Most of my music business college student performers deal with forms of stage fright and imposter syndrome.  Even highly successful people can struggle with confidence and anxiety.

In 1967, singer and actress Barbra Streisand forgot the lyrics to a song during a concert in Central Park in front of about 135,000 people.  The experience triggered severe stage fright and anxiety. After that night she stopped performing live concerts almost entirely.

For 27 years, despite being one of the most famous performers in the world, she avoided live performances because of the fear of forgetting lyrics again.

Then in 1994, she decided to face the fear directly and returned to the concert stage in Las Vegas and later on a worldwide tour. The tour became one of the highest-grossing concert tours of the decade.  Streisand later explained what the experience taught her:

“I had stage fright for 27 years… I just had to face the fear”.

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Burnout specialist Marni Wandner spoke to my music mental health class at NYU last week – saying burnout isn’t just about working too hard. It happens when the work you’re doing doesn’t line up with your values, your energy, or the environment you’re working in.

Her approach helps people step back, understand their stress patterns, and build healthier habits so they can succeed over the long-term instead of pushing themselves until they crash. The goal is to perform at a high level without sacrificing health, balance, or well-being.

“Burnout isn’t when the lights go out. It’s when you stop noticing they’re dimming.” — Marni Wandner

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In the past few months, multiple mental-health researchers have renewed attention on something surprisingly simple: spending time outside significantly lowers stress and improves mood.

A growing body of research shows that even 20 minutes in nature can lower cortisol levels and improve focus.

… “just a twenty-minute nature experience was enough to significantly reduce cortisol levels.” (University of Michigan).

… “Spending just 20 minutes connecting with nature can help lower stress hormone levels.” (Harvard Health).

Employers and therapists are now recommending “nature breaks” the same way they once recommended coffee breaks.  In an age of screens, algorithms and AI — the antidote might be something ancient: sunlight, fresh air and quiet.

The cheapest mental health treatment in America might be a walk outside.

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It’s another inspiring trend emerging in the past year across many industries from journalism to healthcare to technology — professionals in their 40s and 50s are increasingly returning to school, learning new skills, or launching entirely new careers after layoffs or burnout.

Today an average worker may experience three or four careers in a lifetime – not just one.

Instead of viewing change as failure, many are reframing it as growth.

The future rarely unfolds in a straight line.  Sometimes the most hopeful moment in life is when you start over.

“You can’t go back and change the beginning, but you can start where you are and change the ending.”  — C.S. Lewis

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Alysa Liu at age 16 was washed up or so it seemed.  She was a phenom who felt completely burned out, finishing 6th at the 2022 Olympics. And then she did something terrifying for a world-class athlete: she stepped away entirely. Many assumed her career was over.

Two years of self-reflection and healing later, she returned to the ice in the 2026 Winter Olympics in Milan winning the Gold Medal and ending a 24-year drought for U.S. women’s figure skating.

Her story proves that stepping back to find yourself isn’t “quitting”—it’s often a powerful  way to come back stronger.

She spoke openly about how her confidence this time didn’t come from being perfect, but from being authentic. As she put it after her win, “My program is fun and I feel really confident… I want to be a storyteller.”

She had to rebuild her belief in herself jump by jump over the last two years.

“I didn’t let anyone else tell me what to do or how to feel. I just did what felt right for me, and that’s why I’m here.”

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Lindsey Vonn risked it all for one more chance to cement her legacy and go for the gold at the recent Winter Olympics in Milan – not that she needed to as the most successful female downhill ski racer in history.

Vonn felt she was forced out of the sport in 2019 by pain rather than choice. The 2026 Games offered a chance to say goodbye while actually feeling like herself again. At 41, she wanted to prove that a “bionic” athlete with titanium implants could still compete at the highest level.

The gamble ended in a harrowing crash a few weeks ago. The impact was so severe that she suffered devasting injuries and nearly lost her leg to amputation.

Despite it all, Vonn spoke “champion wisdom” from her hospital bed – a thought everyone especially young people and those nurturing a comeback in confidence would value:

“…just getting to the start line was the victory.”

