Happy Monday Peaceniks. I need to ask you a question. Who are you?
Every summer, I go through this exercise. “Who am I?” When I was young, it was for summer camp. Or for the coming school year. Who did I want to be that summer? This school year? Smart guy? Stoner? Funny guy? I had a normal-ish childhood. Sleep-away provided me my first chance to figure out who I was outside the kids I saw every day at school, three times a week at Hebrew school, in little league, and at cub scouts.
Then, the summer before the start of middle school, my parents split and I moved to a very different town, where I didn’t know anyone. We went from being one of the up-and-comiest families in town, to a single and working Mom (first-gen latch-key), a shitty condo, and an enormous, rich township of kids who got cars before they got permits.
So, those summers between 10 and 15, I spent a lot of time thinking about who I wanted to be. The summer I turned 14, I discovered a theater program at the local high school. That was the summer I decided a big part of who I would be the rest of my life.
Choosing the business of show as your life’s pursuit at 14 was clarifying. It was the driver of all of my career choices from that point on. It also became a constant point of contention, aggression, obfuscation, and calamity for my family. My father flat-out refused to discuss it as an option. When I was 16, the guy who walked out on my family, and pretty much dropped out of society, told me I “can’t major in theater, because it’s not a real job.”
That summer before freshman year, I had to decide who I was. My father’s son, or my own person. That fall, I did what I wanted.
I didn’t major in theater, but I headed up a student run company. I avoided class and just made theater and got stoned. By the last summer before what was supposed to be my last year in college, I hadn’t been to class in over a year, and had been relying on pizza delivery, a supportive and gullible mom, and very a flexible scholarship office at UMASS to pay bills. And I again found myself deciding who I the fuck was.
Thankfully I had a therapist who specialized in fucked up peter pans. He was the nicest and smartest man I think I’ve ever met. That summer, after listening to me try and talk myself into summer stock theater in middle bumfuck, PA, this scholarly, quiet, grey-haired gent looked me in the eye and said “You think you’re such a big shot, why not go to where the action is? If you want to be professional at this business, you gotta go where the business is. Otherwise, you’re just putting off the real test of who you are.”
Damn Doc. Ok then.
I officially dropped out of school (exposing to everyone I knew the fact that I hadn’t attended class in at least 5 semesters), sold my baseball cards and comic books, won some money on a game show (another story), and moved to New York. Summer of 1990. AUTHOR’S NOTE: I’ve altered the entire sequence for poetic license, those who know can sue me, and everyone else should rest assured the essence is represented.
Each of my 34 summers in the city, I dedicated time – serious time – to contemplating the meaning of my life (yes, sometimes high). In each case, the inward exploration – the time invested in considering what I want and why; the dedicated focus put on what I can do better and what I can do more – always produces revelations and results.
The choice to go after the Head of Marketing job at The New York Shakespeare Festival – a job I no way, shape, or form deserved – was made during one of those sessions. I got it. It transformed my life. My gamble on starting a marketing agency with a few friends, taking on the Broadway Advertising/Communications Industrial complex, at age 29, with a brand-new baby, giving up my salary and benefits, and abandoning my hope for a career as an artist… Was also the result of a Deep Sativa Walkabout. It changed my life, again. Selling that agency five years later to take my first job in TV, came after a self-inflicted summer of anxiety and fear about providing well for my family of four (by then) and wanting a platform larger than the stage.
During the course of my life, I have turned these summertime self-reflective swims into a self-fulfilling cycle. I structure my year around it. Summer is always for renewal. For change.
The team at ESHAP spends the summer working on our fall thesis. We do research into and beyond our field, we compile data about where we think the Universe is going. Last summer, this helped us create the concept of the User Centric Era. The summer prior, we developed our Hierarchy of Feeds.
Personally, I dedicate a lot of time every summer on who I have been the year prior, and who I want to be – and why – in the year ahead. Coincidentally, or call it karma, major life events also seem to find me between the summer and fall solstices. Both my kids were born in August, exactly three years apart. Last summer, I found out I have cancer, the same week I directed my first play in 25 years. A few weeks ago, that baby daughter I had when I started my business 28 years ago, got married - at a summer camp.
