#286: A Coming Out Story Like No Other! John's Heartfelt Saga of Courage, Conflict, & The Complexity of Family Dynamics

It took him 18 years to come out to his parents that he was gay.

And I thought that was the highlight of this interview.

But the fact is true that it wasn't.

The highlight is what comes next. It is mending of relationships.

It's bringing a family back together. It is him trying to show you what it means to be a family.

You might argue, you might say some things that you wish you didn't, but the fact is true, it is a relationship and sometimes it takes a little bit of work.

My hope in you hearing John's story is, well, that it might be that spark to inspire you to maybe reach out to your family.

Maybe there's been a rift for way too long, and I'm here to tell you that this life is way too short.

In our family, they mean everything.

So if you have a rift in your family with a family member, I hope that today's episode not only inspires you, but also gives you the tools to reach out to that person and to start to mend those broken fences.

Today is episode 286. Today is my interview with John Darrell.

What's up, my friend, and welcome to Grit, Grace, and Inspiration.

I am your host, Kevin Lowe.

20 years ago, I awoke from a life-saving surgery only to find that I was left completely blind.

And since that day, I've learned a lot about life, a lot about living, and a lot about myself.

And here on this podcast, I want to share those insights with you.

Because friend, if you are still searching for your purpose, still trying to understand why, or still left searching for that next right path to take, we'll consider this to be your stepping stone to get you from where you are to where you want to be.

Today's prayer request comes from a woman who you will actually be hearing from later this summer.

Her name is Dr. Robin Hall.

I just had the pleasure of speaking with her the other day about being a guest here on the podcast.

And while we were talking, she mentioned her friend, Julie. Julie and her friend has been suffering from brain cancer.

And so I wanted today to ask you to help me in praying for Julie to, of course, pray for healing, but also for comfort and peace, both for her and for her friends and family.

Again, her name is Julie, and it would be amazing if you could help me in praying for her today.

And remember, if you have something that you would love to have some others helping you in praying for, well, send it to me via text message to 877-749-8178.

That's right. You can send your prayer request to be featured on an upcoming episode of the podcast as a text message to 877-749-8178.

As you listen to today's interview with John Nero, as I said in the intro, he's going to give you some really amazing techniques that he's learned in his own life that are going to help you with your relationships.

But one thing he didn't mention is something that I want to tell you is that if you have a rift in the family, what better way to reach out to that person than by giving them a gift from MyPillow. Absolutely.

And here is the cool thing. They are going to think that, oh my gosh, they just spent this kind of money on me.

But they didn't know that you had promo code Kevin, and that got you access to the $25 extravaganza.

Yes, some of their very best products are on sale for only $25.

All you have to do is use promo code Kevin. when shopping at MyPillow.com to get access to those amazing deals.

So with that, it's time for you to get shopping, fixing some relationships, and having everybody sleeping a little bit better.

I had a great childhood. I mean, we never wanted for anything in that regard.

I grew up along the Jersey Shore, a couple blocks away from the ocean, which was a great place to grow up.

And not like the MTV Jersey Shore, but a little different than that.

I have two older sisters.

My parents had me a little bit later in their life.

So my mom was three weeks before her 43rd birthday when she had me.

I was definitely a change of life baby for both of them.

And yeah, it was just I grew up in a very staunch Catholic household.

Religion was very important growing up. I had an uncle who was a Catholic priest.

East. He was my mom's brother who had a very predominant presence in the family, I'll say.

You know, it was just, it was, it was a really good childhood overall. I have no complaints.

Yeah. Well, that's great. Now your sisters, how much older were both of your sisters?

So I have one sister who is 18 years older than me and I have another sister who is 10 years older than me.

And so as a point of reference, I'm 55.

Yes. Okay. Well, now with such a massive gap growing up, did you get to really spend much time with either of them and really get to know them as a kid or not really?

Not really. So my oldest sister, I was four when she got married.

And so while I remember growing up, it was oftentimes it was her and her husband.

For my other sister, who's 10 years older than me, she was the one I was closer to in that I would always ask things like, can we have some time?

Like, can I have some time? I want to play.

And for her as a teenager, having to deal with a brother who was 10 years younger than her and probably being a pest most of the time, she had her own friends and she had her own life that she was wanting to lead.

