Ray Parker Jr., and The Delicate Intricacies Involving Delusions of Grandeur
Ray Parker Jr. has Detroit in his blood. He grew up in Virginia Park in Michigan, where the median household income was around $20,000. Niche gives the neighborhood nightlife an A, but a D- for housing. It's dense, smoky, and it's urban. And Ray's childhood was just 12 blocks from the Motown studios, where the best musicians in the world were pending American culture into existence. Despite being super talented and extra disciplined as a musician, Ray became what the music industry refers to as a session musician – a hired instrument who arrives early at the studio to play for the real artist and collects a check.
Session musicians, sometimes called sidemen or hired guns, which is a title of a documentary about these 20 feet from fame backup players. During his career, Ray was the best. He wrote songs that won Grammys. He played guitar for Stevie Wonder. He went on the road with the Rolling Stones as a guitarist for the opening act. He did session work for Bill Cosby, Chaka Khan, The Supremes, and Aretha Franklin. Ray also got sued by Huey Lewis, who thought Ray had cribbed his rhythm. Ray's name was left off the album zeroed to leave room for the real stars. And that Grammy-winning hit I mentioned, Ray might have written it, but the record company gave it to another artist to perform, and they struck Ray's name from the credits because Ray was just a session musician - a hired gun with delusions of grandeur.
But here's something you might already know if you've been nursing your own pet delusion; it doesn't sleep, and it doesn't quit. Delusions of grandeur are only delusions until they get that big hit. That one-hit wonder, something Ray was due for because Ray Parker Jr. knew how to put in the work. Hard, unrelenting work ethic - that's what pushes delusions of grandeur past delusional to just plain grandeur.
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In the movie The Matrix, the sage mentor character Morpheus tells our plucky hero Neo that he could leap from skyscraper to skyscraper like Superman if he froze his mind. Suffering delusions of grandeur can feel the same. We set out to do something huge, bold, and daring that will hopefully make us a fortune. Then halfway through taking our leap, we realize we never had a chance. Anyone watching from the outside would have told us we never had it in us.
Today, we want to ask, is it better to take the leap now we probably won't make it, that we might become a smear on the streets. Or would our time, effort, and bank account be better served if we played it safe and realistic? Why try to leap across buildings if we can all work comfortably as clerks and administrative assistants? Or, in the case of Ray, why try to become a world-famous musician if you can make perfectly good money playing backup guitar for real stars. Or even safer if we never bought that expensive guitar and studio time in the first place. To help us decide between playing it safe or pursuing our delusional passions, we have three myths to bust.
Myth One: Anyone accusing us of having delusions of grandeur is just suffering from a crippling case of jealousy. I couldn't possibly have delusions of grandeur, could I?
Joe: To start us off, Todd, I would like to ask you a personal question. If you don't mind.
Todd: Oh, please, I'm open.
Joe: Most of our episodes come from personal places. We pick things out that we actually want to know or things we struggle with within any given week. So do you mind sharing where or how we ended up landing on delusions of grandeur?
Todd: This always bothered me. There's a quote that says your dreams should be so big that they should scare you. And I agree with that, and I think people just have different ceilings depending on what field they're in. But I want to know how realistic my own dreams were. Was I just being delusional about the show's success or the success of my public speaking career? Was it realistic? Is it obtainable? Is it worth my time?
Joe: Okay. So, In past episodes, there were Smithsonian articles talking about how you are more likely to be an artist or in a creative field if you come from a wealthy family. This allows you to put all your chips in and not feel so bad if your delusions of grandeur don't work out.
Todd: What's funny is that Joe came up with this subject, but Joe came up with Ray Parker Jr. Now, I’m one of the few people in the world who love Ray Parker but hate the song Ghostbusters. I like his real music, not his movie music.
Joe: I grew up with Ghostbusters. It came out a couple of years after I was born or around the same time. So, all I knew of Ray Parker Jr. was Ghostbusters. When I saw that, he had done all this other amazing stuff, it baffled me.
Todd: Now, one big part of his life was growing up in Detroit, which was a tough area with lots of crime. He had a gun pulled on him, was beaten, and was frightened by police officers as a teen. But he still practiced music 10 hours a day and stayed out of trouble as best he could. When he became a session musician, he worked with some amazing bands. But his favorite was Stevie Wonder.
Joe: That’s awesome. So, it is kind of important to our narrative that he stayed in Detroit, not necessarily that it was a good or bad thing. But the fact that most people have this assumption that to achieve greatness, you have to leave your little Hometown. When we talk about delusions of grandeur, what do you think about?
Todd: The big one is being your best self and having some kind of fame using a special talent. It unlocks things you can do in your life you couldn’t get otherwise.
