The Geeks Shall Inherit the Earth - Alexandra Robbins [83]
“I’m happy to be part of a culture where the guys who were made fun of in high school are now the ones the jocks go to see onstage,” Wentz said. “I like the idea that everyone can get depressed and that there is a way to get through it.”
INTEGRITY, CANDOR
If self-awareness and authenticity refer to being true to oneself, then integrity and candor refer to being honest in the ways one lives and interacts with others. Individuals with integrity earn people’s trust because they consistently adhere to a code of ethical values, making good on promises and fulfilling expectations. Integrity is not the province of someone who engages in gossip or other relational aggressions, or who attempts to influence people by manipulating them. “Integrity also means avoiding any communication that is deceptive, full of guile, or beneath the dignity of people,” according to The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. “One of the most important ways to manifest integrity is to be loyal to those who are not present. In doing so, we build the trust of those who are present.”
Candor expresses in language what integrity embodies in spirit. Honest interaction is valued not only in personal relationships—it’s also good for business. “Lack of candor basically blocks smart ideas, fast action, and good people contributing all the stuff they’ve got,” Jack Welch wrote. “Candor gets more people in the conversation and when you get more people in the conversation, to state the obvious, you get idea rich. By that I mean many more ideas get surfaced, discussed, pulled apart, and improved. Instead of everyone shutting down, everyone opens up and learns. . . . That approach—surface, debate, improve, decide—isn’t just an advantage, it’s a necessity in a global marketplace.”
Grammy-winning country/pop superstar Taylor Swift is known for her candor. She writes her own material that describes real people, often by name. When the Jonas Brothers’ Joe Jonas broke up with her in a twenty-seven-second phone call, for example, she wrote a song about it. She is beloved because, as one reviewer observed, “She listens to her heart, and it beats to the tune of teen angst, love lost and found, hurt feelings, and life being wonderful and unfair at the same time. . . . Her lyrics connect with the young and young at heart who understand those feelings. That gives her street cred, makes her believable far beyond most other older tunesmiths trying to write for teens.”
Often her message is about how, while it’s easier to conform to the crowd, being different makes people extraordinary. “The farther away you get from middle school, junior high, the more you realize that,” Swift has said. “In the real world, if you have something about yourself that’s different, you’re lucky. It’s not a curse.”
Swift speaks from experience. In school, she was an outsider who “became a people-watcher when I lost all my friends.” When she sat down at a lunch table, girls would get up and move to a different table. Why? “The kids at school thought it was weird that I liked country [music]. They’d make fun of me,” she told Teen Vogue. Her clique cast her out because “in middle school there really doesn’t have to be that much reason for people to not like you. Maybe it’s because your hair is frizzy . . . or maybe it’s because instead of getting drunk and going to parties on the weekends when you’re thirteen, you write songs and play at coffeehouses.”
Besides the obvious way in which being excluded because of her devotion to music exemplifies quirk theory, Swift has also attributed her success to the experience of being alienated by classmates.