A Letter from Chris Suarez
GO AHEAD, TEASE ME.
On Friday night, well past the time I wish I was reading on the couch after a long week, I made good on my promise to take my daughter to a concert. The headliner started a bit after 9:30pm so I knew I’d be there for the evening. It was great to see my daughter excited and almost equally as great to be out enjoying and supporting live music again for the first time in what seemed like years.
Mid-way through the show the artist told a passing story - perhaps lost on the majority of the audience who was there to listen to him sing and perform - but wound up being my favorite moment of the evening.
The artist shared that as a child and even a teenager he was often made fun of and teased. The story related to a song he had written to each of those other kids years later as he thought back on that experience. He shared that he was mostly teased for his nerdiness and looks, for the fact that he was in choir, and for being overly sensitive. And yet he shared reflectively that today, his entire career -and I’d say his gift- is built around his nerdiness in unpacking the world, his voice, and his intensely sensitive and introspective song writing and lyrics. The three very things that he was teased for in school are his unique gifts that he has built his success and platform (quite literally) around. His entire career is built around the three things that he could have believed made him unlikable.
For a moment I realized how easy it would have been for him to recede, to be self conscious, to drop out of choir, to act tougher, and certainly not build a career around performing on stage for hundreds, or putting himself out there on the internet for others to judge.
As equally powerful was the realization that our gifts are often what people look to separate us by, draw negative attention to, drive insecurity around, or just find fault with. That could take the shape of teasing and jeering as children or even more formal dismissiveness, unrequested feedback, or harmful gossip as adults. With the advent of social media and the ease of negative commenting, this problem is potentially compounded.
How many gifts has the world lost because other children or friends or parents or colleagues caused us to feel insecure?
As the artist recounted the story of being made fun of for his looks, and his nerdiness, and his singing, and his sensitivity, I could relate. I was teased in school for every single one of those things (except my singing, because, well I don’t). Quite appropriately his tour and album is called “Dangerous Levels of Introspection”. It’s clear now why. For the rest of the show and after I thought of the things I was teased for, and questioned whether or not I’ve hidden those things, exposed them, developed them. Did I retreat or run towards them. The introspection began.
I thought of the things that perhaps my children have been teased about, and questioned whether I’ve encouraged them to embrace those as their unique gifts. More importantly, I also questioned whether I’ve helped them appreciate how dangerous it is to tease anyone else for any reason - as they are potentially taking away a gift from that human and from the rest of the world. I thought about my colleagues and partners, wondering if I knew what those things may have been for them, and whether or not I had unlocked their real gifts for the teams or companies and organizations that we are working on and building together.
To keep this short and simple, the world today needs all the gifts that it can get. Strangers need those gifts, our families need those gifts, our companies need those gifts. Remember, oftentimes the things we are most teased about, most asked to tone down, or most regularly judged for could be the very thing your future and the future of other’s is built on top of.
So go ahead, think back for a moment about why you were teased in grade school or middle school or high school or college. Why were you teased at the first job or the last one. Hidden in there may be the tools and the material to build your next platform.
Chris