by Danny Gokey
Being fresh off the show, you get all kinds of people wanting to help you capitalize on your success. For me, part of what stood out to people on American Idol (besides my voice, hopefully) was my glasses. I made it a point to wear different glasses each week as a distinguishing factor. Naturally, my glasses caught the attention of some vendors, and I received offers to endorse products or create a line. One offer stood out to me as a hometown boy from Wisconsin. A multistate vision store chain based in Milwaukee saw me on the show and asked me to be a spokesperson for their stores. As a result of that connection, their manufacturer, Match Eyewear, caught the vision of a bigger picture and chose to leverage my exposure on the show to create the Danny Gokey Eyewear Collection.
Although there were other offers and endorsement deals that came my way, this one was really a cool thing for me. To think that one of the things that made me unique (actually, one of the things I was teased about as a kid) was now shaping a part of my future. Life had certainly taken a turn in the most incredible ways.
My first album, “My Best Days,” released in 2010 and garnered first-week album sales that were the best of any debut male country artist in eighteen years. I couldn’t believe it. We sold 65,000 records the first week. It also earned a number one position in chart history with the best first-week digital-album sales ever recorded by a debut country act to that point and reached number four on the weekly Billboard 200 album chart.
My first single release was “My Best Days Are Ahead of Me.” That was a special song for me — an anthem of sorts. I originally picked the song because it represented my future and everything I had overcome up until that point. The song was pitched to us and we picked it for the album having never talked to the author who penned it. It wasn’t until later that it came to mean even more to me once I met the songwriter, Kent Blazy.
Kent has written some amazing hits, such as “If Tomorrow Never Comes,” which Garth Brooks recorded. Just like I faced the reality of having to find the strength to move forward without Sophia, Kent had to say good-bye to his wife, Sharon, after twenty-eight years of marriage. They had fought her brain tumors for a long time. One day she decided she was tired of fighting the inevitable. She was going to die, and trying to postpone it wasn’t going to change that. The only way Kent could process what he was feeling was to do what he had been divinely gifted to do: write songs.
Kent’s pain had to be great. He had spent almost three decades with the love of his life. I felt like my heart was ripped out of my chest and my life was completely off course after only four years of marriage. I couldn’t imagine being twenty-eight years into it and having to say good-bye.
Yet in the midst of the pain, Kent wrote the lyrics to a song about the promise of a better tomorrow. Kent shared his very personal song with his friend Marv Green. Together they polished Kent’s pain into a song of hope and promise of what is to come. Little did Kent or Marv know I would later record that song having dealt with the same pain.
I didn’t just sing that song; I lived it and believed it. I felt like only the hands of heaven could get that song to me without the writer knowing what I had experienced with Sophia. That song to me was a confirmation, and I still believe to this day that my best days are still ahead of me.
A Speck of Light Getting Bright
When you come off of a show like American Idol, a lot of people in the music industry don’t consider you a “real” musician. In their minds, you didn’t pay your dues. Success appears to come easy, but I knew differently. They didn’t get to see the eight years doing whatever I could to get my music career started. They didn’t see the hours and hours I put in driving a truck and working two jobs to get where I was today. I didn’t let it bother me. I tried to keep my eyes on what I knew was important and continue the momentum that had started.
A lot of work goes into the promotion of a record. We did a radio tour after the release of every single from my first album. In a lot of ways, radio rules the world when it comes to music success. The music programmers control what’s going to be played on the air, so these tours were really important — and pretty exhausting.
As you know, morning shows don’t start in the afternoon, and I am not a morning person. I was constantly getting up at five to go on morning shows and talk about my album. I went to a hundred different radio stations in about four months to campaign for them to play my songs. I was doing shows at night, too, singing for fans and doing what I loved: entertaining. I met people who wanted to shake my hand, have me kiss their babies, and even change diapers. (Okay, maybe not the last one, but I sure was asked to do some crazy things at times.) Sometimes it felt like I was some kind of political figure or something. Everywhere I went, people wanted my autograph. They wanted to take pictures with me. Places I had always watched on TV were now places I had the opportunity to perform at, and people recognized who I was. It made me feel wanted and loved. I felt as if everything I had ever experienced up until now had paid off.
I’ve had the opportunity to open for artists such as Sugarland, Tim McGraw, Lady Antebellum, and Taylor Swift. I’ve performed at the Grand Ole Opry, where I was able to take the Sophia’s Heart Nashville kids choir to sing with me. I had the privilege of meeting influential people such as former president George W. Bush and Joel and Victoria Osteen. I was taken aback when Victoria told me she had enjoyed watching me on American Idol.
While I was on tour with Sugarland, I found out my first single was in the Top 25. It felt amazing. Maybe all those radio tours paid off. I couldn’t believe the things that were unfolding before my very eyes.
