I met John back in 2015 when I interned for the Yankees. People loved to mock his home run calls. The theatrics, the wordplay, the sheer John-ness of all of it. However, meeting him in person made everything click: he is exactly the same off the air. The same silly, warm, baseball-obsessed human being you heard in the booth for 36 years. The Yankees kept him that long not in spite of who he was — because of it.

That realization brought me straight back to the worst advice I ever got.

The Email That Almost Dimmed My Shine

I was still living in North Carolina, grinding away at my local news job, doing what every ambitious twenty-something does: cold emailing everyone in my contact list. I was sending out my demo reel — footage of my on-air work — asking for feedback and hoping someone at a dream station would notice me.

One of those emails landed in the inbox of an executive at one of my absolute dream job stations.

Here's what you should know about that demo reel: I always looked like I was having the time of my life on camera. High energy, expressive, loud-and-proud New Yorker doing exactly what she loves. That's just who I am. It's not a bit.

The executive's response? Tone it down. Too much energy. Dial it back.

This was coming from someone who did the hiring at a place I would have done anything to work for. So naturally, I listened.

The very next day at work, I flattened myself out. Played it straight. Stiff and polished and completely unlike me.

My sports director, Brian North, pulled me aside almost immediately. "Are you feeling okay? What are you doing?"

At first I was too embarrassed to explain myself, so I just said I was fine. Eventually I told him about the email. Brian looked at me and said:

"I hired you for your personality. I don't care what that exec says. Be you."

The Lesson Nobody Puts on a Motivational Poster

That hit me harder than I expected. I had been myself for 23 years. It had gotten me pretty far for my age. My own boss — the person who actually hired me — was telling me to stop listening to someone who hadn't.

Here's what I learned: taste is subjective. One executive's "too much" is another's "exactly what we need." What John Sterling proved over 36 years is that the people you're meant to work for won't just tolerate who you are — they'll champion it.

The hardest part of that moment wasn't the criticism. It was choosing to ignore it. When you desperately want something, the instinct is to mold yourself into whatever you think will get you there. Resisting that urge is really difficult.

Here's the thing about suppressing your energy to fit someone else's comfort level: it doesn't really work. Think of the kid who would do impressions at the lunch table, had the whole group crying laughing every single day — until one person said it was annoying. So they stopped. Just like that. Ate lunch quieter for the rest of the year trying to fit in with people who were never really their people anyway.

The real work isn't toning it down for the wrong table. It's finding the one where they save you a seat because they know lunch is better when you're there.

The Coach Who Got It Right

Once I started working with my broadcast coach, Jill Montgomery, I told her about that email. She laughed out loud.

Her verdict? I didn't need less energy. I needed better control of it. She taught me to slow down my speech, to drop the stiff broadcaster cadence and to speak in my actual voice — still unmistakably me, just without the words running into each other at ninety miles an hour.

That's the version of me that eventually ended up on network TV. Not the toned-down, watered-down version some executive preferred.

What John Sterling Knew That the Rest of Us Had to Learn

The Yankees believed in John Sterling for 36 years. They kept him through the jokes, through the takes, through every hot mic moment and every call that became a meme. They kept him because he was theirs — and he never once pretended to be anything else.

If there's one thing to take from his life, it's this:

Going after your dream matters. Being yourself while you do it matters more.

The right people will find you.