Identity vs. Skillset: You Are Not Your Job Title!

EPISODE 59

[INTRO]

Alex Cullimore: Welcome to Uncover the Human where every conversation revolves around enhancing all the connections in our lives. 

Cristina Amigoni: Whether that's with our families, co-workers or even ourselves. 

Alex Cullimore: When we can be our authentic selves, magic happens.

Cristina Amigoni: This is Cristina Amigoni. 

Alex Cullimore: And this is Alex Cullimore. 

Cristina Amigoni: Let’s dive in. 

Alex Cullimore: Let’s dive in. 

Group: “Authenticity means freedom.”                                                         

“Authenticity means going with your gut.”

“Authenticity is bringing 100% of yourself not just the parts you think people want to see, but all of you.”

“Being authentic means that you have integrity to yourself.”
 “It's the way our intuition is whispering something deep-rooted and true.”

“Authenticity is when you truly know yourself. You remember and connect to who you were before others told you who you should be.”

“It's transparency, relatability, no frills, no makeup, just being.”

Alex Cullimore: Welcome back to this episode of Uncover the Human. I am joined just with Cristina today. Hello, Cristina.

Cristina Amigoni: Hi, happy Sunday.

Alex Cullimore: Happy Sunday indeed. So we wanted to talk a little bit today about identity, and you had a great insight this week, and this is where we're going to dive into it. I'll let you expand on that a little bit once on iIdentity boxes.

Cristina Amigoni: Yeah. I’ve just been thinking. Actually, it came to me because of a movie I watched with my kids, the movie Encanto, the new Disney animation that came out in November, I think. The gist of the movie, for anybody who hasn't seen it, which is probably everybody who doesn't have kids that are 10 and under, is how there's this huge emphasis in this family who has gifts. By gifts, it's Disney, so we're talking about super strength or being able to lift buildings or growing flowers out of nowhere or controlling the weather. So we're not talking about normal human gifts, supernatural Disney gifts. There's one member in the family who doesn't have a gift in theory. The spoiler alert is that her gift is actually that she accepts people for their entirety, for who they are, not just for their gift. She helps them basically accept themselves for that and show up authentically as, yes, I have super strength and I can lift buildings. That also means that I have the weight of the world on my shoulders, and the only reason why people need me is to lift stuff for them or to move really heavy stuff for them, and they don't see me as a person. I guess the ending of the movie is really the family realizing like, “Oh, wait. We are whole people, and we are great as whole people not based on our gift.”

I started thinking about how does that apply in real life and how we actually do that to each other. But we do it more from a point of view of sometimes one of the labels is that, “Oh, you are where you went to school.” So you're a Harvard grad or you are where you worked. I mean, we both worked in New York, and we know how much the value of which company you work for, and the title within the company allows you to even be allowed to walk in the building and continue conversation. That’s kind of why I wanted to talk about it. 

Alex Cullimore: I didn't realize it actually came from a concert — we actually just watched that the other week as well. It's a great movie. I would totally recommend it. Actually, I have a friend who worked on the animation of it. So shout out to you, Chris, but you did good. It's a great place. It takes place in Colombia. They have a significant magical realism. Impact is really, really cool. Anyway, I would totally recommend it to anybody. But this identity portion is incredibly important. We are not what we do, and I like that. You like to say it a lot, and I love that you’re saying we're not human doings. We're human beings. We are. We're not just what we do. I think it's very true that we start to identify with things like our job titles. We start to identify and introduce ourselves as I'm a lawyer. I'm a whatever, which is a very semantically specific way to identify ourselves. We say I am this. 

It’s actually interesting. In Spanish, they have like two different versions of the word to be. It’s two different – There’s a different connotation to it. One's more like a core identity and one's just more the transients, where you happen to be, how you happen to feel at the time, not who you are like as a core identity. So it's super interesting to kind of see these illuminated a little bit better in other languages, and it's very hard to get used to when you do something like learn English and then try and learn Spanish or some other many other languages that have that kind of split. We only have one word for it. We just say I am. I am a lawyer, and it becomes this way of describing ourselves. Then we start to identify with that because that's how we use it. It’s not – That can be helpful up to a very certain point, and it can be destructive in a lot of other ways. 