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Apple CEO Tim Cook gives kudos to his predecessor and company founder Steve Jobs for helping him to think differently which I caught recently in Fortune.

“… skills, like the importance of being able to evolve from past beliefs—a trait he said few leaders actually possess. Cook explained that Jobs valued people who could admit they were wrong, encouraged lively debate, and enjoyed being challenged by other workers.

Yet Steve Jobs was famously uncompromising, but his perspective on “being wrong” was deeply tied to his commitment to results over ego.

Cook says “He would flip on a dime … I’ve never seen anyone with a greater capacity to change his mind than Steve.”

In Jobs’ own words”:  “I don’t mind being wrong. And I’ll admit that I’m wrong a lot. It doesn’t matter to me too much. What matters to me is that we do the right thing.“

Imagine if we transformed being wrong from a sign of weakness into an advantage.

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The Washington Post interviewed Sonja Lyubomirsky, a professor of psychology at the University of California at Riverside, and relationship expert Harry Reis, a psychologist at the University of Rochester, about their recently published book, How to Feel Loved and it turns out showing your other side is critical.

We think that to be loved, to feel loved, we need to make ourselves more lovable: “I just need to show them how wonderful I am and hide my shortcomings.” And that’s actually not what works.

To feel love, you need to be known and also know the other. And so if I’m only showing the tips of my whole self, just the positive part, I’m not going to be known. And if you don’t really know me, I’ll never really feel loved by you, because I’ll always wonder, “If you really knew me, would you still love me?

As author Brene Brown puts it “True belonging only happens when we present our authentic, imperfect selves to the world, our sense of belonging can never be greater than our level of self-acceptance.”

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Apple founder Steve Jobs wouldn’t let his kids use an iPad (that his company invented) and that “We limit how much technology our kids use at home.”

YouTube cofounder Steve Chen he wouldn’t want his kids consuming only short-form content” because it equates with shorter attention spans.

Microsoft’s Bill Gates, Snap’s Evan Spiegel, and Tesla’s Elon Musk say they limit  their children’s access to devices. The Gates children had to wait until 14 before getting a phone and they banned phones at the dinner table entirely.

Children in the U.S 8 to 18 spend seven and a half  hours a day watching or using screens.

The life of a parent can be difficult but even the folks who fed the digital revolution protected their children from its addictive downsides.

But there is good news rising: 94% of university students now say they want to reduce their phone usage to improve mental health and grades. 70% of adults under 30 are cutting back.  Students who successfully cut screen time in half (from 5 hours to 2.5 hours) saw an improvement in attention spans equivalent to reversing 10 years of age-related decline.

Even current Apple CEO Tim Cook agrees:  “I’m convinced that the more we value our time and our attention, the more we will realize that they are our most precious resources.”

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Euphoria and Grey’s Anatomy Actor Eric Dane died last week of ALS.  In a posthumous Famous Last Wordsepisode, he spoke directly into the camera with words intended for his daughters, Billie and Georgia.

He admitted to wasting years “wallowing and worrying in self-pity, shame, and doubt,” and noted that ALS stripped away the ability to obsess over the future or the past.

He reminisced about watching his daughters play in the ocean in Santa Monica and Hawaii, calling those moments “heaven.”  He used this to illustrate that happiness isn’t a destination, but the quiet moments of presence he previously overlooked.

He left his daughters with four core pieces of advice, the first of which was a directive to “stay grounded in the present moment, because it is the only place where life actually happens”.

And ended with “This disease is slowly taking my body, but it will never take my spirit… I hope I’ve demonstrated that you can face anything. You can face the end of your days. You can face hell with dignity. Fight, girls, and hold your heads high.”

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Billie Eilish: “I’m getting older, I think I’m aging well. I wish someone had told me I’d be doing this by myself”.

The 80+ Hockey Hall of Fame was started by 88-year old Fred Merchant last year, for players still playing into their 80s and older — 35 men and one woman have been inducted so far.

