ability. You clearly have tremendous passion for what you’ve pursued from the time you were a little kid, but that’s not going to carry you through the tough moments, which are inevitable. You have to be able to push through. You have to be resilient, and having an open mind, not only being open to feedback, but being eager to receive feedback, is often the difference between being successful and not being successful. When you’re coachable, you’re going to be coached to success. When you don’t want to take direction, you’re likely going to, at some point, go in the wrong direction and possibly never come back from it.
Carly: Absolutely. I think even today, I’ve put together a team of people that I trust, and they have that wall all the way down with me. If we need to have a hard conversation, or we need to change something, or something I’m doing is not working, I want them to come and tell me. And in the early years, if somebody liked my songs but had some critiques, I would listen, and I would try to change them, and I’d try to edit it. And I remember some early memories right before my first single, “Every Little Thing,” came out. I remember seeing what it meant to have a reactive song that people wanted to hear. I’m a very realistic person, and so I knew I had not had one of those where the town of Nashville, the music business, they knew me, but they didn’t need me, and I made it my mission instead of just being in my head, feeling sorry for myself that nobody wanted to give me a publishing deal, and I took it as drive: “I will continue to write songs until it is the one song that shows that they need me,” and I wrote it.
Adam: And what you’re really speaking to is one of the most important qualities among the most successful people. One of the most important qualities among the most successful leaders, and that is self-awareness, understanding who you are, understanding where you are, recognizing that if I want to get here, this is exactly what I need to do to get there.
Carly: Absolutely. I would say one of my superpowers is self-awareness. I’m one of the most critical and realistic people. I’ll be able to tell very quickly if I need to course-correct if something isn’t working. And I’m always looking ahead. I’m always trying to plan for what’s next, whether that be what is social media doing right now, what are the trends right now, what does making records look like, what does writing music look like? What does touring look like? All of these things that you always have to have a forward-thinking mind, all while also being self-aware of what you’re doing in the present.
Adam: You mentioned the importance of surrounding yourself with the right people. You mentioned that early on, you put a team together that has been instrumental in enabling you to achieve meaningful success. What did you look for in the people who you surrounded yourself with? What do you look for in the people who you surround yourself with? What advice would you share on how to figure out who to surround yourself with?
Carly: I would say first and foremost, as a musician and an artist, I think that your team collectively needs to know your vision for your art. They need to know in detail where you want to go, what your goals are, what you want your show to look like, what you want your music to sound like, what kind of opportunities you’re looking for. They need to have the vision that you have, not that they’ve given you. You have to have people that can be honest with you, and that you can be honest with them back. That you can have hard conversations with. That you can be uncomfy in moments that will breed growth. And I also think that you need people that run at your pace. I’ll tell you, I’ve had no problem in the past firing people who weren’t working to the level of my expectation. I have very high expectations because I work my butt off, and I want you to do the same for me. That’s what I expect.
Adam: And you started off by sharing your thoughts within the context of your line of work, being a country music performer, being a country music star. But what you shared is relevant regardless of what you’re pursuing, regardless of what field you’re in. You need to surround yourself with people who understand you, understand what you bring to the table, your vision, your unique perspective, your unique persona. People who can be honest with you, people who you can be honest with, people who you can clearly communicate with, people who are on the same wavelength with you. It doesn’t mean that you are exactly like them. They’re exactly like you. On the contrary, it’s really helpful to be around people who see the world with a different perspective than the way that you see the world. Having diversity of opinion, diversity of thought, diversity of perspective is incredibly valuable. But you need to be able to communicate at the same level, on the same wavelength, and the last thing you shared, which is so important, someone who has that same drive, has that same work ethic. In your words, someone who is running at your pace.
Carly: I also think if you’re going to lead a business, if you’re going to lead a team, you have to be a good leader, and you have to make sure that people see that you have your vision and you have your goals and things on lock. And what I’ve found is I’m a very opinionated artist and a really hardworking one, which actually makes people more passionate and willing to go the extra mile because they see how fast I’m running down the road, if that makes sense.
Adam: It makes perfect sense. And what you’re describing is leading by example, essential to effective leadership. What do you believe are the keys to successful leadership? What can anyone do to become a better leader?
Carly: I think you have to know your vision, make them aware. You have to have discernment. I think you can’t be wishy-washy or be a people pleaser or want to be everybody’s friend. I think you have to be able to break away. For me, I live on a tour bus with four, five people that I employ. Now that’s an interesting dynamic. We live together and we work together, and I’m also their boss, but I’m also their friend. And I think knowing when to put the friend hat on, when to put the band member hat on, when to put the artist-to-band-member hat on, and when to put the boss hat on, I think I’ve had to learn what the different ins and outs are of my business, and make sure that, again, I’m communicating the vision with everybody, and the expectation that I have. I think you have to have high expectations if you’re going to be a leader.
