The Lin-Manuel Miranda moment that boosts my self-belief when I need it
Rob Halliday
Any act of creativity is really also an act of self-belief. Since there are no real ‘rights’ or ‘wrongs’ in much of what we do, just ideas to be had then choices to be made, the key is believing that you’ve made what you set out to make and that you’ve made it to the best of your ability.
Maintaining that self-belief – particularly in the face of opinions or even opposition from others – is the hardest part of what we do, and because of that, the easiest thing to lose.
My secret weapon when self-belief is waning, as it surely sometimes does for us all, is this: Lin-Manuel Miranda’s performance of the opening number of what would become Hamilton to an audience including the president of the United States at the White House.
So, no pressure there, then.
Find it on YouTube, but before you watch it, remind yourself that this was six years before anyone knew anything about the show, let alone before it became a smash hit. That while Miranda did already have a show running on Broadway, few outside the world of musical theatre really knew who he was. Sure, this invitation couldn’t have come by accident – a sign of another powerful thing, others who believe in you as much as (or more than) you believe in yourself – but it was Miranda, with just his friend Alex Lacamoire at the piano for company, who had to stand up and make the rest of the room believe in this idea as strongly as he clearly believed in it himself.
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With all that in mind, press play. Listen to the polite, bemused, muted laughter as he sets out the premise; watch him carry on regardless, powered only by self-belief. Feel the crowd’s uncertainty as he starts. Catch Michelle Obama finger-snapping; he’s got her onside, but it takes a while for the rest of them to catch up. He drives on, working harder. The power of the language – as he’d said in the introduction, really the heart of the show – is winning. As he turns on to the home straight, he has them all. The proof? When they rise to their feet as one.
Catch Michelle Obama finger-snapping; he’s got her onside, but it takes a while for the rest of them to catch up
From our perch here in the future, we know where this story goes, the smash hit it becomes, the 10th anniversary it recently celebrated. Self-belief doesn’t necessarily need reassurance, but it’s certainly helped by it, and I like to imagine that moment in that room gave a powerful burst of reassurance. And that it gave the team then gathered to make the show the freedom to believe in the work each of them was doing individually but – perhaps most critically – also in the work they were doing collectively.
Maybe you’re confident enough that you don’t need a touchstone, a reminder of the power of self-belief. Maybe you have something different as your touchstone. But there, for what it’s worth, that’s mine. Thank you, Lin-Manuel, for that reminder as much as for the show.
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