Scott Schimmel (00:04.718)
Throughout my life, I've been placed in what I would call roles that either were of my own doing or were handed to me. I think through every age and stage of my life, I've been known through a certain persona, almost like a character. And there's a lot of truth to that character. There's a lot of consistency with who I am.
in that persona, but it never ever tells the full story. There's been ages and stages in my life where I've been called or referred to or thought of as, whether it was the quiet one, the dumb one, the sarcastic one, the funny one, the one who's always smiling, the athletic one, the one that's really into business, the one that's really into his faith, the one that's really into entrepreneurship. There's like all these different, and depending on maybe the community, depending on the moment.
people will see me in that sort of lens, through that lens. And by and large, it's okay, by and large it works. But what happens when you feel kind of stuck? What happens when you feel like the role that you've been playing, the role that you've been given, the role maybe that you even created for yourself, no longer fits? The idea of this is the concept of breaking the mold, breaking out of the character.
which can be a tricky process. And here's what I wanna kind of recognize, every single person needs to do this. Every single person needs to break out of the mold in order to grow up, in order to become and find and express their true identity. Now, sometimes it's given to us, right? Sometimes we're given a label, maybe it's a nickname, maybe it's something that we've done, and all of a sudden we have this kind of reputation. I remember kids growing up that...
because they did something nefarious or bad or got in trouble, we just always thought of them in that way. I remember a classmate of mine, a girl back in like second grade, this is like 1987, wrote something on the blackboard, chalkboard, back in the day when he had chalkboards, in front of the class and she misspelled it and it was a bad word, at least at that time to our age. And I still remember that, you know.
Scott Schimmel (02:18.742)
If I saw her today, I would say, oh my gosh, you're the girl that wrote that on the chalkboard. So what do you do with that? Too many people spend too much time living in someone else's script for their lives, and it's hard to break out. It's hard to break the mold. And I want to kind of elevate this as a concept and then suggest, recommend.
that we actually, whether it's a family or as a community or as a culture or as a mentor or for us ourselves, that we intentionally take a moment to re-examine the script, to break out of the character that we've been playing. This is how identity formation works. What I don't wanna happen as a dad of three kids, I do not wanna hear the story someday.
that they had, they felt like they had to move away, go somewhere else so that they could finally become themselves. And that's a common story. If you're listening or watching, you might have that story in your own life, or have heard the story in someone else's life, where you feel like the people around me won't allow me to break out of the mold. They won't, they keep reinforcing it. Sometimes explicitly.
That's not who you are. You are like this. But if it doesn't fit anymore, at some point, something's got to give either people just absolutely give up and say, Okay, that's who I am. Or they run for the hills and try to find a new community where they can feel like they can fully be themselves. I could think of friends in the past who, as a group of friends, there is over time, there'd be one particular person
that we just kind of pegged as this particular type. And then bumping into them years later, or seeing them on social media or Facebook or Instagram, I can get glimpses of they're different now. And not now, they probably were different then as well, but we didn't have the capacity to see them for who they really were. We preferred, whether intentional or not, to keep them in the roles. It was more comfortable that way. It's not comfortable.
Scott Schimmel (04:38.542)
to break the mold. And in fact, sometimes it requires some conflict. It requires courage. It's vulnerable. And here's a couple sentence starts. Here's a couple prompts, I think on both sides, either we wanna do this for kids or if you're a kid watching this, you wanna do this in your life. I wanna say this, this is who you've been, but now you have the opportunity to rewrite your story. This is how we've known you, but we wanna give you the chance to reintroduce yourself to us.
into the world. Who are you really? What have we been missing? What have we been hesitant to see? What have we not been able to understand? Share that with us. We want to hear it. And on the flip side, people see here's a sentence starter. People see me as blank, but I'm actually blank. Or people see me as this, but there's more to it. I'm also that.
Like for me, I'm not just the sarcastic one. I'm also thoughtful. I can be funny, I can be sarcastic, but I could also be thoughtful and caring. So if you only see me this way, I want you to know that I also have this other part. So part of the responsibility lies with us to understand ourselves, to reflect on the story, the script that we've been given, and then to learn to figure out what is the truth about who I am. I know I've expressed myself as
But I'm realizing I'm actually more like, wouldn't that be great if you could do that through middle school and high school? Like have a redo, a reset, maybe after every holiday break or after every summer. Hey, last year I was like this, but now I'm realizing I'm more that. I mean, this is literally how growing up works. We discover and uncover new bits and parts of ourselves that are true to who we are.
And yet it's hard to express them. It's hard to own them when the people around us either refuse or don't know how to allow us to express those parts. So this is the whole concept, break the mold, reflection opportunity for you, for me. In what ways have I molded the people in my life, especially the young people? And in what ways have I allowed people to mold me and shape me? And what does it look like to have the courage and step into the vulnerability to say, there's more to the story.
Scott Schimmel (07:03.446)
We've been saying this for years. You only get one life. You only get one story. Make sure you're writing the real one, the good one. It's up to you. You've got the pen.
