I am currently evading a spring snowstorm by cozying up in a Netflix cocoon, tucking warmly into Season 2 of the show This is Us. It first aired in 2016, but I was deep and new in the throes of small business ownership and didn’t have time to breathe let alone watch Netflix, so I am seeing this show for the first time.
I LOVE IT. Family dynamics. Feelings. Imperfect characters and slow, thorough character development. Definitely here for all of it.
Anyway, in Season 2, one line stuck with me, and I’ve been thinking about it a lot.
It’s a very simple scene.
Randall is at a hardware store talking to an employee wearing a vest and a name tag that includes the phrase “Ask me for help.” Of course, Randall spirals into a monologue about how terrified he feels that he is hours away from becoming a new dad and he might suck at it. The hardware store employee tells Randall he has five kids at home and, “Babies come with the answers. They come out, they look up at you.… They tell you who you are.”
I notice words. It’s a way of being for me, and this phrase stuck: They tell you who you are.
What a mirror for me. This phrase feels so gritty, so confronting, so… passive.
I am strongly in the school of thought that you get to choose (and create) who you want to be.
Case and point- I recently signed up for a 6-week pottery class and a local yoga membership because while I spent years cultivating the capitalistic/hustling/hardcore athletic/financially successful sides of myself, I really admire women who make pottery and do yoga. Something about the physicality of it calls me in. I want to be the kind of woman who makes things out of mud and can cultivate community through movement. I’m choosing to go try it and see what lands.
I notice a deep resistance within my psyche to the phrase “They tell you who you are,” and I immediately find myself recoiling with the teenage-sounding rebuttal, “Don’t tell me what to do or how to be.”
The thing is, I genuinely enjoy conflict– the afterbang is always expansive– and amidst the tension, I usually find Truth. I’m talking about Capital-T Truth– the big kind, the kind that shakes you to your core and gives you a growth op you didn’t ask for. I love that kind of Truth.
So I sat with it. I let those words bounce around between my ears.
Do things inform us of who we are, not the other way around?
Do we lose a little bit of agency every time something shapes us? Or do we gain it?
If we get to choose our reactions and make meaning of what we experience, is it even possible for things to tell us who we are??
I think yes to all of it.
Well. Kind of.
I believe when life happens, we choose how we respond.
I also believe it’s important to let yourself surprise yourself.
I don’t have kids, but I can see how babies tell us who we are. I can imagine there’s nothing more confronting than raising small, unique people who force you to relive your childhood in some ways and step further into adulthood in other ways.
As I sat with this, I realized there are lots of things that tell me who I am.
10 things that tell me who I am:
Backcountry Yurt Trips- They are fun, there’s no cell service or connection to the outside world, and require way more socialization (and heuristics) than I am comfortable with. They force presence in ways I don’t normally access, and I think that tells me a lot about who I am.
A Blinking Cursor on a Blank Page: It blinks. I type. I get so deep into flow state when I write that when I go back and read what I wrote, sometimes I don’t remember writing it. Wild. That tells me a lot about what I have to say so strongly that it bubbles up and falls out of my fingertips.
Food Poisoning: I recently experienced this, and it was reminiscent of that classic scene in Bridesmaids. While I felt like I was dying, the non-literal thing that came up for me was empathy and love toward the people in my life who are gluten intolerant and experience stomach issues all the time. Unexpected place to find empathy and love. Interesting.
Employees: I had 50 w-2 employees over ten years. I learned more about myself in the role of an “employer” than I could have imagined. For those of you with employees, you get it. For those of you thinking about hiring a team, I urge you to be prepared to learn about weaknesses you didn’t even know you had. Ha. And strengths, too, of course. But buckle up, buttercup.
Free Time: Do I scroll TikTok or work on my book? Why? I believe uninterrupted periods of alone time are some of the cleanest and quickest ways to see our inner worlds. Are we procrastinating? Moving? Sitting in stillness? Creating? Absorbing? What is the texture and tone of our self talk? Why? Why not? Oooo, that’s a good one.
