Different Context, Same Me
Audio Transcript:
It can be tricky taking a news story or something—anything released in the drama sphere that we live in today—and using it as an analogy, or to prove a point, or anything because you just never know the whole story. But I want to do that today. Let's just—let's just throw convention to the wind.
But no, it’s not that bad. But a story caught my attention over the last several days. And as it unraveled, it was like, Oh yeah, this is exactly what I’ve experienced in business a few different times and in life, period. And I thought, Yeah, maybe this is worth talking about today.
So, let’s tell the story.
The Packers-Eagles Incident
It’s this whole deal, I guess, over the weekend at the Packers-Eagles game. There’s this Packers fan that was being berated by an Eagles fan, and it was caught on film, and it got reported. And no, I’ve not berated anybody at a game—I’m not saying that’s the piece—but I’m getting to where it connects to me in just a minute.
I don’t know these people. And if you look at the initial story that comes out, this guy looks like a real jack wagon, just saying some horrible things. You know, and maybe—maybe he is a trash bag. I don’t know.
But on the flip side, the folks that were there for the Packers fan looked like they were kind of maybe ready to egg that on and be a part of it because they did a GoFundMe beforehand. They said, Hey, fund my tickets to go in here and go into hell and face hell, and all this kind of stuff.
And ultimately, he’s a creator—ready to film it.
And so, again, I don’t know these people. But boy, you know, the first story that comes out isn’t always as it seems. And I think that’s just always a tricky thing.
So that’s it. Look—that’s life. That’s everything.
Any religion or philosophy or whatever you may follow probably has some kind of notion of being slow to judge.
But I think really what I wanted to hone in on is—this guy lost his job.
"It's Just Business" Is a Lie
And I think here’s where—here’s where I think now the rubber meets the road in my life, and in your life probably.
You’re listening to this podcast likely because you have multiple roles in your life. And maybe some of them are like mine or similar—where you may be a father, a parent. You may be a founder or a leader in a company or an organization. You may be doing something in your community, trying to lead it. Maybe you’re a part of something—who knows?
But ultimately, when I was coming up in business, there was this notion that folks were trying to push on me—that it’s just business.
That you can behave a certain way, and it’s just business.
And I always—I really struggled with that.
And luckily, I had some good advice somewhere, either through books or people or whatever. And I wish I could point exactly to whom, and I would say thank you.
But it’s the idea of I am me wherever I am.
So if you meet me in a board meeting—obviously, there might be some different context and maybe some different to me.
If you meet me in a board meeting, or on a ballfield, or at a community event, or in the house, or whatever—I’m pretty much the same guy.
Now, again, there’s probably variances to that, of course. But generally, I mean—I’m me everywhere I go.
And that was important to me.
And I always made that a kind of a hallmark to what we did here at Mountain Leverage.
Who You Are in One Area is Who You Are Everywhere
I mean, when you talk to me as the CEO at Mountain Leverage, you’re talking to me as the dad of a couple of kids and a husband to a beautiful wife and wonderful woman.
And you’re talking to me as a guy that lives in small-town Appalachia and all those things, right?
And I can also be, you know, running a global tech company.
And it’s just—it’s me. It’s me.
And I think many of us have been sold a bill of goods that you can be different in the boardroom, the bedroom—whatever.
And obviously, again, there are different activities. I get it.
But the idea that you can just be nasty to somebody in a business dealing and go home and be a loving husband and father to your kids and wife?
Man, I don’t know how that works.
Now, maybe you figured it out, but I don’t know how that works.
Now, this guy was an absolute beast at the game. Now, I’m sure alcohol was involved and whatever else—who knows?
And again, I wasn’t there. I don’t know it.
And I’m not beating on that guy. Maybe that was the worst point in his life. And who knows? He’ll sort that. It’s going to be—it’s going to be rough go for him now, for sure.
But the notion that you can go somewhere with impunity and be an a-hole, and that not reflect in the rest of your life, is, I think, a huge lie.
And we’re seeing it in politics.
We’re seeing it all over.
It’s like the veil of being courteous to one another doesn’t exist anymore.
And people think, Oh, well, it’s politics, baby! or It’s business, baby!
And that’s just absolutely absurd to me.
Maybe not to you. Maybe it’s cool—I don’t know.
