The Creating Belonging Podcast
In the book, Creating Belonging: A Practical Guide to Accelerate Belonging in Organizations and Communities, Justin Reinert describes a model where belonging sits at the intersection of authenticity and acceptance. In The Creating Belonging Podcast, host Justin Reinert will continue the conversation of creating belonging by discussing others' experiences when they've been at various levels of authenticity and acceptance in their communities. Our goal with this podcast will be to help others find new paths to belonging in their communities.
The Creating Belonging Podcast
S2 E1 Embracing the Authentic Self Journey
Let us know what you think of this podcast!
Have you ever felt like an outsider in your own life, hiding behind a mask for fear of not fitting in? Our guest, Rick Clemens, knows this struggle all too well, but he's turned his quest for belonging into a beacon of hope for others. Join us as Rick, a gay dad and entrepreneur, shares his poignant journey from concealing his true self to becoming a guiding light for individuals navigating their own paths to authenticity. This episode isn't just about coming out; it's about coming into your own and the remarkable transformation that follows when you start living life on your own terms.
This conversation goes beyond personal anecdotes, as we touch upon the broader societal landscape of Orange County, California, where the veneer of perfection often overshadows the need for genuine connection. We unravel the complexities of relationships, identity, and the courage it takes to remove the masks we wear. Whether it's the story of his late-in-life coming out, or Rick's experiences with clients who are learning to embrace their true selves, this episode is an invitation to join us in creating a world where authenticity isn't just celebrated—it's the norm. Listen in for a heartening exploration of what it means to find your tribe and why the journey to self-acceptance is the most rewarding one of all.
You can find Rick on LinkedIn, Instagram, or his Website.
You can also check out is podcasts: 40 Plus Gay Men Gay Talk and Life (Un)Closeted
You can order your copy of Creating Belonging on Amazon.
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Welcome to another episode of the Creating Belonging podcast. Today, I have with me Rick Clemens. And Rick, I'd love for you just to introduce yourself and your own words.
Rick:Yeah, so I'm a guy who struggled with belonging for my entire life, even at 60 years old. There's times I still struggle, but I'm a gay dad and I let that whole experience of coming out of the closet drive the rest of what happened in my life, to the point that it became a business for me, and I'm a coach and author, a podcaster myself, and I've turned the whole concept of coming out and belonging into something that really helps people step into their own world and realize they can let go of a lot of things that they were doing. A lot of your stuff, honestly, is very similar to us, I think. As a community, we find ourselves reclusive at times. We deal with overbearing thoughts and processes that keep us in the closet. We minimize who we are to help keep everybody else happy and then, lo and behold, we don't feel like we ever belong. So that's my story and I think I'm going to stick to it for now.
Justin:I love it, rick, I love you're already bringing the model in.
Rick:You told me that's what you want me to do, not kidding.
Justin:You're just showing that you've done your homework, which I love. I haven't done my homework.
Rick:Do I get an A? That's all I want to know. Do I get an A for the A? Yeah, so you get an A Awesome.
Justin:So one other thing I like to do you revealed some identities, but I also like to just kind of ground us and make sure there's any other, see if there's any other identities that you want to share with our audience, as most are just listening.
Rick:Yeah, I feel like there's this other piece of myself that's oh you already everybody heard I'm gay. But after that experience of finally coming into my truth, I realized I started opening other closets of my life and going this is who I want to be. And I was very reclusive about wanting to be my own business owner and have my own business. And it's interesting, justin, to see how that one quote, one moment of life which wasn't one, it was every ongoing moment of life opened me to the realization of how much I was missing out on belonging so much in my world in so many spaces. So I became an entrepreneur, I started speaking on stages, started doing my podcast and suddenly Rick's a pretty happy camper because he opened himself up to like hey, this is what it feels good for me to belong in the world. Yeah, faster than me.
Justin:Yeah, I know I've got to say I've been, I've been out of my own for the past year and there's something so liberating about it and I get to do the work that I love doing every day and make a choice about it. Yep, and I've been so happy so I totally get it. Thank you for sharing. And I love the work that you do in, you know, coaching other gay individuals, you know, in their journey, which I'm sure maybe that will come into our conversation. But I guess, to get us started, you know, have you what, what, what life experiences? As you were going through the work of creating belonging at the book, what life experiences came to mind for you as you were reflecting on your journey?
