Transcriber: Leonardo Silva Reviewer: Mile Živković
In terms of my work and really my passion,
it's really about using the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator
to celebrate differences.
And I know I'm really into that area because I feel very different myself.
Like many of us, I'll sing in the shower, or in the car where nobody can hear me,
but, unlike many of you, I'm guessing,
I also like to sing when I'm walking down the hallway at work,
or standing on a stage in front of a group of people I don't even know.
I'll spare you that because I know
if your own mother tells you you shouldn't sing,
then you shouldn't sing in front of a group of people; I know that.
In my neighborhood, I'm known as the guy who talks to the squirrels,
and maybe even gives them names from time to time.
When I do that, people think I'm kind of different.
You know, I've always known that I'm different.
When I was six years old, my mother took my sisters,
our next-door neighbor Pam and me to the circus.
We couldn't afford these nice seats right down front.
We were way, way up top,
but I remember looking down from that birds-eye view
at all these incredible characters, these clowns, and acrobats, and jugglers,
and I thought to myself, "They look really different,
and look how well they seem to be getting along!
I'm really different. Maybe that's where I belong."
And I'd find myself then back at elementary school,
and the teacher would ask, "What do you want to be when you grow up?"
One of my classmates, Vincent, who I admired a lot,
would say things like "doctor," or "lawyer," or "neurophysicist,"
and I would sit in the back of the room, quietly thinking to myself:
one, "I don't even know what a neurophysicist is,"
and two, "I just want to be in a circus."
Now, I knew not to say that out loud
because I knew if I did, people would think,
"That guy is kind of different."
You know, as I grew up from those early ages up into my teens,
I continued to feel different and those differences were noticed by classmates.
I suffered the occasional bullying because of it.
Sometimes, I did something about it.
I'm embarrassed to say that a lot of the times I didn't,
like the time I was spit at and taunted through the locker room window
by the high school football team, as I walked by one day,
after band practice.
Through that experience and through others,
I continued to feel different
and that I also seemed to be more sensitive than anybody that I knew.
I remember my feelings would so easily to be hurt.
I remember that, whenever I would leave relatives
that I wouldn't be seeing for a while, I would always cry,
and I really - this is maybe a harsh word -
but I really hated that about myself,
and I tried to think of every trick I could think of not to cry.
One time, I thought, "Maybe, if I hold my breath - I won't cry!"
Well, it didn't work,
and it didn't help, by the way, when someone would say,
"Boys aren't supposed to cry."
Well, I did.
Thankfully, after one such crying episode when I was younger,
my aunt Margaret - I'll never forget this -
she turned from the front seat of the car, to me in the back, and she said,
"Never lose that ability to feel. It's a good thing."
And no one had ever told me that before.
When I finally came out, as in "out of the closet,"
I thought that I would finally feel like I would belong.
I thought that allowing the gay side of me out
would allow for the sensitive side to come out too,
but I couldn't have been more wrong.
Growing up gay in the early 1980s, in the heart of Texas,
required a person to be really tough,
tough enough to eggs literally being thrown at you
as you walked down the street with your friends,
to deal with the loss of a lot of those friends,
to deal with the fear of being physically hurt or even killed,
and I know that sounds a bit dramatic,
but tell that to one friend who was beaten and robbed
and, when he reported it to the police, was basically told he deserved it.
Or another friend, Abby,
who was killed leaving a night club one night.
I feel fortunate through those difficult times
in which I had the most amazing family, two incredible parents.
There was always a roof over our heads.
There was always the very best Mexican food
you will ever eat on our tables, thanks to my mom.
Every morning, I woke up with my mother's rolling out "tortillas de harina."
That was my alarm clock every morning.
And yet, in my family, I still felt kind of different.
Some of us may have read the book "Quiet",
or we've seen the TED talk "The Power of Introverts."
I also prefer introversion
and, in my family, that looked a little different.
For example, Saturday nights were often spent at my uncle Tony's Ice Station,
his icehouse.
There was usually a band playing wonderful music,
and my role was to get up and dance with all my cousins,
with all of my relatives.
I could do a mean Cumbia. I can do a mean Cumbia now, by the way.
If anybody wants to dance later, I'm happy to do that.
But, you know, once that role was over,
I'd find myself quietly slipping away, hoping nobody was going to notice,
preferably where I could close the door behind me
and block out all of the noise that was going on.
But, after about 10 or 15 minutes, someone would find me,
and the first question I would get would be,
"Are you not feeling well?"
In other words, in my family,
introversion looked like something was wrong.
You know, I tried to overcome that impression,
I tried to pretend to prefer extroversion,
but we're talking about using a lot of energy,
because it's not really who I was, and I would even go out on weekends,
after hearing my parents, on way too many occasions,
encouraging me to go out, "Do something! Be with your friends!"
I just wanted to stay home.
Now, this idea of introversion,
I know this from the well-known instrument,
the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator. Some of us might know this tool.
My Myers-Briggs preferences are INFP.
So, "Introversion" I've already talked about.
"Intuition" is about how I take in information,
how I learn from this big-picture perspective.
Basically, my gut tells me how I know what I know.
"Feeling" is about how I make decisions,
thinking about the values related to that decision
and how that decision affects other people.
And "Perceiving" is about keeping my options open,
so if you want to box me into making a decision too soon,
I'm going to fight it.
The cultural expectation in the United States
and in most organizational settings
happens to be the exact opposite of each of those preferences.
So, yet again, I get to be different.
Now, the first time I took the Myers-Briggs, it was May 9, 1988.
