why we need to focus on who we are instead of what we achieve with Christina Cimorelli
meet Christina,
you may know her as the oldest sister in the band Cimorelli, which has over 5 million subscribers and 1 billion (!) views on YouTube, but there’s so much more than meets the eye.
Christina exemplifies hard work, living a life of faith, and self-empowerment, all while lifting others up and encouraging them to be their best selves along the way.
in our conversation, i learned what it’s really like to be one in a million, and how being a role model is not about being perfect, but the lessons you learn along the way.
she handles her platform with grace and doesn’t settle for anything, and as Christina enters into her next decade, there’s no doubt that she will check off every goal on her list.
i hope this conversation inspires you as much as it did me, and serves as a reminder that at the end of the day, it’s about who you are, not what you have.
To start, you are the second child of 11 siblings, and you’ve mentioned how that plays a role in your personality. Something I admire about you is that you’re a leader and you’re not afraid to speak up. You’re a boss, not “bossy.”
First of all, thank you. That’s a very relevant question because it was definitely trial and error. Having nine younger siblings (only one older) does tend to help, or maybe hurt, those qualities and make them even stronger. It elevated my leadership and bossiness. It was honestly a lot of my help from my dad, because he has a similar personality to me (but is even more intense than me), so he would see things and point them out. He also runs a business. I remember him printing out this article from Harvard or a different college about leadership and different leadership styles. It showed me, “Oh, my gosh, you can be a leader that is really unhealthy, or you can be a leader that’s really healthy.” I didn’t really realize that until he laid that out; that was a really big defining moment for me. It made me realize, “Oh, my gosh, I need to adjust the way that I’m leading people because this is actually not the most effective way. This is just to get people to follow me in the short term, but eventually they’re going to be resentful and they’re not going to want to follow me.” It was through trial, error, feedback, and study. If I hadn’t learned that, and it was largely due to people helping me with feedback, I don’t think I’d be a very healthy leader today. That was not the path I was going down. And I’m still a work in progress.
Definitely. You committed to it, and figured out what works and what doesn’t. Even now, especially taking into account how things translate online, do you ever feel the need to water down your personality to fit the room, so to speak?
It’s weird because in person is different from online – very, very, very different. Some people don’t realize that unless you’re online with a lot of followers, or you meet a lot of big influencers, you’ll never see how different they are online versus in person. Or you’ll see how different you come across to people and what they think of you. It’s a hard thing to grasp unless you’ve experienced it. Online and on camera, things come across differently and I’m definitely trying to not tone myself down as much as I sometimes do. I’ve gotten in a negative habit where I see people respond to things, and then I’ll want to adjust to please people. But after a while, I was like, “I don’t want to do that. This is really weird.” I’m coming out of that right now, and putting more of myself out there, little by little. It’s a completely different thing online because you also have your mental health to take into account; seeing a lot of negative stuff can be really damaging, whether or not you’re taking it that seriously. Just seeing it, I don’t think is that natural or healthy.
Yeah. And you, in a way, have kind of grown up online. Over ten years ago, you and your sisters started posting videos of you singing covers on YouTube, and they caught like wildfire - millions and millions of views. Did you see it coming?
It’s weird because I planned on it, but I didn’t see it happening. I wanted that to happen really badly, so when I was fifteen, I started visualizing having a really successful career in music with a big following. I didn’t really see that coming at the same time, because social media was so new. I was very surprised, but it was also very intentional at the same time. I was really blown away by our career.
In a lot of ways, we’re one in a million which is so weird to be that. It’s very strange.
You were in college when you first started posting on YouTube, but you were planning on this music career. Would you say that what you learned in college helped you, or did you want to break the mold and follow your own path, so to speak?
As far as my career goes, I don’t think so, because it was more trial and error and taking risks, and that’s kind of the opposite of what you do in school. It’s about following a set procedure and doing the exact same thing that everyone else is doing. That was kind of the complete opposite, and it was kind of weird to step out of that. But I love learning. I loved college classes, and I do want to go back.
I agree, always learning and always seeking new things. And speaking of risks, you signed to a label and moved to LA. Then, you left the label. You did something not many people do, where you chose your values and chose to walk away. Where did you get the strength to do that, and how did you find the confidence to do that, because not many people would have done what you did.
With a couple of big risks, it’s been a mixture of how my mom would talk to me growing up. She instilled a go-getter mindset in me by saying things like, “You can try anything. Don’t be scared to try because you think you might fail.” That and my dad, who is a really big risk taker, would say, “You guys don’t need [the label] to be doing what you’re doing.” If he never said that, I don’t think I would have realized that on my own. There’s a couple of big, big things in my life where I can think of my dad specifically saying to me, “You can do this,” and if one person who I trust - oftentimes it’s Lauren - tells me, “You can do this,” I will believe that I can do it.