Rick:Well, I think the biggest one is from a very young age. I I never had ever really felt like I fit in in places. I really strived hard and one of the biggest lessons I learned about myself in striving to belong is a lot of times I was striving to belong to the wrong space or with the wrong people and that revealed itself in some very interesting ways as I grew my business and I got around some pretty well known entrepreneurs out there in the entrepreneurial space and it's almost like I inserted myself in their world, which was fine. But guess what I was wanting? I was wanting to belong. So I'm like well, why aren't they accepting me? Or why and the best example of that is Chris Gillibow, who used to run World Domination Summit in Portland, oregon. He's a New York Times bestseller. He's written the book a hundred dollar startup and a few other amazing books Went to the conference, kind of got to know him.
Rick:He offered to be on my podcast a couple of times and all the way through that, justin, I was like I just want to be on the WDS stage, I just want to be on the WSDH, and I got really angry at times because I was never being seen for who I was and I reached out to their team and like, hey, you know, hey, you know, here's how we usually do it. When we find somebody that we want, we come after them. I'm like, okay, there was a lot of growth there, but I was trying to belong because if I could do this then I'd fit in Right. And then one day, recording the podcast with Chris after I launched 40 plus gay man, gay talk and he's not gay, I was actually with a different podcast at the time was 40 plus real man, real talk. I was talking to real guys about the stuff we guys need to talk about. We got done.
Rick:I had already kind of let that dream go Like, okay, you know, seven years going to the conference. No, I love going to the conference. And Guess what Chris said have you ever been on the WDS stage? Of course I wanted to kind of slap him. I'm like you rough the frickin program and you should know right. But after seven years of Multiple speakers and all this sort of stuff, you know I, you know, I used to be a meeting planner and there it was Justin and dropped in my lap the opportunity to speak. But here's the difference I Wasn't Striving and yearning like this is gonna be the thing, and actually that's one of my proudest moments speaking on stage, because I was just like, okay, this is, let's go have some fun, let's just go do this because I get to get back to this community that I really love and I get to go.
Rick:It was such a big shift for me. It brought me out of this interesting space of going here's why I'm doing this and got me into a space up. Here's the real reason. Mm-hmm started unlocking other ways that I saw myself being overbearing in my own way about relationships, minimizing other people's talents, a lot of times holding up like I can't believe I didn't get the attention from this person or that person or this person that I wanted. So then I would, I would literally like hold up. I do my work, I do my life and people say we don't see much anymore out there on Internet, and you know social media and you know I had to grow up. I had to realize that my belonging was me creating belonging in the right way versus my idea of what belonging.
Justin:Well, yeah. So I'm curious how did that shift happen for you?
Rick:Humility. I Started realizing and I had a few mentors saying you know, rick, here's the thing, you are a brilliant guy, you got. You got a great message in it. But and one, one mentor in particular said and you got it, you got a huge effin ego man. I was like, okay, that hurt, but then I was Willing enough.
Rick:And I think this is part of when we think about how do we belong or how do we move it through some of these things. That's in your beautiful process. You have to be able to see it, to believe it, and then you have to embrace it and fix it. Hmm, and I grew up in a narcissistic home and I thought I'm never gonna be that and I worked really hard not to be that, except I was In my own way. We're not not near to level. You know that my father was. But and that was the shift man, the humility and realizing Maybe the reason I don't belong is people see ego, a little bit of a narcissist in me. It's always got to be the way I want to get things done. And it hurt. It hurt to see yourself that way.
Rick:I do some big deep breaths and said, okay, let's start doing some work. That's why, when I really entered into that personal development stuff, was that at that time.
Justin:Okay, so and so that was the catalyst was kind of like Getting more into your own kind of personal development.
Rick:Well, I figured, if I'm gonna be coaching people about, you know, being themselves and you know, moving out of their fears and excuses, I had to be living and breathing my walk and talk. I Didn't want to be out of integrity. I live. I lived 36 years of my life. I'm integrity before I came out of the closet. And it's interesting just because everything kind of comes back to that experience, like, well, that was the real catalyst, but that also was the catalyst that fed the other catalysts like, even to this day, continue.
