Let's talk about two extremes of foolishness. On one side, those who refuse to change one bit. "You have to love me as I am," they demand in a childish tone, lumping in all their flaws. On the other side, those willing to erase themselves entirely and bring her stones from the moon just to make it work.
Both extremes miss the mark spectacularly. You have to draw a total distinction between the "deep self" (the why) and the outer costume (the what).
If I open an AI model and ask it "Who am I?", I'll get a grocery list: you wrote a poetry book, so you're a poet. You advise businesses, so you're a strategist. You're an entrepreneur, a dancer, a father, a divorcee, and a sculptor. "But who am I really?", I'll try to insist, and it'll answer you to hell and back.
The truth is that I'm not what I do. I'm what ignites me. The engine that generates the actions. The "reason" I get out of bed in the morning — that's the real essence. The actions and costumes change every season. This has always been true, but today it's critical.
The Pose Is Not You
So don't look for someone who loves your pose. What you happen to be doing right now and how you happen to look. Certainly not how it directly affects their wallet or comfort. If someone is drawn to you because of money or appearance, that's not who you are. That's the byproduct of who you are.
So who the hell are you? I swear, I have no idea.
Me, for instance? It took me years to figure out. It's not "writing" and it's not "consulting." What drives me is the urge to take things apart down to their atoms. To take an existing perception, shatter it, and reassemble something that actually works.
That's the engine that created everything: it's what I did when I questioned my faith and dismantled the God I was raised on; it's what I did in the poetry book that documented that journey; and it's what allowed me to live seven years in an impossible mixed relationship with a religious woman.
It's also what I do today in business. It's what I do with every company that walks through my door to decode its situation. It's the existential string that makes my resonance chamber hum. True love must be aimed at that engine.
It's True in Bed, It's True in Business
To make this a little less sappy, let's move to business. This is precisely Simon Sinek's idea in "Start With Why." Every business worth its salt knows the question isn't what we sell, but why.
That's what makes the customer connect, love us, choose us.
You sell luxury watches? That's pretentious and dull. It's boring. It sends the customer off to compare technical specs ad nauseam.
But if you sell bronze watches — because you're in love with the idea of a living, breathing raw material, affected by skin and sunlight, changing alongside the person who wears it? Oh. Now the pupils dilate. The customer isn't buying a watch. They're buying the "why." The story.
Love, identity, and meaning are all narrative constructions. To understand the mechanics behind them, explore the discipline of narrative engineering.
