Who you are is good enough...

Some people brag about who they are while others are comfortable just being themselves.

 

·      Some people really are larger than life.

·      Others are that only in their own minds.

 

When I went to work for the Golden Nugget, I told everyone that I’d known Steve Wynn all my life. While I was proud of that, it took me years to realize that people are judged by who they are, not who they know. Case in point: when we opened the Mirage, my father got hired to work in the mail room there. Every day for more than a year he delivered the mail internally to all the departments. People got to know him as the mail guy, not my father. In fact, he never talked about that. When he died suddenly after working there for a year, word got out that he was my Dad. I then got more than 5000 cards from employees there expressing fondness for him, sadness for his passing, and surprise that they never knew we were related. His humility, which made him happy and content to be himself, found no need to talk about our relationship. That’s how I learned that inner contentment was a strength that needed nothing else to bolster it. That was 32 years ago, and I still get choked up thinking about the lesson it taught me about the power of humility. Just be yourself and know that’s a strength and not a weakness today.

 

John Jay McCloy (1895 – 1989): American lawyer, diplomat, banker, and a prominent United States adviser to all presidents from Franklin D. Roosevelt to Ronald Reagan.