Thom Brennaman is a longtime sports announcer. You may have heard him call a game over the years. Mostly baseball. Also some football and basketball. He’s called games mostly for local markets, but also a lot for national audiences. Thom also happens to be the son of another highly accomplished sports announcer, Marty Brennaman.
Thom is widely considered a very good announcer. I’ve heard him call dozens of games over the years, and I’d concur with that assessment. He’s an easy listen, knows inside and out the sports he calls, and often provides good insights.
Thom Thom clubbed
But several years ago, I read some things about Thom the person that bothered me. As someone who’s pretty high-maintenance when it comes to finding and trusting credible news sources, I did some research to see if there was real reason to believe that the initial story I read was true. Ultimately, the initial information was corroborated. The Thom Brennaman brand thereafter was tarnished in my mind.
Thom’s currently in hot water for something else. Really hot water this time. At the very least, Thom’s future career prospects likely have dimmed. If you know Thom only from his calling of nationally broadcast events, you shouldn’t expect to hear him in that capacity for many years. Maybe ever.
Thom’s remark that got him in trouble this time was horrible. Period. Several years ago, I might have said that what he did was unforgivable. But since witnessing the most amazing act of forgiveness I’ve ever seen, I now have a very high bar for what’s unforgivable.
But Thom wasn’t done torpedoing his career and the remaining respect many people may have had for him. Apparently realizing that he needed to apologize — perhaps if only to save his job — he took a stab at doing so. This article does a great (and savagely effective) job at explaining how that went. TLDR: It did not go well. Thom even may have accomplished the impressive feat of making his situation even worse.
Thom said many things during his apology saga that deserve to be picked apart, and can easily be done so. I won’t focus on most of them, because the Slate article I linked to does it well. Rather, I want to focus on one thing that he said during this process: “That is not who I am and never has been.”
I think, therefore I am
You may have heard that remark or something similar to it (with the “I am” sometimes replaced with “we are”) a lot. Especially in recent moths after the deaths of Breonna Taylor and George Floyd in relation to actions by police or by violent acts by protesters. But it’s been said in many contexts time and again before.
In this humble blogger’s opinion, the statement not only is fundamentally untrue, but insulting to those the person who says it is trying to convince. To my mind, if you actually did/said it, it is who you are. And if you’re the leader of an organization/business/city/state, and it was one or more people in the group that the leader leads who said or did something controversial or wrong, then it is who your organization/business/city/state is. You don’t have to like it. But you do have to acknowledge it. And own it.
Put another way, if you have a tiny bit of cancer, you still have cancer. But some cancers can effectively be dealt with. But only by admitting its there, honestly assessing its state, and addressing it on the full extent of the merits that you can take steps to effectively fix it. So, too, with things that give rise to saying “This is not who I am/we are.”
I hope that Thom comes to realize that his asking-for-forgiveness approaches taken to date are unlikely to soothe rightly outraged members of the public. Or to get him his job back. Or to restore his reputation. But what I do hope is that he comes to a full and accurate recognition of why his efforts to date aren’t just ineffective, but are downright wrong. Then he’ll be able to deal with the parts of himself that led him to make all these mistakes. And to grow and become a better person.
Money talks
Now, this is a really long lead up to the personal finance element of this article. But a lead up is, in fact, what it is.
In personal finance, there’s no shortage of people who essentially adopt the “That’s not who I am/we are” mindset. Sometimes folks find themselves in debt or “unable” to build wealth* because of things they do — big, little, or both. Sometimes they’re either actively in denial. Or unwilling to do the research that might help them rectify their situation and allow them to build a better life. Or, having discovered paths to a better situation, they neglect or refuse to take them. Sometimes they feel that if so many others are in the same situation, then maybe there’s no problem at all.
I think that some of these people have the “little-bit-of-cancer” problem. Time to own up to action(s) or habit(s) keeping them back (or digging the hole), assess and figure out how to effectively deal with them, and then start taking those measures.
I don’t pretend that climbing out of debt or building wealth is always easy or quick to accomplish. It isn’t. I know that firsthand. But that doesn’t mean that denial is an acceptable approach, much less the best one. Much like what I mentioned in my post, “How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying (Part Two)” as to things one should do in one’s job so as to succeed in it, it’s best to admit to and own one’s mistakes, learn from them, don’t blame others for your situation, and take corrective measures.
And in the end . . .
Dear Reader, we all make mistakes. Sometimes minor ones. Sometimes bigger ones. Just as with all the positive things we do, these make us who we are. But they’re usually at least in part reversible, even if we’re convinced that we is what we is and that’s all what we is.
* I’m referring to people who have the means and ability to dig themselves out of debt or build wealth; I recognize that there are myriad personal and systemic reasons someone might not be able to do one or both of these things.