Sometimes I can tell myself, and other times, I just need one person to tell me they believe in me, and I’m like, “Yes, I can do it.”
I think I naturally like taking risks and trying new things in my career. I think that’s just the way I was born with my personality. I like the idea of a clean slate and nowhere to go but up. And then I have faith that no matter what happens, there’s always a new day. God can create something amazing out of something horrible; God can create something new out of nothing. You’re never just done until you stop. You’ll know that if you study lots of successful people throughout history. They had so many devastating, catastrophic failures, but it teaches them such lessons that allow them to be so successful. Seeing that makes you realize like, “Oh, my gosh, a failure doesn’t mean you’re out unless you literally stop there.” That’s the only time it’s the end. If you keep going and you learn, then you’re going to get something big. I believe that I don’t know what’s going to happen tomorrow, and I can’t pretend that I know what’s going to happen. That might be really stressful to some people, but I am excited by that because something crazy could happen tomorrow in a great way that could shock me.
Speaking of success and watching those successful people, and then forging your own path, how do you personally define success now?
I have thought about this so much. I don’t think I really thought about my definition until my early 20’s maybe, when we were on YouTube and we were having so much success in some ways, but then we were not having mainstream success or monetary success. We didn’t know much. We were having fun, but we weren’t making one dime, which is pretty insane compared to YouTubers nowadays. I had to really think about it. Like, “Wait a minute, does this make me successful? Does this thing mean I’m not successful?”
It’s definitely evolved over the years, but at this point, my definition of success in life is being able to look myself in the mirror every night and be really proud of what I’m doing. Knowing that I’m challenging myself and pushing myself, and that I don’t give up easily. Knowing I have this belief in myself that I can make it through life’s huge obstacles and challenges, and that I am doing everything I can to provide for myself and anyone I’m responsible for, and that I’m doing things that I’m really, truly passionate about. If I’m doing all of those things, then I feel really good, because I have respect for myself, I’m empowering myself, and I’m able to provide for myself.
Those things make me feel very, very successful. The other stuff, honestly, if it’s having a certain house or car or looking a certain way, that’s literally just a trick. You get those things that you’ve dreamed of, you feel happy for a little bit, but it doesn’t last very long. It’s just impossible; it’s honestly science. Your brains don’t work like that. You have to find something else to top it, and you can never reach the top of that; you always have to get something to top it. Once I realized that, I was like, “That doesn’t feel like success. That sounds like I’m being stuck in a trap. I don’t want to be stuck in a trap; I want to figure out what’s really important in life.”
That, to me, is success – taking care of myself and truly being empowered and able to respect myself.
Definitely. And you talked about how it was so different when you started as far as when you started making money with YouTube. Nowadays, the music compensation model is antiquated. Artists don’t get much compensation for their work. You left a deal. And now we’re at a point where people almost feel entitled to music and to content, rather than valuing it and investing in it. You have millions of streams, but converting them to people who put the money in your pocket… I could sit and watch your YouTube channel for 24 hours without you really seeing anything from that. And money isn’t why you do it, but you still have to sustain yourself. What are your insights on it, and what do you think might be next for the industry?
When we lived in Los Angeles, I saw how much money was was being spent on various projects and it was shocking that they would spend so much money on a photoshoot that would come out not looking good. That was money that we had to recoup before we could get paid. It was like, “I don’t even really approve of all these things that they’re doing, and now I don’t get to get paid until that’s paid back?” It’s really like a loan that I’m giving. It’s a risk they’re taking, but it’s a loan they’re taking from my future earnings, assuming I make any money. I did not like that at all; it just didn’t make sense to me. I wanted to be able to make the decisions so I could make what I saw as smart decisions, and I wanted to find people who were younger and more aware of what’s going on with social media, because a lot of people we had worked with were really out of touch. It’s not all about talent; it’s literally all about connections. As many times as people say it, it’s really about just connections. It does not matter, a lot of times, how good people are at their jobs. That was really eye-opening to me. We can do a video that’s $100,000 with the label, or we can do a video ourselves that’s a couple thousand dollars, or even one that is just free, and we can get the same amount of views. Or we can record a song that costs us like nothing to do, or we can go to them and do one that costs… I mean, producers can cost hundreds of thousands of dollars for one song, depending on who you’re working with. You have to recoup all of that before you can make a dime. There are pros and cons to both; it really works out for some people, but there are really a lot of cons that I’m not interested in there. As far as monetizing goes, people definitely had that entitlement thing worse off a few years ago. I’ve seen a huge improvement in it. People would be furious about ads, and it used to be just one ad. People would be furious that we were charging for anything, as if they think that everything is free. But we have to have equipment. We have to buy lights, updated cameras, and camera equipment because quality changes. We have to have spaces to shoot in. These things are not free. We were putting a lot of money into what we shoot, and then people were like, “How dare you charge me any money to see this?” And I was like, “What? This is my job. You don’t work for free at your job. Why am I supposed to work for free at my job?” But on the flip side of that, I truly love what I’m doing, and we did this back when we didn’t know we could make a dime off of it. We didn’t know you could make money off YouTube for years. In fact, people assumed we were making it and didn’t even ask if we were monetizing when we weren’t, for a long time. We lost out on hundreds of thousands, possibly a million or more, dollars. I wish we had now, but it just goes to show you that we loved what we were doing and were so passionate about it. I really, really love what I’m doing, and at the same time, I want to get paid for my job. I think it’s going in a good direction where people are actually aware now that things cost money and that this is a job, which is great. Streaming music has been our biggest source of income, which wasn’t before, which is crazy.
