From Now On: Coming Home
/Last September I made what I thought was a relatively simple change in the focus of my coaching practice. What followed changed the way I think about people, careers, and the many identities we carry through life.
I found an unexpected way to make sense of it through one of my lifelong passions: singing.
The Power of Being Seen
Major drivers and influences in my life include technology, music, leadership, sexuality, and spirituality.
These have all come together for me this June, in Pride month, inspired by this year's Boston Gay Men’s Chorus’ concert Rise: Celebrate Protest, Pride, and the Power of Being Seen.
The phrase "the power of being seen" really resonates with me.
One of the things I have heard repeatedly over my thirty-plus years singing with the Chorus comes from people who are not LGBTQ+ themselves.
After a concert, they will say something like, "I'm not gay, but I connected with that."
I don't think they are connecting with the specific details of our stories. They are connecting with the human experiences underneath them: wanting to belong, wanting to be accepted, searching for courage, discovering who we are, and finding our way home.
The details may be different. The emotions are often surprisingly familiar.
But another part of the concert particularly resonates with me, too: the song From Now On from The Greatest Showman.
The concert says: Be seen.
The song asks: What happens when you realize the life you've built is no longer the whole story of who you are?
The power isn't simply that I am seen.
The power is that when I allow myself to be seen, someone else sees themselves too.
That's a much bigger idea. It turns visibility from an individual act into a communal one. Telling your story gives someone else permission to examine their own. Your coming home to who you are helps someone else come home, too.
The Person We Become
“But those were someone else’s dreams, the pitfalls of the man I became. … For years and years, I chased their cheers…” (From Now On, The Greatest Showman)
Many choices/discoveries have been turning points in my career and life.
With a natural interest and aptitude in technology, from early years starting with dismantling (destroying) my Dad’s electric train set, followed by STEM focus in middle and high school and an engineering degree in college, I adapted and evolved into a career in high-tech computer science and early leadership. I moved on into mid-level, director, projects and operations leadership positions but didn’t succeed at my ultimate goal, an executive level position.
I worried coming out would impact having a security clearance required to work at an aerospace company. I limited my visibility as a gay man at work by keeping a low profile and separating my “professional” and “private” lives, and hiding my gay relationships to protect my friends and partner from harassment.
I chose to compete in a science fair instead of singing a lead role in a high school musical. I pursued an engineering degree, not a liberal arts/music degree. I chose to sing (very to somewhat) closeted in church choirs, some with anti-gay doctrine, for many years.
Over time I discovered that some of what I built was based on expectations that were never fully my own.
Looking back, I can see places where I was pursuing goals because I thought they represented success. Some did. Some didn't. Some belonged to me. Some belonged to expectations I had absorbed along the way.
We all inherit scripts about success. LGBTQ+ people often learn additional scripts about safety and belonging. Leaders inherit scripts about competence, confidence, certainty, and achievement. Many of those scripts serve us well. We build careers. We earn respect. We survive. We belong.
Remembering Who We Are
“But when I stop and see you here I remember who all this was for…” (From Now On, The Greatest Showman)
Along the way, parts of me that I’d hidden or suppressed began to assert themselves.
Instead of arranging my life around other people's expectations, I increasingly began arranging my life around what mattered to me.
I came all the way out in my profession. I was a visible gay representative inside my company and to our customers and partners. I hosted a company outing to a BGMC concert and convinced the company to contribute to the BGMC. I parted ways with a company in part due to senior leadership having LGBTQ+ and other social justice values unaligned with mine.
I joined a gay affirming church. I started singing in a gay chorus.
I managed my professional and church leadership positions to allow me the flexibility to participate in chorus rehearsals, performances, non-singing leadership roles, and events.
I eventually became a leadership coach focused on helping LGBTQ+ people develop and thrive as leaders. And to give me a platform (in addition to the Chorus) to tell stories (mine and others) about coming home to who we are.
What was emerging and evolving in me was increasing integration: technology and music; professional and personal life; safety and authenticity; ambition and meaning; sexuality and everything else.
I spent years keeping some of those things separate. Then gradually they came together.
Like an Anthem in My Heart
“Let this promise in me start like an anthem in my heart.” (From Now On, The Greatest Showman)
As I write this, I notice that different parts of my life have begun to harmonize. Technology and music. Leadership and sexuality. Spirituality and community. They are coming together into a story, a song, an anthem that is uniquely my own. It’s ongoing and unfinished.
And it’s not just about me. An anthem is personal, but it’s also something sung with and to others.
This is why singing From Now On with the Chorus to our audiences and community feels so meaningful to me. To each and all of us.
The song resonates because it tells a story that is larger than any one person or community.
We all inherit scripts. We all become someone. We all lose pieces of ourselves. We all remember things we've forgotten. We all have opportunities to choose. We are all singing our own songs, and combining ours with others’. The songs are evolving, never finished.
Come Back Home
“From now on we will come back home.” (From Now On, The Greatest Showman)
There is a power in telling our stories and listening to others'. It is about connection, belonging, and shared humanity. It is about coming home together, and being home together.
Coming home is not arriving at a final destination. It is the ongoing process of bringing more of ourselves into harmony. It is recognizing the parts we've hidden, forgotten, or set aside, and finding ways to welcome them back. It is letting go of the parts that no longer serve. It is choosing, over and over again, to live from what matters most.
Home is where you matter. Where your story matters. Where belonging matters. Where community matters. Where love matters.
Because home is not simply a place inside ourselves. It's also what happens when people recognize and honor one another.
Sing your song, and come back home, again.