It’s a super interesting concept that we do end up putting these boxes around ourselves, and we create our own expectations. Then we create what we believe other people should have expectations of us as well. Then it kind of self-reinforces, which is a weird trick that we've pulled as humans over ourselves.

Cristina Amigoni: It definitely is, and there's a huge societal expectation and conditioning around this. It's not just – We're not just born feeling this way. We're conditioned to feel this way and think this way. I think generationally it's definitely there. Hopefully, it's breaking down quite a bit, but it's definitely there. I mean, there's the whole, “Hey, this is my son. This is my daughter. And they went to these schools, and here's the resume,” in 30 seconds or less. The elevator speech is not about they’re a kind person, they think about others, they are adventurous, they are whatever it is. It's more about, “Here's all the tangible accomplishments that society will see,” will equate to intelligence and achievement and success based on what. Because at some point, somebody decided that if you go to Harvard and you work in McKinsey, then you're successful. Are you? Is that really the measure of success? I mean, go back to our episode on success a few weeks ago.

Alex Cullimore: It's also funny that we do this. So you assign this when – If you think about it at eulogies, we don't generally just mention, “Auntie was awarded the employee of the month four times and was promoted 2004, 2007, and again in 2009.” Nobody talks about that. They talk about the other connections they had, the memories they have, what that person was like more as a core person. It's kind of a shame that we would wait until the eulogy to identify that as the person. I think a lot of people probably don't even know how other people might be considering them as a person because we'd spend so much time describing them as, “Oh, yes. This is my marketing coordinator. This is somebody who helps me with this. This is like –” That might be some of your relation to them. But you relate to them on a human level, not on a job title level.

Cristina Amigoni: Yeah, exactly. I remember, especially working in McKinsey in New York. I learned pretty quickly that working in McKinsey got me in the door in a lot of places. My job title not having consultant part of it kicked me out of the back door pretty quickly, and I've actually had people that just stopped speaking to me literally, stopped speaking to me in mid-sentence, as soon as they realized I wasn’t part of the consulting group at McKinsey, who then a year or two later, they actually came back and said like, “Oh, my god. I can't believe I didn't take time to get to know you until now, just because of your job title.” I’m like, “You think?” Good to know it's two days before I leave New York.

Alex Cullimore: I'm sure we'll connect now. Thanks though. 

Cristina Amigoni: Yes, exactly. 

Alex Cullimore: I think it's especially destructive to do it because then it becomes this idea that like your identity is granted externally, right? It becomes this idea that, “Well, I want to be CTO or something.” When I have that title, then I will be a person, and then I will have an identity, right? It puts the control externally and it’s not really – I mean, you could go find a company and call yourself CTO, and that's fine. That is I guess one way to achieve that. But then you're still identifying your entire identity based on something external. If you don't do it yourself, then you're waiting for somebody else to grant you that identity that you want, that you feel you need. That will become you. It's kind of painful to see that extraction of control from yourself. You don't have it internally. You're waiting for something to grant you this identity.

Cristina Amigoni: Actually, it's funny because as you were talking about that, it reminded me of yet another movie. You think about the MCU, so anything Avengers-related. It's Thor and his hammer, basically. It’s like having the title of CTO, having gone to a certain school, having whatever label it is that at the moment is worthy. I mean, today, it's Google. 20 years ago, it wasn't Google. There was IBM. It’s now something external telling you that you're worthy. Again, for anybody that has actually seen all the Avengers and MCU movies 250 times like I have, you learned that the big revelation for Thor's that his power doesn't come from the hammer. It's not the hammer that makes him worthy. It's himself and his decisions that make him worthy. So when the hammer is destroyed, it takes him a while, and he goes through the pain of finding his strength without it. That's a lot of what we have to go through when we finally realize that, is that when we leave the CTO job, when we leave the senior director, when we leave the Google, the IBM, the whatever company that gave us the worthiness, what happens to us? We lose who we are, if we attach everything to that.

