Be More Dolly

COPYRIGHT

HarperCollinsPublishers

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London SE1 9GF

www.harpercollins.co.uk

First published by HarperCollinsPublishers, 2020

FIRST EDITION

Illustrations © Amelia Deacon, 2020

Cover layout design by Sim Greenaway © HarperCollinsPublishers, 2020

Cover illustration © Amelia Deacon; cover background image © Shutterstock.com

A catalogue record of this book is available from the British Library

Alice Gomer asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work

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Source ISBN: 9780008383763

Ebook Edition © May 2020 ISBN: 9780008383770

Version 2020-04-28

DEDICATION

This work has not been officially endorsed by Dolly Parton, but is a homage to the great and wonderful Dolly. It is written by fans, for fans, and is a lasting tribute to her and everybody she inspires.

Thank you, Dolly.

CONTENTS

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

The 10 Dolly-mandments

A Love Letter to Dolly

1. Dolly Says ‘Do You’

2. Dolly Means Business

3. Dolly Knows Everyone Counts

4. Dolly Knows What It Is to Be an Icon

5. Dolly Loves Her Community

6. Dolly’s Lessons on Love & Heartache

7. Dolly Gives Back

8. Dolly Tunes for the Soul

Badass Singin’ Septuagenarians

How Dolly Are You?

What Would Dolly Do?

And We Will Always Love You, Dolly

Parting Gift Inspiration

Resources & Further Reading

About the Publisher

THE 10 DOLLY-MANDMENTS

1 Thou shalt wear what thou likest and feel comfortable in.

2 Thou shalt forgive but not be a doormat.

3 Thou shalt express thyself creatively to free thine inner queen.

4 Thou shalt be hardworking but still have a social life.

5 Thou shalt spread joy where thou can.

6 Thou shalt accept others for who they are.

7 Thou shalt help others with what means thou has.

8 Thou shalt stay true to thyself.

9 Thou shalt love thyself and love thy neighbour.

10 Thou shalt be thy badass self.

And to Begin Our Journey …

A Love Letter to Dolly

Don’t you just wish there was a little more Dolly in everyone? From the driver who cut you up on your way to the dentist to the colleague who puts the milk back in the fridge when there isn’t enough left for one more cup of tea (there’s a special place in hell for those people), to the bad bosses you’ve had or still have, to the world leaders and big decision-makers of our time … If they had just a little bit of Dolly’s joy for life, her hardworking tenacity, her acceptance of others, her creative spark and electrifying warmth, wouldn’t the world be a better place?

‘But how do I become more like Dolly?’ we hear you ask … Well, you’re in the right place, because this is your ultimate guide to living like and just boldly being like Queen Dolly herself.

But what does this guide contain? Here, we share Dolly’s whip-smart humour and gigantic pearls of wisdom, and help you to understand how being like Dolly and trying to live more like her is actually good for you, and for the world. We’ll look at her razor-sharp business acumen, how she is always unapologetically herself, how she loves her community and always gives back when she can, her advice on love and heartache and how she can teach us to be our best selves. We’ll also throw in some fun quizzes, games and activities along the way!

Now, let’s begin with something rather beautiful: a love letter to the lady herself. She has brought so much love to us, let’s start by giving some back.

Dear Dolly,

Thank you.

Thank you for bringing such heartfelt, raw, honest music into our lives. But thank you also for not taking yourself too seriously, because there’s nothing worse than a successful person who can’t laugh at themselves. Thank you for showing that you can look how you want, dress how you want, and still get to where you want to be without having to sacrifice who you are. Thank you for being you. Thank you for your unbridled positive attitude. We know you might not feel like being that way every day, but thank you for sharing that part of yourself with us.

Thank you for the wigs – we want more. Thank you for the rhinestones – there are never too many. Thank you for the jokes – keep ’em coming. Thank you for your generosity – the world is definitely a better place because you have power in it. And on that subject, thank you for using your power for good.

Thank you for creating the world’s best-named theme park – it brings us joy whenever we think about it. Thank you for teaching us it’s OK to have desires and to go through heartache. Thank you for teaching us it’s OK to be human. Thank you for encouraging us to embrace our individuality and differences, and to accept others as they are. Thank you for being there through every life change, on every road we’ve taken that didn’t quite work out, for every success, for every fight and through grief, happiness and everything else in between.

