I Don’t Try Things… I Become Them

There are two kinds of people in this world.

1. People who try things.
2. People who become things.

I am absolutely, unapologetically the second kind.

If I smoke a joint, I don’t just smoke a joint. I become a stoner. If I start waiting tables, I don’t just work a few shifts… suddenly I’m owning a restaurant. If I agree to do drag for a charity event, I don’t treat it like a cute moment in time. Next thing you know, I’m a professional drag queen with lashes, wigs, and a whole damn persona. I don’t just write books. I end up on the NY Times Bestsellers List.

Moderation has never really been my brand.

It took me years to realize that what I thought was broken in my personality was actually something else entirely. Some people live their lives sampling the buffet. A little of this, a little of that, a polite taste of everything.

I show up with a plate the size of Texas and say, “I’ll take the whole goddamn buffet!”

It wasn’t always like this. Something shifted in my thirties. My brain started working differently. I began connecting information, asking better questions, thinking more critically about the world and about myself. Technology and access to information suddenly made my brain feel bigger… like I had unlocked a part of my operating system that had been running quietly in the background.

Once that happened, the intensity kicked into overdrive.

Every curiosity became a rabbit hole. Every hobby became a project. Every project became an identity.

When I say identity… I mean it.

At one point my neighbor was making decorative garden flowers out of plates. She called them Mimi’s flower plates. When she moved, I bought all the plates she was selling.

Naturally, I didn’t just make a couple for fun.

I made a few design changes… added lights… and suddenly I had created Galveston Garden Plates.

Next thing I know, I’m being photographed in local magazines as a successful artist.

Because of course I am.

Same pattern everywhere. I’d start a job somewhere and before long I wasn’t just doing the job anymore. I was training people. If someone new got hired, they’d say, “Follow Chris.” Restaurants, apartments, new businesses opening… I somehow always ended up on the training team.

At one point I was a corporate trainer, traveling to properties and training leasing agents, managers, assistant managers, and maintenance staff.

Thirty years ago I even entered a radio contest called “Want to Be a DJ” at Houston’s 104 KRBE. I lost by ONE vote.

Still slightly bitter about that one.

I would have been great at it. I’ve always had a good voice.

The pattern keeps repeating itself.

Ten years after winning Best Drag Queen in Houston… which, by the way, is a pretty big city… I moved to Galveston and started bartending.

Ten years later I won Best Bartender in Galveston.

Apparently I have a habit of accidentally becoming the best at whatever hobby I pick up.

Now, there’s a downside to a brain wired this way. When you go all-in on everything, the wrong things can swallow you just as easily as the right ones. I learned that lesson the hard way with alcohol. Drinking became drinking a lot, and eventually drinking too much. For someone like me, moderation isn’t just difficult… it’s practically fictional.

So I quit.

That’s the other side of this personality type. When something has to end, it ends completely. No slow fade. No half measures. Just a hard pivot.

It might sound exhausting, and sometimes it is. But it’s also the reason my life has been so wildly interesting. I’ve lived multiple lives in one lifetime. Restaurant guy. Performer. Writer. Corporate Trainer. BEST bartender. Real estate mogul. Loudmouth commentator on the internet. Professional reinvention artist.

Some people spend decades trying to figure out who they are.

I just keep becoming new versions of myself.

For a long time I thought this meant something was wrong with me. That I lacked discipline or balance, that I was somehow broken because I couldn’t do things only HALFWAY like everyone else seemed to. 😂

I’ve started to realize something.

The goal isn’t learning how to dim that intensity.

The goal is learning where to aim it.

The same brain that can spiral into excess can also build things. Create things. Learn things. Transform things.

Some people coast through life.

I seem to prefer the full throttle setting.

At this point, I’ve stopped apologizing for that.

Xoxo, AB 💅💄💋