We are an item, that light and me. We have come to know each other, to look for each other and welcome each other to the day. Where would I be without that light? It is my lantern. It is my friend.

It is your friend too. Do you see it? Does it see you?

We take light for granted. It is there from daybreak to day’s end, from birth to death. Most people pay no heed to light except for the occasional sunrise or sunset that reminds us of its existence. There is more to light, however, than we can see in those book-end moments …

Light is its own form of music, infinitely variable in its tones and rhythms, capable of surprising us, if we let it. There is Beethoven light, immense in its power, which takes hold of all of our senses, causing us to shield our eyes. It is the sun, itself, in mid-summer, unrelenting in its demanding presence. There is Vivaldi light, subtle and piercing, as it brings a forest alive with lively patterns that will occur only once, because tomorrow leaves will drop and branches will bend, and the tempo of the music will alter, if only slightly. Everything will change, forever.

Children have their own light, which is not hard to see. It follows them around, stubborn and habitual in its presence. Most people would agree that the natural light children give off is a gift from them to us, a reminder of the warmth of innocence that, at times, we secretly wish we still had. It’s more than that. The light children emit is also what keeps us from nearly killing them, when they are at their worst: their bawling, defiant, uncooperative, distant, urchin-like selves.

The light of the child sparks the light of tolerance in the adult. Thank God for the light!

There are people who don’t much care for light. They live in caves, dark huts, shadowy rooms where the window blinds are always drawn. These dark quarters exist within them. They have turned out the light and have chosen to no longer see what is right in front of their eyes. Even the light of day they are forced to walk in has lost its glow. Sunsets are pretty but not moving. Lightning is simply frightening, but not beautiful.

It is hard to love the light of the land, if you don’t love the light inside yourself. The connection between these two forms of light is hard-wired; there is no way to uncouple them. Two people cross a field saturated by a thunderstorm that has just passed. The sky is painted deep, liquid pewter and late-day shards of sun make a modest, fleeting cameo. One person is bowled over by this extraordinary moment, unable to walk on. He has been captured by the light. The other person looks up, then looks down and continues on his way, hoping like hell the rain is done.

In the case of the first person, the light inside has found the light outside. It was easy; that is the natural order of things. In the other case, the light inside had been turned off and it was, therefore, impossible for him to fully appreciate the light around him. But that doesn’t mean it wasn’t there. The light inside you is always there, waiting to be found.

All may not be lost. Sometimes, remarkable moments of outside light, by night or by day, can get the light to flicker on again, inside. Standing in a river, a friend of mine had been fishing for several hours with little luck. As he packed up, he looked downstream about 200 yards to a steel bridge. The bridge looked as if it were covered with countless white Christmas tree bulbs, but it wasn’t; it was bathed in a thousand tiny, shimmering strands of daylight.

My friend laid his rod down on a rock and gazed at the bridge. His demeanor changed. His mouth softened. His shoulders relaxed. His eyes were locked fast to what could have been a mirage. Our walk back to the car was slow. My friend spoke of things he’d chosen not to speak of for a long time. Some family matters. A few bucket list items. All quite important, many quite personal, some quite urgent.

The play of light on ordinary objects can do that to a person: Make you wake up to what already shines within you.

Everyone has their Fifth Avenue.

The post Light, the way appeared first on Larry Ackerman.

Imagine you see what is possible, when others only see what exists in the moment.

Imagine you can inspire hope, when nearly all hope is lost.

No need to imagine it. You already possess these powers.

Here is a passage about someone who accomplished all of this, despite impossible odds.

…The Nazis gave him a number.

 …His manuscript, which they burned, became the book that saved millions.

…The man they tried to reduce to nothing proved that humans can never be reduced to nothing—as long as they can find a reason to live.

 …Prisoner 119104 didn’t just survive Auschwitz. He transformed the worst of human evil into humanity’s greatest wisdom about resilience.

 …He turned suffering itself into a source of healing.

 …History gave him immortality.

