Dolly Parton slept in her makeup.
There’s a story behind that.
This is your daily message from Chad number 1172 to upgrade your mental game today by telling yourself a better story, because the most important story you hear is the story you tell yourself. And this message is dedicated to Denise Abrams on her birthday — happy birthday Aunt Denise! You can get a free copy of my book, The Most Powerful Story in the World, by going to fromchad.gumroad.com. The transcript of this message and hundreds of others are always available at http://www.fromchad.com.
Here’s the upgrade:
You think keeping yourself polished when nobody important is watching is vanity, but upgraded thinking knows it’s one of the purest forms of service there is.
Here’s the story:
This is the second message I promised you this weekend to celebrate the life of Dolly Parton. The range of tributes have been remarkable. Presidents of both parties, Buckingham Palace, hip-hop and pop stars, and truck-stop regulars all acknowledged there will never be another Dolly. The honors that stood out were the ones that mixed state ritual with her own symbols — pink lights at 9:25 (a nod to her movie and song “9 to 5”), flags at half-mast for a week, a governor proposing a name change to an international airport, and a palace band playing a working woman’s anthem.
Dolly called herself “always street ready.” Other times, “ambulance ready.” She meant the same thing either way — she was never going to be seen without her hair done and her makeup on. Not on stage. Not backstage. Not at a gas station off the interstate at two in the morning.
She said she slept in her makeup while touring, because “you never know if you’re going to wreck the bus.” She was prepared to meet strangers in the wreckage of a bus crash looking like Dolly Parton. On her own bus, she had a bedroom and bathroom built in the back for one reason — so she never had to walk out in front of the crew without her face on. A quick stop for gas was, to her, a public appearance.
She didn’t have a formula for that image. She had a promise. And the only way to keep a promise like that is to actually live it — gas station stop or Grammy stage.
Estée Lauder had the same instinct. She’d ride a bus six hours to open a single store in Corpus Christi, because no community was too small for her attention, she was always going to give her full effort. Same math as Dolly’s bathroom in the back of the bus. There is no small audience and no off-duty moment.
Isadore Sharp built the Four Seasons hotel chain on one sentence he repeated to his executives for decades: “We are only what we do, not what we say we are.” Dolly sleeping in her makeup was an action. And actions express priority. She was telling you what mattered without ever having to say it out loud.
The better story to tell yourself is, “The people I meet today deserve the best version of me, whether I planned on meeting them or not.” Here’s why it mattered so much to her. Every person you meet is carrying, as Mary Kay used to put it, an invisible sign around their neck that says “make me feel important.” A fan who runs into a tired woman in sweatpants at a fuel pump gets a deflation. A fan who runs into Dolly Parton gets a story they tell for forty years. She wasn’t protecting her ego. She was protecting their moment.
Tell me a story of someone who showed up for you when they didn’t have to, to fromchadsmith@gmail.com. Send someone a text and ask them, “Who’s expecting your best today?”