And YouTube, the merch, podcasts, a book, albums… you balance so many different platforms. Does it ever feel like work or, do you have enough personalities with your sisters that you all gravitate towards one particular project each?
We have a lot of different personalities, a lot of different strengths and talents, and that is how we are able to do so many different things at once. We are our team, plus we have one employee. It’s really cool and it works out really well. I could not do all of these things on my own; it wouldn’t be possible. It feels like work but to be able to be so proud of what you’ve created, like knowing that when my kids can see us on YouTube, I’m not going to be like, “Oh, don’t watch that!” I’m going to be like, “Yes, watch this.” Or, “Hey, you should watch this video and get some advice.” I’m proud of that. It’s amazing to create a legacy that you’re actually proud of, and that feeling overshadows everything. It’s such a strong feeling that it makes everything worth it.
And regardless of the platform, you are really open and honest about whatever you’re going through, what you’re feeling and how it’s affecting you. Nothing is off limits, really. Do you intentionally share everything, or since you’ve been doing it forever, where do you draw the line between what you share with people and what you keep to yourself?
I share a lot of big, vulnerable life events and moments but I don’t share too much of the vulnerable stuff day-to-day. I’ve noticed that people who have those kinds of careers have a lot of stress because people are much more up in their business because they comment on their everyday business. I feel really comfortable sharing really big, vulnerable life events because I share them not necessarily right when I’m going through them; I’ll have to feel like I have a grip on them before I share them because I don’t want anyone’s comments to be really painful for me. That would be the case if I was really raw, so I wait until I’m not quite as raw to share things. Vulnerability is really tough for me, and that’s a challenge. But the truth is such a big part for me that I really value, and I want to put that out there. I think the reason I do it because I’m really motivated by protecting others, and being there for people who don’t have anyone there for them. I know that a lot of people look up to me, and that’s a huge responsibility, but I already have nine siblings who will look up to me for the rest of my life no matter what I do. I want to be there for people to look up to, even though I’m going to mess up.
Because that’s part of being a role model: showing how you deal with mistakes and asking for forgiveness and apologizing. It’s not me thinking I know everything, but sharing what I’ve learned so far.
Something so major to you that you share consistently that not many other people do is your faith. You touched on that a little earlier. What I have personally observed in my life, is that you may grow up in the church, but as you grow up you have to choose your faith and to develop your own relationship with it. Have you found that?
I remember that happening during my teenage years because I was very aggressive with my questioning why we believe this, or that. I was questioning the living daylights out of everything as a teenager. I was asking my mom everything because I didn’t want to believe something blindly. I still question lots of things and learn lots of things, but I remember heavily questioning everything and figuring out what makes sense and what doesn’t, and being like, “Okay, I want to learn more. I want to stick with this.” That moment happened for me when I was a teenager. I really ripped things to shreds and looked to see if it really made sense. I’ve been doing that for years since. I really enjoy researching, questioning, and learning more. My faith has grown through the years. There are obviously seasons where it’s harder to remain faithful and hopeful, and there are other times where I feel more connected to God, but overall, God is the guiding light for everything that I do - for my life, for my career, my relationships, everything that I do. And I will definitely lose sight of that sometimes, but it’s obvious when I lose sight. Going back my faith, though, it’s very comforting knowing that I don’t have to be the guiding light; I am not God and I am not the one in charge of guiding myself everywhere. I tune into my intuition, and to me, that’s connected to God, rooted in my faith. I really enjoy having that guide for my life and being able to reference my Catholic faith and my prayer life. When I’m struggling with something, when there’s a big life event, when I have a career choice to make, anything like that, I really feel lost if I’m not being guided by God in those areas. That’s why I feel so proud of my career, because I pray so much before I do most of the things in my career. There are definitely moments where I’m like, “I don’t know if we should have done that,” because I’m obviously not perfect, but I take it really seriously and I want to do stuff that is pleasing to God. That’s why I’ve been able to feel so proud of what I do with my time, a lot of the times, and how my career has gone.