 …The identity they tried to erase became a light that guided people through darkness …

 His name was Viktor Frankl. His identity was a bulwark that stood against the forces of destruction that surrounded him – a unique and unbreakable gift that informed his life and the contribution he made to humanity, in spite of everything.

You don’t have to be Viktor Frankl to have an identity that, in its particularly illuminating way, has the power to make life better for others and, in turn, yourself. That identity already resides within you. The only question is how you will apply it – for whom and to what end?

One of my former clients, Chris, runs an investment advisory firm here in Connecticut. A few years ago, he approached me with a wish – to not be just another financial advisor who manages money; he wanted to do more, but wasn’t sure what that was. He had an itch that needed to be scratched and was curious about this “identity thing.”

Chris did the spadework necessary to clarify his identity and then, how his discovery could be used to serve clients in ways that would be helpful to them and meaningful to him.

What came of Chris’s work? He stated his identity in these words: I am Chris, and I am driven to help individuals live the one life they have the best way they can. Chris’s identity had revealed his purpose.

These individuals were no longer simply clients; they were people with vulnerabilities and limitations as well as hopes and aspirations, all of which became a framework for building more authentic, lasting relationships.

Chris’s identity became the lens through which he decided which individuals he could best serve and which ones weren’t right for him. Further, he asked his staff to adopt this basic philosophy for themselves so it became a firm-wide approach.

Here is a very rough sketch of how Chris arrived at his identity statement. Apologies. Most of the words are illegible. But it shows the amount of effort he put into getting to the top of his ‘identity pyramid.’

When I visited Chris a month or so after our work together was complete, he showed me a modest-sized glass pyramid he had had made with much of this information embedded in it. It sat at the front edge of his desk. He told me that he liked it when clients asked him about it…that not only was it an important conversation starter; it was a point of pride for him.

The impact of identity – of identity-based living – can take many forms, from saving millions to helping a few. No matter. What matters is that you do it.

You have the power to change how the world works.

You see what is possible.

You can inspire hope.

Imagine that!

The post Imagine that! appeared first on Larry Ackerman.

In short, he is not hopeful that AI’s benefits will outweigh its potential drawbacks. Murphy writes that “a fraud is being perpetuated on the American people and our pliant, gullible political leaders. The leaders of the artificial intelligence industry in the United States are rapacious in their desire to build wealth and power, comfortable knowingly putting aside the destructive power of their product, and claim that any meaningful regulation of AI in America will allow China to leapfrog the United States to control the world’s AI infrastructure.”

What is most insidious in my eyes aren’t the geopolitics of AI; it is something much more personal to all of us …

… the idea, stated here that “fake video and audio, without accountability or legal liability, could obliterate any notion of objective truth. The social isolation crisis that already exists, especially for American teens, could be set on fire by AI chatbots and ‘friendship programs’ in which Mark Zuckerberg wants to replace human friends with robot friends. (Really!) Murphy continues: The substitution of essential human functions – like composition, creativity and conversation – by machines will likely lead to incalculable spiritual atrophy.”

The title to Senator Murphy’s piece ends with these words: “…we risk losing ourselves.” The thought is positively chilling. Who are we if not, first and foremost, ourselves? The idea of being able to create a fabricated human “being,” even, if just on a screen, strikes me as a Godless act that in its own right, and multiplied millions of times, is a recipe for widespread social dysfunction. Such a wave would undermine the very meaning of trust. How can I trust you, if what I see and hear in front of me may not be true at all?

Some years ago, I wrote a newsletter entitled I am who I say I am! (Maybe not). It was my attempt to call out the emerging dangers of social media, which were leading young people to fabricate “identities” online that, unwittingly, pulled them away from their natural selves, stretching the band of credibility, sometimes to the breaking point. It was written well in advance of the AI movement, which now exponentially increases the risks I cited.

What keeps me up at night is another fact of online life, which Sherry Turkle, an MIT professor, describes this way. She says that Facebook and Twitter (now X) give us the power to “present the self we want to be,” carefully tailoring our status updates and retouching photos of ourselves. Or worse: creating identities that aren’t real at all.  It’s a slippery slope. What starts out as fun, morphs into fantasy, which may no longer be tethered to reality. And then what?