But I can tell you, in my mileage, I don’t know how many times having treated somebody a certain way—good, you know, usually decently... I mean, I’ve had my moments too, of course. We all have.
And then, you know, in our field, sometimes you’ll run into somebody like that in another aspect of your life. And you’ll be like, Boy, I’m glad I wasn’t an asshole to that person.
Right?
And it’s not like the Billy Madison thing, like, You get scratched off the list!
This guy isn’t going around saying, Boy, I’m glad I called that guy.
It’s not that, necessarily.
It’s just this idea of—I don’t know how you are, but I don’t know how to be duplicitous, or triplicitous, or quadruplicious—I don’t know if those are words—but I don’t know how to be more than myself, wherever I am.
And so again, your mileage may vary. But for me, it's okay for me to be me as the CEO. It's okay for me to be me when I get home.
And obviously, when my kids were two and three, I used somewhat different language. But, I mean, they knew what a meeting was. They knew—it's me. They're going to get me.
And sometimes Gina might be like, "Hey, you know, we're family. It's not a business meeting."
And likewise, I'm in business meetings and I'm talking to everybody like they're my buddy.
And so, I know there are moments and decorum and all that—you get it. I'm not saying ignore all of that stuff.
There’s context, and there’s behavior in that context.
But I guess there’s a wide berth of being you in various contexts versus being a different person because of the context.
And I don’t know—hopefully that’s coming across.
I think it’s really important.
I’ve just—I’ve found it to be massively helpful because also, I don’t have to worry about, Wait a minute, okay, what’s my MO here? What’s my style here? How do I act here?
I just can focus on being me.
So I’m only working on one person at a time as opposed to three, or four, or fifty.
And maybe that’s a relief to you to hear that.
In my experience, it’s been a win for me to always be me.
Authenticity is Easier Than Duplicitousness
You know, if you run a business dealing with me and I win, you win.
I don’t know—whatever it is.
At the end of it, I got to think I’m here. Maybe a few people in there—yeah.
But I got to think you’ll experience the same me that you’ll experience generally on the street in Grafton, West Virginia, small-town West Virginia.
Or, you know, if you come over to my house.
It’s just because that’s who I am.
And I don’t know any other way to be.
But having tried to go down that path of, Well, that’s just business, baby, that’s hard to sleep with.
It’s hard to reconcile that. It’s hard to do those things.
That’s when you get into situations—I think, maybe I’m right, maybe I’m wrong.
You get into situations where maybe, you know, a CEO, a coach, or whatever, gets into some kind of domestic situation and realizes that maybe their situation at work spilled over into their life.
And it’s hard.
It’s hard to do that.
The Importance of Grace
So again, I don’t know—your mileage may vary.
I would kind of also add this last piece on this, and that’s just this whole notion of where’s the room for grace?
So, this guy acted like a complete jack wagon.
And the other two that were there on the other side—they looked like they were not doing well either.
But, you know, his apology was like, Hey, I did all this, but you know, it was provoked.
I’m like, “Dude, well, full stop.”
Our behaviors are our responsibility, right?
Regardless of what somebody else does.
I mean, how we behave is how we behave.
What someone else does is on them.
But at the same time, the dude screwed up.
So, okay.
Now, he loses his job, he loses—maybe that’s all justified.
Maybe you’re like, Heck yeah, that’s exactly what should happen.
I don’t know.
But where’s the room for grace?
Because I think part of the challenge here is, if we are going to be so bloodthirsty to crucify everyone else for their mistakes, again, I go back to where I started:
You kind of are the same person wherever you are.
And so, if that’s the way you’re viewing everyone else—if everyone else is going to be crucified for their failings—how do you feel about yourself?
You’re not perfect.
I’m not perfect.
You’re going to mess up in a day.
You’re going to mess up in a week.
You’re going to mess up multiple times in an hour, whatever your day’s like.
And if you are such a critical person with no room for grace, I don’t know how you make it through the day.
That’s a tough one.
I mess up so much every day.
And I use that as a moment to learn.
And yes, I’m hard on myself, of course.
But it’s different.
It’s different.
I try to give myself grace.
And if you can’t give grace to someone else, I can’t imagine you’re giving grace to yourself.
So how you are in one area of your life is likely how you are everywhere.
Even if you can hide it, mask it, whatever else.
