If I met you for the first time and asked you to introduce yourself to me, what would you say?
CEO at XYZ, Entrepreneur, Musician, Makeup Artist, Teacher, Priest, Mother, Adventurer…
What you are referring to is your dominant identity, and also your dominant vulnerability.
Because we hang our coat of self-worth and confidence on our top one or two dominant identities, if anything were to happen to those identities (lost job, the son left home, music gig didn’t go well…), we will stumble.
We are as strong or as weak as our dominant identity.
It helps to –
1/ Spread the risk and have a few equally balanced identities to lean on
2/ Pivot on an identity that’s intrinsic to you( I am a teacher, devotee..) Both of these will make us a bit weather-proof