Amid all the pressing challenges AI poses to the human experience, there is good news. It is rooted in the true nature of human identity. I am not referring to your social position, your religion, sexual orientation, or gender, or parental status, or your work or any other affiliation you may embrace to help define yourself. As important as these associations may be, none of them explains who you are, at your core – your fundamental identity. What makes you, you are those unique characteristics that define your potential for making a special contribution in the world, something that springs naturally from the substance of your being, transcending the labels we use to locate ourselves in the world.

With this in mind, the only way we can “lose ourselves,” as Senator Murphy warns, is if we forget, ignore, or try to abandon our innate identities. Consider your identity to be an impenetrable fortress against the onslaught of the many and growing dangers AI brings, a sturdy keel in stormy waters.

There is no person walking this planet who doesn’t have the capacity to live through his or her identity. You are the one who matters. You are where the world begins. Remember that you are inviolable. No one, no matter how ‘intelligent’, can take your identity away from you. AI will never be able to replace, diminish, or change who you are. No one, nothing, can make you be someone you are not.

As AI complicates life – at times confusing it and at times clarifying it – know that your identity is the one true thing you can count on and that it is eternal.

Never lose sight of who you are.

The post In the age of AI, your identity is the only truth you can count on appeared first on Larry Ackerman.

A friend of mine recently told me that, at least for a while, he was “going small.” He could no longer stomach what was happening here in America – the rage, the grievances, the gloating of the winners; the self-righteousness, the blaming, the myopia of the losers. He was going to do the only thing that made sense to him: Care for himself, his family, his friends, the people he loved and who loved him back, no matter their particular brand of politics.

The idea of going small right now is bathed in wisdom.

Whether your side won or lost, you owe it to yourself to simply focus on the little things that, taken together, are in fact the essence of living.

With this in mind, another friend just sent me a short article by Elizabeth Gilbert, who wrote the bestselling memoir, Eat, Pray, Love. It describes the basic character of what it means to “go small.” Read it here and you will grasp the meaning of the title of this newsletter …

 “Some years ago, I was stuck on a crosstown bus in New York City during rush hour. Traffic was barely moving. The bus was filled with cold, tired people who were deeply irritated with one another, with the world itself. Two men barked at each other about a shove that might or might not have been intentional. A pregnant woman got on, and nobody offered her a seat. Rage was in the air; no mercy would be found here.

 But as the bus approached Seventh Avenue, the driver got on the intercom. ‘Folks,’ he said, ‘I know you have had a rough day and you are frustrated. I can’t do anything about the weather or traffic, but here is what I can do. As each one of you gets off the bus, I will reach out my hand to you. As you walk by, drop your troubles into the palm of my hand, okay? Don’t take your problems home to your families tonight, just leave them with me. My route goes right by the Hudson River, and when I drive there later, I will open the window and throw your troubles in the water.’

 It was as if a spell had lifted. Everyone burst out laughing. Faces gleamed with surprised delight. People who had been pretending for the past hour not to notice each other’s existence were suddenly grinning at each other like, is this guy serious?

 At the next stop, just as promised, the driver reached out his hand, palm up, and waited. One by one, all the exiting commuters placed their hand just above his and mimed the gesture of dropping something into his palm. Some people laughed as they did this, some teared up but everyone did it. The driver repeated the same lovely ritual at the next stop, too. And the next. All the way to the river.

 We live in a hard world, my friends. Sometimes it is extra difficult to be a human being. Sometimes you have a bad day. Sometimes you have a bad day that lasts for several years. You struggle and fail. You lose jobs, money, friends, faith, and love. You witness horrible events unfolding in the news, and you become fearful and withdrawn. There are times when everything seems cloaked in darkness. You long for the light but don’t know where to find it.

 But what if you are the light? What if you are the very agent of illumination that a dark situation begs for? That’s what this bus driver taught me, that anyone can be the light, at any moment. This guy wasn’t some big power player. He wasn’t a spiritual leader. He wasn’t some media-savvy influencer. He was a bus driver, one of society’s most invisible workers. But he possessed real power, and he used it beautifully for our benefit.