Adam: Is there a moment that has been a transformational moment for you as a leader, as a performer, as an individual, that you look back on and say, “This has really shaped me. This has really helped take me to that next level”?
Carly: During the pandemic, I wrote an album called “29: Written in Stone,” and I think for the first time, I led with my own intuition fully and decided that this was going to be the music that I would make that was completely about my vision, and I think what that did is that album took me to the next level in our business, and I think it gave me that confidence and that reassurance that my vision for myself and the kind of art that I make really does have a place in the world, and I think that was a total shift of how I operated.
Adam: It’s really hard to be your best self if you don’t trust yourself. It’s really hard to be your best self if you’re not your authentic self. And when you’re performing someone else’s music, you can have some success, but ultimately, it’s about performing your own music. What are you bringing to the table? What makes you you? That’s what makes the greats great.
Carly: Everybody who’s ever made a mark in music has had a point of view, and I always think about that. What is my point of view when I’m writing a song? What is my point of view when I’m on stage? What is my point of view when I’m making a record? What is the point of view? And I think that gives me a concise picture of what the goal is, and I always remember that.
Adam: How do you get to a place where you are at your most creative, and how can anyone unlock their creativity?
Carly: For me, I’ve always been a creative, but I think years of experience and trial and error. I wrote a lot of bad songs to write some really good ones, and I’ll continue to write some really bad songs and some good ones. Just continuing to work at your craft, that’ll breed more creativity. If you want to be creative, you’ve got to work at it. I had to work at writing songs. I wasn’t always good at it. If you’re looking to breed creativity, for me, I’ll go and look at other artists’ shows that I like, or that I like the feel of what they’re doing, or I go to their social media and I’m like, “Oh, that impacts me, that makes me feel something,” or, “Oh, wow, I really like this production on this song,” and I think you can take other facets of what other people are doing and get inspiration, which I think can then make you more creative about what you want your brand or your feel or what you want your art to look like.
Adam: Are there other artists who have particularly inspired you? Who have particularly helped you unlock your creativity?
Carly: Oh, many. I would say the biggest would be Loretta Lynn. She, to me, was the pioneer of real talk for women. She was a songwriter, but she was really a storyteller of the everyday woman. And I really have gained so much perspective and confidence through the way that she wrote music and the way that she carried herself in country music back in a time where it was a bit progressive.
Adam: If we’re going to talk about country music and legends in the field of country music, we have to talk about a woman who everyone knows, whether you know everything about country music or nothing about country music, and that’s someone who you got to know very well, and that’s Dolly Parton, who was a mentor to you. How did you cultivate a relationship with Dolly Parton? What were the best lessons that you learned from your time spent with Dolly Parton?
Carly: Well, I worked at Dollywood as a kid. I say a kid, a teenager. It was my first job. I quit high school, started homeschooling, and worked in the country show at Dollywood. So Dolly’s been a part of my journey from the very beginning. I’ve always been a fan, and through the years, what I think I’ve learned most about her as I’ve gotten to collaborate with her, share in special moments with her, is you want to talk about somebody who continues to raise the bar, continues to be a leader, outworks every human up until the day she died. It’s Dolly, and she, to me, is the epitome of a trailblazer and a hardworking woman. In the last few years of her life, I got to spend some time with her at a rehearsal that we were doing for her, and she was just in on every decision that was being made, down to what harmony part, who’s going to sing this, what band member’s going to play this here and there, and she would rehearse it until it was perfect. And I really appreciated that. She was well into her 70s at that time. You want to talk about somebody who was a CEO. I think that we’re going to have little Easter eggs and nuggets and gifts for decades to come that she’s left for us. I think we don’t even know the things that Dolly had prepped.
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Adam: One of the challenges of performing at such a high level is the pressure that comes with performing at such a high level. And in your case, you’ve suffered some physical health challenges. What have you learned and taken away from performing under pressure?