80-year-old hockey players lace up their skates, proving that physical vigor isn’t reserved for the young. Meanwhile, in rural fire stations, 16-year-old cadets like Abby Weaver don 50 pounds of firefighting gear, proving that civic responsibility isn’t reserved for the “experienced.”

These two groups share an uncommon trait: refusal to follow the script. The seniors reject the sedentary life, while the youth reject the digital distraction. Whether it’s a 3am emergency call or a third-period puck battle, they remind us that grit is ageless.

As Serena Williams says “I’ve never let anyone define me. I just go out there and show them what I can do.”

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The world can be brutal today – public figures talking trash and not holding back to be considerate of feelings or previous social norms.  This can be very upsetting for young people getting mixed messages.

Former Mayo Clinic professor of medicine Amit Sood says humility is not a lack of confidence, but a quiet, grounded strength that fosters deep connection.  Humility allows us to step outside the “ego-trap” of constant self-evaluation, creating space for curiosity and compassion toward others. By recognizing our own limitations and the vastness of the world around us, we reduce our internal stress and open ourselves up to genuine growth and learning.

Humility is what may be missing these days yet it remains the ultimate tool for emotional freedom:

“Humility is not thinking less of yourself, it is thinking of yourself less; it is the transition from ‘What about me?’ to ‘How can I serve?'”

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Dr. Jared Cooney Horvath testified before Congress that Gen Z is not as smart as previous generations when it comes to attention, memory, literacy, numeracy, executive function and general IQ so he says in a recent New York Post piece.

He blames phones. Horvath says “Humans are biologically programmed to learn from other humans and from deep study, not flipping through screens for bullet point summaries.”

I see good news in my college classes where young students are very aware of the burden of battling screen time.  They want to spend more time in the present.  Are disconnecting more.  Using less social media or deleting apps altogether.  They are very smart and they’ve gotten the message that life, if not learning, is best lived in the now with real people and social situations.

The very self-awareness Gen Z shows about screen damage is itself evidence of intact — even strengthened — executive function and metacognition, not cognitive decline.

Arianna Huffington noted how tech industry monetizes distractions when she spoke to Colby College students in 2016 and said “Your attention is the most valuable currency of the digital age.”

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Our ancestors had to make some pretty drastic accommodations as the world progressed to where we are today.

In prehistoric days, you couldn’t be too content if you wanted to survive which led to what is called the negativity bias – where we focus on the negative to remind us to pursue the positive.  Sounds good, but it tends to cause our brains to wander and forget about all the good in our lives – that tires us out and we then get fatigued brain.

The brain is designed for safety.  We have to train it to be happy as former Mayo Clinic physician and author Amit Sood says “because our system is biased to focus on the negative, threats, imperfections, regrets.”

“Happiness is a skill.”

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You can live 2 months on a good compliment and sometimes hardly get through the day on negative input.  A compliment is not flattery.  It refers to something specific that you did well.  It’s not about looks or something superficial, it’s something meaningful.

Negativity sticks with us like heartburn.  A compliment can be enjoyed with pleasure for a long time.  Knowing this, why don’t people give more good compliments?  In studying stress, the feeling of not being good enough seems to always pop up.

As Mark Twain put it:  “I can live for two months on a good compliment.”

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I ask my music business students to bring a new song with them every class that helps them stay positive, upbeat and less anxious.  This week, one class member played Duke Ellington’s Reflections in D.  Interesting choice by a Gen Z student choosing a Greatest Generation musical talent.  Here’s what he said:

“I chose this song because it has always felt like my “rock” since I was in elementary school. My father is a very big fan of Duke Ellington, and would often play his records around the house. This song in particular always stuck with me, and I feel like every time I listen to it I can pick something out that is different and strikingly beautiful. Moreover, Ellington’s expression on the piano feels uniquely human and I find it to be not only entrancing, but extremely touching. The way he moves is very meditative and precise, and I tend to turn to this song in the early mornings to set the tone for my day with a feeling of comfort and security”.