 When life feels especially grim, or when I feel particularly powerless in the face of the world’s troubles, I think of this man and ask myself, what can I do, right now, to be the light? Of course, I can’t personally end all wars, or solve global warming, or transform vexing people into entirely different creatures. I definitely can’t control traffic. But I do have some influence on everyone I brush up against, even if we never speak or learn each other’s name.

 No matter who you are, or where you are, or how mundane or tough your situation may seem, I believe you can illuminate your world. In fact, I believe this is the only way the world will ever be illuminated, one bright act of grace at a time, all the way to the river.”

Thank you, Elizabeth Gilbert, for these elegant words.

And, so, are you the light? If you choose to be, you are.

May your Thanksgiving be bathed in light.

Have you ever had a moment when you felt like you were the light in someone’s life? Share your story in the comments below!

The post What if you are the light? appeared first on Larry Ackerman.

Note: In March 2016, 6 months before the presidential election, I published the first version of this article. Now, 8 years later, the topic is even more pressing, even more distressing. I have made several changes to make it current.

It’s the season when birds start to look south, their songs still with us, but fewer and, perhaps, a bit less intense than they were in the spring. With that in mind, I know you’re all dying to know how it is that birds are able to fly. So, here’s the answer:  Birds use their strong breast muscles to flap their wings to give them the thrust they need to move through the air. Further, birds use a swimming-forward motion to get the lift they need to fly. 

Naturally, both wings need to move in unison to achieve lift-off and sustain flight. It doesn’t take much to imagine the flight path of a bird whose wings are working against each other, pulling (or pushing) in different directions, or flapping at different speeds. The chance of actually breaking a wing (or two) becomes a distinct possibility. 

Welcome to America…

Today, we have a right wing that is stretching as far to the right as possible. This wing is advocating attitudes and preaching policies that are fueled by fear, my-way-or-the-highway injunctions and exclusionary imperatives. These imperatives are clear in the words of Donald Trump and other MAGA Republicans.

We also have a left wing that is stretching as far to the left as possible. This wing is advocating attitudes and preaching policies that are excessive in their idealism and economically suspect – in short, polyannaish to a fault. For all his sincerity and seeming love of America, Joe Biden’s policies tended to give away the store in the name of helping everyone, all at once. Blank-check diplomacy, at home and abroad, is simply unsustainable. Where Kamala Harris comes out on economic priorities, as well as on other vital, U.S. interests has yet to be determined.

What is distressing, is that each wing believes it holds the answer to what America’s real identity is. “We” really are a red nation, whose fundamental values are deeply conservative. “We” really are a blue nation, whose fundamental values are rooted in progressive ideals.

“We” are neither. In the midst of this turmoil, I keep asking myself: But, what about the bird? What about America, the nation? The institution? Is our essential identity really all about the wings?

Who are we now?

For nearly 250 years, Democracy has been the wind beneath our wings, both of them. Yet today, America-the-bird is struggling to stay aloft thanks to the frantic tug-of-war between its wings and, in turn, the fate of democracy may be on the line. In fact, America-the-bird is hobbled, laboring under the weight of its’ wings. And, so, its’ flight path is indeterminable and dangerously out of control.

The eagle is no longer soaring.

I imagine the sound of that magnificent bird, its’ high-pitched, prolonged, gull-like peal, crying out to be made whole again, its two wings brought more into synch with one another in an effort to set it on a once-again, more powerful and stable trajectory.

Does the bird have a soul?

I believe it does. And if you’d like to comprehend it, I recommend reading the finest book I have ever come across about what it means to be America – The American Soul by Jacob Needleman.

The founders of our country, Needleman argues, conceived of an “inner democracy” – a continual pursuit of wisdom and self-improvement that would undergird the outer democracy in which we live today.  We have lost touch with that inner democracy. It lies in despair, abandoned and ignored by both wings. And it is the bird who is suffering.

We are suffering.

What now?

