Become More True - The Courage to Become Who You Already Are

Andrew Parr
Jul 12
4 min read

Updated: Jul 29

View looking through a kitchen window. Morning sun coming in, clean dishes on the counter next to the sink, the faucet turned to the right, and yellow flowers catching the sun.

The kitchen smelled faintly of coffee and toasted bagels. Morning light spilled through the window above the sink, splashing across the leaves of the hanging spider plant that framed the view into our backyard. About twenty feet beyond the windowpane stood a weathered, dark green birdbath.

Every now and then, a cardinal landed on its edge as if it was meeting someone there.

...

I don't remember every conversation that happened in that kitchen. I remember how it felt. Safe.

My mother stood at that sink almost every morning. Sometimes with a cup of coffee. Sometimes rinsing breakfast dishes before the day began. Sometimes simply looking out the window.

I doubt she realized she was teaching me anything. She was. Not with lectures. With presence. Looking back now, I think the first gift she ever gave me wasn't confidence. It was security. The quiet certainty that no matter what happened outside our home, there was always a place where I was loved before I had accomplished anything.

...

Years later, I realized leadership often begins by giving other people that same feeling.

My father never spoke simply to fill silence. He listened. Really listened. When he said something, you knew he had spent time thinking before he offered it.

One evening, sometime around 1977 or 1978, my parents were getting ready to leave for a few hours. Jeffrey and I had finally reached the age where we could stay home by ourselves. I remember standing in the living room wondering what I was going to do.

My father looked over at me. "Why don't you turn on your transistor radio and listen to the Brewers game?" That was all. I carried the radio into my room. I turned the dial until I found WTMJ, 620 AM.

Then I heard Bob Uecker.

...

My parents came home later that evening. The radio was still on. So was I.

Looking back...

I don't think my father gave me baseball that night. He gave me curiosity. He opened a door...and trusted me to walk through it.

You could usually hear Jeffrey before you saw him. Somewhere across a restaurant, a laugh would erupt—almost like a giggle, but full-bodied, uninhibited, impossible to mistake for anyone else's. Heads would turn. Smiles would spread. Within minutes, someone who had arrived knowing no one would somehow be standing beside him, laughing too.

People called him "The Mayor."

When I was younger, I assumed it was because everyone knew him. Years later...I realized everyone knew him because he made everyone else feel known. There is a difference. Looking back, Jeffrey's greatest gift wasn't laughter. It was belonging. He had an extraordinary ability to convince complete strangers that they already had a place beside him.

Rain tapped steadily against the lower window of the screen door leading into the backyard. Brooklyn stood quietly for a moment, watching droplets race each other toward the bottom of the glass. Then he looked up. "Uncle Andrew..." He paused…"Why is it raining?"

I explained humidity. The dew point. Moisture collecting in the atmosphere. Gravity doing what gravity has always done. When I finished, he thought about it for a second. "That sounds right, Uncle Andrew."

...

I've thought about that moment many times since. Looking back, Brooklyn gave me a gift that afternoon too. He reminded me that truth isn't measured by having every answer. Sometimes it's measured by answering honestly. He trusted me enough to ask. I wanted to live in a way that honored that trust.

For most of my career, I believed leadership began with opportunity.

A promotion.
A title.
Responsibility.
Experience.

I don't believe that anymore. I think leadership begins with inheritance. Long before we lead organizations, we are entrusted by people. Someone teaches us what safety feels like. Someone opens a door. Someone shows us how to make another person feel they belong. Someone trusts us enough to ask an honest question.

We spend the rest of our lives deciding whether we'll keep those gifts...or give them away.

...

I've spent much of my career helping organizations build culture.

Only recently did I begin asking where mine came from. The answer wasn't in a boardroom. It wasn't in business school. It wasn't in a leadership seminar. It was in my childhood kitchen. On the other end of a transistor radio. Inside my brother's laugh. Standing beside a little boy watching rain slide down a screen door.

For years, I believed growth meant becoming better. Now I think it means becoming more true. Not creating a new version of yourself. Recognizing the one that has been quietly taking shape all along.

The people who loved you.
The people who challenged you.
The people who welcomed you.
The people who trusted you before you trusted yourself.

Every one of them gave something away. Whether they realized it or not. The question isn't whether you've inherited those gifts. You have. The question is...

What will the people around you inherit from you?

Because leadership begins the moment our values become recognizable in our behavior. People trust leaders whose words, values, and actions tell the same story.

Every morning, I still stand near a window with a cup of coffee. Sometimes I watch the neighborhood wake up. Sometimes I think about my parents. Sometimes Jeffrey. Sometimes a cardinal lands nearby. I've stopped asking whether that's coincidence. Some things don't become more meaningful because we explain them. They become more meaningful because we notice them.

Every room I enter is already full.