Alex Cullimore: I'm guessing there's a few people who can relate to that feeling right now because that is something that keeps us held in place. One of the fears we have, we feel like it's going to be hard to change jobs. We feel like it's going to be hard to do. I mean, any change is a little bit difficult to face until you're doing it, until you've done it, right? That's always going to be a certain difficulty. But I think one of the bigger parts is something like that. You have a job title, which gave you X amount of seeming prestige externally, but you don't feel it internally. You're not feeling like this actually matters to you. But you stay in there because you tell yourself, “Well, it pays well. Everybody knows Google. Well, everybody knows that I'm doing this.”

It's very seductive to have that lifestyle and to have that. It's seductive enough to stop us from listening to what we might actually want to do. Or if there is an internal voice saying, “I don't like this. I don't I don't think I want to do this anymore. Oh, I found something else more important.” We stopped thinking about that a while ago. Why are we not going back to that? Because there's something external that seems more valuable, and that is actually one of the number one deathbed regrets is feeling like you lived a life that was somebody else's life, not something true to you, which makes it pretty imperative to listen to that voice. There's a lot at stake.

Cristina Amigoni: There is a lot at stake also because whatever we're feeling internally, we bring out externally, as we always say. So whatever frustration, resentment, sadness, depression, disconnection, and we talked about this with Rick in the past episode, is happening internally, we then manifest it externally in our relationships. So we lash out, we judge others, we are resentful. We attach material nonsense in arguments. Most of it comes from internal turmoil. 

Alex Cullimore: Yeah. In fact, arguably, everything comes from internal turmoil. You have your own perception of the world and this is where – We have it so strongly, and the brain is here to tell you that that is true to help you feel comfortable, even if it's not helpful to you or like creating any happiness. It's just there to remind you that this seems true, and let's hold on to this being true because otherwise we might have a little bit of a shaken identity. That's why I think Encanto has a great connection. I'm sure that’s why a lot of the writers writing the script came up with this. Your identity does not come from what you do. 

It was actually also part of a different Pixar movie, Soul, where they talk about how humans so often conflate their spark, which is the thing that gives the soul direction with a profession. My spark is what I do. It's not really that. It's something that gives you fulfillment. That is more an act of being, not an act of doing. That is something that you exude rather than experience. Or experience rather than accomplishment I suppose is a better way of saying it.

Cristina Amigoni: Yeah, very true. I mean, in the great resignation, attrition, awakening, whatever we want to call it, in that, one of the things that is happening is a lot of the C-suite positions are leaving because they realized that life is not about their title. Life is not about their 100-hour week. So a lot of them are going back to, I don't know, running food trucks or figuring out what it is that gives them passion. Sometimes, it's going back into education and being substitute teachers. Sometimes, it's finding something that's way beyond the I am the CTO, I am an executive VP. Well, you're not. You work as a CTO. You work as an executive VP. That's not who you are. 

Alex Cullimore: Right. If you want examples of that, we are currently living through the Winter Games, which every time the Olympics come up, I think it's a great chance to reflect on what that really means like to chase being the best in the world at something. We have many examples as Americans of top athletes who are well decorated like Michael Phelps, most decorated Olympian of all time. He's got all of the medals, but is he an Olympian? Is that the only thing he is? Because at some point, if the swimming career ends and between the Olympics he still exists, and between every games that he participated in, even the ones after he retired, like he's there. Is he no longer a person because he's no longer a competitive swimmer? Is he no longer a person because he no longer has the gold medals? He's been very open about the mental health struggles that have come with that and come with his pursuit and feeling like he wanted to be the best. He talked about the actual dedication, persistence, and the ability to stay in the pool and do all the things that become a champion swimmer was almost the easy part. Yeah, the rest of it is more difficult. 

If you want a good example of, yeah, it seems like the external goals are good to chase, but it can be destructive. I think Olympians are a good example of that. There's nothing to say that's not an absolutely incredible accomplishment. But if it becomes your identity, it can be really destructive, especially given that we all know as we get older and watch the Olympics come round every year, and we're like, “Oh, my god. They're only 20. Oh, my god. Yeah, that was a long time ago for me.” We feel like that was so young, and they are accomplishing so much. But they also live another 30 years after this, 40 years after, 50 years. What do they do after that? Is that their whole identity? What becomes of the person after that, after you're a CTO, after your VP executive? There's more. So who are you?