Politics, in my view, is a desperate game. It is ironic that politics is killing the very body that it purports to represent. The soul of America is not right wing or left wing. It is at once both and neither. I view America as exasperatingly, imperfectly human and yet exquisitely beautiful, bigger and more potent than either one of its wings. But America’s soul – its’ defining identity – has, for the moment, been lost to those wings.

If you know of a candidate, a party more interested in protecting the bird than its wings, let me know. He or she, somehow, will get my vote. And my prayers.

Have a view? Peck out a few words and let me know what you think.

The post …But what about the bird? (v.2) appeared first on Larry Ackerman.

The Backstory

Jones of the Old Shoes is based on bedtime stories I began telling my son, Max, when he was 5-years-old. So, the book has been in the works for 30 years!

In 1999, Max was a 10-year-old fifth grader, and I was about to publish my first book, Identity Is Destiny. One day, Max asked me if I’d come to his class during “show and tell” and talk about the book. Of course, I agreed, but wondered, how on earth I could explain to 9- and 10-year-olds the message of Identity Is Destiny in a way that would make sense to them.

I arrived to see 22 shiny faces, with wide, curious eyes staring at me. After the teacher introduced me, I began by reading a short passage from the book I felt – and certainly hoped – would be fairly easy for the kids to understand. When I was done, I took a slow, deep breath and asked the class, “so, what does identity mean to you?” Their answers were striking:

“It means what makes me different.”

“It has to do with personality.”

“It’s something about who I am.”

Encouraged and more than a little amazed, I then asked the group, “what does destiny mean to you?”

“It’s about the future.”

“It’s what’s going to happen to me someday.”

“It’s about what I’m supposed to do with my life.”

Taking in the children’s surprisingly articulate answers, I asked myself, what’s going on here? A moment later, I understood …

Children know more about identity than we give them credit for knowing. We don’t ask them the right questions early enough. Even more, we don’t give them a framework they can use to start to discover an authentic sense of self that they can count on as they grow up.

As I left the classroom, I reflected on what had just happened and realized that it was I who had been the student that day. The students had been my teacher.

A week or so later, Max arrived home from school with a thick envelope made of yellow construction paper. It contained thank you letters from all 22 students.

I will never forget what some of these children wrote – one letter in particular, from a girl named Sarah, stood out:

Jones of the Old Shoes is dedicated to my two grandsons, Thomas and Louis. But I also dedicate the book to all young people, especially tweens, in hopes that their innate wisdom about matters of identity will keep them strong and secure over the course of their lives.

The post Why I wrote Jones of the Old Shoes appeared first on Larry Ackerman.

Authenticity. There isn’t much of it out there these days. Maybe there is among the animals who don’t know anything else. They never learned how to fake it. Increasingly, we humans are faced with fake almost-everything: fake news, fake images, fake claims. Artificial intelligence is only compounding the problem.

And yet, authenticity remains a popular idea. It’s written about in books by famous leaders (e.g., Bill George, former CEO of Medtronic), called for by employees who want to make a strong connection with their bosses and coworkers, advertised by jeans makers (Wrangler is “genuine”), and immortalized by soda companies (Coke: “The Real Thing”). It’s easier to promote it than to live it.

Being authentic in one’s self isn’t always a simple task. It takes insight, courage, honesty, and more – a sometimes inexplicable urge to simply be true to who you are, to the man or woman in the mirror. Being authentic with others can be even more challenging. Why? Because authentic relationships can lead to vulnerability.

Are you willing to open up to someone – your wife, husband or partner, your son or daughter, your best friend, or the person sitting next to you at the bar – and let your hair down? …

Sometimes, it’s easier to share your true feelings with the person at the bar than with your spouse or partner. It’s safer since you don’t have to be held accountable for your sentiments after you leave.

In our search for authentic relationships, we long for what we often fear: intimacy.

I was on safari in Africa a few years ago, sitting in my tent one afternoon, when my tent mate asked me if I knew what intimacy was all about. Before I could answer, he offered this idea: He said to me that intimacy really means ‘in to me see.’  That insight has stayed with me ever since. For all the dictionary definitions of intimacy, the one my friend proposed speaks volumes, for it is an invitation to share at the level of one’s soul, to “speak” soul to soul, privately, intentionally, courageously.