Jealousy: I am a huge fan of jealousy and envy. These two feelings highlight for me what I want, who I want to be, and where I am out of alignment. I am currently envious of one of my friend’s ease with power tools and remodeling. She is so good at building things, and I am remarkably envious of the lightness with which she makes pocket holes and builds perfectly square, perfectly straight cabinets while joking around the whole time. Remodeling a house has told me a lot about who I am. Turns out.
Feeling Good: This is a huge one. I think our capacity to feel good tells us a lot about who we are. Do we feel deserving? Do we self-sabotage? Do we revel in it? Share it? Hide it? Dismiss it? Question it? I’m a big fan of celebrating joy, but I also have a tendency to hide it when I don’t feel safe. Do what you will with that. It’s my biggest growth op of late, and very telling.
Relationships: A big concept in a bland word, isn’t it? I believe everything in life is relational. I have a cheesy tank top that I wear all the time that simply says “you are my mirror.” It’s true. As a twin, my identity has been built on comparison (for better or worse), and I fully believe that every interaction with another human (or animal, or concept, or activity) is a beautiful opportunity to explore what your opinions and actions and thoughts about it says about you. Godspeed.
Social Media: This is a hot topic lately, hotter than usual, in my circles. What are we doing online? Do we lurk? Do we contribute? The most recent stat I saw claimed that 90-99% of social media users passively consume and watch their feeds instead of engaging directly. Which means fewer than 10% of people (potentially even 1%) are responsible for what is consumed on these apps. I prefer being one to share ideas and my version of the human experience rather than merely absorb them, but I also see the value in lurking and learning and holding your cards close. Social media has a very direct, but also very sneaky way of calling out exactly who you are. I like that about it.
Sobriety: I often go months without drinking when I am training for something athletic, but I decided to be fully sober in 2024 and not train for anything. In a mountain town where partying is a way of life, this now makes me a sober vegetarian, and nothing says “party” like a sober vegetarian. I’m exactly 84 days into this round of sobriety with 281 days to go, and I gotta say sobriety has told me more about my relationship to social norms, friendship, and romantic partnership than I expected. It has highlighted when I prefer “rounding the edges” in my brain, as I call it, and forced me into new ways of relating to my body and my bullshit. So that has not been fun, but it has been wonderful.
I think it’s ridiculously cool that things actually do tell us who we are, teach us new things, and still give us the opportunity to take that information and keep it or choose to grow. I just let myself surprise myself, didn’t I?
So… those are ten of mine that came to mind very quickly. I would love to hear yours. Feel free to hit the reply button and weigh in on what comes up for you, share this thing with someone you think would find some value in it, or simply ponder it on your own terms. What tells you who you are?
Here for it,
Lisa
HUMANS & LINKS I LOVE:
Jenn Kriske, an entrepreneur, dog-lover, investor, and real one whom I admire and respect with so much reverence, started a Substack called The Jane Dough Society: Your Personal Handbook to Abundance. Let it blow your mind. Enjoy.
One of my very best friends, Slu, just came to town and we got to snowboard, talk about creativity, and unfortunately, witness my food poisoning extravaganza. Check out her latest Substack (Creative Connections and Celebrations) on Sources.
Next weekend is BOOT TAN FEST, put on by Buck Wild Coffee, both of which are the brain child of another one of my best pals, Jenny Verrochi. See you there. The main event is this coming Friday.
Another very good friend of mine (and badass business psychologist), Greer VanDyck, and I co-founded a new company. It’s called Creative Couch. It’s made to pick up where art school fails creatives, and it’s purpose is to blend emotional intelligence with hard skills to help make the world a better, more genuine, more abundant place for professional creatives. It’s very badass, and you can still sign up for our first course, taught by the genius herself, Katie Lozancich: Level Up Your Action Sports Photography.
And lastly, I mentor 4 people at a time for creative and career growth. I’ll be opening up spots next month, so check out my personal website if you’re interested and get on the waitlist. (And just in case you forgot, 15 years deep, I still own this kickass creative agency: Wheelie. )
As always, thanks for being here.