Cristina Amigoni: There's so much more. Susan David talks about this when it comes to emotions too, with the attachment and the language limitation of the verb to be in English. Italian is like Spanish. We have two versions to be. The actual to be, which is I am human, that there's no – I may not act like a human all the time, but I am actually human. There's the other one, which is really I stay. I stay in this state. I'm in a state of whatever it is. 

Emotions are the same. We tend to say I'm sad, I'm happy. I’m like, well, unless you're sad, as in sadness is you 24/7, 365 days of every single nanosecond of your life, you're not sad. You feel sad because then it goes away. So just like I am human, I'm never not human. But sadness, hopefully, it goes away. Happiness, unfortunately, does go away too. So it is a momentary state. One of the ways to not get caught up in becoming our emotions is to change the language and to start saying, “I am feeling this,” as opposed to, “I am this.” I try to do it with my kids. When they're going through something, my question is what are you feeling, as opposed to how are you because how are you then tends to get the reaction, “I am this.” Like I’m feeling – Pick on the chart. Here's the 150 emotions. Which ones are you feeling at that moment?

Alex Cullimore: I love it. I'm going to totally rip off Eimear on this one because she came up with this and absolute credit to ever — some our friend who came up with this great semantic trick to go achieve this. This is kind of the quickest way I know of to go achieve in the moment more mindful thinking. She has exactly that kind of semantic layer of going from I am angry, to I feel angry, to I noticed that I'm feeling angry. That you get this third level of abstraction where you can notice that you're feeling it because the emotion is not wrong to have. You should acknowledge it. You shouldn't just put it away, ignore it. You acknowledge it. You also are not it and you are now interacting with it, rather than it running you, it being you, and you feeling like you're controlled by it. It’s just a quick, great way to separate and feel more mindful in your own skin, which I think is a great thing to ask yourself when you're coming to questions of identity. Am I feeling accomplished? Am I feeling CTO? Am I CTO?

Cristina Amigoni: Yeah. Are you CTO? Do you ever want to be CTO?

Alex Cullimore: I don't care. I don't care about jobs. That's what – If that's – I think the use of it is helping people, maybe helps them understand quicker, so we can have a different conversation. This is generally what I might happen to interact with as a day-to-day task list. If that helps you, great, let's call it that. Let's call it this. If this job description fits that, and it helps you understand it, that's great. This is perfectly honest and open communication. The second, I am a CTO and whatever that means to me, it becomes easy to then be angry at people who don't have the same version of CTO. You can be resentful when they don't like treat it how you want it treated. It becomes much more destructive at that point.

Cristina Amigoni: It definitely does. Yeah. It takes a lot of rewiring, but I've really recently tried to answer the question when people asked me, “What do you do,” to not start with I am. Well, first of all, because, as you know, we don't have titles really in our company on purpose, we have them, but they're very long sentences. They're not real titles. So I don't have a title on purpose because I'm not just a coach. I'm not just a consultant. I'm not just a co-founder. So I'm not going to pick any of those or any other ones. I move it to I work as and actually I move it to, well, we have a company, and this is what the company does because what I do within the company also changes every three seconds. So it doesn't really help anyone to understand what my role is at this point. 

Alex Cullimore: We’re also a small company. We’re going to have to do everything that comes along. So at some point, we're trying to fit enough to fill what the company does. The company does these things. So that means I do whatever day-to-day accomplishes these things. It doesn't help to have that.

Cristina Amigoni: Working as a co-founder of the company, we're always going to be involved in pretty much everything that happens. So it's going to always be a challenge to be narrowed down to just this, especially since then we have this tendency in the workplace to create boxes around it. If you're just that, so if you're the CTO, then don't get involved, don't speak to, don't have any interest, don't have an opinion on marketing because that's not your thing. You're supposed to stay in your CTO box. As everybody knows, by now who has listened to the podcast, I am severely allergic to boxes.