So, then, can we say that a search for authenticity is really a search for intimacy? And that the bridge between authenticity and intimacy can include vulnerability?

Several years ago, a major newspaper published an article describing an exchange between Jack Welch, the previous CEO of General Electric, and William Harrison, prior Chairman of J.P. Morgan that highlighted the power of authenticity.

“In addition to holding their strategic discussions, the article stated, Mr. Welch and Mr. Harrison spent significant time together honing the executive training program at J.P. Morgan. Mr. Welch was particularly impressed with Mr. Harrison’s use of a group exercise in which senior J.P. Morgan executives, including Mr. Harrison, wrote on a board the personal and professional experiences – the more painful, the better – that helped them evolve as people. “Bill was very good at it,’ Mr. Welch said. ‘It makes you become simpatico with the guy.’”

 In that experience, Mr. Welch and Mr. Harrison bonded; they got “intimate” in a way that most likely led to a more fulfilling and productive relationship. They learned that they could trust one another.

So, at the end of the authenticity trail, lies trust. How can I trust you, if you aren’t going to be real with me? And if I can’t trust you, how can I, if you’re a leader in my company, follow you?

If you’re not going to be authentic, how can I love you?  The question is as pressing for couples, friends, and families as it is for business people.

Authenticity opens to vulnerability, which opens to intimacy, which, finally, opens to trust. If you want people to trust you, you need to be authentic, to be yourself. There’s no easy formula for becoming authentic, or testing whether you are. You can’t ask someone if they think you’re authentic; they really won’t know, even if your eyes are flooded with tears. You’re the only one who knows if you’re being authentic.

Each of us must find his or her own path to authenticity and the road it illuminates. First, though, you need to decide how much authenticity is worth to you. What kind of relationships do you want to have? What kind of person do you want to be? How do you want to show up with the people who matter most to you? How do you want to be remembered?

The animals don’t know anything but authenticity and don’t have to work to get it. The buck in search of a mate is unambiguous in his hunt. The mother bear who protects her cubs at all costs makes no bones about her intentions. Being authentic is an easier path for them than for us. So, are the animals the lucky ones?

I don’t believe so. We are the lucky ones, for in struggling to be authentic, we must struggle with ourselves. In doing so, we become fuller, richer, more valuable individuals to ourselves and to others.

What does authenticity mean to you? Share your thoughts in the comments below!

The post Let’s get real! appeared first on Larry Ackerman.

What is my message? is a question that has an out-sized impact on our lives, even when we aren’t aware of it. We are forced to answer the question in all sorts of ways. It comes up in the essays we write as part of our college applications, where admissions officers strain to figure out which candidates to accept and which to reject. The question raises its head again as we search for jobs after graduation – whether from high school, college, or graduate school – and are faced with the not-so-simple task of expressing who we are on one or two pieces of paper called a resume. 

If you succeed in your job, you come face to face with the question again, as you rise through the ranks to a supervisory, or leadership, position. What is your message, then, to the people who work for you? …

… Not, what tasks do you want them to complete, but, rather, why should they follow you, beyond the fact that you’re their boss? 

The question slips into our lives on more modest levels as well: for instance, at large social gatherings when you are introduced to people for the first time. Or, at intimate dinner parties, when you are one of only a handful of people, who are thrust together for three or four hours and need to figure out how to keep the conversation going. 

In all of these situations, you have a choice. You can try to discern what is important to someone else and tell them what you believe they want to hear. You can supply information you feel is safe and easy for others to digest. Or, you can make a point of finding ways to tell people something about who you are at your core, and risk making yourself vulnerable, if only for a moment. 

The fact is that taking the “safe” route isn’t safe at all. Most people, from college admissions directors and would-be friends, to the people who report to you at work, are searching for signs that give them reason to believe that you are someone with integrity — someone they can trust. 