So yeah, there was time, but it wasn't a really close or proximal sibling type relationship.

Okay. Okay. Understandable. That's kind of what I expected you to say with the large gap in years. It only kind of makes sense.

Moving right along in your story, talk to me about 10 years old, because I read something that just absolutely made me crack up.

And I would love for you to share this story about being 10. him. Yeah, absolutely.

So the year is 1979.

And again, I grew up in a very staunch Catholic household and things happened.

And I can't tell this story without acknowledging an event that happened to my sister who was 10 years older than me. She was 18 and she got pregnant.

And I will share with you, Kevin, as well as everybody who's listening that in my opinion and in my perspective, nobody handled it well.

And of course, how could they, right? This was something which we didn't hear a lot of, and it was often swept under the rug.

And there was shame and embarrassment and anger and frustration and all of those kinds of things.

And that's the relationship that my parents and my sister had to deal with.

I, on the other hand, Kevin, was collateral damage.

And I say that because when my sister broke the news to my parents, and we had a two-story house, and I was upstairs looking through the spindles and the railing trying to see what was going on, there was a lot of yelling, there was a lot of screaming, there was a lot of crying, and then there was a door slam.

And my sister had left.

And my mom called me downstairs and she sat me on her lap.

And with tears in her eyes, she looked at me and she said, what your sister did was very bad.

And if you ever go to bed with a woman before you're married, I hope you see my face instead of hers.

Oh, no. Yeah. Let that one sit in. Let that sink in for a moment, everybody.

Wow. Yeah. So, you know, so when you're 10 and you want to be a good son and you realize there's been a lot of upset and a lot of crying and you, you know, you just, you know, I'm like, okay. Yeah.

Can I go back and watch TV? Like, all right. Like, I don't want to make my mom more upset than what she already is.

But it opens up the bigger question, which was at 10 years old, did I really know that I was gay? Yes.

And it wasn't until 16 years after that day or that year when I was 26 that I had finally uttered the words to some good friends of mine and said, I think I'm gay.

And it wasn't until I was 28 when I came out to my parents.

And that is a whole nother chapter in this story, which I'm sure we'll get to as well.

Yeah. Wow, wow, wow. So, yes, what your mother said is terrifying to anybody, no doubt.

Oh, my gosh. gosh, that is just, that is such a thing that like a mother would say in the heat of the moment, like that just literally can torture you for the rest of your life. Yeah, absolutely.

Right. And you think about her upset and her grief and her desire to control, like this, this is what she thought was, you know, she was doing to keep me on the quote, quote unquote, right path.

And Kevin, where it became a source of contention for us was that, you know, I dated a little bit when I was in high school and college, but it never went anywhere, right? And to clarify, I dated women.

And of course, you know, the biggest fear is, oh my gosh, if I get one of them pregnant, I'm going to kill my parents kind of a thing, with all that upset.

But my mom would joke about it with her friends and they'd be like, Like, oh, well, how'd you keep John to be such a good kid?

And how did you raise John? And my mother would joke about that day and said, oh yeah, well, I just told him if he ever goes to bed with a woman before he's married, I hope he sees my face instead of hers.

And I was 18 and my parents were hosting this party. We had a lot of people over the house, Kevin.

And she told this joke and I was so mad and I was so upset and I leaned into the group and I went, mama said nothing about going to bed with a man.

And holy crap, did I get it after everybody left.

She was mad at me. You don't say those kind of things.

That's not funny. And I said, right, it's not funny.

The joke needs to stop.

And I was trying to like test waters to see if there was any way...

That there might be a change in thinking because I knew how my parents, I knew what they believed and I knew what they felt about gay people in general.

And so I was looking for an avenue to find some kind of acceptance.

And when I wasn't getting it, it just pushed me further and further back into the closet.

Yeah. Was there a point, was there an age range when you finally understood the feelings that you had that you realized I am gay?

I remember praying before my 16th birthday for God to make me straight.

And, and part of that prayer was like to make the thoughts go away.

Yes. And the 16th birthday came and it didn't.

And so i was like all right you know and i remember i was in i was in my mid-20s it was the last woman i had dated and we had like gone out and it was like some kind of like pumpkin picking patch thing or whatever you know and you get the apple cider donuts or the pumpkin donuts or whatever and stuff and and i remember like brought her back to her house walked her to the door because all the things you're supposed to do kind of thing.