Thank you for bearing it all through your music and for putting so many things into words that we find hard to say. Thank you for sharing your gift with us, and for making us feel as though we are part of it.

Thank you for loving dogs. Thank you for being the sister, auntie, mother, friend to us all at the same time. Thank you for being a light in what can be a very dark world at times, but before we get too serious, thank you for saying you’d invite Jennifer Aniston to a threesome – we all wanted to say that and now it’s out there in the world.

Thank you for all your wisdom and the sass with which you deliver it. We’re all better people for listening to you and having you in our lives.

All our love,

The World*

* (Yes, we’ve decided that everyone in the world wanted to write this letter and agrees with it.)

‘When I got somethin’ to say, I’ll say it.’

DOLLY SAYS ‘DO YOU’

In the beginning, there was Dolly and her guitar … At the tender age of 10, Dolly Parton picked up a guitar and found her true calling. As one of 12 children, she came from a very humble background, but that didn’t stop her pursuing her passion with the great grit and zeal we have all come to love her for. The day after graduating from high school, she packed up her belongings and made the move from the small family home in the Tennessee Smoky Mountains to Nashville to pursue her music career. She knew that it would take a lot of work and determination, but young Dolly persisted. In 1970 – just six years after moving to Nashville – she had her first number-one single with ‘Joshua’ at the age of 24. Now, what can we learn from Dolly’s drive to follow her passion against all the odds? Well, it has been scientifically proven that having a passion or purpose improves your health and increases your longevity.

Research carried out by explorer and author Dan Buettner, who studies the world’s Blue Zones, where people live the longest, discovered that those who have a life purpose can live up to seven years longer! Buettner looked at what the longest-living people in the world had in common. He identified nine shared traits – and having a strong life purpose was one of them. The Japanese call this ikigai, which translates as ‘Why I wake up in the morning’. Your personal ikigai needs to be:

‘Find out who you are and do it on purpose.’

 Something you love

 Something you are good at

 Something the world needs

 Something you can get paid for

And Dolly has hit every single one of these points (well, she’s actually smashed them). She is definitely doing something she loves and something she is good at, and the world desperately needs what she is dishing out! Dolly is now in her seventies and shows no sign of slowing down. From beginning her career in the Sixties, to the recent release of her latest album for the soundtrack of the Netflix movie Dumplin’ and the new musical 9 to 5 hitting the West End in London in 2019, with all music and lyrics written by Dolly, it is safe to say, she has longevity.

BE MORE DOLLY

Think about activities or hobbies you have a passion for. Are you taking the time to pursue them?

Put time in the diary this week to do something you love, for no other reason than you want to!

Dolly’s songs are raw, honest and sometimes smack you right across the face and in the feels. This is what people love about her. They talk time and again about how her music resonates with them because it focuses on the entire human experience: love, loss, death, happiness, heartbreak, poverty, morality … the list is endless. Her unflinching honesty is something the world needs and it is undoubtedly one of the reasons for her phenomenal success. The 1975 song ‘The Bargain Store’ couldn’t be more spot on about the messy ups and downs of a life lived fully. It may have been too honest for some, though, at the time of its release, as it was one of Dolly’s songs that got banned from radio stations because of its ‘suggestive’ lyrics. Another song of hers to be banned was ‘Touch Your Woman’, as this was also seen as too graphic! But we think Dolly was just keeping it real; she said that she never thought of the lyrics of ‘The Bargain Store’ as a ‘dirty thing’. Have a listen and see what you think!

When asked about the lyrics of ‘The Bargain Store’, Dolly simply said, ‘I felt black and blue and I just wanted to heal back up and mend myself back together and get on with my life,’ to which I think we can all say, ‘Preach!’ Dolly is unashamedly unafraid to speak her personal truth. And truth is what we all need right now. In a time when social media is king (or queen) and we’re constantly bombarded with images of people’s perfect filtered lives, Dolly’s lyrics are a wonderful unfiltered antidote that won’t make us compare ourselves to others but instead makes us feel a connection with this strong, badass, successful woman who admits that neither she nor her life is perfect.

‘I know who I am, I know what I can do and can’t do. I know what I will and won’t do. I know what I am capable of and I don’t agree to do things that I don’t think I can pull off.’