Carly: It’s hard to be a person in the public eye. It’s hard to be someone who puts their whole being, who they are, the music that they write, the stories that they have, what makes them them, out for the world to love and hate and all the things. I live a very high-stress life. The schedules are demanding. There’s a lot of pressure that we all put on ourselves to be our best in the entertainment business. And to your point, yes, with my health, health was always something that I took a bit for granted, thinking, “Oh, I’m young and active, and eat well, and drink lots of water. I’m good.” And a couple years ago, some of those stresses affected me in a way that I was diagnosed with recurrent pericarditis. Recurrent pericarditis is an inflammation of the pericardium, which is the heart sac. I didn’t know that your heart was held in a sac, and that lining around it can get inflamed and cause severe chest pain and difficulty with breathing and just living your normal life. And so, this happened to me for the first time in 2020, and it’s something that I live with today. I think what I’ve learned is, at the end of the day, and why I partnered with LifeDisrupted.com, is I want people to be their best advocate, and I want to raise awareness that you can be a healthy, active person, but that doesn’t mean that something like this can’t affect you. You have to really understand your body and know when it’s trying to tell you something.
Adam: And what you’re speaking about speaks to a really important topic, which is balance. You can perform at the very highest level in whatever it is you’re pursuing. You could be a CEO of a Fortune 100 company. You could be an Olympic gold medalist. You could be a country music star. There are going to be psychological pressures. There are going to be physical pressures. And without having the right balance, at some point it’s going to catch up to you. And getting yourself in balance is essential to not only achieving sustained success, but achieving sustained happiness and achieving sustained health, as you’ve discovered for yourself.
Carly: I would definitely not say that I’m the picture of balance, but I think as I get older and as I realize what’s important in life, I really do work towards having some balance in my mental health and my physical health, and in my work life.
Adam: Are there specific steps that you’ve taken to help rebalance the deck?
Carly: Being my own advocate, even within my job, if something is too much or it’s too many days in a row. Saying no, scheduling little weekends, trying to block off time, even if it’s just a day to just have for myself, or having those non-negotiables allows me to still be a human being and then show up better and more engaged in my work in the other times.
Adam: It’s a really important point because you could be a hard charger, you could be extremely focused on achieving whatever it is that you want to achieve. In your case, achieving greatness within the field of country music, but you can still have some balance by determining what are my non-negotiables. And for each of us, the non-negotiables might be a little bit different. For one person, the non-negotiable might be: I need to have eight hours of sleep. Without eight hours of sleep, I’m not going to function my best the next day. And I need to plan my schedule so that I’m as efficient as possible, so that I get eight hours of sleep. And I’ve had conversations with really successful CEOs who structure their day so that they get enough sleep so that they can be performing as effectively as possible the next day.
Carly: I need to be better about that.
Adam: I do too. But we all have our own non-negotiables. In my case, a lot of my non-negotiables are around nutrition and exercise, so that I feel like I’m physically at my best. If I’m not eating right, if I’m not working out, I don’t feel right.
Carly: Yeah, I’ll tell you, my exercise is a non-negotiable for me most days. Not today. I love being physically active. I think that keeps my mind right, and it just sets the tone for my day. I’m an early riser, so I think just having that mental prayer, stillness time is super important to me. Eating right is really important to me, and having just that little bit of quiet time. I’m a loner at heart, and I need that time to recharge.
Adam: And it goes back to what we were talking about earlier, which is the importance of knowing yourself, having a deep sense of self-awareness. In your case, recognizing that I function really well in the mornings, you function well in the mornings, I function well in the mornings, and when you know that you’re an early riser, what does that mean? It means that if you go to bed at two o’clock in the morning, then you’re going to be shot the next day because I’m guessing you’re like me in that I can’t sleep in, so I’m going to be up early. And when I’m up early with a lack of sleep, I’m done. So understanding yourself and appreciating what works for me, and again, what works for me might not necessarily be what works for you, but being true to it, and yeah, you’re going to make some mistakes along the way, and you’re not always going to be perfect. But it’s about being consistent and about having a routine and about following what you know you need to follow.
Carly: Yeah, I think over the years I’ve learned some of my team say that I run on kryptonite. I’ve got to be honest, sleep is not something I really need. Which maybe one day will catch up to me. If I get five hours of sleep, I can pretty much rock. But those things for me are prioritizing a workout. I’ll freak out if I go two days without working out, and it’ll make me a better person all the way around if I’m able to do that.
Adam: What has been the biggest challenge that you’ve had to face in your career, and what did you learn from it?
Carly: For a long time, especially being a female in country music, I was penalized because there were not very many female artists out in our format, and I think that made all of us feel like there can only be a couple of us on the radio. We have to all be after these few spots, and I think we all second-guessed. I know for me, I second-guessed my own inner voice of the type of music that I wanted to make because I was just trying to survive, and I think that whole season of my life had a lot of just question marks as to really the artist that I moved to Nashville to be and the music that I moved to Nashville to make. I wasn’t always making it because I was coming from a mindset that was not pure to who I am. I always say to myself now, because I’ve had many years of experience with this. “Every Little Thing” came out a decade ago. I lie down every night and I say, “If I can lie down and say I did everything today that I could to move my career forward, and is everything that I’m doing, from interview to wardrobe to the songs that I write, the shows that I play, is it 100% authentic to me?” If I can lie down and say that, I’m peaceful.