And I drove home in tears because I couldn't, you know, I couldn't lead her on.

My thoughts weren't, you know, with her.

I certainly felt like I was at a point where I needed to truly acknowledge who I am and who I was attracted to because I had never acted on anything at this point.

And I thought, oh my gosh, I'm lying to myself here.

And I remember driving home in tears, thinking like, oh my gosh, what am I going to do?

Hmm. Wow. And you were how old when that happened?

24, 25. Okay. Okay.

Had you been living away from home for a while at that point?

So after I finished my undergraduate work, I had lived away from home for a couple of years.

And then I moved back home to pursue a master's degree in teaching along with a mathematics minor, because I spent 14 years of my life as a mathematics teacher.

So I had moved back home because my parents and my uncle made me this incredible offer I could not refuse, which was take two years off, go to school full time, we'll pay for it, and get your degree and get your career on the right path.

And I was and will always be extremely grateful for that opportunity because it definitely set my career in motion after I had achieved those degrees. Yeah, absolutely.

So walk me through then as we're kind of skipping along in this story, when you finally did decide to tell your parents and I guess I even preface that question by asking what led you to finally tell your parents? Yeah.

So I'll back skip a little bit here for us to really share just a monumental point.

There were a couple of friends of mine who were extremely supportive and very encouraging.

They were a married couple, husband and wife. They had three kids.

We used to hang out at their house a lot. We knew each other through some common activities and stuff. And I looked at my friend Donna one night and I said, I'm going to disappoint my parents bigger than my sister ever did.

And she's like, John, you're like the perfect kid. Like, what could you possibly do that would disappoint them?

And I looked at her and I said, I think I'm gay.

And she looked at me and she goes, I thought you knew.

And I was like, huh? And she goes, I just didn't think you told us.

And at that point, Kevin, and this is where, when we think about grace and empathy and kindness, she stopped herself. And she was like.

Oh my gosh, I'm so sorry, come here. And she gave me this big hug and she's like, how do we be a great friend for you? Oh, wow. And yeah.

And so what they ended up doing for me, and this is when we think about why allyship is so important.

What they ended up doing for me because they loved me and they were friends of mine, they found a group.

They found a support group about an hour north of where they lived.

And they're like, let's get you some help. Let's get you some resources about if you decide to come out and what this is going to be like.

And it was every Monday night at like seven o'clock. And I would go over to their house for dinner.

And then the story I was telling was like, go over to the house for dinner.

We're going to play some games.

Well, it was like, go over to of their house, hop in the car, drive an hour north, go to this meeting for an hour and a half.

And I got to meet other gay people and people who were very much like me and not like me in some ways.

But I got to kind of understand what their coming out stories were like.

In the process of being in that group, I met someone.

And I will tell you, he was the third man I ever dated. And the other two, I didn't date for that long.

Enough said, enough said. We've all been there. We've all been there.

We all can relate, right? Doesn't matter whether you're gay, straight, whatever. Like we all have those people.

So I meet this guy and we start dating. and I realized that we have a relationship and had dated him for about a year, maybe a little over a year.

I had finished my graduate work. I had started a teaching position.

It was the summer after that first year. I remember the date.

It was July 10th, 1997 was the day I came out to my parents. and I.

Knew in my heart that this was something I needed to do because I didn't want to lie to them anymore.

And I figured they would probably be upset.

I figured they would probably be angry and disappointed, but I didn't think they would cut me off given the way things had gone down with my sister. Yes. Wrong.

I told my folks and I remember telling them and my mom started filling in the blanks and there was a lot of upset and a lot of tears.

But here's where it was so important for me, Kevin, to show up in this way, because one of the things I promised myself, and this was with the help of a really great therapist, was that I would never say or do anything that I would regret because God forbid, this was the last time I saw my parents.

I wanted to make sure that I never did or said anything I regretted.

And so the last words I would always say to my parents was, I love you.

Didn't expect them to say it back, but it was, I love you.

And as you can imagine, there were some conversations and there were conversations around, this is a phase, you can't do this, who recruited you?

