Our True Identity
Who am I? Who are you? How do we define ourselves? The answers to questions like this are extremely important.
These are a few of the things I thought about when I read Coach Jackson’s newsletter (“The Culture Factory”) earlier this week. I was reminded of the very first blog I wrote almost four years ago, Live Like A Champion. In this post, I am going to speak on a similar idea from a different perspective. I hope you enjoy it.
Over the last couple of years, my family and I have gone through a lot of life changes. If you would have asked me what I did for a living at any point in time between the years 2003-2015, I would have proudly said, “I’m a high school football coach.” It was a badge of honor that I wore, and it was much more than just a job to me. Much like many of my peers, it defined who I was.
Fast forward to today, and now I work as a high school assistant principal. I love the work that I do each day, and I think I am doing exactly what I should be doing at this point in my life. However, as I was making the transition from one role to the other, I experienced a lot of cognitive dissonance. I had spent so much time and effort trying to become the best coach I could be, and even though I was certain I was supposed to make the move into administration, I still wrestled with a lot of negative feelings and emotions in the process. Everything that I had worked for… Everything that I thought I had wanted… Everything that I had used to identify myself with for the majority of my life… was now gone.
It was a difficult transition for me. However, after a lot of reflection, I finally snapped out of the funk that I had found myself in.
I realized that I had not changed. My job may have changed, but I haven’t. I am still the same person. I still care deeply about helping people realize their potential and achieve their goals. I still love “coaching.” The only difference is that the people I coach now are just a little bit older. I have reflected on this a lot over the last couple years, and the most important thing that I have realized is that our job is what we do, not who we are. If we allow our jobs to define us, we are setting ourselves up for some serious problems. I made a conscious choice to change jobs, and I still struggled with this identity crisis. A lot of people are forced to change jobs or careers. How much worse could the potential identity crisis be for them when they have no say in the matter???
In the quote at the top of the page, Coach Jackson was talking about his whole team, but I think it’s a very similar concept to what I just shared about my own personal experience. He is acknowledging his program’s true identity (leadership factory), and he is explaining what they do (play football).
What if we did that with all of our organizations? What if we truly believed that our schools were actually leadership academies that happen to offer Math, Science, English, History, and Elective classes? What if our banks were actually leadership academies that happened to offer financial services? What if…. I think you get the point…
Take that idea and apply it to any organization. It doesn’t have to be a “leadership academy.” Your true identity can be whatever you really want it to be, but you have to do the work and be reflective in order to decide what that is.
Champions are not champions because they win a certain number of games. They win games because they are champions before they ever step on to the field.
What’s your true identity? Your job title describes what you do, not who you are.
What’s the true identity of your company or organization? Let it be something greater than the product or service you sell/deliver.
I feel like I end up coming back to purpose and core values so often when I write, but I think that happens because I believe those things are extremely important. Here are a few of my most-read blogs on these topics over the last few years. If you want to dive a little deeper, this would be a great place to start.
As always, thank you so much for reading. I hope you found it useful!