This is where identity comes into play — those special characteristics that reveal how you create unique value in the world. Your identity is ‘an integrity machine.’ It expresses what makes you the individual you are. It invites people to trust you. 

Hiding what you stand for takes a toll on everyone. It may make it easier for you to navigate business or social relationships that require chameleon-like skills to maintain, but, over time, it erodes your sense of self-worth: you know you’re faking it. Moreover, keeping your true self hidden makes life harder for others by keeping them guessing; off balance, in fact. 

Until I faced an auditorium full of people who were interested in the subject of identity, I had kept my message under wraps, at least publicly. For years, I’d lived under the radar. While working with companies and individuals, I knew who I was, and, certainly, I let my passion for identity show in everything I did. Yet, I never had the courage to stand up and be counted. I had let my writings and my work speak for me. Now, I would speak for myself; I would make my message clear: I am Larry Ackerman and I am driven by the need to help people to see. As I spoke these words in that auditorium that day, I exhaled deeply. I felt completely naked as I stood before my audience, knowing there was no going back. I was finally free. 

Answering the question, what is my message? Is liberating. It frees you from the fear of telling the world who you are and doing what you know you must. It brings the self-confidence to not be deterred by what others may think of you, even in the face of possible rejection. You may also realize that you no longer have a choice: you must take a stand. 

Consider your message a personal declaration — a commitment to follow one path and walk away from others. What makes declarations so powerful is their intent, which, in short, is to remove doubt. It is to make something clear to people that wasn’t clear before. Personal declarations lift the veil of mystery. They state something emphatically about who you are, often, for the first time. 

Your identity is the source of that declaration, the essence of your message. It’s a message the world needs to hear. 

The post What is my message (and why does it matter)? appeared first on Larry Ackerman.

Sometimes, all of this suffering gets to me, yet I am powerless to alleviate it. It’s too much. Too big. Too far away. Still, to do nothing isn’t an option. I decided a while ago that if I’m not able to lessen suffering on a grand scale, I’d try and do so on a small scale — one person at a time.

One of the unexpected results of writing The Identity Code were readers who asked me whether I could help them realize the promise of the book’s subtitle — to find their purpose and place in the world. I wasn’t coaching at the time, but I decided that I would at least try. I simply had to.

The challenges presented to me varied widely, from people struggling from career angst — unclear about what they should do next — to readers enduring the stresses of faltering personal relationships, Although, these challenges aren’t uncommon in life, what struck me was how each person was — underneath the issue they faced — suffering in their own way. Here are two examples …

Lisa, a 45-year-old lawyer had been with her company for more than 10 years. Professionally speaking, she was clearly successful, having been promoted 4 times and was now the organization’s general counsel. Yet, she was unhappy and, as she told me, tormented by a deep desire to do something else with her life that would provide more personal satisfaction as well as an income. Lisa was stuck and the angst she was feeling was getting in the way of her making progress. She felt she had no choice but to leave her company.

Rory was a 40-year-old Wall Street executive who had recently been laid off. He had made a handsome income, but was in no way well-to-do. His wife, who didn’t work, was divorcing him and had taken their two young children to live with her. Much of Rory’s savings was going to support his family. Rory had been rejected, professionally and personally. He was frightened. He felt paralyzed. Yet he knew he had to find a way to not give up hope; to somehow, “keep going.” 

For these individuals, palpable suffering was getting in the way of living. 

I believe that the worst thing you can do in the name of helping someone move forward is to gloss over their suffering as though it’s not there, or isn’t that important. The next worst thing you can do is to dwell on it. 

In my attempts to relieve suffering in my own small way, here is what I’ve learned and how it might help you or someone you know.

First, quiet the dragons

In Ancient Greek and other mythologies, dragons were fearsome, fire-breathing beasts that stood in the way of people and what they wanted. It’s tough to move forward when a dragon is in your path. It is tough to move forward when you are suffering.

To help someone move forward, start by simply listening, by bearing witness to their pain. Strive to understand their suffering. Let them vent. Have them speak of it, describe it and its impact. Not once, but two or three times, until its’ sting is lessened if not gone. If you can’t slay the dragon, at least quiet it.