I had to explain to them, nobody got a toaster on my behalf.

And ultimately, it came down to an intervention.

And if you've ever seen movies from like the late 1990s and the 2000s about interventions, interventions it pretty much played out that kind of way it does make for a good lifetime movie in that regard but you know i was still i was partnered with this person and had no intention of of leaving him at the time you know my mom my dad my oldest sister my uncle the priest were all in the room and my mom looked at me and she says you're going to need to make a decision it's either either

us or him, because I can't keep living like this anymore.

And that was probably one of the hardest days of my life.

Wow. Wow. That is, I don't care what the situation is.

That's a horrible thing to be faced with.

Yeah. Ultimatums are done for very specific reasons.

And as I've learned, learned my mom did what she felt was best.

I don't fault her for that. I will never fault her for that because she did what she felt was best.

Here's where it gets interesting.

You ready? I'm ready. I'm ready. So here's where it gets even more interesting.

So I'm essentially kicked out of the family.

I had conversations with all four of them. Certainly couldn't debate Catholic theology and beliefs with any of them because I knew what I was doing was against the Catholic religion.

Religion, but I also knew this was important about honoring who I am and me dealing with my own faith and religion at that point as well.

That differed from how I was raised.

We don't talk for 22 months.

Now, my mom and dad had my phone number, my email. They knew how to get ahold of me if anything happened.

And one day the phone rings and I see it's my dad. He says to me, your mom's been diagnosed with breast cancer.

She's going to go into the hospital for a procedure. She wants to see you before she goes in the hospital.

Okay, when do you want me to come down? So I drive down.

Now I say to them, I said, look, so we're clear. I'm only coming down to meet with you and mom. There's nobody else here.

Don't ambush me like you did the last time. No, just be your mom and me.

Okay, great. So I see my mom and, you know, for anybody I can imagine when you're faced with a cancer diagnosis and you're faced with potentially your mortality at that point, you're scared.

And for my mom, this was about let's clean up some loose ends.

So we talk about what's going on and everything.

And my mom says to me, are you still with him?

Him she would never call my partner by name are you still with him and we had broken up we separated after about three and a half years and i said no and she goes well good and i go uh-uh you don't get to do that you don't get to gloat because relationships are hard and when relationships break up they're harder and when you go through a breakup in a relationship that's important to you and your family's not there for you, but your friends are, you don't get to gloat.

Now, I'm sorry you have cancer. I want you to be well. I want this to be fully resolved and everything.

So you and I need to work on our relationship.

And if we're going to work on this relationship and start rebuilding it, here's the first thing that needs to happen.

You do not get to pass disparaging remarks about me or my friends who were there for me when you chose not to be.

I said, because they were there for me when you couldn't. And she looked at me, Kevin, and she goes, Okay. Now my mom's in her seventies.

I get a 70 year old staunch Catholic woman to agree with me on something like, hell yeah, I'm going to take that as a win.

Right. Yes. So at that point, I'm like, okay, take, take your win.

Don't, don't push for anything more. And it was my mom's breast cancer that literally started us on a path to healing and resolving over the course of those next, you know, decade plus.

Wow. Wow, wow, wow. What did happen going forward?

Did your relationship get back to some type of normalcy?

And even I want to ask even with the rest of your family.

Yeah. So once my mom had her procedure done and we had agreed that we wanted to see each other, and I think that was the important piece here, right?

We wanted, it was important for both of us to know that we wanted to see each other and see if there was a way to work some things out.

So what we did, Kevin, was we started setting up some ground rules for what conversations would be like.

And so some of those ground rules were when you ask a question, and this was for both of us, right? So it worked both ways.

When a question is asked, that question is asked out of information and curiosity, not to be damning or abusive.

Because I needed to acknowledge that my parents probably had some questions to how I got to this point and were curious, but I wanted to make sure that they were asking for information and not to be mean about it, right?

So that was one thing. The second thing was, if at any point in time the conversation got to be too heated or uncomfortable, anybody could simply say, let's stop the conversation.

And we would agree to stop it and set up another time to come back and discuss it.

And the last thing that I honored was that the last thing I'm always going to say to you is I love you and eat it. Yes. Right.

So once we set those things in place, it opened up for some probably unusual or different types of conversations, you know?