Joe: You said a couple of words there that we are really going to focus a lot on - fame and talent. We're going to focus on the fame part for a second and then later talk about talent specifically and how that fits with delusions of grandeur because you can have delusions of grandeur with or without talent.
So first off, we're going to get into how psychologists identify delusions of grandeur and what comorbidities that can come with them. No, we are not psychologists, but we have personally seen delusions of grandeur up close. Coming from Good Therapy, the delusion of grandeur is the false belief in one superiority. We're going to repeat that phrase over and over - the false belief of one superiority, greatness, or intelligence. Now people with actual oceans of grandeur believe in their own importance and believe in it even against evidence to the contrary. So, if you and I are delusional, we wouldn't be standing in a studio, or we wouldn't be talking into microphones. We wouldn't be putting it into practice. We would just simply believe that we are really awesome. We could be shown evidence of the contrary, but we would still persist.
Now, I think that a little bit of delusion of grandeur may come with the creative process. I don't think it's always bad, but if you can't take that criticism and at least change your work ethic or alter your behavior, that's when it gets a little bit dangerous. We are actually taught by the media, books, and music that we are chosen for something – that we have a unique destiny and that our destiny probably does involve power, fame, money, etc. But the part where it becomes a delusion of grandeur is where that steps up to where you stop doing things in life because of it. I believe that being an optimist in part means being a little bit hopeful, but there is a line where that can do more harm than good. It's important to separate between delusions and just simple hopes.
There are actually some mental disorders that can stem delusion of grandeur. If you're listening and you have one of these disorders, this isn't a shame on you. It is more of an insight into the mental concerns associated with delusions of grandeur. In addition, these can be connected to about 50% of people. With that being said, schizophrenia can have delusions of grandeur of some sort, about 2/3 of people with bipolar disorder experience delusions of grandeur, and people with narcissistic personality disorder have a greatly inflated sense of their own importance. Dementia can cause symptoms of delusions of grandeur and of course substance abuse as well.
Myth Two: Let's assume we were not delusional. Let's assume we actually are super special, smart or talented. How do we know if we're going to make it, and how much time and money should we risk?
Would you mind if we discuss mastery itself? How do we get mastery? We will disabuse the Malcolm Gladwell 10,000-hour claim when Gladwell and Robert Greene both quoted that if you practice (say jazz guitar) for 10,000 hours, that is about how long it takes to master something. Now, why does mastery fit into delusions of grandeur, and why do we want to hit those 10,000 hours if that is, in fact, how long it takes to master a skill because really greatness for the sake of greatness is the delusion in delusions of grandeur.
Overall, if you enjoy something, you are more likely to master it because you're more likely to hit those hours. History plus recognition really is greatness. And then other people see that and being able to tap their toe to whatever you're playing or enjoy whatever you are writing; then it doesn't matter how much money you make. You've passed delusions of grandeur, and you've gotten into just grandeur. In short, you can really measure what you need to do to get there by knowing where you are as far as mastery in something goes. But the funny part about it all is if you can identify where you are on your particular ladder, it does not necessarily take 10,000 hours to become a master.
An article called The Great Practice Myth: Debunked The 10,000-Hour Rule talks about how you don't necessarily get the benefits from just mechanical repetition. If Ray Parker sits down and just plays the same couple of songs repeatedly just to kill time, he gets the hours but does not become better. What does make someone get better is adjusting to get closer to your goals. Sometimes that involves deliberate practice with an expert or a coach. It is more exhausting mentally and physically, but that is how you get to mastery without wasting 10,000 hours. All in all, if you're not seeking mentors, practicing regularly, and trying to poke holes in your own skills, it could be delusional.
Finally, if you suspect that you have greatness, how do you budget for it? Because if somebody is moving to Hollywood and throwing it all in, it can be a lot of financial risk. You sell your house, you get rid of all your things, you move to whatever city is going to support your talent - how do you do it realistically, if you're trying to work your talent up like Ray Parker. Remember, Ray Parker didn't go anywhere; he started in Detroit, ended in Detroit, and practiced on a budget. He chose between two guitars, saw the local artists, and didn't go crazy. I say that if you have a talent, you're developing, and you think you're going to be great, you should spend like it's your entertainment budget, not like it's your education.
How much time are you willing to spend on a TV or computer? Whatever that is could be your same or similar budget on getting your skill off the ground. And if anything, invest in a coach or someone you can learn from instead of going after mastery. In addition, spend the same amount of money and time as you would on a computer or video game. I think what people do is spend too much of both hoping it will all pay off eventually. That is, of course, the crossing line to delusions of grandeur.