Adam: I love that, and what you’re sharing is something that I love. Delineating between input and output, you can control your input. You can’t necessarily control your output. You can control how you show up every day. You can control your attitude. You can control your mindset. You can control your effort. You can control what you’re going to do with your time. What you can’t necessarily control is what comes out on the other end. And when you index success to output, that’s very dangerous. But when you index success to input, that’s where you’re able to ultimately get to that next level. That’s where you’re ultimately able to achieve great success, because that’s what you can control. That’s what you can ultimately improve.
Carly: Yeah, I think at the end of the day, you can only put your best foot forward. I can only control the music that I make. I can’t control where it’s going to land on a chart. I can’t control if it’s going to win awards. I can’t control how many ticket sales are going to happen. I can’t control how many streams, how many likes on TikTok, and while that is infuriating for a perfectionist, at the end of the day, it’s reality. The more that you can understand that, I’m speaking to myself in real time, going, “Are you listening to yourself talk?” If you can just focus on the output, like you said, I guess it doesn’t define you, what you put out into the world. I’ve had plenty of songs where I’ve put it out and I’ve been like, “This is going to be a massive hit,” and then it wasn’t. And I’ve also put out songs where I’m like, “Is everybody going to care about this?” And I’m winning awards for them. You never know. You just have to really believe in what you’re putting out.
Adam: That’s so interesting. Oftentimes, you think you know, and your instincts are oftentimes directionally right, but sometimes they’re just not right, and you have to just keep trying and just keep showing up, and you never know which shot is going to be the big shot, and it’s ultimately about showing up every day, not being afraid and just pushing forward.
Carly: Absolutely, you’ve got to every day show up. I show up every day. Now, sometimes it’s not my best, but I show up every day and try to see what else I can do.
Adam: Carly, you also shared something interesting as you were talking about some early challenges and struggles, which is that along the way you’ve had some self-doubt, which is something that even the most successful people struggle with. What advice would you share to anyone struggling with self-doubt, anyone fighting through imposter syndrome?
Carly: I deal with self-doubt in different ways every day. And if you speak negatively about yourself, negative talk breeds negative talk. You’ll start to believe those things. And any of the times where I’ve allowed that negative talk to really get inside me, it’s like a cancer. And I think you have to really, for me, I’ve had success. I know that there’s a place for me in country music, and I think just really staying confident in that and using that as a superpower, being kind to yourself, not letting other people’s opinions define who you are, not letting the internet or comments or Reddit or all these different things tell you who you are.
Adam: Early on in the conversation, one of the things that you shared was the importance of being open to feedback, surrounding yourself with people who are going to give you open, unfiltered feedback and receiving it without any hesitation. And what you just shared now is equally important, which is not listening to the haters, not listening to people who are going to bring you down. And on one level, it can feel a little bit conflicting when you want to open yourself up to voices who are giving you feedback and constructive criticism, but on the other hand, are trying to fight off the negativity that is going to hurt your confidence and is going to open up this window of self-doubt. How are you able to toe that line? How do you do it? What advice would you share?
Carly: It’s a daily practice for me. Truthfully, it is a daily practice to say good things to myself. I’ll tell you. I journal. I write things and stick them at different places in my house. I have a lot of reminders in my life of my worth, and that my worth is not defined by my success or my job. My faith is a very big part of that. There’s something so much greater than Carly Pearce, the artist, here. And I think having that sense of self and knowing and making sure that you’re coming back to reality. A lot of the music industry or the entertainment industry is not real, so you’ve got to bring yourself back to reality and realize who you are. And I think for me, I differentiate that sometimes as Carly the girl and Carly Pearce the artist. And while they’re the same, they’re different.
Adam: Carly, what can anyone listening to this conversation do to become more successful personally and professionally?
Carly: Figure out what you’re good at, make it so branded and undeniable of who you are, and outwork everybody else. Just believe that you can do anything. I came from a small town in Kentucky. I have no family members or friends that were in the music industry. I knew exactly what I wanted to do, and I did it. And you can too.
Adam: Carly, thank you for all the great advice, and thank you for being a part of Thirty Minute Mentors.
Carly: Thank you.