Alex Cullimore: I think boxes is a great analogy for it because we do put these ideas of like something that just holds a container. It has a certain amount of space, and there's nothing beyond or before that, and that's just not how life works. We almost inevitably will create pain within ourselves and easily within our relationships with other people when we create boxes around them or around ourselves. It's very hard sometimes to see the boxes we put on ourselves because they're built with assumptions that we treat as facts. But it's a little bit easier sometimes to see the boxes that we might be putting on other people. If we can see that, we might be able to turn that light inward and be like, “Okay, I'm setting up some expectation that doesn't need to be made for myself.”

Cristina Amigoni: I love that you brought that about others because we do that with others too. It's easier. It's easier to label. It's easier to box people in, and we limit them. We limit them. We limit our connection with them. We limit not only their potential but our collective potential by doing that. It’s like, “Well, you were hired to do this. Let's keep you in there,” which consequently just de-souls them, if that's a word. It's a word now. 

Alex Cullimore: It’s a word now. 

Cristina Amigoni: It’s a word now. It sucks the soul out of them. That's what de-soul mean. And you're just really lowering the overall performance and potentials of the collective by boxing them in. Again, I'm not saying that everybody should be doing everything. That's not possible. But everybody has strengths. Everybody has working geniuses, as we talked in the past. So let's figure that out. Let's figure out how can we best not box people in to the point of limiting them and providing a space where they can grow, get out of their comfort zone safely with support, and to find things that maybe they didn't even know they were great at and they loved. 

Alex Cullimore: Yeah. Because then you are accessing far greater potential. So if you're thinking of this only from a value drive point of view, there's still value there. That's the whole point. There is even more to unlock of this person that they can help provide, and they're going to feel better about it, and you're going to gain more from it. Even if you are trying to treat, which we strongly advocate you do not, even if you're trying to treat your employees as just what they're doing for you, there's more to be gained if you treat them with this greater flexibility, and it's easy. 

Just to clarify as well, like we as humans need some kind of labels and boxes sometimes because you can't use the actual amount of calories it would take to take every situation in life as totally new. See every bit of nuance in it. Of course, we're going to have some categorization. It's just a good personal reminder to be able to break these down and start to identify when you might be holding on to a category too long, and it's no longer helping you interact with somebody or yourself.

Cristina Amigoni: Yeah. One of the things that I think can help, especially from a leadership perspective, when you're having your weekly one on ones and, yes, please have your weekly one on ones, not once a month, not once a quarter, not reschedule and then never schedule again, weekly one on ones. If you have too many people on your team, it means your team is too big, and find somebody else to lead them, to co-lead them. So when you have your weekly one on ones, one of the questions to ask is like what is it that you would like to be doing that you're not doing at this point. That's when you can start. We're not erasing the task list. We're not erasing the stuff that you are doing and taking credit away from it or not putting the time and energy to it. But where are we not expanding your energy and skills and strengths and passions where maybe it can't happen tomorrow, but it can happen in the next few weeks or in the next few months so that we keep reinventing that wheel because we all grow. As we grow, that box is never going to be enough for us.

Alex Cullimore: I love that idea. I was recently exposed to the idea that you should kind of differentiate between what people want to do is like career growth. What do you maybe want to continue so that you long term and the secondary bucket? What do you want exposure to? There's two huge benefits to having exposure to things that are outside your normal – Well, there’s three, now that I think of it. Three huge benefits of being exposed outside of your normal workflow. First of all, you might discover something that you really like and want to grow and you have a really good skill set for. Now, then you have a greater connection to the company, the mission, and whatever you can provide within it. 

Secondarily, you might find you don't like it, at which point you no longer have to have this guessing game over your head to be like, “Well, I think I'd really like to do that thing. I wish I was able to do this thing. I wish I was able to do that thing,” and slowly gaining resentment or whatever. I think it's interesting how much we put like a box around ourselves and how much if you allow people to explore it, you end up finding either more full expressions where people can grow and change and allow themselves to be different people. But also, you might find ways that they start feeling like they're left out of things. Or they wanted to do something and they won't be able to because if they are able to sample that, you'll either find a new gift or you can let go of the worry that you're missing out on something.

