“I learned to believe in myself. If you don’t believe in yourself, who can you expect to believe in you?”
Ever since the first time I heard Chester Bennington screaming about being one step closer to the edge, I was hooked on Linkin Park. Their electric energy is positively contagious and one of the best concert experiences I’ve ever had was when Linkin Park opened their set with “Faint” at Rogers Arena. It was a performance filled with the confidence to put it all out there.
And when you’re the lead singer of a popular rock group, you need to have that kind of confidence. You really have to believe in yourself. As an artist, you literally put yourself out on that stage, knowing full well that you’ll encounter no shortage of haters and critics. Some people will say that Linkin Park is not at all like the band that first released Hybrid Theory back in 2000 and that might be true. But Chester Bennington and the rest of Linkin Park remain true to themselves, even when some of their more politically charged tracks elicit negative attention.
I’m not a singer. I’m not an actor. I don’t literally put myself out on a stage, but as a professional writer and author, I can completely identify with the sentiment expressed by the Linkin Park lead man. If you want your clients and fans to take you seriously, you have to start from a place of self-respect and the wholehearted belief that you can deliver the goods.
“You’re constantly trying to prove yourself, even after you’ve made it.”
As a creative professional, putting out one hit record or one best-selling book simply isn’t enough. As much as you’d like to ignore the haters, we all seek some sort of validation. We want to know that we are putting out good work. With several albums that have enjoyed both commercial and critical success, Linkin Park and Chester Bennington still want to prove themselves to fans new and old. And this constant pursuit of greatness is normal and healthy for all sorts of artists.
Linkin Park’s newest album, The Hunting Party
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