Rick:There's things that happen, you know, in the last few months, where I'm like, oh, that that's not how I'm gonna fit in, that's not how I need to feel, like I need to fit in, or that's not what I need to be doing, or don't isolate. Because of that, it's interesting. I mean, when you reach out to me like, oh, this is really interesting because there's a lot of alignment in what you Speak on what I do, mm-hmm. And I think, for many people, if they really realized what they can do, when they start embracing what it looks like to be, you know, your own recluse, or if you're letting overbearing us be part of who you are, you minimize everybody else, you minimize your feelings. I'm a huge low, you know it's okay, I'm good. Yeah, I want to take care of everybody else, and that's really detrimental to my own well-being, so Mm-hmm.
Justin:That's how I love your. I love that you're in this place of you know, finding belonging through your own enlightenment, through your own Reflection of who you are, and developing yourself, because that's I keep. So I'm digging deeper into just thoughts around the creating belonging work and more research around authenticity and what have been having this week, just this week, having very interesting conversations around Authenticity and you know, authenticity I don't know if you saw is like the, the word of 2023, um, but I think it's being used in a way that isn't A way that serves us best. Like often, like I think we see authenticity, a lot of this, like it's actually fitting in, rather than digging into deep self-awareness, self-reflection, understanding who we are and then showing up with intention Of who we really are and want to be for the world, not, um, to fit in in the world.
Rick:Yep, I see authenticity as uh, maybe it's because I just interviewed somebody from my podcast and we talked a lot about radical integrity. When you can be radically authentic, that's saying I'm not gonna, I'm gonna be my own unique self. I'm gonna allow that piece of me to be truly seen. That doesn't mean you get to go be a jerk, that's not what I'm getting at but I would much rather. I mean I'll give you a good example.
Rick:When I speak on stage, don't do it as much as I used to. You will never, ever, ever, see me in a suit and tie. In fact, you'll be lucky if I'm even wearing khakis and a tucked-in shirt, because authentic rick comes out. Jeans, untucked shirt, bright pair of shoes, bright colored pair of shoes, because that's my bold, big energy. I wanna just be comfortable in who I am. Plus, I move a lot on stage and everything, and I tell my meeting planners when they hire me, like here's the deal I will never be the buttoned-up suit and tie guy, but I'm gonna deliver like nobody's business to make sure your audience has an experience as a transformation. And the way I'm able to do that is I get to be authentically myself on stage, the same line being authentically right now having this conversation with you about serving your audience. It's just not gonna be in a suit and tie.
Justin:Yeah, I never had anybody push that. Yeah, and that's why they're hiring you, right For you, for the unique perspective that you bring, for the voice that you have. So, yeah, and I think that's great kind of table stakes to put out there, because if somebody was like, no, actually we need you to wear a suit, and you'd be like, well, that's not me, so I'm not gonna be doing you a service because I can't be authentic in this work. I love that.
Rick:And so another part of my business is I actually coach public speakers on building their speaking businesses. This is one of the things I drive home. If you show up differently on stage than how you market yourself on your website, that's the surest way to ensure you never get another speaking gig, or vice versa.
Rick:You need to show up authentically who you are. When you show up and again I think back to your process it's really understanding how you perceive yourself belonging in the world, and not just perceived. It is like embodying that piece in the world. Mm-hmm, it's huge.
Justin:Yeah, yeah, there are some other things. I wanna go down another little rabbit hole and the way that you were talking about kind of this ego, kind of pre-enlightenment and not that it's the only enlightenment that you've had, I'm sure, but like that particular one of that ego and kind of the hardworking it just makes me think of my experience as a gay man and how I was always trying to be better or better than Yup, because then if I'm better than like you can't look down on me for whatever reason like I'm still doing better and that is something I think I'm still trying to shake that a little bit. But I'm curious that resonates with you and your journey.
