Rising up in Buffalo, New York, Caley Rose assumed that having sure vainness was once an inherent high quality she simply didn’t have. “[I thought] that cool woman in French elegance simply had that ‘it’ issue and that self assurance, and I used to be simply out of success,” Rose says.
Even worse, she was once bullied in center faculty, studies that altered the way in which she noticed herself for greater than a decade. When Rose sooner or later turned into a Billboard-charting pop musician and singer-songwriter, her loss of self-confidence negatively impacted how she carried out on level and in social eventualities. After graduating from faculty, she was once decided to shed her insecure center faculty self and transform the assured individual she sought after to be. “I sought after to transform any individual who may just like myself and love myself,” says Rose, who now lives in Los Angeles together with her husband and two babies.
Via treatment, self-development lessons and analysis, she in spite of everything accomplished her purpose. Now, Rose is spreading the gospel of self-love around the country thru Music with a Message, a program devoted to empowering scholars and ladies thru song. By way of partnering with kid and teenage psychologists, Rose designed an interactive, music-filled meeting that blends her motivating upbeat tunes with approachable strategies for combating bullying and constructing self-confidence. “[Music with a Message] began actually simply in line with, ‘That is what I wanted as a child, and that is what I’m hoping I will be able to lend a hand younger ladies thru,’” she says.
Since Rose based Track with a Message about 3 years in the past, it has reached greater than 100,000 scholars in prekindergarten thru twelfth grade. Rose has additionally introduced her messaging to ladies’s shelters or even took this system on a cross-country excursion in an Airstream together with her circle of relatives in 2023, preventing at other colleges to accomplish. On the high-energy assemblies, scholars are inspired to rise up and dance and sing—parts that set Track with a Message excluding different confidence-building methods.
Rose rewrote a few of her common songs concerned with feminine empowerment to attraction to audiences of every age and genders. The lyrics are filled with sure messages and affirmations—brief statements that individuals repeat to themselves to strengthen their vainness and self assurance—which Rose hopes will stick to scholars thru youth and maturity. For instance, certainly one of her most well liked songs, “Courageous Ones,” options the strains: “When you are feeling like giving up / When you are feeling such as you’re now not sturdy sufficient / You’re one of the vital courageous ones… I’m sturdy / I’m type / I’ll get thru / I’ll get thru.”
“Track lasts with us our complete lives,” Rose says. “It really works on our unconscious thru affirmations. If we begin to pay attention to song that has phrases in it, like ‘I’m sturdy / I will be able to get thru this difficult time,’ we begin to search for that during our surroundings and search for extra proof to turn out to ourselves that the ones affirmations are true.”
Scholars go away Track with a Message assemblies with catchy, encouraging tunes of their heads to lend a hand them reframe their unfavorable ideas to concentrate on chances. If the attendees are more youthful youngsters, Rose focuses this system on what traits cause them to “courageous ones” and small issues that may lend a hand them construct self assurance all over the day, akin to serving to out a dad or mum or good friend.
For center faculty and highschool methods, Rose provides courses on how you can enforce a expansion mindset. This frame of mind, which acknowledges that wisdom and skill will also be advanced thru onerous paintings and lend a hand from others, can lend a hand children transform resilient and domesticate a love of finding out. (Conversely, people with a hard and fast mindset view intelligence and skills as strong and unchangeable characteristics and regularly shy clear of demanding situations.)
The reaction to Track with a Message has been extraordinarily sure, Rose says. “I’ve had some fantastic tales advised to me via the older scholars,” she says. “I believe thru appearing my vulnerability and telling them about my darkish occasions, they’ve felt relaxed coming ahead and sharing their very own.”
Self-confidence and having a expansion mindset aren’t simply essential to luck in people’ private and personal lives—it could possibly save lives. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported that the suicide fee amongst younger folks ages 10-24 greater 62% from 2007 to 2021, whilst the American Psychological Association famous in 2023 that increasingly children reported emotions of loneliness, hopelessness, unhappiness and suicidal ideation.
“I didn’t suppose that I’d be speaking about taking one’s lifestyles via suicide after I began this adventure with Track with a Message, however that’s what it’s transform, and I’m so grateful that I will be able to lend a hand folks steer clear of that—particularly younger folks. When we have now self-confidence and we possess a expansion mindset, that’s one thing that’s going to get us thru adversity.”
In 2024, Track with a Message received its first sponsor, which allowed it to start out providing scholarships and partial scholarships to varsities who’ve very little meeting price range or are coping with bullying problems and hardship. Rose was once additionally in a position to extend her staff, which contains a number of running mothers, and rent every other performer for assemblies to extend this system’s achieve. “If there’s an meeting at 2 o’clock in Philadelphia that I will be able to’t get to, she’s going to be capable to cross there,” Rose says.
Rose additionally says she launched an album, titled Courageous Ones, in early 2025 and hopes to sooner or later deliver Track with a Message to varsities all over the world. She says, “I need to achieve each and every unmarried faculty, each and every unmarried pupil.”
The right way to transform a ‘Courageous One’
Want a self-confidence spice up? Right here, Rose stocks 4 guidelines.
1. Settle for that loving your self is conceivable.
“In need of to love ourselves is step one after which discovering techniques to realize ourselves,” she says.
2. Needless to say your ideas aren’t who you might be.
Rose regularly walks scholars thru a meditative workout to lend a hand them practice and hit pause on their ideas. “If we will be able to discover a tiny house in between the ones ideas, whether or not they’re unfavorable or sure or bizarre, we in truth can uncover that the essence of who we’re isn’t a unfavorable concept or a favorable concept,” she says. “It’s in truth the calm and the silence beneath the ones ideas.”
3. Title the positives.
Rose encourages people to seem within the replicate and title 3 stuff you’re thankful for or like about your self on a daily basis. “If you select to concentrate on the ones sure issues, once more, the ones sure issues will extend and transform what we focal point on extra,” she says.
4. Stay going.
“With scholars, I’m repeatedly announcing an important two phrases that you’ll be able to be mindful lately are ‘stay going’ as a result of it is going to get more uncomplicated if making a decision to paintings on your self and making a decision that you need to paintings on loving your self and liking your self and rising your self-confidence.”
Photograph courtesy of Caley Rose. This newsletter at the start seemed within the Might/June 2025 factor of SUCCESS mag.
