Why I Am Who I Am, And I'm Not Apologizing For It Anymore

I've read the first main chapter of "Go Put Your Strengths To Work" by Marcus Buckingham, and it has completely changed my view of myself. Actually, more to the point, it has strengthen the view I've had of myself that I've suppressed from the world.

Marcus writes there are 3 myths that "our parents told us were true, that our teachers reinforced, and that today we hear in one form or another from our managers." I've only read one myth and it snapped my head back with recognition. The myth is this: "As you grow, your personality changes." The truth, as Marcus tells it, is: "As you grow, you become more of who you already are." That statement caused an "oh, sh!t" moment.

I have finally realized that the reason why I seem not to be as confident as other guys is because I've been trying to mold myself into being like other guys, instead of playing to my strengths and being the best person I can be. In my mind I'm thinking, "what would Mike do?" or "what would Eddie say?" or "how would Curt dress?" all in the name of garnering favor from other people (mostly the opposite sex), rather than playing up my vision of myself and letting the chips fall where they may. I've given lip service to being true to myself, but I really didn't understand that I've been sabotaging myself all these years.

As far back as 5th grade I had been teased about my glasses, my clothes and my intelligence. The funny thing was, I was such a nerdy kid I didn't even know how to dumb myself down to hide my smarts! Even now, I don't flaunt my intelligence, but it comes out in everything I do, from my radio shows to my DJing to my interactions with everyone from thugs to CEOs. My clothes I didn't worry about, because I couldn't change that, but it's interesting that over 30 years later, I still don't worry about my clothes. Am I clean? Pressed? No obvious defects? I'm ready to roll! I must say, however, that as soon as I got rid of the glasses sophomore year in college, I started getting the looks from women that I had craved my whole life! :-) But once again, I equate glasses with nerdy and ugly duckling (the old me) and contacts with handsome and a swan (the current me). So when you see me with my glasses on, know that I'm REALLY not trying to impress anyone at that point. With my contacts in? I'm getting my sexy on!

I say to myself all the time: "I think I'm great... why don't other people see that?" The reason? I'm not giving them ME, I'm giving them an approximation of all the guys I've seen women be impressed with. I love smelling good, but the reason why I started wearing cologne is because Warren Feagins had girls swooning over him at the Early Identification Program at the Illinois Institute of Technology. I try to dress as nice as I can because my classmate at Hales Franciscan, Eddie Thomas, was one of the sharpest dressers I've ever seen, and I saw how women whipped their heads around to look twice. I stayed close to my Oberlin College best friend Mike Sorrell not only because we got along so well, but because he was a natural at gathering friends. In my defense, I didn't get Grey Flannel because Warren got it, I didn't get Izod because Eddie wore it, and I didn't try to act like Mike because he was successful with women.

Up until now I've wrestled with being a nice guy, having a personality that doesn't match my 6'5'', 260 pound frame, being mistaken for a 5'9'' white guy over the phone... basically questioning my entire existence based on how others perceive me. And it didn't help that I look at the world differently. I think being a nice guy is a virtue, not a detriment. I love playing different types of music for different crowds, and I don't want to be forced to specialize just so I can fit in a clearly defined box. There are many more things that I naturally go against the grain because, honestly, I think I'm right and the rest of the world is wrong, but instead of speaking up and letting people know how I feel, I quietly mutter to myself in the corner. Yes, it is easier to go with the crowd and do what everyone else does, even if you think it's wrong.

A perfect example is when I was the program director for WILD-FM in Boston. I had never been a program director before, so I was actively looking for guidance in how to run a radio station, which I got from my consultant, Alan Sneed. But when it came to the music... current music, new music, old music, whatever, I fundamentally knew what would work and what would not work. No, I didn't have 20 years of experience running and consulting radio stations like Alan did. But I did have (at that time) 6 years of being in radio (and hearing my friends tell me why they think radio sucks), 22 years of nightclub experience, and 35 years of listening to great Black radio stations in Chicago (WBMX, WGCI, WJPC, WVON), Cleveland (WZAK), Detroit (WJLB), New York (WBLS, Kiss, Hot 97) and Boston (WILD-AM). Not only could I tell you whether a new song would be a hit or not, I had the experience to know what old school songs were hits, whether or not they were #1 back in the day. But because I didn't have facts, I only had my eyes and ears to back me up, I couldn't convince Alan that my music choices were correct.

Conventional radio wisdom says play a few songs as much as possible, rather than play a wide range of songs. Supposedly, it guarantees that whenever someone tunes into your station, they are hearing a hit song. Conventional radio wisdom also says research and test older songs with a random selection of people. If they give the thumbs up you play the song, no matter how corny the song (Shake You Down-Gregory Abbott; Caravan Of Love-Isley Jasper Isley; Cherish-Kool And The Gang are three of my hateds). If they give the thumbs down, you shelve the songs no matter what the reaction is in the clubs, rolling down the street or inside people homes (you can't tell me only 75 R&B songs between 1990 and 1999 were hits, I'm sorry). So I did the only thing I could do: I played all the songs we were missing in my mixshow, the Live@5 Old School Mix. Can I tell you, the buzz in the city at 5 o'clock was crazy! Even today, when people find out who I am, they talk about my mixshow.

I said all that to say that when I followed what I KNEW was right in my core, I was successful beyond my wildest dreams. When I follow other people, who were successful in their own right, I was much less successful. The place where being exactly myself was highly successful, with no qualifications, was on the radio, and I hit my peak when I was able to pick the music and flesh out my radio show. I connected with people precisely because I didn't try to be anything but myself, and they could consciously and subconsciously feel that.

Confidence comes from being secure in who you are at the core, from the inside out. I'll go out on a limb and say that women like "bad boys" simply because they are unapologetically secure with who they are, for better or worse. They don't think about being confident, they don't think about how you perceive them, they just are who they are. But I don't have to be a bad boy to be secure in who I am at the core. I just have to understand that I am me for a reason, and nobody else can judge who I fundamentally am. I have to say "I like this this way!" Not "I like this this way because I saw someone else do this, and he got the response that I want for myself, so I'm going to do this that way too."

The morale of the story is not "be yourself." It's "be comfortable, happy and content being yourself without thinking how others perceive what you are doing."

Who am I? A 6'5'', 260 pound guy who is a laid back, chill, fun-loving dude who loves to talk, laugh, play and watch sports, go to clubs, play music for appreciative folks around the country, dance, conversate with people over the radio airwaves, have lots of female friends, wants to see everyone happy, wants to be married to the right woman who I'm attracted to and is attracted to me, and sees the world completely differently from the average person.

And I'm not apologizing for it anymore.