Cristina Amigoni: Yeah, definitely. There's quite a lot that needs to be, a lot of grace that needs to be given when that transition happens. It's not that easy. I think we've talked about it with Nina because she helps a lot of people go through transitions. There is that time in the hallway that needs to be cherished, instead of rushing to go back into the door that you just left, or banging your head against whatever door you want to get into, or panicking to spend time in the hallway. It’s easier said than done, believe me. I spent a year and a half to two in the hallway recently, and it is very difficult. It's very difficult to not know where the path is going to not even believe that there is a path. It becomes very tunnel vision. It becomes very hopeless to know that I had an identity. I knew it wasn't the right one. I left it. I consciously left it. I made the decision to leave it. Now, I'm lost, and I can't blame anybody except for myself for feeling lost.

Alex Cullimore: Yeah. It does feel ungrounded when you're in that hallway, the hallway being the transition between two points. You've decided to leave x and become y, which, again, is almost terrible semantics on my part because, ideally, you are still existing in this “hallway.” So you are still forming, growing in that. It's potentially both useful in terms of thinking about I still want to get somewhere. I have some next thing I'm working towards. But don't forget that you also exist. Just because you're in the hallway doesn't mean you're not attached, and that's where the identity kind of becomes both valuable and a trap if you don't treat it as something you always are.

Cristina Amigoni: Yeah. It’s funny because now that I think back, what helped me was to like go on the external validation, the external of the hammer. I let go of the hammer defining who I was. So when I left our old job, where my identity was very much tied to my title, my team, the people I worked with, what I did, and when I left, and I was desperately searching for that next title, belonging, worthiness, and I wasn't finding it. Once I got to the place of realizing that it didn't matter, that I existed regardless, that I could contribute and be valuable regardless, that's when it all kind of happened. That's when – Again, went to no title. No anything set in stone that's externally validated. I can be whatever I need to be. I am who I am all the time. I can do whatever I need to do whenever it's needed.

Alex Cullimore: Yeah. It might be that some personalities like a little bit more structure that wants specific like guidelines, and it's helpful to have guidelines, especially while growing. We'll have people that will mentor you and help you guide along different paths. But it's good to remember. It doesn't have to be limiting. If the path starts to feel limiting, it's okay to push those boundaries a little bit. It very much works between the two of us that there are no titles because it's very much a purposeful absence. We don't need this to be a title because that's really not going to help if we're trying to identify different areas. We already know which areas we are strong in, and we'll ask each other for the help we need. It’s not because it's – That's not what defines us. It's just our ability to work together that ends up making this more successful.

Cristina Amigoni: Yeah. We know the areas of frustration, and we know that sometimes we have to just suck it up and do those as well. We know the areas where we perform best, and so we try to give each other space to be in that. We also know the areas that are uncomfortable but are good for us to stretch our comfort zone in, and so we kind of let go of that. It's like would it be easier for me to do that every single time? Yeah, it would be. Is it worth it for me to be doing it all the time? Maybe not. What if we give each other the chance to get out of your comfort zone? Try it out. If you absolutely hate it, that will go back to the one person doing that all the time.

Alex Cullimore: I think that's the important part as well. There's a lot of thoughts around discovering your why, your purpose, yourself. Then you go out, and people say you go find yourself. But you don't really find yourself. In my experience, you have to test and you end up discovering things that work. It’s a matter of trying on and living with and knowing that the first steps, even if you are pretty sure this is something you're going to love, probably going to hurt a little bit, just because it's new. It's a new experience. There's a lot to learn. It's going to feel very foreign. Even if the thing you aren't doing as much anymore, you didn't like, the comfort of the known from that will be very alluring, and that's okay. It's okay to have that. It's okay to know that even as you move towards something, it's going to be uncomfortable. 

But it's worth remembering that this is a matter of experimentation and actually living in these different versions and trying these different things. It allows you to grow a more holistic view of yourself because you're not trapped to one alleyway that you've defined for yourself I do change management, I do coaching, whatever it is. It’s just one thing. Why bother with one thing when everything's going to overlap anyway? We're just working.