Rick:Well, I think it ties back into okay, if I had this mentor really like me, then I'm oh, I'm in that circle now I'm better. And then if I do this, I mean I don't really watch the downloads on my podcast because I'm like I get emails and stuff. I'm like cool people are listening. That's my barometer. Yes, I see the numbers, but that's whole better than and I think we as gay men, we kind of have to be that way, so to speak. I'm saying that in a way because I'm not saying we have to, but we kind of think we have to be that way Because we're so driven in the community. We got to have the abs and the biceps and this and the cars and the right and so much of it gets judged around that.
Rick:And I lived kind of adjacent to that life for a while. I lived in Orange County, california, and there was a perception of how you were supposed to be. And that was when I was married to my wife and there was a lot of push and, honestly, had I not come out of the closet, we probably would have got divorced anyway, because I just wasn't gonna be what she wanted. I just couldn't do that and it was ooh, this is how you get to be known, this is how you get to be who you are in the world, and it's one of the things that I cool go be who you want to be. I'm a full proponent of that right. But when I realized if that's how I'm gonna live my life, by that standard I'm not gonna be happy. I love nice things, I love going on great trips and everything, but I don't need it to be because I'm better than somebody else. It's just, this is what I do, this is what I do.
Rick:And it was hard because when I had the ego narcissist part of myself, well, I mean, it's still there, folks. I want anybody listening to think, oh wow, he's very super enlightened. No, hell, no, it shows up when I least need it to show up. And then I'm like what are you doing, rick? But I think when that was present and then feeling the pressures of you know, my ex-wife, like we need to have this and you have this and I need to be able to be a say mom, we need to have the big, I was just like for what, for what? And that's still kind of my philosophy. I always say OK, for what Doesn't mean I won't go after something really nice, but I often now put it in that little like Peter Disha, for what?
Rick:What am I doing this for? Because if it's not truly going to bring me joy and happiness and I won't I don't hang out with people who are very materialistically driven and I don't do well with people who are putting on the fake. Show me who you are, just show me who you are, then I get to decide. If I get to show you who I am, well, I always show people who I am. For the most part, I'm not very I'm pretty damn transparent with scares. A lot of people like I can't believe he talks about this stuff.
Justin:Yeah, I love that. I want to shift gears a little bit because I'm curious to hear a little bit of you know so you being married to a woman and then kind of coming out later in life and how that to have Influenced current relationships and like your belonging in in the that dynamic of those relationships, and I'm curious to hear a little bit about that transition in your life and how you found belonging or re-found belonging Well, it really started at a pretty young age.
Rick:because there was a part of me that knew who I was and I'm talking really young, like five, six, seven years old I knew there was something quote different about me.
Justin:Well, we only have a long time ago, Right yeah?
Rick:but there that kind of ties to that feeling and being a recluse. Right, let's hide this, let's not let people see it. Plus, I was surrounded by some very quote overbearing philosophies with religion and parents, and my parents were great, they were loving people, but this is how you're going to be, this is who you are, and am I okay? So then, of course, then I started to step in and put my mask on and minimize my truth, and so that's what started to contribute to me not feeling like I belong. So now let's take all of that, bring it into high school, bring it into college. I jumped really quickly when I met my wife. I was working at a university as a food and beverage guy. She worked for me and I'm like, oh, I connect with her, this could work. Like, okay, cool, and now I get to be, hey, I'm going to make everybody else happy. So how do I step out of being a recluse about this? I diminished the overbearingness of oh, look, he is. Oh, he's a great guy, he's getting married.
Rick:And then, you know, grandkids came along and all this sort of stuff. I love my kids, I'm. I will never regret, you know, this whole experience. But suddenly, all those check boxes. Justin started getting unchecked. I don't have to hide, I don't have to deal with the overbearing thoughts. I mean, yes, parents had other bearing thoughts because I didn't marry somebody of our own faith, whatever. But the minimizing. And suddenly guess what I belonged? Oh, the family loved me, they thought I was great, and all this sort of stuff.
Rick:So then the divorce happens. Everything happened all over again. I felt like I had to go back into hiding because they wouldn't accept me for who I was. And the overbearingness of you you've disappointed us, you're ruining our, you know your faith in God, and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. So everything happened again and suddenly I didn't feel like I belonged. So then I started seeking it out in our gay community in many ways, everything from you know hooking up constantly and all this sort of stuff to, hey, any guy that came along, let's go, let's put the white picket fence up and call it a deal, right, because it was all those. Things were in conflict, right. And that was really in the moment that I started putting things in perspective of wait. I'm just repeating this pattern.