Like, so my mom asked me one time and she said, how did you get this way? Mom, I kind of remember when I was younger having thoughts about being attracted to guys.

Yeah, but when did that start? I don't know, like six? She's like, six?

I'm like, yeah, like the first time I looked at somebody on TV and was like, okay. I didn't understand what it meant, right?

But like, if you're trying to like tag something, I'm like, maybe, maybe, I like, I don't know.

And she's like, well, it doesn't make sense to me. I'm like, well, does it have to make sense?

Like, this is just, you know, you're attracted to dad because you're attracted to the opposite sex.

You know, I'm not attracted to the opposite sex.

It was difficult for them to get their head around.

But if you remember that day when I was 10, this bugged my mother because she looks at me one day and she says to me, I need to ask you a question.

Okay, is that question for information or you're curious, yes.

You're trying to be abusive or argument. No, go ahead, ask the question.

Do you remember when your sister got pregnant? Uh-huh. And I sat you on my lap.

Uh-huh. And I told you that if you, uh-huh.

Did that make you? Absolutely, it did.

My dad, Kevin goes, and I go, oh, come on, that was perfectly over the plate.

How do I not hit that out of the ballpark? Come on.

And then we have this moment of laughter and I look at my mom and I hold my mom's hand and I go, all joking aside, no, that did not make me gay.

And she was like, okay, because I've worried about that. And I go, of course she did. Because you can't let anything go.

So it was really important for me, Kevin, that I used my gift of humor to lighten up some situations, but there were times when conversations got heated and we walked away and we said I love you and we made it a point to come back down and have another conversation at the house.

Things were said, hurtful things were said, but because you love and because there's an opportunity to forgive and you try to build some kind of awareness, you know, one of the things I learned as part of this was the biggest, I'm going to use the word mistake, and I know some people may challenge me on that, but it's the best word I can use in this context.

The biggest mistake I feel like I made in my coming out journey was that I expected my parents to fully accept and believe in me on the spot without any struggle.

And that was wrong of me to do. They had their own journey to travel when it came to accepting that their youngest and their only son was gay.

And for me to expect them to just be like, okay, that's great.

When do we get to meet your partner?

It just wasn't gonna happen. It was an unrealistic expectation on my part.

And so what I had to do was I had to learn to give them grace and give them opportunities to question without me getting upset or angry with them, but to help them along their journey so they could get to wherever they could.

In the process of all of this, keep in mind it came out in 1997.

My dad passed away unexpectedly in 2003, or 2004, sorry.

And the last thing I ever said to him was, I love you.

That is a gift. I had been healing the relationship with my parents.

My uncle, no. My sister, eh.

Not really, because it was so important for me to work on my relationship with my folks first.

My mother loses her husband and her two brothers within 18 months. Wow.

My mom was married to my dad for 55 years.

And of course, when death happens, sometimes families rally. Right.

And I remember looking at my sister, because the one sister who had gotten pregnant, she's out of the picture.

But I looked at my sister and I said, look, whatever's going on between us, we put this aside right now. We're here for mom.

Like our common goal is we take care of mom.

My sister looked at me and she went, got it. And so that's where we started healing our relationship a little bit in that regard. Wow.

Yeah. Wow, wow, wow. In the year since then, has the relationship between you and your sisters gotten any better or stayed the same?

So there is no relationship with my younger sister.

That, you know, everything kind of went down at 10.

I firmly believe, just like my parents did, She did what she needed to do, which was best for her, her husband and her family. And that meant she walked away.

I obviously don't know all the conversations that happened, but based on my own experiences, probably didn't go too well.

And so while there's no relationship there, I certainly respect and understand the decisions my sister had to make.

With my older sister that's 18 years older than me, there is a relationship there. You know, you get older and people kind of, you know, gravitate in their own ways kind of a thing, but she's still a part of my life.

So, you know, that's fine as well.

But, you know, I think one thing I do want to just kind of extend here a little bit, Kevin, is that one of the things I am most proud of in this life is the relationship my mom and I had.

And when you think back on the story I've shared with you today, you're like, gosh, how do you get there?

Six months after my dad passed, my mom looks at me and she was in her late seventies.

She looks at me, we're standing in her house and she goes, I don't know how you do it. And I said, do what?