Do you have a favorite verse?
I don’t know if I have a favorite, because in different times of lives, I’m focusing on different verses. I was really focusing on one that was about not taking revenge and using your anger to get back at people, that God has His own punishment for people and it’s not your job to punish people. That one I had to focus on a lot in the last few months. There’s one about not conforming to the world and there’s one about being the salt of the Earth… I love that whole verse. We have it hanging in the band house that we work at. It reminds me that you are meant to be seen and out there; you’re not meant to be hidden, even though it feels safer and is less dangerous and scary to hide. We’re not all supposed to hide in different corners; we’re all supposed to put ourselves out there. Also, love your neighbor as yourself is one that I think about all the time. Because it says “as yourself” and I think people think that’s selfish, but it has helped me so much because it makes me realize that I’m supposed to take care of myself. It’s not selfish to take care of myself equally to my neighbor. That is really helpful. That’s for life, definitely.
What is one thing everyone should know how to do?
Swim. Everyone should know how to swim. We are a family of swimmers, so I have to say it. Also, know your finances and accounting. Know how to budget and track your personal finances. You should be able to swim and take care of your finances.
No two days are alike, but what does a day in your life look like?
I naturally wake up pretty early, with no alarm. I go on a walk with my dog and that’s where I get a lot of great ideas. Then, I will have breakfast, get ready and I really talk to God, especially on my walks and in the shower. I’ll talk to God about my day and my life. I kind of talk to God throughout the day. I will work for several hours on either shooting stuff for YouTube, Instagram, or TikTok, or I’ll work on planning, meeting, scheduling, all that kind of stuff. I’ll finish up in the evening or afternoon and I will oftentimes spend my evening watching lots of videos on YouTube and taking notes and coming up with ideas. Or I’m researching some kind of topic for a while. I really enjoy researching. Then I will hang out with my husband, have some dinner, and maybe watch a movie. I’ll pray. Sometimes we pray together and I really like when we do that. At night, I’m really more intentional about prayer. I get in bed, honestly, between seven and eight most nights. I’ll get in bed and read or watch a video or talk to my husband, and then I fall asleep. That’s my average weekday.
The last few years have been really big for you, and not just professionally. You got married last year. What has been the biggest lesson of your twenties?
My twenties were absolutely insane. I can’t believe the amount of things that happened to me in my twenties – career wise and personal wise, it’s so shocking that that was my life. I’m in awe of what happened. So many big lessons. One, you’re not going to regret being authentic throughout your life. It’s really hard to be authentic a lot of the time, but you’re not going to look back and regret that. You might have pain attached to it because putting yourself out there in an authentic way creates some pain, but it’s nothing like the pain of knowing that you are not being authentic and you are acting like someone else, you are disowning yourself, you are being fake… that is a different kind of pain that is just never, ever worth it. Number two: if you turned down a big opportunity that could give you a lot of personal gain but it’s morally wrong, it might be kind of painful to turn it down – and I have done that at times – but you are not going to regret that. You’re only going to regret the times that you sacrificed your values and morals and character, because that’s eroding who you are. And number three: taking risks is one of the best things you can possibly do in your life, period. Not for stupid reasons and not like, “Oh, go be with that guy who you can tell is horrible for you;” not that. Take risks that you feel are for good reasons. You are scared, but you know this is a good thing. Literally, life is taking risks. You don’t live if you don’t take risks. I have taken so many and I am so happy that I did.
But taking risks doesn’t mean you’re going to get what you want; it means things are going to happen.
And that’s happened to me so many times: I didn’t get what I wanted every time I took a risk, but I moved forward. You have to take a risk to move forward. Actually, the last thing that I have learned is through Jefferson Bethke: Life is about who you are becoming, not what you have achieved.
At the end of this decade, it’s not about what I’ve achieved. It’s like, “Who am I at this point? How proud of myself am I? How healthy, mentally, am I? How brave am I? Where did I put myself based on all those decisions I made?” Not, “What do I have?” Because this person that I am now has to take me through another decade.
So, having a house that I love is not really going to help me when I’m going through heart-wrenching struggles in the next decade. I need to become someone who can make it through that, and who can support others through that, and who can turn to God through that.
That’s the biggest thing: Who am I becoming? That’s a life-changing thing for me.
seven questions with christina cimorelli:
I can’t go a day without… drinking water.
Everyone should read… the Bible and Daring Greatly by Brené Brown.
Life is better with a little… sunshine. So much better.
Everyone in their 20s should… prioritize the aggressive seeking of who their authentic self really is.
One insider thing to do in Nashville… listen to the live music. There’s live music everywhere.
What the world needs right now is… to take time off of all electronic devices every single week, or every day.
One way to spread love is… by being authentic with people, because it allows for actual true connection.