The Rider: Your Non-Negotiables Are Not Optional | Trauma Rock Stars™

Did you know Van Halen's famous "no brown M&Ms" demand had 
nothing to do with being a diva? It was a test. And it changes 
everything about how we think about our own non-negotiables.

In this solo episode, Tracy Smaldino introduces The Rider — the 
list of requirements every artist puts in their contract before 
they perform — and shows you how to build yours for your own 
healing journey.

Because you have been performing without a rider. Showing up for 
everyone else's needs while completely ignoring your own. And 
that stops today.

In this episode:
- The real story behind Van Halen's brown M&Ms
- Why a rider is professional necessity — not selfish behavior
- How trauma taught you your needs were too much
- The fawning response: people pleasing as a survival strategy
- The 4 clauses of your personal rider:
  Physical, Emotional, Mental & Relational requirements
- How to communicate your rider and hold it
- What to do when your rider is violated

"A rider without consequences is just a preference. The reason 
it's called a non-negotiable is because it is NOT negotiated."
— Tracy Smaldino

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Hey Rockstars, I want to tell you about one of the most famous writers in rock and roll history. You've all heard of what a band writer is. Well, this one is Van Halen. If you know anything about the music industry, you've probably heard this story. Van Halen had a writer, a list of requirements in their contract that had to be met before they would perform. And buried inside the writer was a very specific, very famous clause: a bowl of MMs in the green room with all the brown ones removed. Now, when people heard about this, their reaction was exactly what you'd expect. Divas, rock star, ego, too much money, too much power. Who demands that someone pick through a bowl of candy, right? But here's what most people didn't know. Van Halen's production setup at the time was one of the most technically complex in the industry. Massive rigging, elaborate staging, equipment that, if set up incorrectly, could seriously injure somebody. So they buried the MM clause in the middle of 53 pages of technical requirements, not because they cared about brown MMs, but because if they walked into the green room and saw the bowl of MMs in a bowl with the brown ones, they knew immediately that the venue hadn't read the contract carefully. It's attention to detail. And if they hadn't read it, the contract correctly, those 53 pages of safety requirements might not have been honored either. It makes you wonder. I read through thousands of these riders through the years, every single day, negotiating with tour managers, what I would allow, discussing options with them, etc. The brown MMs were just a test. They were a signal. They were a way of knowing before the show even started whether the venue was safe to perform in, whether they had attention to detail. That right there is the power of the rider. I'm Tracy Smaldino. This is Trauma Rock Stars, and today we are building yours. In the music industry, a rider is a legal document. It's attached to performance contract and it outlines exactly what the artist requires in order to show up and perform at their best. It's not optional, it's not a wish list. Well, some of it is, but it is a requirement. Without the rider being honored, the artist has the right to walk. The artist has the right to walk. And I want to be really clear about something because I think this gets misunderstood. A writ is not about ego. It's not about being difficult or high maintenance. A rider is knowing what you need to do your best work and having the clarity and the self-respect to put it in writing. Think about that for a second. Knowing what you need and having the self-respect to put it in writing, when is the last time you did that for yourself? The writer says, this is what I require, not what I like, not what would be nice, not what I'll hopefully get if I'm lucky and nobody gets too inconvenienced. What I require. That's the difference between a preference and a non-negotiable. A writer is your non-negotiable, well within reason. Every great artist has one. I used to love reading them. It was one of the funnest parts of my job. And every great artist will tell you the same thing. Knowing your rider and holding your rider is what makes it possible to show up fully. Because when your basic requirements aren't being met, you're spending your energy managing a deficit instead of delivering the performance. That's what happens when we don't have a rider in our own lives. We spend all of our energy managing the gaps, the unmet needs, the violated boundaries, the things we never said we needed, but we desperately did, instead of actively living and healing and thriving. A rider is not a diva move, it is a professional necessity, and you are a professional. Your healing journey is your tour, and every tour requires a rider. Here's the honest truth about why most of us have never built a rider for our own lives. We don't believe we're allowed to have one. It's that simple. Most of us do not believe we're allowed to have one. Trauma is really good at teaching us that our needs are too much, that asking for what we need is dangerous, that if we have requirements, God forbid, if we say this is what I want to show up, people will leave. People will get angry. People will decide we're not worth it. So we shrink our rider