And she goes, be alone. Be alone.

I said, what do you mean? She said, your father has been gone for six months.

Loneliness sucks. From a 78-year-old woman.

Loneliness sucks. And I said, mom, I can't imagine what you're going through.

He said, but you and dad loved each other for 55 years.

He said, you had a relationship where you two liked and loved each other.

You were best friends. I go, and I know you struggle with who I am and who I want to be in a relationship with.

Why am I not entitled to the same happiness?

Hmm. And she looked at me and she goes, I get it.

Now for a 78 year old woman, like win number two.

Like I get it, okay? So my mom lived for seven years after my dad passed.

And my sister and I rallied. My sister would take care of Sunday dinners and medical appointments and things.

And I would take care of the finances and vacations and stuff like that.

And trips to Atlantic City where we would sit next to each other at slot machines and just have the best conversation.

Because my mom loved a really good conversation. The really sweet part of this story is, Kevin, is that over 15 years ago, I met my now husband.

And when I met Richard, my mom was curious.

And we dated long distance for two years. I was living in New Jersey.

Richard was living in Washington, D.C.

And she's like, why are you spending so much time with this guy?

And I was like, I like hanging out with him. You know, he's funny, smart, he's intelligent, you know, good people.

And we had been dating for about four months. And my mother says to me, when do I get to meet him?

You could have knocked me over with a feather. Like, not.

You want to meet him? Yeah, I want to meet him. He's important to you. I want to meet him. Okay.

So we met on her turf. And her turf was the Borgata Casino in Atlantic City.

That's where my mother said to me, she goes, when I die, are you going to come to the cemetery and visit? I said, no, I don't like cemeteries, but I'll come to the Borgata three times a year.

I love it. So, right. So, so we meet and, and so I'm like, I'm prepping Richard the whole time. I'm like, oh, kid gloves.

You know, I don't know where my mom's going to be with all this. Right.

She meets him. She's like, let's go play some machines. Right.

She's teaching him how to play these slot machines and stuff.

We had a nearly three hour dinner.

She was asking him about his work and his growing up and what he did and everything. thing.

And we were getting ready to leave and he had gone to the restroom and I'm standing there with my mom and she looks at me.

I'll never forget this. She goes, he's very nice.

I have a feeling you two will be good friends for a very long time. I got my mom's blessing.

In that moment, I got my mom's blessing as a, you know, 80-year-old woman who lived this life and struggled with her challenges and her life and her beliefs and the upset and the tumult that she's had in her life.

For her to look at me and say, I have a feeling you two are going to be really good friends for a very long time.

I felt like everything came full circle. How do you ask for more?

And so Richard got included in family gatherings because Richard lost both of his parents very, very young due to cancer.

And so he found himself at like his mid-30s having lost both of his parents.

And so Richard got a sense of like, he got a motherly figure in his life who recognized and celebrated him for his role in my life.

You know, we could never talk like my mom would sometimes get on the habit of like trying to figure out mechanics, you know, it's not a conversation you want to have with your parents, right?

I don't want to know about your sex life. Don't ask me about mine.

Exactly. So that's where the ground rules came into play. I was like, mom, we're not going to talk about that.

Yes. But it was Thanksgiving dinners and Christmas dinners and birthdays and Mother's Day and and things like that, where he was there.

My mom, it'll be, let's see, 13 years this July that she passed.

And even though he didn't get a lot of time with her, at the same time, he recognized how special and important that was, as did I.

And I will always, always, always be forever grateful and love him even more for the fact he was so kind to my mom in that way.

Yeah. You know what two words keep coming to me when I'm hearing this story between you and your mother are mutual love and respect.

Yeah. And I think to myself, because both of you adopted mutual love and respect together, That was what made it possible for you to create this relationship together.

That when you tell that story, I mean, that is absolutely just the biggest tearjerker in the world because of how beautiful it is.

Yeah. Wow, wow, wow. Wow. Yeah. It's a great way of phrasing it that way, because we could not have shown up for each other if it hadn't been for that mutual love and respect, because there were tough conversations to be had.

There were struggles around lifelong beliefs and religious principles and tenets and, you know, combating stereotypes and fear. Let's talk about fear.

You know, I come out in 1997 to them.

