Reinventing a career: LeVar Burton offers lessons in adaptability

Like many in the employee benefits world who have had to adapt and change, actor and director LeVar Burton has successfully reinvented himself in a career spanning nearly 50 years.

When he walked on stage for his keynote talk on at the BenefitsPRO Broker Expo, the audience of brokers and advisors gave him a standing ovation. Some no doubt remembered him from his role as the African slave Kunta Kinte in the groundbreaking 1970s series Roots.  Others knew him from his role as the blind crewperson Geordi La Forge in the television series Star Trek: The Next Generation. And a large swath of the audience remembered him from their childhood spent watching his PBS kids show, Reading Rainbow, which ran for over 23 years.

As Burton put it, in his fireside chat with BenefitsPRO editor-in-chief Paul Wilson, people think of him from three distinct entry points, “and I love it. Reinventing myself is the unexpected consequence of my career. It was never my intention to stay culturally viable for over 50 years. It was the matter of one decision at a time. I’m the first to say I have been enormously blessed in my career.”

8 takeaways from LeVar Burton’s keynote

1. On adaptation: “Sometimes you don’t get what you want, but you get what’s supposed to be for you. I’m not the guy who can do whatever he wants — I’m the guy who’s taken what has come his way and made something of it, hoping it is meaningful to others. One step at a time, one foot in front of the other.”

2. On the power of storytelling: “Communication skills I use every day in storytelling are no different from the ones you use: listening, being able to sit in silence, being able to communicate our lived experience as effectively as we can. Knowing what you stand for and having the courage to share is a huge part of communicating with one another.”

3. On the crucial role of mentors: “My first day of acting [in the television series Roots], Cicely Tyson played my mother, and Maya Angelou played my grandmother, and other heroes for me, they embraced me, they schooled me. Everything I know about being a professional actor I learned on the set of Roots.”

4. On diversity: “Seeing Nichelle Nichols [African-American actress who portrayed Lt. Uhura] on the bridge [of the starship Enterprise], and to grow up not really being part of the ethos that is Star Trek, but to then become the representative of people with physical challenges — come on….

“My mother told me I’d grow up in a world where people would be hostile to me based only on the color of my skin…. It was a year ago that George Floyd happened in this country. It was a moment of awakening. Not unlike with Roots – it was a foundation moment. We learned about ourselves through storytelling in eight consecutive nights of television. We had a more clear sense of the cost of slavery, the human cost – that we had convinced ourselves as a nation that Africans were not human. It’s the only way I can think of that a man could sire children and then sell them into slavery. It takes some mental gymnastics.”

5. On his role as an advocate for people with rare blood cancers: “Coming out of this period of isolation and uncertainty I thought it was important to help people get back to the doctor.”

6. On the visor he wore across his eyes as character Geordi La Forge: ”I could see a little through it. When [Geordi] takes his visor off, his eyes are white – they’re really thick contact lenses I had to wear. I had to navigate without seeing my feet. I couldn’t be hesitant – Geordi knows every inch of the ship. As a result of having my eyes covered for seven years, I know it made me a better actor.”

7. On playing a differently abled character: It forced me to really develop my voice and body as tools for communication. I had to figure out how to communicate really subtle emotions without people seeing my eyes…I am proud that many people felt Jordy was the most relatable character on the bridge.”

8. On his favorite children’s books from Reading Rainbow: Amazing Grace, by Mary Hoffman, and Enemy Pie, by Derek Munson.