I had been at this company, they hired me a few days before,
they invited me to take the Myers-Briggs,
but I answered the questions according to how I thought I should answer them,
not who I really am.
Any Myers-Briggs practitioner will tell you
that's not how you're supposed to answer the questions.
Instead, we say, "Try to answer them in what we call your shoes-off self.
Literally, take off your shoes,
try remove any roles and expectations you have at work,
try remove any roles and expectations you have at home.
Just answer what you prefer."
I know now I was answering the questions that way
because I didn't want to be seen as different yet again.
Fortunately, that company I joined actually appreciated differences.
More importantly for me, that company appreciated my differences.
I have been at that same company now more than 25 years later,
so more than half of my life at this organization.
(Applause)
So - thank you. Thank you.
(Applause)
So, where am I now?
I turned 52 just a couple of months ago. I have no idea where it's all gone.
It just sort of happened. I'm 52. I still feel really different.
My partner still will say to me, on occasions, things like -
when I tell him what's going on in my head,
"Really? All of that is going on in your mind?"
I know it looks different to him,
but, you know, what I also know is he appreciates my differences.
More importantly, I appreciate my differences.
In fact, I celebrate my differences,
and it's from all of that that I find myself working
with all of these amazing people,
these teams, these leaders all over the world,
helping them to understand and appreciate differences,
to create more productive, more fulfilling work and life experiences.
In my travels, I've come across lots of leaders,
and what I find is there are not a lot of leaders who are different.
Sure, there are some,
but what Myers-Briggs research shows is that there really aren't a lot.
In fact, there are a lot of leaders who are about telling people what to do,
but that's not really leadership.
True leadership is understanding how to flex to the needs of your followers.
It's about flexing to differences.
There are a lot of people who have helped me get from that beginning in my life
to this part where I'm valuing what I bring to the table.
One person comes to mind from a long, long time ago.
When I was in the 7th grade, my junior high band director
- her name was Mrs. Duran - she pulled me aside for this private talk.
She saw in front of her this kid who was kind of different,
who didn't really seem to fit in,
and she wanted to give me a few words to help me live with those differences.
I'm sad to say Mrs. Duran passed away a few years back,
but I attended her memorial service
because I wanted to read a few words that I prepared,
so that her friends and family could know
what an amazing, incredible person she was,
just from another perspective.
I'd like to read to you now what I shared then.
Thank you.
"I first met Beverly Duran in 1973. She was my 6th-grade English teacher.
A year later, she became band director at Kingsborough Middle School.
I played flute in the band.
I never called her 'Beverly.' To me, she was always 'Mrs. Duran.'
I even called her that the last time we spoke, just two weeks ago.
My very last words to her were, 'I love you.'
I'm so grateful that I was able to say those words to her.
When I look back on all the years, and all the experiences I've had,
and all those teachers, friends and family,
Mrs. Duran remains one of the most influential people in my life.
She took me under her wing, this skinny, scared little Mexican boy,
and she gave me confidence.
She once told me that, no matter how difficult things got,
if I tried as hard as I could, everything would be OK.
I remember playing my first solo in front of a judge in the 7th grade.
I can still hear the tune. It was 'Minuet.'
Mrs. Duran played piano for me, like she did the next year, and the next.
The second I finished, she jumped up with tears in her eyes,
beaming with pride at how I'd played.
When I graduated from middle school,
Mrs. Duran showed up in her dark tinted glasses -"
That's that actual day.
The mark in the lower corner, that's my mom's thumb.
She was famous for taking pictures with her thumb in the middle of them.
"I remember she showed up in those dark tinted glasses.
Sure enough, she and I met after graduation.
We hugged, we cried and cried. We didn't want to say goodbye.
You would think that this would be the end of our story.
Instead, we stayed in touch.
One summer, I actually gave flute lessons to her younger flute players
and, as thanks, she took me to the very first restaurant,
that I'd ever gone to, that required a reservation.
I remember being so nervous and so excited.
They kept refilling my water glass and I kept drinking it.
I didn't know what else to do.
(Laughter)
I'd never been to a restaurant like that.
I now live in California, but, whenever I would go back home,
I would always make it a point to take Mrs. Duran out to lunch.
In fact, only two weeks ago, I called her to let her know that I was coming
and that I would like to see her and take her out again.
I was sad to hear that she had not been feeling well,
but was grateful that I would able to see her and hopefully cheer her up.
Just before I hung up, I said those words to her, 'I love you.'
I didn't say them because I thought
I wouldn't get the chance to say them in person.
I said them because I often said them to her, 'I love you.'
Mrs Duran, I will miss our times together,
but, more importantly, I will treasure your memory
and the positive power your life has had on so many of us."
In preparing for this talk, two nights ago,
I was a bit stressed about, "What am I going to say?"
And, in my dreams, I was walking into a theater,
and I turned, and there was Mrs. Duran, giving me her smile, that encouragement.
There are many people who have done that for all of us, I know.
I want to close today by sharing with you
a few questions given to me by two very important people in my life,
two master mentors, MBTI gurus,
Dr. Lida Kirby and Nancy Barger.
I'm going to put these questions up on screen,
and my hope is that you're going to spend some time, sooner rather than later,
talking to someone you trust about these questions,
and thinking about them on your own as well.
So, the first question: how were you encouraged to be
the person you were meant to be?
How were you discouraged,
and how has that affected the person you are today?
And finally, what are you doing to encourage all others
to be everything they can be?
There can be a lot of pain in being different.
I hope I've been very clear today
that, once we learn to celebrate our unique differences,
there can also be a whole lot of joy.
Thank you.
(Applause)