AIDS was still very much part of the conversation.

And, you know, my mom's like, you're going to die.

We're all going to die, you know?

And she's like, no, no, you're going to die of AIDS. God, I hope not.

You know, but it was that kind of fear and everything there that you think about having these intentional conversations that move relationships forward.

That was always the goal. How do we move this relationship forward based on this conversation?

Moving the conversation forward doesn't always mean that you're hugging it out and it's rosy and cheery and everything's great and wraps up in a 22-minute sitcom.

What it means is that you've made some kind of progress to a clear decision.

And I will always be grateful for the fact that my parents...

Honored that process, even as difficult as it was for them. Yeah, absolutely.

You've talked a lot about showing up and you have kind of a foundation for showing up.

I believe you have it broken down by six different principles.

Will you dive into that for us?

Yeah. So because this coming out journey and building the relationships with my my folks was so important.

I would have been remissed had I not taken the lessons learned from those experiences and figured out where else they applied in my life.

And so when I talk about showing up, I do break it down into six strategies, and they are the S stands for setting ground rules.

The H stands for having intentional conversations.

The O stands for owning where you are. The W, welcome new opportunities.

The U, use your genius.

The P stands for protect and promote your brand. And in my book, Show Up, Six Strategies to Lead a More Energetic and Impactful Career, I tell the story of my coming out in the first part of the book.

But in the second part of the book, I take these six strategies and I walk them through where they've applied in this coming out journey, but also how they've applied in my career.

So you don't have to do the show up strategies in order. And when I work with people on that, we typically start with the O and the W.

So the O, owning where you are. For me, yeah, I had to own the fact that I recognize and understand that I'm a gay male.

And that meant owning a big part of my life that I kept hidden for a very, very long time.

The W in terms of welcoming new opportunities, what that meant along the way was, who do I get to meet? What do I get to learn?

Where do I get to learn from somebody else's coming out journey or experience or circumstance or situation that has helped them grow to where they are.

The setting ground rules, we've talked about that before. Setting ground rules simply means that we know how to play.

And when we know how to play, we don't have to walk on eggshells.

When I set those ground rules with my folks about any conversations we were going to have, I could call them out and be like, that's getting abusive.

And they would redirect, or they would call me out on something and be like, that's getting nasty.

You're right. Let's redirect. Having intentional conversations move the relationship forward.

But the U and the P are two interesting ones because using your genius.

So I shared a little bit earlier that I used my gift of humor to help in those situations.

So for me, if I could get people to laugh, especially if I could get my parents to laugh, things felt lighter.

So might it be a little self-deprecating at times? Sure.

But when we can bring humor and appropriate humor into a situation, it can make it lighter.

And then the P about protecting and promoting your brand.

Kevin, there were things that people said to me, particularly my uncle, my sister, my parents, that were attacks on my brand and my reputation.

That I had to stand up for myself and call out and say, that's incorrect, you're wrong, and I'm not gonna allow you to talk to me that way.

So when you think about these six strategies, what if we took them and we applied them to our careers or we applied them to any relationship that we have?

When I work with people as an executive and career coach, we talk about these show of six strategies in very different capacities.

And so how do you set ground rules for your meetings with your team and your direct reports?

How do you have intentional conversations with your leadership about a particular workflow or about where your career is progressing?

How do you use your genius and leverage that to make your project better, your organization better, your leadership better, your career better?

How do you protect and promote your brand and your reputation internally as well as externally?

Because Jeff Bezos has one of the best quotes about branding I've ever heard, which is your brand is what people say about you when you're not in the room.

And then of course, owning where you are and welcoming those new opportunities.

And so I wrote the book, Show Up, because I kept hearing people say to me at work, I need to show up differently.

What does that mean? And so the Show Up Six strategies provide a benchmark or a foundation, if you will, about when we talk about showing up, tap into one or more of those strategies and be clear about how you choose to show up in your life and career. Yeah.

Wow. I love it so much.

The story that you shared with your mother, and really, we could say your entire life story, how has that impacted the person you are today, both personally, professionally, and what you do?

How do you feel like that has impacted you?

There's certainly a part about strength and resiliency that rings very, very true for me.

You know, everybody has something in life that they work through.