Rick:I had a lot of good relationships not a lot, not like thousands, but some good relationships building up to when I did meet my husband and the one thing I saw that really brought me into that relationship and has probably been the sustaining factor of 22 years together. He never wants me to hide. He probably gets a little embarrassed at times, like when I did a stand-up comedy routine recently, but there's not that feeling of I can't be who I'm meant to be. He makes me very, very much feel like I belong. And the other thing that kicked in is, in the midst of that whole experience of coming out, I worked for an organization that was very warm and welcoming of LGBTQ. So when I stepped into my next role, I'm just like I'm going to be out.
Rick:And now, in the company that I have the pleasure of working for, I'm very quote out, but I do it in such a way that it's coming from. I'm never going to hide. I'm never going to be overbearing and shove this down somebody's throat. I'm never going to expect others to minimize who they are. Because here we go, we're right in my brand, right. It's such an amazing way to get to live. And again, everyone listening. I'm not perfect. I don't want to come off like, oh my God, this guy, I'm not walking on water. I'm too fat to walk on water, I float or anything, but I feel like that's when you see, those moments, justin, that you're like okay, I just keep putting the piece of the puzzle together, the piece of the puzzle together.
Justin:Yeah, it's interesting because I'm hearing a couple of the themes of finding the places where it's okay for you to belong and kind of pushing aside I don't want to say running from, I didn't necessarily hear running from but pushing aside places that aren't serving you. Because we do. I mean, if we're those of us who have the privilege to have that agency over our lives and I think that's an important thing to call out is that not everyone has that agency in their lives to be able to move into or move out of communities that aren't serving them well. And that's where I hope to do some of the work in getting people to understand like, hey, we need to make room for other people so that they don't need to.
Rick:Yeah, Well, the thing is is, if we don't make room for that, we're actually causing one of the first pieces of your process. We are contributing to people becoming recluses as soon as we tell somebody put your mask on and this is how you have to show up.
Rick:We're guilty of it and this is why I always talk about I'm never going to. I'm never going to, in the grandest scheme of things, say I don't want somebody to be who they are. My caveat to that is provided you being who you are is not emotionally or physically hurting somebody else, Because the minute you're like, okay, I'm going to be an evangelical Christian that says LGBTQ people should be not on the planet, I'm sorry you don't get to be who you are. You're hurting some people. But if you say I want to be an evangelical Christian that says help me understand you better, I'm going to probably have a more open conversation about that.
Rick:But if you're pushing me into wanting to go hide, you don't fit in my world, Because then the overbearingness is showing up. You're trying to minimize me into being who I'm supposed to be and you are not creating any sense of belonging for anybody. And I know it's a big call for us to kind of push those virtues and values out there into the world. But I would love it if none of this had to be happening. Right, that's a different space.
Justin:Right, yeah, it's. So. I'm coming back again, I think, to that authenticity piece of like the one of El's, and that's something that I don't think it has to be in authenticity, I don't know. I go back to like and I tell the story. A lot of I once worked with authenticity because if you're an asshole, that just means you can get into gas, right, but nobody wakes up in the morning and says I want to be an asshole today. I think it's.
Rick:There's a certain resident of Florida, I think, does that we won't be there.
Justin:I mean, the thing is there is something about it's actually tapping back to their perceived survival and so, thinking about whatever it is I don't love to talk about the extreme cases like assholes in Florida, but I think that we in general, we want to do good. Yes, we also number one need to survive, and so it's when we feel that our survival is threatening that we are going to exclude someone else potentially, but I don't think that's our default mode.
Rick:I mean, we're I would agree, and maybe this will help the listeners a little bit. This is one of the most pivotal moments in me being trained as a coach. My instructor we're working on All the coaching I do is based in your energetic profiles and all this sort of stuff. So she threw a really interesting scenario at us. So a guy goes and he murders three people. How does that make you feel Well, of course, how do you think it's going to make anybody go? Oh, yeah, nah, nah, nah, nah, nah, nah, right. And so we were playing with the energetic chart that like well, does that make you feel angry, does it make you feel confused? So how could it make you feel love and empathy? Most of us are like no, not going to happen, right. So she kind of let all that hubbub happen, right. And then she said okay. So now let me reposition the question. This guy murders three people, but in that moment he was doing the very best he could, with what he had at his disposal, to be who he was.