“Where words fail, music speaks.” — Hans Christian Andersen

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I once saw a woman with Alzheimer’s who could not form a word of conversation sit down at a piano and play song after song flawlessly – as a music industry professor, you can bet how that got my attention.

Music decreases fatigue.  It boosts exercise performance.  It can help manage pain. It can boost memory, build task endurance, lighten your mood, reduce anxiety and depression, stave off fatigue, improve your response to pain, and help you work out more effectively.

You can give yourself a brain boost from listening to new music – basically our interest in new music starts declining in our 30’s. New music challenges the brain in a way that old music doesn’t. It might not feel pleasurable at first, but that unfamiliarity forces the brain to struggle to understand the new sound.

It was found that the happiest sounding songs are in a major key. Using a special formula for the study, music psychologist Dr. Michael Bonshor discovered that the happiest song was Good Vibrations by The Beach Boys Feb 19, 2023

1.Good Vibrations by The Beach Boys
2. I Got You (I Feel Good) by James Brown
3. House Of Fun by Madness
4. Get The Party Started by P!nk
5. Uptown Girl by Billy Joel
6. Sun Is Shining by Bob Marley
7. I Get Around by The Beach Boys
8. YMCA by Village People
9. Waterloo by ABBA
10. September by Earth, Wind & Fire

“Music can lift us out of depression or move us to tears—it is a remedy, a tonic, orange juice for the ear.” According to Musicophilia author Oliver Sacks

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Psychologists tell us not to postpone joy because it trains the brain to delay contentment.  Small moments of joy rewire resilience.  So, experiencing joy makes us stronger and more resilient.

Trying to appreciate the good things we have in life is best done in small regular doses.

The famous Australian nurses’ study of hospice patients with only a few weeks left to live highlighted what they wished they did differently – in other words, their regrets.

• I wish I’d had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me.
• I wish I hadn’t worked so hard.
• I wish I’d had the courage to express my feelings.
• I wish I had stayed in touch with my friends.
• I wish that I had let myself be happier.

Imagine, if they didn’t wait until they were dying to express these regrets and possibly do something about them.

Or as George Eliot put it, “It is not too late to be what you might have been.”

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In a tough world, everything still comes down to three things.  You can choose to hate, remain agnostic or non-committal or you can love.  Facing those choices, loving wins.

Pop music’s most durable anthems don’t just celebrate love — they frame it as a decision, often made when easier choices exist.

From U2’s With or Without You, where love is embraced despite its emotional cost, to Whitney Houston’s I Will Always Love You, which redefines love as the courage to let go, the message is consistent: love isn’t merely something that happens, it’s something you choose. Rihanna’s We Found Love places that choice in chaos, Al Green’s Let’s Stay Together anchors it in endurance, and Bob Marley’s One Love elevates it into a moral act.

These songs endure not because they promise perfection, but because they honor love as an act of agency — a decision made when walking away would be easier and that applies to people in our lives.

Al Green’s Let Stay Together captures the idea that love isn’t just something you feel — it’s something you decide to continue, regardless of circumstances.

“Whether times are good or bad, happy or sad…”

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Recently I wrote about a major study of 18 shipwrecks from 1852 to 2011 that challenges the myth of “women and children first”.   Many were interested in digging deeper to understand the meaning.

Last week I posed the question in the name of resilience-building to my spring NYU mental health for musician’s class.  Their answer to who is first off a sinking ship?  Women and children.  Let’s look at the research.

• Crew members have the highest survival – 18.7% more likely to survive than passengers overall (after all, they are trained to know how to jump off the ship).
• Next, adult men with a 34.6% survival rate – significantly higher than women in 10 of 16 wrecks.
• Adult women were next off the boat with a 17.9% survival rate.
• And what about children? They had the lowest survival rate 15.3%, the worst outcome of all groups studied.

The bottom line: Power, strength and access – not gallantry – determined who lived.

In life trusting yourself and building resilience matters.

Dr. Benjamin Spock reminds us “Trust yourself. You know more than you think you do.”

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