down to absolutely nothing. We say we don't have requirements. We say we're easy, we're flexible, we're fine with whatever. We perform in venues that haven't met our basic needs, and we tell ourselves that's just how it is. And this shows up in so many ways. And relationships where we keep giving and never receive, and work environments where our boundaries are constantly crossed, and we let it happen. And our own self-care or lack of it, because we put ourselves last for so long, we don't even know what we need anymore. There's a response pattern that a lot of trauma survivors developed called fawning. You might know it better as people pleasing. It's where instead of fighting back or running away when we feel threatened, we just accommodate. We anticipate what other people need and we deliver it before they even ask. Because somewhere along the way, we learned that our safety depended on keeping other people comfortable. And the rider is the antidote to fawning because the rider says, I have needs too. My needs are a non-negotiable, and I am worth that conversation it takes to communicate them. Think about a relationship or a season in your life when you had no rider, when you were performing under conditions that didn't meet your basic needs. What did that cost you? Your health, your peace, your sense of self. Get real with yourself here, you guys. Are you currently in this state? It's okay if you are. For years, I didn't know I needed my own rider. It was part of my job. And I didn't even know I needed my own. Have my non-negotiables, my truth. And I'll tell you what, every relationship in my life suffered because of it. Every single one. I made myself small to feel loved and accepted. I put up with being treated poorly and disrespected. Now I am clear on what I need and what my expectations are. Every time you perform without a writer, every time you show up for someone else's needs while ignoring your own, you are telling yourself that your requirements don't matter, that you don't matter. You do matter. And I need you to hear this. This is not humility. This is trauma talking. And it is time to write a new contract for yourself. So what actually goes in your writer? I want to break this down for you in four categories. Think of these as the four clauses in your personal contract. Clause one is your physical requirements. These are non-negotiables for your body, your venue. We talked about the venue last week and how your body needs to be maintained. Your physical rider is where you get specific about what that looks like for you. Questions that you should ask yourself: how much sleep do I actually need to function well? Not survive, function well. What does my body need to eat and feel energized and not depleted? What is your quality of your nutrition? What movement does your body need? And how much of it? What physical environment helps me feel calm and grounded? For me, I've shared this before. My morning routine is a non-negotiable meditation, the gym, my protein shake, hot shower. If that gets skipped, my whole day is off. That's in my rider. That's a clause that doesn't get negotiated away. Here's the second clause: your emotional requirements. These are the conditions you need to feel emotionally safe. And this one is where a lot of us have the most work to do because we've spent so long abandoning our own emotional needs that we've forgotten what they actually are. Ask yourself this question. What do I need to feel emotionally safe in a relationship? What behaviors from other people are absolute deal breakers for me? How do I need to be spoken to? What tone? What words? What are not acceptable? Do I need time to process before responding to conflict? Or do I need to address things immediately? What does emotional support look like for me specifically? Your emotional requirements are not weaknesses, they are data. They are the information you've gathered from your whole life about what you need to feel safe enough to show up fully. Clause three is your mental requirements. This is about the mental environment you need to do your best work and your healing and your career and your relationships and your life. So ask yourself this. What thought patterns or conversations are toxic to my mental health? What do I need to protect my focus and energy? How much alone time do I need to reset mentally? What are the mental habits I require of myself? The practices that keep my mindset healthy? What am I no longer available for when it comes to negative self-talk, comparison, or criticism? The last one is really important. So think about that. What am I no longer available for when it comes to negative self-talk comparison or criticism? Your rider applies to yourself too and how you talk to yourself. What you allow yourself to say to yourself is part of your contract. We'll get into that in more detail when we talk about the tour manager, but for now, know that your mental rider includes the way you treat yourself. And then the fourth clause is relational requirements. This is about who gets access to you and under what conditions. You call the shots. Think about this as your green room policy. Not everyone gets backstage. Not everyone gets your full presence, your energy, your vulnerability. Ask yourself this. Who is actually safe for me to fully be myself around? Who is actually safe for me to be fully myself around? What behaviors will I no longer tolerate in the people I allow close to me? What do I need for my