Or they face. And I had a neighbor growing up who said to me that everybody's problems were like pairs of shoes.

And if everybody in the world threw their shoes into a corner and you could pick whichever pair of shoes you wanted, you would always go back and pick your own because they're the most comfortable.

Right? And so for me, I recognize that my coming out wasn't easy.

Coming out isn't easy for anybody.

And yes, we sit in 2024 here and things are certainly different than what they were in 1997 and 1977 and all, but nevertheless, there's still a lot of work to be done.

But when we have those conversations, we're vulnerable.

And if we're met with grace and kindness, we can be met with disagreement on a lot of things in life. That's okay.

But it's about showing up to those conversations with grace that allow you to see where the conversation takes you.

Because I've had those conversations in my life, I very rarely shy away from a difficult conversation. You can ask my husband.

Because he knows he knows i'll be the one to kind of bring something up first or whatever or if if something else is happening i'll be like do you want me to take care of it he's like dear god no.

Don't need you to take care of that right there's a reason why we go to buy cars i go alone on you know the last time he came with me but yeah it's it's that kind of thing where I don't shy away from conversations because I know that once you have them, there's a whole lot better on the other side.

Yeah, I love it. Before I ask you my last question, tell everybody where they can find your book, where they can get plugged into your world, where's the best places for us to send them.

And of course, everything you mentioned, I'll be sure is in the show notes for easy access.

Oh, thank you. Thank you so much for that. So you can find my books on Amazon.

So Show Up, Six Strategies to Lead a More Energetic and Impactful Career.

It's at definitely a discounted price right now on Amazon. So feel free to go grab that.

My other book is called Your Mid-Career GPS, Four Steps to Figuring Out What's Next.

And there is an updated part to the Show Up, Six Strategies in the back of that book.

People can find me on LinkedIn at John Nerrell. It's J-O-H-N-N-E-R-A-L.

You can also find me on my website at johnnerrell.com. And I host a podcast called the Mid-Career GPS Podcast, which Kevin, I was honored to have you on the show as well.

And you can find the Mid-Career GPS Podcast wherever you listen.

Yeah, fantastic, fantastic. Highly encourage any of you to get plugged into this guy's world.

As you can tell, the guy is just incredible.

You are incredible, John. And so, man, definitely check out the show notes and get plugged into everything you just mentioned.

My last question for you is I would love for you to talk to the person who's been listening today.

And maybe they are in the position you were back in your 20s, discovering about themselves, trying to understand what it means, trying to understand how the rest of the world is going to feel when they let out that secret. What would you say to that person?

Build your network. Build your support system. There are people out there who love you and care about you and see you, and it's important to pull them close.

Whatever it is that you believe you need to talk about or you need to share, you've got to build your support network because they're going to be there for you when you need them.

And I am extremely grateful for the people who have been, were, and continue to be part of my support system because they mean the world to me. They are everything to me.

And when you have that, there is strength, there is grit, there is grace, there is inspiration to help you have that conversation when you are ready.

And that's the key thing. It is when you are ready that your network is there for you whenever you need them. Yeah, I love it. I love it.

John, I want to thank you not just for being on the podcast today, but I want to thank you for being so honest, so real. And at the same time...

Your ability to take a really tough subject and with your gift of humor, of having us laugh right along with you while at the same time tearing up when you teared up.

It means the world to me to have you on the podcast and for you to feel so open, to be so honest, all with the goal that there's somebody listening today, you know, that they take something that you said and can put it in play in their own life.

And so, so truly in the most heartfelt way, thank you so much.

Well, thank you, Kevin. That means the world to me.

And I receive that with an open heart. And, you know, you create a space in this world for people to come and share their story in part because of your story and what you've gone through as well.

I am honored and so grateful to add to this conversation to you and for everyone who has listened today just to be a part of it. Thank you for all the work you do. You're amazing.

Oh, thank you so much. But for you listening today, my hope, my prayer is that something said today, it's an impact on you, that it made a light bulb go off.

Or maybe you can't help but think of a friend who you know that they could benefit from hearing our conversation today.

Be sure to share it with them. That's how we keep the love of this podcast alive.

So my friend, get out there, take on the day, enjoy the day.

This is Kevin Lowe with Grit, Grace, and Inspiration.

Music.