Why You Hide the Thing That Makes You Different

The part of you that never quite fit in might be the whole point.

I grew up inside classical music. My mom played violin, my dad played viola, my aunt played piano. I was playing instruments before I turned 5.

That Christmas, I asked for a trumpet. I got a cornet instead. Close enough.

Then I did something that still makes me laugh. Without telling my parents, 5-year-old me picked up the phone, called Mr. Schrodt, the local trumpet teacher, and set up my own lessons.

And when I put the horn to my lips, something strange happened. I already knew how to buzz. How to make a real sound. How to play in tune. If you’ve ever heard a kid start on a brass instrument, you know how rare that is. It’s usually months of scratchy, loud, brash squawking. Mine came out pure, almost from day one.

The adults around me had a name for it. “That’s your gift from God,” they said.

I hated that.

Because here’s what I made it mean: the gift made me different. And different felt dangerous. So I spent the next few decades pulled between two things I wanted at the same time, blending in with everyone and standing out from all of them. I never found a way to hold both. Torture is a strong word. It fits.

It took me until my late 50s to admit it: the adults were right.

When I pick up the trumpet these days, which happens only occasionally, I’m still amazed at what comes out. Plenty of people play trumpet well, and plenty play it better than me. The sound I make is still mine alone. Nobody else on Earth makes it.

And somewhere along the way, I saw the bigger version of this.

The trumpet was just the first place I noticed it. The gift is the whole way I experience life, the particular angle only I stand at. And the same is true for you. For every single person on the planet.

So the job is simple to say and hard to do: live your life fully, out loud, unapologetically. Do that and the gift gives itself. It comes through in what you say, how you love, what you build, how you walk into a room. Through your work, your relationships, and the parts of your life nobody sees.

What stops us is the judgment we run on ourselves. Shame, guilt, fear, doubt, the quiet suspicion that who we actually are wouldn’t be enough if people saw it straight.

But no one has ever experienced life exactly the way you have. Not once, in all of human history.

So play trumpet, or sing, or play cello, your way. Play soccer, dance ballet, shoot archery, your way. Do math, philosophy, auto mechanics, your way. Mother, father, aunt (yes, I’m using it as a verb), your way. Sell, serve, flip burgers, run the company, your way.

Your magnificence is in being the fullest expression of you that you can manage. And here’s the part I love: you can’t screw it up. God is built into you, and God doesn’t botch the job. We’re so sure we can fail at being ourselves. Very human of us. Also impossible.

So put down whatever’s in the way.

Give the gift. It’s what you’re here for. And you’re part of the gang. Always were.

With love, Andy

---