This summer has already had a momentous start. In May, I helped produce my first Media conference. Two weeks later, we had that wedding - easily the best day of my life. Then I went to Europe for two weeks with my wife – the longest trip we’ve taken alone in 30 years. We had an amazing time. And last Friday, I started treatment for cancer again. It’s been the best month of my life.
As I sat in the chair for four hours last week, getting infused, I started my yearly process of summer contemplation again. I will be at both - treatment and this recurring journey to the center of my personal mission - all summer. It’s kinda like a snake shedding its skin.
I’ve been asked, and I have written about, how I have been able to pivot my career so many times, and with relative success. Of everything I can think of, this yearly summer ritual of self-inspection, self-correction, and self-propulsion is the most important. I’ve often said it’s the effort to know who you are, why, and the ability to articulate those to others, which differentiates those who get to where they want to go from those who don’t.
So, let me ask again: Who ARE YOU?
When was the last time you asked yourself that? When did you last ask why you do what you do with so many hours of every day? Have you asked yourself what you want to do? What is most important to you, right now? Even if it’s money. Or power. Or personal satisfaction. Or the ability to turn it all OFF whenever you want. Or to work from wherever you want.
Can you answer, easily and specifically: Who are you? What do you want? Why?
If so, seriously, great for you. Unfortunately, many of us are struggling with these very questions – especially at this time when tens of thousands of us in Media and Tech are being laid off and some of Media’s most indelible brands teeter on the edge of implosion.
I have PTSD from two of my last “jobs.” Thinking of them still makes me feel like the summer my parents got divorced. For a sizable share of us, our jobs, our titles, the trappings of our corporate careers are welded onto our personalities. It is hard to tell folks that the weld broke - that the title, budget, and authority we used to have don’t follow our name anymore.
This summer, with mergers and acquisitions in the thick air all around us, and layoffs coming down like summer showers – sudden, loud, and quick – it’s the perfect time to try some deep contemplative thought about who you are in our community, what you really want to do, and why it matters.
I’ve been through this many times, and I’ve worked with others on their journeys. So, I have developed repeatable tactics to help focus the process, regardless your level or career, and increase the likelihood of satisfactory results.
I have written about this, and offered webinars on the topic here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here. I also created a follow-along workbook that you can download here.
This continuous cycle of summertime, THC-fed journeys has worked for me. It allows me to get out ahead of myself and confront issues before they become issues. It has kept me firmly cemented to my family, who always comes first on my list of things that make me who I am. It has helped me navigate the worst and best times in my life, without losing my head, or ending up with a carload of literal or karmic bills I can’t pay.
Even last Friday, sitting in the cancer treatment chair (for four fucking hours), all I could think about is how great the last month was. Despite the challenges, I knew exactly why I do what I do.
This made me think: Ok, how do I make sure I stay this satisfied, what can I do better, what’s next, and how do I get ready for it?
You don’t need to be high for this to work. You don’t have to do it in the summer. Or in New York. But I have found, if you want to find the energy to keep going, despite all the hurdles that life, adulthood, and the Media apocalypse keep throwing in front of you, this type of deep, thoughtful inner journey is an enormous help, if not a near-requirement.
If you are satisfied with where and who you are, again, I applaud you. Being comfortable in your own skin is a rare and wondrous thing. If, on the other hand, you could use some help right now, figuring out who you are professionally, choosing what you really want to do next, know two things:
You a are not alone.
I’m holding a zoominar on Thursday, June 27th, at 4p on this very topic.
(Ok, that was three things.)
Our zoominars are for paying Media War & Peaceniks. For those who’ve not yet made the leap, to help along the journey, I created a Summer Solstice Special discount on subscriptions you can access here.
I hope to see you Thursday! Regardless, enjoy the Summer!
ESHAP
In your take stock diagram, is health a part of Safety?
Great post. This really struck me. "I’ve often said it’s the effort to know who you are, why, and the ability to articulate those to others, which differentiates those who get to where they want to go from those who don’t." Something to think about this summer.