relationships in order to stay in them? Where have I been letting people backstage who haven't earned the access? Remember, in the concert world, the green room is sacred. It's where the artist prepares, recovers, and regroups. Not everyone gets in. Having a list is not being selfish, you guys. It's being intentional about your energy. Inside the Rockstar 30 program, one of the core exercises is building exactly this: your personal rider across all four of these areas. Because I designed the program knowing that until you get clear on your non-negotiables, everything else in your healing journey is going to feel like you're performing in a venue that doesn't meet your needs. The Rockstar 30 helps you get specific. It gives you the framework to actually write all this down. You'll find it at trauma rockstars.com. Building your rider is one thing, but holding it is another. And this is where it gets real. Because here's what I know from experience, from because here's what I know from my own experience, from my own life and from conversations with so many of you. We know what we need. Deep down, we know the rider always exists somewhere inside us. The hard part is believing we're allowed to enforce it. So step one, I want you to just write it down. Your writer has to be written down, not kept in your head, not sort of vaguely understood, written. Because the rider that exists only in your head is not a contract. It's just a wish. And wishes are easy to talk yourself out of when things get uncomfortable. So this week I want you to write down at least one non-negotiable from each of the four categories: physical, emotional, mental, and relational. Just one per category, four things. That's your opening rider. Your second step is to communicate it. Van Halen didn't just have a rider, they gave it to the venue. A rider that nobody knows about is not a rider. It's a secret resentment waiting to happen. This does not mean you hand everyone in your life a 53-page document. I mean, come on, that's not realistic. But what it means is you start getting comfortable saying out loud, this is what I need. This is what works for me. This is what I'm no longer available for. This is not confrontational. It's clarity. And clarity is a gift to yourself and to everybody around you. And then your third step is notice when the brown MMs show up. Remember, Van Halen, the brown MMs weren't the problem. They were the signal. When someone in your life consistently fails to honor even the small, easy parts of your rider, that's information for you. Pay attention. That's a signal that the bigger requirements may not be safe either. Start paying attention to those signals, not with anger, not with a scorecard, just awareness. What is this telling me about whether this venue is safe for me to perform in? That's all. Just ask yourself that question. And then step four is be willing to walk. This is the hardest one. And I'm not saying walk away from everybody who makes a mistake, because that's not what we're talking about here. I'm saying know your walk away point. Know what the non-negotiably are. Because if everything is negotiable and nothing is protected, a writer without circumstances is just a preference. The reason it's called a non-negotiable is because it is non-negotiated. You hold it not rigidly, not without compassion, but you need to hold it. Here's what I want you to walk away with today. You are not too much. Your needs are not too much. Having requirements, having a list of what you need to show up fully in your own life, it's not selfish. It is not diva behavior. It is not asking too much. It's professional. It's necessary. And it's what every great performer understands about themselves. The greatest artists in the world know exactly what they need to deliver the performance of a lifetime. And they put it in writing and they hold it and they hold other people accountable. Not because they think they're better than everybody else, but because they know that without these requirements being met, they cannot give the audience what they came for. You have an audience too. There are called your life, the people you love, the work you're here to do, the healing you're in the middle of. And none of it gets your best unless the rider is honored. So this week, write it down. Just four things. One per category: the physical, emotional, mental, and relational. That's your opening rider. And then, and this is the important part, you need to read it back to yourself, probably several times, and maybe make drafts, several drafts, because let yourself feel what it feels like to say it. I have requirements, I have needs, and they matter because they do. You matter. The Rockstar 30 program will walk you through building out your full rider in a way that's guided and supportive. I am there for you. You'll find it at rock star, you'll find it at trauma rockstars.com. You are not a groupie in somebody else's story. Remember that. You are the headliner, and headliners have riders. I'm Tracy Smaldino. This is Trauma Rockstars. And rock stars, they always know their rider. I'll see you next Tuesday. The content on this podcast revolves around personal life experiences and is meant to serve as a learning tool. I am not a certified therapist or medical expert. This podcast doesn't offer medical, psychological, or professional advice. If you're curious about your mental or physical well being, feel free to reach out to a licensed healthcare professional for assistance.