Education Quote by Paula Abdul

Auditions are built to bruise you, and Paula Abdul’s line reads like a survival tip passed across a dressing-room mirror. Coming from a pop figure who’s lived on both sides of the judging table, it’s less motivational poster and more hard-earned logistics: rejection is not a verdict on your worth, it’s the default setting of the machine.

The key move is the phrase “the more.” Abdul isn’t promising confidence through positive thinking; she’s describing desensitization through repetition. In an industry where “no” often arrives without explanation, the only way to stay functional is to treat outcomes as data points, not character assessments. Her subtext is quietly radical: professionalism isn’t charisma, it’s emotional compartmentalization. You learn to separate the performance you delivered from the narrative your brain wants to attach to it.

There’s also an implicit critique of how auditions are structured. They invite intimacy (sing like it matters, act like your heart is on fire) and then respond with impersonality (a clipboard, a time limit, “Next”). Abdul’s advice acknowledges that whiplash and offers a method: volume. Do it enough times and you begin to see the hidden variables-casting needs, chemistry, timing, somebody’s nephew-alongside your own controllables.

Spoken by a musician who navigated MTV-era spectacle and later became synonymous with televised judgment, it doubles as empathy from someone who knows that the “personal” is often just production.