Authentic Experience of a Lifetime

“Anyways, yeah, so, I didn’t say it, because ya know, I was working on my people skills.”

She delivered the line with a playful edge, the unmistakable attitude of Queens, New York. She was performing on August 14, 2025 at Fiddler’s Green. The crowd laughed, but that line carried the weight of decades in an industry that often demanded silence, compliance, and conformity. When Cyndi Lauper first announced the Girls Just Want To Have Fun Farewell Tour, Colorado wasn’t included. I considered traveling out of state—or even out of the country—but the timing and coordinating with someone else just didn’t work out. This was my belated birthday gift to myself, finally happening over a year later. I could listen to Cyndi talk and sing forever.

“I was working on my people skills”—part confession, part survival strategy—was her throughline. She used it to frame stories about record labels, career lows, personal reinvention, and her enduring marriage to David. It wasn’t just entertainment; it was a lesson on resilience, boundaries, and the art of telling your story in a world that often doesn’t want to hear it.

“I Always Say the Wrong Things to the Right People”

Cyndi shared how, during one particular regime change in her record company, she found herself sitting across from the new head. This man, she explained, was “the epitome of what I ran away from home from.” As someone half Sicilian, raised in an Italian neighborhood, she recognized the type.

He looked her over and asked bluntly:
“Why don’t you wear jeans and a T-shirt?” 

In her head, she shot back:
“Why don’t you just shave your head, you’re gonna go bald anyway.” 

But she didn’t say it. Not because it wasn’t funny, not because it wasn’t true—but because, in her words:

“I was working on my people skills.” 

It was a story about swallowing retorts, choosing silence to survive, and recognizing when speaking up won’t change a thing. Understanding her own personal triggers and knowing this wasn't a safe space to speak up. Beneath the humor, it was also about dignity—the push and pull between authenticity and the pressure to conform. An artist recognizing she must conform in order to survive. An innovator beyond her era, boldly paving the way for those who came after. Yet this environment would never allow her to truly flourish.

Psychological Safety Begins With Self-Awareness

When Cyndi Lauper spoke about sitting across from the record executive—the man who reminded her of “what I ran away from home from”—she gave us a glimpse into the roots of her resilience. In that moment, her story wasn’t just about industry politics. It was about personal triggers, old wounds, and the discipline it takes to navigate them.

She had a thought she wanted to unleash—sharp, biting, perfectly true. Instead, she paused. “I didn’t say it, because I was working on my people skills.” 

That pause wasn’t about censorship. It was about awareness. Cyndi recognized that her impulse came from something deeper than the conversation in front of her—it came from the echoes of a past she had already chosen to leave behind.

This is the often-overlooked side of psychological safety: it’s not only about what leaders create for teams, but also about the inner safety we create for ourselves. 

• Knowing your triggers helps you respond rather than react.
• Understanding your history helps you separate past pain from present interactions.
• Building self-awareness helps you discern: Is this about them, or is this about me?

For Cyndi, the executive’s words triggered memories of control, conformity, and restriction—the very forces she’d escaped in her youth. Her restraint in that moment wasn’t weakness; it was strength. It was the ability to stay grounded, to not let her past hijack her present, and to choose her battles wisely.

Workplace Application: Psychological safety flourishes when teams have the freedom to speak openly. It also thrives when individuals cultivate self-awareness—so that what they bring forward is grounded in clarity, not in unexamined reaction.

Leaders and team members alike can benefit from asking: What am I really reacting to? Is this about now, or is this about then? 

True psychological safety is both collective and personal. It’s about creating cultures where people feel free to speak, and it’s about developing the inner discipline to know when silence is self-protection, and when voice is liberation. Read the InKNOWnative Insights: Why Self-Awareness is the Hidden Element of Psychological Safety.

Stepping Away: Meeting Her Husband, David

That period of time left her unfettered. She wanted to write and sing songs that meant something, songs that made people feel the way music had once made her feel, growing up. The record company wasn’t interested in meaning—it was interested in control.

So she stepped away. She did a movie. In that movie, she played the mermaid 🧜🏻‍♀️, while her co-star played the murderer 🫣.

That co-star was David, her now husband.

She joked about how his name became part of a running theme: “The last guy I was with, his name was David too. You know how it is—you date someone, you think you’re going to marry them, and then you don’t. You think: Oh, is he going to give me a watch for ten years of good service?” 