At this point, I’m kind of pleading with you—find some grace.
Find some grace for yourself, if you can’t find it for anybody else.
Which, again, I don’t think you can separate these things super well.
Find some grace for yourself.
You’re going to mess up.
Unfortunately, you might be the drunk at the football game who says some stupid things, and you’ve got some assessing to do and some improvement to make.
And maybe it’s going to be a costly lesson for you.
But there’s grace.
There’s grace.
You can fix it, right?
You can figure that out.
Obviously, there are some acts that are much harder to fix, and some you can’t fix.
But generally, when we behave a certain way—there’s got to be room for grace, doesn’t there?
For all of us?
I think so.
I think—I think, you know, I want grace for you.
I think that’s important.
I want you to give yourself some grace.
I want me to give myself some grace.
I want my kids to have grace for themselves, and each other, and the world.
Because I just think it’s a better place if we’re all doing that.
Closing Thoughts
So, all right. I’ve gone on to preaching and everything else.
So again, your mileage may vary.
But ultimately, this Eagles fan—hey, if you’re not an Eagles fan, you might say, More power to him. Whatever.
But this guy’s life is upended right now because he behaved differently than how it’s allowed at his work.
Right?
And I think there are domestic issues all over the place where people behave differently at home than they did somewhere else.
Or—whatever.
I mean, you can line it all up.
And so, I hate that.
I hate that for—for all of us.
And so, I guess, you know, I’d leave you with—I don’t know how you fit a duplicitous or a combative life where you’re different in different areas of your life.
Being a completely different person for different contexts.
That lie many of us were told in business, This is how you do it.
I don’t know how you apply that.
You can look at it on a political scale right now—whether it’s local, national, or global for that matter.
It seems to be believable that you can just be a complete A-hole, but you really are a good guy.
I don’t know, man.
I don’t know.
So, likewise, if somebody in your community does something you don’t like—maybe there’s some grace.
Right?
We got to look at all of this together, I think.
And that helps flourish for me.
So, these things that seem to be true out there—I’m just telling you, I don’t—I don’t believe they are.
I think—there’s got to be room for grace.
There’s got to be room for grace for all of us.
And, you know, you got to be you and let the context change.
I can give you a quick story.
Having spent time in a war zone, I can tell you—that’s a different context than what I’m looking at now, out of my window, the beautiful snow. It’s falling. It’s gorgeous. It’s peaceful. It’s lovely.
And war was none of that.
So, it was a different context.
And while, you know, I obviously had different actions or took different behaviors than what I do today, they were still me. They were still me.
I didn’t dehumanize the enemy.
There were a lot of things that made it really important—decisions, I think, that have echoed through my life in positive ways—that I wanted to make sure I was me.
And I wanted to make sure the guys we were there with, that they were them.
That we were us.
That we were West Virginians.
We were Americans.
We were proud.
But we were also going to be good people.
We were going to be good humans.
And all that stuff plays out, I think.
So again, I’m bloviating now. And I apologize for dragging this out, but I think it’s an important concept.
And if you’ve never been told that it’s cool to be a different person, or in fact, not only is it cool, but maybe you should be a different person in a business dealing, or in a political dealing, or whatever else—than what you are at home and all that kind of stuff...
Cool.
Good on you.
And I’m glad whoever’s been mentoring you or how you grew up—good. Be good.
But many of us—many, many, many, for many generations—have been told, Nah, it’s cool to be a schmuck at work.
It’s cool.
Or it’s cool to look like you’re cool outside, but be nasty to your family.
It’s cool.
And man, I just don’t think it is.
So anyway, for me, right?
Maybe it works for you, I don’t know.
I just don’t see it as part of being on the path to flourish.
So anyway, with that said, I hope wherever you are right now, wherever you may be, whatever you’re doing, I hope you’re finding some grace for others.
I hope you’re finding some grace for yourself.
I hope you’re comfortable being you wherever you are, in whatever context.
And ultimately, I hope you’re flourishing.
Alex Reneman is the founder of Mountain Leverage and Unleash Tygart and host of Flourishing w/ Alex Reneman. For 20+ years he has worked as CEO of Mountain Leverage, honing the concept of flourishing and experimenting with it in the business. In July of 2024, he decided to begin to share this idea with others, which led to his podcast, social content, and the plans for other initiatives in the future.