Myth Three: What if we were fully committed to the delusion? What if we're all in like Ray Parker? How do we proceed knowing were destined for awesomeness? Where do we go to pick up our crowns and tiaras?
It seems like when people have mainstream success, such as Jimmy Buffett, they get upset if they do never win an award for any of it and portray it as a huge tragedy. Do you think the two are balanced out? Should that suffice for an award if you have a one-hit-wonder and make all this money? Overall, if you become known for something that isn't super respectable, but you have the money, that gives you license to do other things later. I think that if you never had a creative sundown and as long as you don't stop, then you've won. For Jimmy Buffett, as long as he never stopped trying to create things that would be mainstream successful, I think that's a success because he has the money. So why not? That's a sign of over-appreciated.
The writer of Goosebumps, R.l. Stine talks about how funny it is that people disrespect the children's horror book series he invented. He knows that it's not going to be creatively respected. But he still treats it with humor, and he doesn't feel upset about it. He does the opposite of Jimmy Buffett. Instead of being upset that he never got mainstream success or an award, he still is happy that he is making money doing the thing he loves. That's exactly how Ray Parker Jr. Is about Ghostbusters. He doesn't try to defend it to the end.
In case we have gotten this far without really making it clear, what sets you apart from a true delusion of grandeur. I just want to introduce you to something called process thinking. I got this from one of our backstage writers, Adam, and it is described well by a football coach named Nick Saban. He didn't come up with his folksy style of teaching. He actually paired up with LSU and the Miami Dolphins and then later the University of Alabama. During this time, he worked on this process, and it collided with other proven psychological theories about how mastery works. The idea is that you never focus on what the big picture is. You don't necessarily envision the end goal. Instead, do what Nick does and envision the next play.
Saban and psychiatric professor Lionel Rosen sat down to break down what a football game plays out to be and what are the moments that make the most difference. When they broke it down into manageable pieces, Rosen emphasized that the average football play is only about seven seconds. So, if a coach just focuses on that little snapshot coming up, it makes it a lot easier to compartmentalize what's about to happen. It's a very stoic way to look at things. In fact, Nick Saban's process was featured in the book, The Obstacle Is In The Way by Ryan Holiday. So, if you ever think you might have delusions of grandeur and wonder if you will ever achieve mastery, just focus on the next seven seconds; focus on the process itself that will save you from it being a delusion.
Joe: Todd, could you talk to us about how we found out about Ray Parker and where his journey eventually led him?
Todd: The Hired Guns documentary on Amazon is phenomenal. This will make you look at the industry a lot differently. A lot of our heroes in music never wrote their own songs.
Joe: I literally started flipping back through my old band catalogs and I had a program from Black Sabbath. I was skimming through it while watching the documentary, and it sent me spiraling.
Todd: This is a business, and that's kind of how Ray talks about it. He was often asked about getting sued by Huey Lewis. Ray would just blow it off and say that Lewis never sued him; his company was. He never went to court, and it was all settled. Even more, he still had Ghostbusters, and it does not say Huey Lewis on the song.
Joe: He finally got his name on something.
Todd: He did, and he loves the fact that he's a one-hit-wonder. He says his song made people smile. This is his quote, “How could you hate having a winning lottery ticket?” And this is the one that cracks me up; his children snicker today when they hear about what a sex symbol their dad used to be. They look at each other, and they just don't get it.
Joe: Can we be cheesy and this narrative with the phrase that everybody is going to want to hear?
Todd/Joe: Who you gonna call? Ghostbusters.
Final Thoughts
If you suspect you have true delusions of grandeur, you should seek a professional diagnosis. Believing you’re a genius in your field despite having evidence to the contrary can be signs of underlying mental illness. However, if you are just overwhelmingly confident, we have a few guidelines to offer to keep your engine of greatness from dragging the rest of your life off the tracks.
When pursuing greatness, try not to base your budget around “if” you make it. Don't blow your savings on expensive coaching, world-class equipment, or opulent classes. Instead, treat aspirations that haven't started paying for themselves yet as entertainment, nothing more and budget accordingly. Plan to file your mastery hours in something you generally love. If you can't follow the process for ten years, practicing for the pure joy of practicing, you might want to move on.
When it comes to being great, nobody wants to pat you on the back for just being a genius. They want to pat you on the back for making their toe-tap to an amazing beat. They want to tap you on the back for making them cry over a beautiful poem, for inspiring them, for leading them, and for giving them some winning advice.
Do you want to know if you have greatness in you or if it's all just delusional? The delusional person focuses on themselves. They're the only ones who benefit from their so-called greatness. Whereas truly great people focus on the skill, whatever it is; They're busy honing it every day. And while the process of daily practice might be inherently selfish, everyone around them will eventually benefit from the grandeur of what they can do.