Chad Silverstein tore his Achilles tendon in 2010 and stopped wearing the suits he'd adopted to copy a mentor. He learned to present himself more authentically, settling on a mindset of caring about how he looks without obsessing over it.
Chapters
I remember when I stopped wearing a suit. It was probably 15 years into the business and I had met Chet and he saw me wearing a suit every day. And I was wearing a suit because my mentor always wore suits. And when he trained me out of college, he was always wearing a suit. So I was always wearing a suit. And I tore my achilles tendon. In 2010, I stopped wearing a suit and I enjoyed it. And I remember having to figure out if I wanted to put a suit back on once I was healed. And I remember talking to Chad about that. And he had asked me and made fun of me about why I was wearing a suit. And it wasn't really me expressing who I was and who I wanted to be. I was doing it for someone else. And I remember having to have the courage to, like, take off my suit and feel like I'm not, you know, better than anyone else in the office. It was how it made me feel when I was wearing a suit. Nobody else was. Was. And I had to face my partner when he came down to Columbus and saw me not wearing a suit one day. And that wasn't as bad as I had made it out to be. But I started to get really comfortable with who I am and how I want to live and not caring so much about what other people think. And I always care. I love Chet's one liner. You know, it's like care, but not that much. And I've just adopted that philosophy, that mentality. I do care what people think, just not that much. I'm not going to change who I am because of them. And I'm going to be who I am and get comfortable with it. And if I can't be comfortable with myself, how can I expect other people to be comfortable around me? And so I've just learned how to get comfortable by getting clear on my core and rinsing and working with my builder and getting feedback from people I'm working with and from my loved ones, the people who will tell me the truth and get really comfortable with who I am and knowing who I am and at my core, how I would describe my identity to people that are interested in getting to know me.
