Early in his career, a promising actor named Frank James Cooper considered changing his name thanks to the suggestion of his agent.
“Your name ‘Frank Cooper’ sounds too… common. should be something catchier!”
“What do you suggest?” Cooper replied.
“Well… I come from Gary, Indiana. So Gary Cooper has a nice ring to it, doesn’t it?”
The actor agreed. He later would tell the joke about his name change, “It’s a good thing that my agent didn’t come from Poughkeepsie!”
(Or Intercourse, Pennsylvania, for that matter!)
It helped that Gary, Indiana was also known for its steel mills, which were a symbol of strength and durability. I might be reading too much into it, but have you seen Gary Cooper’s jawline?
Anyway, Gary Cooper went on to become one of Hollywood’s greatest legends and cement his place in history.
This anecdote made me think about our identity, and how we can feel inadequate at times. In Cooper’s case, it was a wise decision to change his name, or at least it made sense at the time. While I’m not advising you to change your name (unless your name is Aloysious Devadander Abercrombie), but to think about how we can feel out of place sometimes.
Like we don’t belong to our circumstances. I’ve met people who feel they don’t belong to their cities, or countries, or the careers they were imposed as teens, or even their families. Certainly, it’s much easier to change the city you live in than to change your close relatives, but it all boils down to feeling that something is off.
And the problem is that too many times, we arrive at the wrong conclusion: that something is wrong with us.
“There must be something wrong with ME, since I don’t feel like I belong here”, it’s something that we’ve said a couple times along the way. Because we see so many people around us kind of enjoying themselves and existing, at least apparently, in an easy way despite their normal struggles.
So, it must be US the ones who are out of place, right? we are the ones who should adapt to other people. Why do we feel like we stick like a sore thumb?
Not to mention the insecurity of not fitting in. Granted, one of the things we want is to belong to a group, to a tribe… but we need to realize that we get to choose that group. And that takes time and effort on our part.
The hardest part is to know which group do we ‘belong’ to, and counterintuitively, that starts from taking a good look at ourselves.
Our values and what we stand for, what we won’t tolerate, what do we want for ourselves.
It’s only then that we will be able to enter in sync with the people, or cities, or circumstances that we want in our life. Because otherwise we’d be chasing stuff that other people want, and we’d be just imitating them.
This is why I told you this was a matter of identity.
So, if you feel inadequate, if you feel out of place, it’s time to take a good look at what’s around you and make sure that you surround with the right neighborhood, or people, or circumstances that resonate with you.
But the first step is: getting to know yourself.
Remember that I can help you with that 😉
Much Love and Bliss,
Jesús.
The Body Language Guy
