I am who I think, you think, I am.
My dad used to take a 5:27AM train to work in NYC every day. This is my model for success. I’m not built for that. I don’t want to wake up at 4:45AM every day. But I do anyway. If I don’t, I hate myself. So, every day I drink two canned cold brews in the dark. I jolt myself onto the rails of the life I think my parents want for me. I have no sense of what actually makes me happy. I just act.
Those dark mornings led to four years building an expansive company underwater. Underwater meaning it was hard to see what I was doing. Underwater meaning at a financial loss. Underwater meaning, but for a few bubbles every time I exhaled, no one on the surface knew what I was up to.
When I sell my underwater kingdom in less than three months it’ll be like it was never there. So was it? Can I be proud of what I built? Or do I need people to be proud to?
Ironically, from my perch atop my company, I saw the dawn of the “influencer”. As it turns out, companies are hungry for validation too, and can no longer self-validate by pumping out TV ads. Instead, they need to be validated by consumers – from the bottom up – one “like” at a time – like the rest of us.
My more driven friends scoff at validation derived from a like or follow. They want a more refined drug – something like Forbes 30U30. That kills me. Forbes started Forbes 30 under 30 as a content marketing strategy to build their brand. As it turns out, if you help solidify the wobbling knees of unassured 29-year-olds, they will shout your name from the top of a mountain. Forbes needs validation, so they validate young professionals who are hungry for a pat on the back. It’s a meta exercise in weaponizing insecurity and shooting it into the world as a shiny, confident accolade.
But it leaves the rest of us feeling empty. Feeling like we are behind on our journey. And feeling like we must codify our successes to be happy. But that’s just not the case.
I heard a quote the other day: “I am not who I think I am. I am not who you think I am. I am who I think, you think, I am.” Read it three times cause it’s dense but it’s good. We build our identities around who we think, others think, we are. My dad still gets me out of bed every morning, whether he’s in the room or not. When you realize, though, that you’re living your life based on a perception of a perception you’re half-way to being free.