When you have hope, you have an energy that recharges you and drives you. But when I was caught up in the midst of my depression, I felt like a zombie at times. I was numb and couldn’t feel anything except pain. Now all of that had changed. Hope is the light at the end of the tunnel. In the beginning, all you see is a speck of light. As you get closer to it, the light becomes brighter and more pronounced. Soon you find yourself at the end of the tunnel and about to step into a beautiful world again. It was a speck of light getting bright. I had nothing but excitement and anticipation for what was ahead.
It had been a long road up to this point, but things were finally coming together. Even now, I often stop and think about what would’ve happened if I’d let my pain stop me. What if I hadn’t tried out for American Idol when I didn’t want to? What if I had given in to the dark thoughts in my life? I never would’ve gotten to where I was. I never would’ve lived out the opportunities that were ahead of me. Where would I be today? It’s a sobering thought.
Believing in hope allowed me to experience these things because I walked in the direction of my future and toward hope.
Another Plan
My second single, “I Will Not Say Goodbye,” got to number thirty-two on the charts. While that may be respectable, it was not exactly where we had hoped it would go. I knew that wasn’t enough for the record label. I knew they wanted more. I did too. It was frustrating.
We had previously discussed creating more of a soulful sound on my album, but it was tamed while working with the producers. I couldn’t help but wonder if that was part of the problem. I’m sure there were a lot of factors that were in play. I sat down with the record executives and told them we needed to capture more of my soulful tone. That’s what people saw on the show, and that’s what they expected from me. To do a more toned-down version of me didn’t feel right. We decided to record a new single, “Second Hand Heart,” and release it to see where things would go from there.
My third single did not do well at all. That was a sign that things were starting to get scary. In September 2011, I got a phone call right before we were planning to shoot the video for “Second Hand Heart.” Sony had chosen to drop me.
Strangely, in that moment, I wasn’t discouraged. God has a way of preparing you for transitions in life that come. You may not always see it at the time, but there is another plan at work. The expectation of how life should play
out is rarely the reality. It all comes down to a choice to keep moving forward in hope. The key is to keep pressing forward until the hope shines through.
Around the same time, my manager started working on other things too. I started sensing a disconnect. My gut instinct was preparing me for what was to come. He called me a few months after Sony dropped my contract and told me he didn’t feel like he was doing me any favors by keeping me as a client and that he was just holding me back, so he decided to part ways with me as well.
Once again, I felt a strange calm. Yes, there were times of discouragement in the days ahead. I didn’t know what this would mean for my music career. All the hard work leading up to this point was suddenly on pause. And, yes, it took me longer to get where I am today because of what happened. But I didn’t focus on those things. I knew there was more to come for me, so I started moving in that direction. I had seen too many good things in my past come together to believe it would suddenly stop now. Sometimes what you know in your heart is strong enough to override the doubt, so I pressed on.
Hope Comes Into Play
When we are right in the middle of difficult things, it’s hard to have perspective. We are so close to the details that we can’t see in front of us or even what is around us. We can’t see what’s coming, and sometimes we can’t make sense of what just happened.
Eagles are an amazing species of birds. They are large, powerful, and fast. Humanity has been fascinated with eagles for a long time. There are stories from Greek mythology as well as many of the world’s religions. This bird, being the largest and most significant, has a heavy beak for hunting and killing its prey and is able to carry the largest load of any known bird on record.
There is something that has fascinated me about eagles for a long time. I think it is their expansive wings and the ease by which they can fly through the air. I rarely see eagles close to the ground; I see them high in trees or flying in the sky.
I often wonder what it is like to see life through the eyes of an eagle. Sometimes when I’m on an airplane, I will look out the window as we get ready to land and wonder if what I’m looking at is similar to what the eagle sees. Eagles are powerful and mysterious creatures with acute eyesight.
It isn’t until we are able to rise above the difficult situation that we begin to see how the seemingly random dots are connected in just the right way to position you for what’s next. This is how the eagle views things, and we should remind ourselves of this perspective often. What you see and experience now should always be taken into context of the bigger picture.
The challenge is that you may not have access to the bigger picture until you are a little further down the road. This is where hope comes into play. Hope gives us the ability to connect the dots before they are connected. The reality is that you may be the only one who can see that through the eyes of your heart — for now.
For a long time, people saw me differently.
Most people saw me as only a worship leader and a truck driver. I saw myself on the world’s stage.
Most people saw me only as someone who barely made it through high school. I saw myself as someone who had the skills and resolve to be successful in business.
Most people saw me only as someone who had lost his wife early in life. In time, I saw that painful experience as the catalyst that resulted in Sophia’s Heart, an organization that is changing lives daily by helping people discover hope again.
We can see only what is before us. It is rarely more than our perception, and perception is often very different from reality. Hope transforms our perspective from the ground level to the picture of our lives from an eagle’s perspective when it flies over the earth. It is only then that we can see how the roller coaster we’ve been riding is less chaotic and more controlled than we ever thought. It is only then we can see a clear beginning and a clear end.