Dolly is a great example of what sticking to your morals and values can achieve. She is smashing through that glass ceiling with her perfectly manicured nails whenever she can, being one of just seven female singers to win the Country Music Association’s Entertainer of the Year award (in 1978). When she found out she had won, she reportedly said: ‘I’ve built my own business and never had to do anything I didn’t want to do.’

Dolly completely trusts her own instincts, which can be hard to do in a world with a deluge of conflicting information at your fingertips 24/7. As usual, Dolly is right! A recent article by Susanna Newsonen in Psychology Today states, ‘Your intuition is shaped by your past experiences, and your existing knowledge which you gained from them.’ Making you the best judge of what is right for you.

Following your intuition or gut instinct also naturally makes you act in line with your core values and maintain your credibility. Basically, your stomach knows best! Dolly has always been clear on what she thinks and what she believes in. She adapted to each era she has lived through, but her core values have stayed the same.

BE MORE DOLLY

Listen to your gut – it knows!

Got a tricky decision to make? Try to work out what your gut is trying to tell you. Write down three occasions when you have followed your gut instinct and what happened.

‘You don’t know how people are looking at you. You just hope you do well. You just come up with your dreams and you dream ’em and you pray and you work hard.’

It’s no secret that Dolly has legions of fans among us mere mortals, but she has touched the hearts and minds of people across the music industry, too. The American country music singer, songwriter and record producer Maren Morris said, ‘Just everything that she encapsulates has inspired me.’ At the 2019 MusiCares charity gala, where Dolly won the Person of the Year award, Katy Perry, Miley Cyrus and Mark Ronson (to name a few) honoured Dolly by performing covers of her most famous songs. Seeing that women can make it to the top of their game with integrity demonstrates what is achievable. This is particularly important for young women in the spotlight. Knowing you can be who you want to be without needing to change your principles and morals is invaluable.

Dolly has said that she feels incredibly humbled to have had an influence on people and hasn’t taken it for granted. She is basically an angel in human form.

Now, although we all know what Dolly thinks about the 9 to 5, she is hardly a routine and comfort kind of girl. But why is moving out of your comfort zone a positive thing?

According to an article in the New York Times, you need to find the perfect balance between being slightly out of your comfort zone to make you productive, but also not too far out of it, as that can make you unproductive, so what you need to experience is ‘optimal anxiety’. Trying new things under your own steam (as opposed to being forced by circumstances) can make you more resilient to change – and if there is one thing that’s certain in life, it’s change!

Dolly has always been ready to move outside of her comfort zone. In 1973 she decided it was time to leave the machine that was musical variety TV hit The Porter Wagoner Show. This was an incredibly stressful time as it was the number-one syndicated show in country music and Porter was not particularly keen on letting his bright young star leave. Dolly and Porter had had huge hits together, but she knew it was time to strike out on her own. In order to convince Porter that it was the right thing for her to do, she just went home and wrote a little song you may have heard of, called ‘I Will Always Love You’. And the rest is history …

It has also been said that moving out of your comfort zone encourages creativity. The need for Dolly to think creatively about how she could break out and try new things encouraged her to write one of her best-known hits.

An article in Forbes magazine claims that creativity will be the most coveted skill of the future. Sure, technology is a pretty big deal, but creativity is the force behind all technological advancements. ‘But I wasn’t born creative,’ we hear you whine! Well, that thinking is becoming a thing of the past! Elizabeth Gilbert, author of Eat, Pray, Love and Big Magic, believes that if you’re alive then you’re a creative person. You don’t need permission to be creative and being creative shouldn’t only be associated with art, music or dancing. You can be creative through problem-solving – it is just about using your imagination.

All you need to do is to ensure that you’re creating space and making time for your creativity to flourish. Have a think about what you do when you’re waiting for a train. What do you do when you’re early for a date? How about when you’re waiting for a coffee to brew? Let’s take a guess … You’re looking at your phone, checking your emails or Instagram, replying to a friend on WhatsApp about which date in the diary none of you will ever be able to make …

BE MORE DOLLY

Have a go at writing some Dolly-inspired lyrics on something you feel strongly about next time you’re tempted to keep scrolling through social media.

Alternatively, draft an inspiring note to a friend who needs a little Dolly boost. Don’t forget to add in some Dolly sparkle with her best quotes!

‘MY SONGS ARE THE DOOR TO EVERY DREAM I’VE EVER HAD AND EVERY SUCCESS I’VE EVER ACHIEVED.’

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