She laughed and admitted she even went to a therapist about it: “I thought I was collecting Davids!” 

Eventually, this David became her David. They married, and thirty years later, she still describes their love like 🐋 whales 🐋, “We’re like whales; we’re always gonna be together.” 

David’s Advice: Write Your Story

David gave her the advice that changed the trajectory of her career:

“You should start to write your story, in your own words, as a songwriter. Your story.” 

At the time, she said she was depressed. Her career felt like a mess. She was surrounded by people she couldn’t talk to. She was weighed down by the politics of labels, executives, and expectations.

David’s reminder wasn’t just about songs—it was about reclaiming her voice. About refusing to live under other people’s narratives. About writing her own chapter. 

📚 Many Chapters, Not Just One 📖

This theme continued as she shared how another woman once reminded her about having many chapters in your life

“I met this woman who said to me, ya know Cyn, there are many chapters in your life, and I forgot this. Because I thought when you only have one big chapter—and of course, I came from nothing and I became famous—so that was one big chapter."

"You have a big chapter, right? And if you have a big chapter and then when that’s over, like what the heck do I do now? Well what I forgot, which is what I’m going to talk to you about real briefly—well, not really—but, that would be, we have many chapters in our life and we write the book. Right?"  

"Sometimes there’s not somebody ahead of you, paving the path." 

"So this was the beginning of a new chapter for me, and it was the first song I wrote for the Hat Full of Stars album, and I wrote it with Ally Willis….The great thing about her—-cause every time I’d started, I say well I wanna write about that, but I can’t …. And she’d say, why not?"

"So, I did."

"And anyway, this was the beginning of the new chapter of my career.”

She explained how she had thought her life was one big chapter: from nothing, to famous. A single arc of transformation. When that arc seemed to end, she asked herself: What now? 

The truth was liberating: there isn’t just one chapter. There are many. Some loud. Some quiet. Some about survival. Some about joy. We get to keep writing them, no matter what others think.

Girls Just Want To Have Fun: The Kusama Connection

Then came the story behind the song that defined a generation: Girls Just Want To Have Fun. 

This was her Farewell Tour, and she reframed the song in a way that will forever change how I hear it.

The wardrobe and backdrop weren’t just playful—they were art, designed by none other than Yayoi Kusama, the Japanese artist known for her bold, polka-dotted, psychedelic installations. Kusama’s work has always been about challenging norms, about filling space unapologetically with repetition, pattern, and color.

Cyndi described how Kusama’s artistry gave her the courage to embody freedom and fun as rebellion. The backdrop wasn’t just decoration—it was context. A stage painted with the same audacity that lived in her voice.

In Kusama’s design, Girls Just Want To Have Fun Farewell Tour became more than a pop anthem. It was a statement of autonomy, visibility, and joy in a world that tried to demand jeans and a T-shirt instead of sequins and polka dots.

Kusama, inspired the backdrop of the Girls Just Want To Have Fun Farewell Tour. “She allowed us to collaborate with her.”

“All the male artists were very inspired by (Yayoi Kusama), in fact they took a couple of her ideas and became very successful with it, and she was very depressed by it. But she persisted, and was eventually (officially) invited to the (45th) Biennale in Venice (in 1993) and she was the artist from Japan.”

Community Threads: June 22 🎂

True to form, if you go anywhere with my friend Q, you’ll end up meeting new friends. That night was no different. We crossed paths with a mother-daughter duo. The mom had flown in from California with front-row tickets as a surprise birthday gift for her daughter, who lives in Colorado Springs, Colorado.

🟣 Her birthday? June 22. 🎂
🟣 Cyndi Lauper’s birthday? June 22. 🎂
🟣 My late maternal grandmother’s birthday? June 22. 🎂
🟣 A childhood friend, also in the audience—her birthday? June 22. 🎂

A thread of birthdays connecting childhood friends, strangers, family, and icons.

Listening to Cyndi Lauper (with an onstage wardrobe change while in her wig cap), talking about her grandmother coming to America.

“She (Cyndi's grandmother) got on her bike, literally, and went to the boat. And took the boat to America. Got off the boat, with her bike. And then, just rode around and made her living as a seamstress.”

Community in Queens 

“In Queens we had these backyards that were separated by iron fences…It was a community of people. For me a little girl, it was a community of women.”