There is a plan for your life. It is bigger than you ever imagined. It is greater than what you planned. It is more significant than you ever thought was possible. But it all hinges on whether or not we’ll be courageous enough to embrace a lifestyle of hope or continue to randomly go through life wishing for the best.
Something to Look Forward To
When Sony dropped my contract, I suddenly found myself with more free time — something that was scarce in my post-Idol days. Many artists might’ve gotten discouraged when the team disappeared and the crowds thinned, but I saw things differently. I had purpose.
Even though some people I really thought I needed dropped me, I knew I had to believe that something better would come out of it. Sometimes you have to let those things happen and just let them play out. I knew deep down inside that more good was still to come.
Purpose makes anything you do way better. Even if you’re working in what feels like the worst job in the world, you can find purpose and it will help you start thinking that job may not be so bad after all. It’s amazing what hope and purpose can do to your perspective. It can move you toward a better future.
I have always seen my music as a movement, and Sophia’s Heart is integral to that vision. Although I would have chosen at the time to continue on the path I was on and grow from there, things took a different turn. The apparent setback gave me the time I needed to focus on a new piece of my musical vision: establishing Sophia’s Heart to be a thriving nonprofit. I had something to look forward to. I had renewed purpose, and it kept me moving forward in hope.
When the calls came and the people fell away, the choice to move ahead was the only real option. I could not see where the road would take me. I had to swing at the curveball thrown my way. Right now, while I’m working on this book, I’m also working on a new album. At times the delay in my music career was as tedious as watching paint dry, but it’s all coming together better than it ever has before. How many artists get the second chance I’m getting?
When you look at your life in retrospect, you start realizing there is a bigger story being written. I had to trust things to work out instead of fighting it and getting frustrated when things didn’t work out the way I thought they should have. The Author of my life has written new chapters that have created my story exactly as it needs to be. There was another plan — a better plan than what I had envisioned. Had I been discouraged or bitter, things might’ve turned out differently or I might have been jaded about the whole music business. Hope helped me stay on the right path. With hope, when other people think you’ve failed, you know inside you haven’t.
People often have timelines for when they think things will happen, but a lot of things in your life are not going to happen in your timing, and you have to be okay with that. It doesn’t mean it isn’t going to happen. Although I’ve seen and experienced a lot of amazing things, I feel that the best days of my career are yet to be seen.
To this day, I still have a good relationship with my old manager and my old label company. Two years ago, I didn’t know what would happen and what good things were still to come, but I hoped for it. Hope is the key. You have to hope there’s something better coming or you won’t move toward it.
A Glimpse of a Bigger Picture
Scars show where you have been, but they don’t have to determine where you are going. They may leave a mark, but they don’t have to hold you back. What you do next is more important than what you did — or didn’t do — yesterday.
It is an energizing feeling when we get a glimpse of a bigger picture and a greater plan, but that experience also comes with challenges. Our lives can be a lot like jigsaw puzzles. They come to us in a container of a thousand pieces. On the cover is this beautiful picture. But before we can see the picture ourselves, we have to understand how all the pieces fit together. We try, make mistakes, and have to undo incorrect connection points until we make the right choices and create the beautiful picture on the cover.
Everything that happened to me during this time told me that a bigger change had taken place in my life. The pieces I was carrying around in a box were looking
less like a jigsaw puzzle and more like the picture on the cover.
Once you have the pieces in place, you don’t unlink them unless you are ready to quit altogether. Life is no different. It comes to us in a lot of pieces that take a lot of time, energy, and effort to make sense of. Once we do have that sense of what has happened, is happening, and will happen, we recognize we must continue to build and move forward. If we don’t, we’ll get stuck and never realize the beauty and the blessing before us.
Your life is a beautiful picture you have yet to fully realize. There are likely some pieces you’ve been able to put together on your own. Others you have discovered through circumstances and people who have brought you the wisdom and the pain you needed at the time to make the connection.
As you continue on, you realize that what you’re putting together is revealing something even more beautiful than you first had in mind. This is what I mean when I talk about your divine destiny. It is already built within you. The experiences you go through reveal your destiny in pieces. Sometimes it requires radical moves and carefully rethinking how the pieces fit together. Sometimes it comes together quickly and with little effort. Either way, you are moving forward and getting closer to the big picture you first saw on the box.
Don’t allow your pain to prevent you from reaching forward.
Don’t allow your perspective to inhibit your ability to see the big picture.
You are more than your pain.
You are bigger, stronger, and more creative than you’ve ever imagined.
You have an exciting future to embrace. It’s never too late to begin again. Allow hope to strengthen you, and lean into the future that is before you. You’ll be amazed how the momentum will sweep you up and how quickly the pieces of the puzzle will become a beautiful picture of your divine destiny.