Cristina Amigoni: Yes. We definitely are. The author of – Her name escapes me now, but she's the author of Multipliers and of Impact Players. She defines that very well. She thinks that one of the – In Impact Player, she talks about org charts. She talks about them how they have become this weapon to tell people what they're not allowed to do and who they're not allowed to speak to, as opposed to providing guidance on how to utilize people's strengths and helping people grow. So what happens is when org charts are used as weapons to box people in, which they are in the vast majority of the time, and in some cases there's great leaders that don't do that. In a lot of cases, unfortunately, there's greatly – There's leaders that do create those boxes. 

What happens is like when you are faced with a problem, with a question, with an innovation, with a new idea, none of those are boxed in. None of those stayed within the one tiny little roll. This is all just going to be about change management. This is all just going to be about data. This is all just going to be about technology. I'm like, “I'm sorry, I always say this. But unless the technology is used by desks and chairs, humans are actually going to need to be involved,” which means change management is going to have to be involved. Marketing is most likely going to have to be involved. Onboarding is going to have to be involved. Customer support is going to have to be involved. Then the list keeps going and going.

Alex Cullimore: That's why we specifically banned the word just because every time you whip out the word just, you're isolating something that I think in 99% of cases is far too limiting. In the last 1% of cases, it's just a little bit too limiting.

Cristina Amigoni: Yes. It's just a technology transformation. That's my favorite one. Call me when that doesn't work out.

Alex Cullimore: Or don't.

Cristina Amigoni: Or don’t. Actually, I just thought about that. Actually, don’t call me when that doesn't work out because I don't want to fix it.

Alex Cullimore: Just to give people a grounding point then, if you're in the middle of an identity battle, what would be your pieces of advice, as far as identifying when you might be locked into an identity that's too trapping, and what would be a piece of advice for being in the hallway?

Cristina Amigoni: Well, I would say the first thing, we've said multiple times, is listen to your body. Your body knows way before your mind can rationalize whatever is going on. So your body will tell you if you are disconnected, like Rick talked about. Your body will tell you if you are feeling boxed in. You'll have physiological reminders of that, whether your throat is closing, your chest feels heavy, your stomach is churning. There's just different signals that your body will tell you this situation is not ideal. This situation is not letting you be you. So start paying attention to those and then go kind of through the steps that you talked about that Emer pointed out. It’s like, “Oh, I'm feeling my stomach churn. Why is my stomach churning? What is that telling me? What situation just caused this?” Start unpacking that. 

Journaling is a great way to do that. Talking to somebody else about it, whether it's a coach, a friend, a coworker, whoever it is. A supportive space is another great way to do this. But externalize whatever is happening so that you can then unpack it. Once you unpack it, then start looking for patterns. Does this happen every time I'm not invited to meetings, or I'm invited to meetings with this topic? Does this happen every time somebody asks me? What do you do when you have to answer with I am, or you feel like you have to answer with I am?

So then kind of start going through what are the signals and then dream. I mean, really create that dream of what would you like to be. Who are you? If you had to write a paragraph about who you are, maybe your eulogy, what's in that? What's in that eulogy? Alex, those are some of my suggestions. What do you suggest, Alex?

Alex Cullimore: I totally agree. I'd love that. I think that's very well said on all of those counts. I think listening to your body is the first one and a lot – I think it's easy to get trapped into one of two binaries of feeling attached to emotions. I am angry. There's like that camp on one side of like very, very much connected to only the emotions and experiencing emotions as being. Then there's the other camp that says, “Okay. Well, if I can't be attached to emotions, emotions are bad. Just stop feeling them and try to treat yourself as much as possible like an automaton,” right? It’s weirdly not – Neither works, right? 

I like how Susan David says it. She says emotions are data. That emotions are just telling us pieces of what to do. It doesn't mean that's the only thing. It doesn't mean it's overriding. It doesn't mean – But if you ignore it, you're ignoring some crucial piece of the equation here, which is why I love the steps that Emer takes of I am this, I'm feeling this, I noticed that I'm feeling this, right? Because then you've separated enough to be like, “Okay, now let's treat it,” and you go back to exactly what you're talking about where you evaluate this, see the patterns, see the trends. Let yourself have some patience with that because it's not an easy experience. It's going to be painful. But it's going to be worth it if you hold with it. It will not feel like there's an answer for a long time, and that's okay. It'll feel like this is lack, and there's nothing, and there's a void, and there's nothing to hold on to, and that's okay. 

