ORLANDO, Fla. – Let’s say, things just aren’t working out for you. Let’s say that you want more. Somewhere between who you are and where you’re at, an insurmountable obstacle or two may seem to always block the sort of paths that you know lead to greener pastures.
But what, really, is stopping you from reinventing yourself or your business? Whether in the blink of an eye, or in a month of weekends, it can be done.
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This week on “Black Men Sundays,” host Corie Murray interviews Richard Page Jr., a man on a mission to teach others about how they can recognize, take control of and shift their identities to their benefit.
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According to Page, much of what we perceive to be identity comes about in our youth, and in said youth, we find behaviors and dreams that are based on society.
”Those are the things that define, or at least you thought define, who you are. What were the clothes you were wearing? The Converse All Stars? What music did you listen to, and what did your teachers say about you? Were you a thug or were you a nerd, you know? All those things, you think, define who you are, define your identity,” Page said. “As you get a little bit older, you start coming into what I would call a better realization and understanding of who you are, your identity. What is it that really defines you, as a human being?”
Page said we often forget to consider as children that we’re human beings, first and foremost. He described how kids then and now are often too busy wanting to take the place of others who are great instead of working to become a greater version of themselves.
“I keep on going back to Jordan because in the ‘90s he was the man, you know? Nowadays, we have different superstars, so I keep referring to Jordan as being ‘the man’ in terms of athletics and sports, and so you want to be like Mike. In other words, you want to be identified as someone that not only played basketball, but also was identified as a winner, and that was the thing about Michael Jordan. He was the one that personified championship in the 1990s, and that was what every boy wanted to be identified as. ‘I want to be a winner, like Mike. I want to be a millionaire, like Mike. I want everybody in the world to know who I am,’” Page said.
Once you have the opportunity to understand what identity is and what truly identifies you as a person, Page said that you can begin to write a new story, a different story, about who you are.
“I know guys that have shifted their identity. They grew up without a father in the house, mom is working two and three jobs, so they have the opportunity to identify themselves as a thug who makes money by robbing people,” Page said, mentioning his childhood growing up in a Brooklyn neighborhood known as “the do or die Bed–Stuy” during the 1980s. “I knew you either identified yourself as someone that went out and took what they wanted, or someone that tried to do the right thing, and I know my boys that grew up in that in that single-parent household, they made a decision as to who they were going to be identified as. ’Am I going to be a thug and probably die or go to jail by the time I’m 18, 19 years old? Or am I going to change that, that narrative, and identify myself as someone that stands up for good principles?’”
Page, with his bachelor’s degree in aerospace engineering and master’s degree in systems engineering, said it still took him years to make similar choices, even after starting his first corporate job in the industry at 22 years old.
“I’m a new engineer, I got a brand new degree, and I’m just happy. I’m just so happy to be doing engineering. I love airplanes. I was just such a nerd, and so all I wanted to do was what they told me to do, but the some of the old guys on the job talked to me about establishing my own direction and my own identity and you know, for the first just a couple of years, I’m not even thinking about that. I just want to be known as someone that was intelligent and someone that did good work,” Page said.
It was all he cared about, doing good work, according to Page. As he aged in the job however, he began to shift his identity.
“I started to realize, ‘Wow, I don’t want to just be known as someone that does what the boss tells them to do, I want to be known as someone that’s an innovator, I want to be someone that’s known as a problem solver, not just a good kid.’ So the way I was able to do that was, whenever an issue came up, I volunteered myself for it. Whenever my boss asked me to do it, I said, ‘Yes.‘ Even if I didn’t know that I knew how to do it, you better believe I found out. So what it did was, it shifted my identity from just someone that was a good worker into someone that could actually be a leader, and to this day I still talk to my boss — I worked with him for 13 years, he retired in 2003 — I still keep in contact with him and he always tells me, he says, ‘Rich, if you had stayed, you would have been one of the VPs,’ but I decided it wasn’t what I wanted to do. I wanted to do something else. So you absolutely have the opportunity to shift your identity, even in the corporate world. You don’t have to get stuck in the box that they put you in,” Page said.
Hear the full interview and more in Season 2, Episode 31 of “Black Men Sundays.”
Black Men Sundays talks about building generational wealth. Check out every episode in the media player below.