“Yes, I have a cousin Vinnie. Most Italian people do.”

“I used to watch all these women, and they were kind of beautiful.”

This community reminded her of the Lawrence Ferlinghetti’s collection of poems: A Coney Island of the Mind. This inspired her Sally's Pigeon's song on the Hat Full of Stars album 

“As I saw them (the women in the community), they were similar and kinda beautiful and they were kinda of sad, too…Well I noticed my mom—any time she wanted to do something, she kinda couldn’t…And she couldn’t have a bank account in her name, even if she had a job…You couldn’t get a credit card, if you’re a woman, until 1971. And that’s when Bella Abzug, a Congresswoman from New York, she made it all happen….Even in the 80s, if you were a  woman, you couldn’t get a business loan.” 

“The fact that the women were these great tailors. We’d get hand me down clothing. And they knew how to take it apart, measure you, and put it back together, and it looked brand new….I thought, if you could do that with cloth, that maybe I can do that with songs…"

The Night Closed With A Community of 🔆Light🔆 and True Colors

The rest of the evening unfolded like a dream: candid snapshots, unexpected moments, the kind of magic that only happens when thousands of people gather to sing their hearts out.

Then came the final moments of the concert with her song True Colors. 

Cyndi invited everyone to turn on their phone lights and look around:
“Look at us. We’re a community. A community of 🔆light🔆. Just remember, you can make 🔆light🔆, not just on your cell 📱 phone.” 

The arena glowed. Thousands of 🔆lights🔆, each a small spark, woven into something bigger. An experience of belonging. A chorus of 🔆light🔆 and voice.

True Colors, recorded in 1986, was originally written as a gentle ballad of reassurance—an invitation to loved ones to reveal their authentic selves without fear of judgment. What began as a song about vulnerability and unconditional acceptance soon evolved into a global anthem for empowerment, embraced by the LGBTQ+ community as a powerful symbol of pride, visibility, and belonging. Today, it continues to resonate as a universal message of psychological safety, reminding us that authenticity, courage, and compassion are what bring communities together and help them shine. Extending that legacy beyond music, Cyndi Lauper co-founded True Colors United (originally the True Colors Fund) during her 2008 True Colors tour, an organization dedicated to ending homelessness among LGBTQ+ youth by providing inclusive support, resources, and advocacy True Colors United. Learn more about True Colors United: https://truecolorsunited.org/about/.

Why It Matters: Psychological Safety in Action

Cyndi Lauper’s Girls Just Want To Have Fun Farewell concert was more than nostalgia. It was a masterclass in what psychological safety looks like in real time:

• Holding back a retort not because you’re silenced, but because you’re choosing your battles. (Working on my people skills.)
• Writing your own story when others want to write it for you. (David’s advice.)
• Remembering that life isn’t just one big chapter. (The wisdom of reinvention.)
• Creating art that refuses to shrink. (Yayoi Kusama’s design.)
• Building connections that ripple beyond the moment. (June 22 synchronicity.)
• Celebrating light, joy, and community, belonging, even among strangers. (True Colors.)

Ultimately, it’s a reminder that survival sometimes requires restraint, but thriving requires expression—because psychological safety is the soil that allows both to coexist: the space to choose silence when necessary, and the courage to tell your story when it matters most.

Closing Thought

Cyndi Lauper’s life and music prove that “working on your people skills” doesn’t mean burying your voice. It means learning how to wield it—sometimes with restraint, sometimes with rebellion, but always with authenticity.

In the end, her message was clear: we’re all part of a community of 🔆light🔆. Our stories, our chapters, our colors—they belong not just to us, but to the collective we build together.

That’s not just art and entertainment. That’s psychological safety in action.

If you're wondering what my 'go-to' karaoke song is, it's Time After Time.

If you want to bring psychological safety into your organization but aren't sure where to begin, start here by reading this InKNOWnative Insights: How to Use InKNOWnative’s Step-by-Step Training to Build Sustainable Psychological Safety.  

Citations

Edmondson, A. (2019). The Fearless Organization: Creating Psychological Safety in the Workplace for Learning, Innovation, and Growth. Wiley.

Munroe, A. (2012). Yayoi Kusama. Tate Publishing.

National Women’s History Museum. “Bella Abzug and the Equal Credit Opportunity Act.” Retrieved 2025.

True Colors United. About Us. https://truecolorsunited.org/about/

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