Second, unearth your magic

In business today, there is much talk about what one’s “superpower” is — that singular talent that distinguishes you. These can include empathy, systems thinking, creativity, decisiveness, among many other traits. The idea is that if you can put your finger on your superpower, you’ll know how best to contribute to your team or organization. As its name suggests, one’s superpower contains a magic all its own.  

I find the idea of detecting one’s superpower amusing. If there is one superpower that eclipses all others, it is your identity — that unique combination of characteristics that reveals your potential for creating value in the world. Here are three illustrations: 1) to inspire renewal, 2) to create positive history, 3) to help people to see. Each is deceptively simple. Yet, as a framework for making a lasting contribution, each is powerful in its own right.

Third, blaze your trail

With the dragon quieted and your magic clear, it’s time to move forward, to circle back and address the original challenge with new insight and courage. 

Lisa left her role as a corporate attorney, but chose to stay with her company. She was put in charge of leading a merger integration effort that offered her the chance to deal with cultural as well as economic issues.

Rory found a job with a regional bank, has made peace with his ex-wife, and sees his children regularly. 

No storybook endings here. But the suffering that was blocking these individuals’ progress had receded enough to allow them to move on. 

What I have come to understand, is that on the other side of suffering lies freedom — the freedom to grow in ways that benefit others as well as yourself.  

Want to help relieve suffering in the world? Go small. 

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Mortality  

On the day I die a lot will happen. A lot will change.

The world will be busy.

On the day I die, all the important appointments I made will be left unattended.

The many plans I had yet to complete will remain forever undone.

The calendar that ruled so many of my days will now be irrelevant to me.

All the material things I so chased and guarded and treasured will be left in the hands of others to care for or discard.

The words of my critics which so burdened me will cease to sting or capture anymore. They will be unable to touch me…

The arguments I believed I’d won will not serve me or bring me any satisfaction or solace.

All my noisy incoming notifications and texts and calls will go unanswered. Their great urgency will be quieted.

My many nagging regrets will all be resigned to the past, where they should always have been anyway.

Every superficial worry about my body that I ever labored over; about my waistline or hairline or frown lines, will fade away.

My carefully crafted image, the one I worked so hard to shape for others, will be left to them to complete.

The sterling reputation I once struggled so greatly to maintain will be of little concern for me anymore.

All the small and large anxieties that stole sleep from me each night will be rendered powerless.

The deep and towering mysteries about life and death that so consumed my mind will finally be clarified in a way that they could never be before, while I lived.

These things will certainly all be true on the day that I die.

Yet for as much as will happen on that day, one more thing will happen.

On the day I die, the few people who really know and truly love me will grieve deeply.

They will feel a void.

They will feel cheated.

They will not feel ready.

They will feel as though a part of them has died as well.

And on that day, more than anything in the world they will want more time with me.

I know this from those I love and grieve over.

And so knowing this, while I am still alive, I’ll try to remember that my time with them is finite and fleeting and so very precious—and I’ll do my best not to waste a second of it.

I’ll try not to squander a priceless moment, worrying about all the other things that will happen on the day I die, because many of those things are either not my concern or beyond my control.

Friends, those other things have an insidious way of keeping you from living even as you live; vying for your attention, competing for your affections.

They rob you of the joy of this unrepeatable, uncontainable, ever-evaporating ‘Now’ with those who love you and want only to share it with you.

Don’t miss the chance to dance with them while you can.

It’s easy to waste so much daylight in the days before you die.

Don’t let your life be stolen every day by all that you’ve been led to believe matters. Because on the day you die—the fact is, that much of it simply won’t.

But before that day comes, let us live.

I tried hard to find out who this David Reed is, but no success. There are many David Reeds out there. If I could identify this man, I would reach out to thank him for his profoundly powerful and exquisitely beautiful insights. 

And, true to his words, I would want to get to know him, so I could count him among the friends who might miss me — or perhaps I, him — when one of us passes, unexpectedly.

Thank you, David Reed. I am moved by your words. Maybe, those who are reading this article, will be too.

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