Know You Belong

In an article in the Washington Post a few summers ago, Cal Ripken, Jr. was asked what advice his dad gave to him that he gives to his children. He answered:

“I remember an expression my dad used to tell me when I went away to play pro ball: No matter where they send you, know you belong. It’s a simple thing, one that I didn’t fully realize at the time. I was a 17-year-old kid when I was drafted; some of the other guys were 22, 23, 24, and you think, ‘What am I doing here, these guys are better than me.’ Then you remember the comment that your dad said and you see the significance. Know that you belong.”[i]

From the time I was a young boy my father, who was a legendary high school football coach in this area, told me that I had the ability to compete at the highest levels in athletics. My dad’s confidence in me provided the boost that I needed as I moved from high school to big-time college football at Virginia Tech. At Tech I found myself facing players who were several years older than me and bigger, faster and stronger than I was. I found myself asking the same question Cal did: “What am I doing here? These guys are better than me.”

Whenever I got too discouraged, I thought about what my dad said to me about my athletic ability: “I’ve coached and evaluated kids for 30 years, and I am telling you that you have what it takes to play at a high level.” Eventually, I proved my dad right. I was no Cal, but I started 34 straight games and was named the Outstanding Offensive Lineman on Tech’s 1981 Peach Bowl team.

As I transitioned into the business world I had the same thought, “What am I doing here?” I was a young guy with an undergraduate degree in physical education and an addiction to terrible team-office coffee. Some of the other guys in my business had MBAs from Harvard and the Wharton School. It wasn’t my dad who boosted my confidence that time – it was my Uncle Jack, founder of McShea and the man who gave me my start in commercial real estate. The day he hired me, he told me that he wasn’t hiring me just because I was family; he was convinced that I had what it took to “be a star in this business.”

It took many years for me to get completely comfortable in the business world. Later in my career I received some more sage advice from Uncle Jack’s brother, Roger, who was a big-time salesman and manager at NCR before partnering with Jack to run the sales force at Atlantic Telephone. I described to Roger some of my insecurities about being perceived as a “dumb jock” among all the Ivy Leaguers in the business.

Roger, a former athlete himself, told me that in his first year he was in the company’s top sales bracket and got invited to attend the annual reward trip and conference. At the conference he was so impressed with the other top salespeople who were throwing around the latest “buzzwords” and sales jargon. He walked away from that function feeling like he didn’t belong there, though he overcame his doubts enough to make it into the top sales tier again the next year.

A funny thing happened when he went to the conference that year – he noticed that all the salespeople with the fancy lingo from the year before weren’t there this time around. Roger went on that trip for many years and got more and more comfortable each time, until he felt supremely confident that he could hold his own with each new year’s chosen class.

He belonged there. And by the end of his career, everyone knew it.