This is only tangentially a small business blog post, so when this quickly devolves into existential ‘Dear Diary’ pathos, I ask your forbearance.
I recently went to a prospective client’s home to create a scope and fee for a furniture project she was interested in having me do. While there, her husband called her on the phone. After chatting for a minute, she said to him, “Honey, that carpenter guy is here. I gotta go.” I kept sketching the project in my little notebook, but that phrase kept running through my head. “That carpenter guy…” She didn’t intend to be condescending, I’m sure. But nonetheless, I left her house muttering, “That carpenter guy, huh? Oh yeah, I’m that carpenter guy.”
Then, a few days ago, someone else said to me, “Hey, ain’t it funny? You’ve got all them fancy degrees, and here you are just making cutting boards. You ever going to be a businessman again?” Ouch. I wondered, “Did you mean, funny as in ‘ah, the vicissitudes of fate,’ or funny as in, ‘what a waste your decisions have turned out to be?’ Or maybe it was just mean-funny as in, ‘I’m now banking a ton more cash than you are, and I don’t have your big-shot education.’”
I think the reason those two conversations bothered me is because I felt they were defining what I do in a way that seemed smaller and less significant than I want it to be. Work has always been such an important part of how I define myself. I don’t think I’m unique in that. It is a foible that is particularly, but not exclusively, masculine. So I want to be known as a President, a business owner, an entrepreneur, a visionary. I don’t want to be a carpenter guy who makes cutting boards. And I’ve always been this way, in every job I’ve had. I want people feeling impressed with my importance. I am the peacock preening and displaying his tail feathers. SEE ME! LOOK AT ME! ADMIRE ME! I AM HERE, DAMMIT, AND I MATTER! I MATTER…
As I’ve processed all of this, there are a few ideas that have emerged. First, there are a whole bunch of things that describe me. I’m a man. I’m 40 (Thanks, Gundy). Left-handed, creative, husband, father, son, Christian, recovering tobacco addict, overweight, carpenter guy, cutting board maker, voracious reader, size 14, half-marathon runner, etc. etc. Of that master list of descriptors, I somehow pick a few of them as things that actually define me. THIS IS WHO I AM! Those defining things can sometimes be secret, shame-filled: I’m a loser, I’m a failure, I’m a victim. Or they can just be inauthentic or superficial: I’m a Vice President of Marketing, I’m a Texas Longhorn. Or they can be true and right. I believe that though there can be circumstantial inertia, I still have been given the freedom to choose which things define me and which things merely describe me.
For me, the measure of the authenticity of my self-definition is whether or not I am at peace. The peacock is busy screeching to be heard. The insecure man uses people as a means of trying to fill his cup, even though his cup has holes in the bottom of it. He is profoundly bothered when he is called a ‘cutting board maker’ or ‘that carpenter guy.’
When I am at peace, I have nothing to prove. I pursue excellence merely for the sake of doing things well, not for acclaim or because it defines who I am. I ignore the false trappings of status, the need to be announced on the podium (I’d like to thank the Academy…). And I have an unbelievable amount of freedom! When I am comfortable in my own skin, I am free to be fully present and intentional with people, to really see them and listen to them and love them. And that’s the man I want to be. I’m not that man yet. But that’s who I want to be.
The 1981 movie, Chariots of Fire, is largely about the juxtaposition between a false self and a true self. One of the characters is frantically, desperately trying to define himself in the context of others and by his ‘work.’ Another is at peace. It’s a slow, atmospheric movie, but if you haven’t seen it, it’s worth watching. Here’s the most famous clip: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uwyltmUR3MU
Ok, kids, so here’s your first blog assignment. Please comment and tell me: Who are you? (I really wanna know). What defines you? I’m not talking about theory, here, or how it SHOULD be. I’m talking your day-in, day-out, living definition of who you are.
“There’s a place where I know you walked
The love falls from the trees
My heart is like a broken cup
I only feel right on my knees
I spill out like a sewer hole
Yet still receive your kiss
How can I measure up to anyone new
After such a love as this”
-The Who, “Who Are You”
Also, if you catch me trying to impress you, please gently remind me that it’s an exhausting way to live. Strain though I might, that rock’s just going to roll down the hill again.