That’s when it's especially helpful to have coaches to give you the continual guidance because you can move a little quicker through this, and they might suggest places that you can have a hold or hold on to until you can get to the next thing because that lack of connection can feel very scary. It is, but it's also worth it to start to define who you are as a larger hole.

Cristina Amigoni: Yeah, definitely. Yeah, I was just thinking about something very quickly, how it's a daily practice. There's definitely – The body will react, the mind will react, the heart will react to triggers. One of my triggers actually happened yesterday morning, was when Alex Raymond, who were speaking at his conference in April, sent us some social media posts about us that we can use to promote the conference and in our speaking engagement there. He put our pictures and our job titles, which he probably got from LinkedIn or whatever we may have some form of titles somewhere under them. My first reaction, I had a pretty strong trigger. Not strong but significant trigger at seeing the limitation of having, mind you, four titles under my name, not one. 

Even that, I found it to be claustrophobic. I was claustrophobic because I kept picturing like the people reading this and thinking like, “Oh, that's just who she is.” I'm like, “No, that's not me. I'm not just those titles. I'm not any of those titles.” I had to go through that for myself to actually step away, realize what the function of that post was, of that picture of using those titles, and realize that it had nothing to do with my identity. It did not define me. If people read that and were wondering, “Well, why isn't she this? Or why isn't she that? And what happened to her that she's supposed to be?” Then realize like, “Wait, I'm way more than that. I'm none of those and all of those, and I'm much more.” For anybody that is interested at the conference, they'll find out when they come to our speaking event. Anybody else, it doesn't really matter. So I shouldn't really be bothered by what's written under my picture.

Alex Cullimore: That's a pretty great encapsulation of the full journey and all that happened since the email we got on Thursday, which – So that's the three-day journey. This is how it gets easier over time. 

Cristina Amigoni: I really feel like yesterday morning.  I went from all reactions, all energy levels, roller coaster to drafting the email back to Alex Raymond to have him change it to then realize that I did not start the sentence to realize like, “Wait, I don't care. Why do I care?”  Because that's not who I am, and people will find out.

Alex Cullimore: Yeah. There's a lot of power with that. Like you just experienced, it's difficult to get to. Even if you start to get there, it's difficult to stay there. It’s not like this is difficult to say, “Oh, you should punish yourself for not doing it.” It’s just something that is very inherent to humans and also not always helpful. They talk about evolutionary misfires, like a moth will fly around in circles and hit a candle because it's actually just programmed in his brain to fly based on reference to the moon. So a bright light like a candle feels like the moon. So it goes in a circle because that's where the reference point is and just an evolutionary misfire. We are here to create boxes and identities because it helps us navigate the world up to a certain extent. But if we let that carry too long, we end up as a moth in a candle, which is less fun.

Cristina Amigoni: Slightly, slightly less. Well, another great conversation.

Alex Cullimore: Thank you guys so much for joining us, and we hope that helps identify some boxes you might be having. Please feel free to reach out because we love talking about identity in boxes. Like Rick talked about, you get to like -- When you get to see people in them and help people identify some of these, there's something really magical about that, and that's what we love to do. So feel free to reach out if you have those. If not, that's great. I hope this helps either way, but enjoy your day, and thank you so much for listening.

Cristina Amigoni: Yes, enjoy. And thank you. 

[OUTRO]

Cristina Amigoni: Thank you for listening to Uncover the Human, a Siamo podcast. 

Alex Cullimore: Special thanks to our podcast operations wizard, Jake Lara; and our score creator, Raechel Sherwood. 

Cristina Amigoni: If you have enjoyed this episode, please share, review and subscribe. You can find our episodes wherever you listen to podcasts. 

Alex Cullimore: We would love to hear from you with feedback, topic ideas or questions. You can reach us at podcast@wearesiamo.com, or at our website, wearesiamo.com, LinkedIn, Instagram or Facebook. We Are Siamo is spelled W-E A-R-E S-I-A-M-O.

Cristina Amigoni: Until next time, listen to yourself, listen to others and always uncover the human.

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