What You Do is Not Who You Are
Change is stressful, even when it’s positive.
The past few years have been a period of seismic growth: My career took a huge upswing after the global virality of my TEDx talk, launching me into the world of professional speaking and writing. It’s been awesome and I’m super grateful for it. But it also sent me into a bit of a personal identity crisis.
Most of my life and my entire career I’d identified as a magician, but now I was being invited to events as a speaker, or worse, an expert or authority. In the eyes of my clients and audiences, a magician was who I used to be, not who I was.
Except I didn’t feel like anything had changed. I loved magic, did magic, and still used it in my presentations. I retained countless memories of discovering magic tricks, watching magicians, and sharing my magic with others, on and off stage. Probably 80% of all conversations in my adult life had revolved around magic in one way or another.
After the TEDx talk when someone asked me what I did, I panicked. I knew I was supposed to say, “I’m a speaker” or some such thing. But I still felt like a magician. I loved telling people I was a magician. I got a kick out of the surprised look and the inevitable slew of follow-up questions when people first found out what I did. And now that was gone.
Who was I, if no longer a magician?
Tim David and I touched on the problem of identity back in S2 E7 of my podcast One New Person, ruminating over how difficult it is for people with titles like “CEO” or implicitly interesting jobs like “NFL quarterback” to adjust to retirement or a new position.
It came up again this week with my guest Jay Reynolds.
Heard But Never Seen
Jay Reynolds has one of the most recognizable voices in sports, but even his diehard fans wouldn’t know if they were standing in line next to him. For over two decades Jay has anchored ESPN SportsCenter Radio. He’s a famous personality who gets to walk through the world invisibly if he chooses.
Instead he’s active, very active – just not professionally.
Jay is a husband and father of two, coaches youth athletics, and attends local board meetings to voice his opinion on important community topics. In fact he’s more likely to be recognized for his community contributions than for being a famous sports journalist.
During the course of our conversation he recalled many warm, humorous stories of what really matters, like when he thought he was getting noticed for his radio show, but it turned out to be a mom who recognized his voice from a local school board meeting when Jay took a stand on an issue related to his kid’s kindergarten class:
“Yes, I work at ESPN, but it’s not who I am. And so there’s all these little instances that remind you that, that’s what I do, it’s not who I am.”
Jay reminded me that ‘magician,’ ‘speaker,’ ‘author’ – these are just job titles. They are not who I am. So, then, who am I? My true identity is how I act on my values, beliefs, and perspectives. I choose kindness over cruelty, connection over disinterest, and generosity over selfishness.
And if I’m really lucky, I get to demonstrate those principles within the context of my job, whatever that happens to be this year.
Listen to my full conversation with Jay Reynolds below or at this link, to hear us discuss topics such as what coaching youth athletics taught him about life, parenting, and education, a behind-the-scenes look at what really goes into putting a show on air at ESPN, how a handful of lucky breaks led to his renowned career in broadcast journalism, and how to connect with others, even when you can’t see them.
