People love to ask the question… where is home these days? Where do you call home? We seem to develop the notion that one’s home defines a lot more about the person than what ends up being the case. “Oh, so you’re a Yankee…” “Oh, so you’re from the South…”

Will everyone stop and admit that 95% of the stereotypes that we try to associate with these hometowns are absolute nonsense? I can say without a doubt that there are THOUSANDS of people from the “Bible Belt” who tend to be downright crude and inhospitable, just as there are THOUSANDS of people from the North who actually have souls and give a crap about others and their well-being.

Don’t let where you were born or raised define you – this isn’t the early 20th century, and even the grandparents that are still walking among us seem to have embraced change when you ask them. Whenever I get asked these questions, so those unfamiliar with my background can find a way to put Ben in their own “boxes of understanding”… I simply start telling my story, whether they like it or not.

I was born in Flint, Michigan. Yes, that Flint – the town devastated by tragedy that our corrupt political system chooses to make their playing card as it suits them, only to abandon its residents at the end of a campaign instead of actually helping them. My mother was working as an electrical engineer for General Motors at the time – because after all, that was the definition of a successful person who had graduated from college in the Midwest in the 80’s.

My early years were then spent in the Ohio Valley – the Ohio side of the West Virginia panhandle, to be more precise. I started working at the ripe age of 9, taking on a paper route to make enough money to buy my own bike – and even chip in on an actual piano once my skill set was developed enough to graduate from a small keyboard. My mom’s extended family and friends raised me in the tradition of Pittsburgh sports (after all, it was the closest big city), and my claim to that fandom still seems to haunt several of my friends from other parts of the world to this very day.

The family moved to North Carolina when I was in middle school… and I learned the hard way about starting over with friends and life in the midst of puberty. Though NC has now been my place of residence for longer than any other state (not to mention where I went to college and launched my professional career)… it is hard to imagine me saying that this one place alone constitutes my “home”. After all, the last 4 years of my life were spent downing queso in Austin and taking in late nights on the water in Boston – complete opposite environments from anything I had ever known up to this point.

At the end of it all… I just hope that you strive to let your personality, accomplishments, desires, and dreams define who you are – not where you have your mail sent to. As you will find out, the more you explore and the more you converse – you have a lot more in common with the person across the table from you, no matter what impression may have led you otherwise.