Rick:It actually starts to change how you perceive something, because you start to see somebody through a different lens. Maybe he was trying to belong, maybe he was acting out of some sense of somebody who was really overbearing in his life. Maybe he was coming out of his reclusive state and going this is how I'm going to be seen. And maybe he was minimizing some other side of him for all this time and suddenly it just popped. When you start to embrace other possibilities, I think that's and for me that's where I feel like I got some of my humility from was okay, but what else could be possible? How else could I look at this?
Justin:Yeah, yeah, and I think that I would also add in, like what don't I know? You know I've improved and I'm not amazing at it, but I've improved at withholding judgment on many, many things, because I don't know the whole story and I want to wait until I know the whole story before I start making a lot of judgment, and it's interesting. So over the past three years since I started writing the book, I have found new depths of allowing grace for others, for myself, because I'm like, if I'm going to write this book about accepting others, where belonging is created at the intersection of authenticity and acceptance, so if I have to really think about how do I find acceptance for others that may not have the same values as me, because that's what I'm asking of people I have to be able to do that, and so it has brought me to allowing space for information that I don't know.
Rick:A storeAnnizen, and when you put that out in the world, it also feeds the fire for the world to bring that back to you. How can the world show me empathy? How can the world show me another way of looking at something? It's hard because we as humans like, nope, this is the way I see things. Okay, that's fine. But what happens when you say it's not this black and white? I mean, you know the work that I do and probably what you do.
Rick:I can't see things as black and white. There's too many nuances to like what's gonna happen when somebody comes out of the closet and I can't say, well, here, just this, exactly what's gonna happen? This gonna happen, your ex-wives gonna do this, your ex-husband's gonna do this. It doesn't happen that way. Yeah, I can't even tell you that you're gonna get embraced by the entire LGBTQ community, because that's not gonna happen either. But when we look at it from that other side, justin and go and again, this is work. This is daily work for me to try to really like bite my tongue with certain people in Florida To just see things and like, okay, well, let's see. But how else can I see this? How else can I try to understand that, and this is where I think we as a society right now are really struggling to like exercise this empathy energy, but through work like what you're doing, because if we could have any empathy, how does that then create more belonging?
Rick:Instantly just having empathy creates belonging. It says I see you, I hear you. I may not agree with you, but there's at least a doorway that's now a little more open, right, I still see you as a human Right.
Justin:Yeah, I love in this conversation. I think we have definitely hit on authenticity finding yourself, understanding yourself, and then also that acceptance piece of finding empathy for others, allowing grace, understanding that we don't have all the information all the time. So I feel like we have definitely hit both sides of the scale there on acceptance and authenticity. So, rick, I wanna thank you for your time today. I'm just noticing we I'm trying to keep it to 20 to 30 minutes and I think we're gonna be right in there. So I've enjoyed the conversation. I have a feeling we're probably gonna keep talking about this. I have a feeling.
Rick:so I have a feeling too, and thank you for the opportunity. I always I love getting to be on somebody else's podcast and go, let's jam, let's jam and just see what we can throw throughout there in the world that maybe will impact somebody or several people's lives or get somebody thinking differently. So thank you for giving me the privilege of being on your podcast then.
Justin:Thank you so much, rick, and where of things that you might want people to find, you've got your podcast available kind of everywhere right, and it's called.
Rick:there's two of them. The first one is Life Uncloseted and the second one is 40 plus gay men, gay talk, I mean. Find them anywhere podcasts are at. And then, if you wanted to follow me on anything Instagram, the Rick Clemens or my website, rickclemens C-L-E-M-O-N-Scom. That's something by me.
Justin:Rick. Well, thank you so much for joining me today. I enjoyed the conversation Hopefully everyone else does and join us again for another episode of the Creating Bullying Podcast. Thanks, upbeat music playing.
