Eric Haupt

Welcome to another Sunday Friends! I’m glad you’re here.

Here is your Sunday Musings, a quick dose of what I’m exploring and thinking about. Please feel free to forward this along to friends. What do you think about the images? Should I keep them? Add more?

Diversifying Your Identity

I met twenty or so new people who I will work closely with off and on over the next six months. During the ice breaker activity, we had to talk about ourselves a bit. Everyone gave the usual responses. I worked here, my job is this, my marital status is X, I have 2.5 children, I’m here because I have to be. I hope I don’t get a bad grade or fail. This made me wonder: is our entire identity tied so closely to our profession, academic performance, and marital status? Looking at myself… the answer is uncomfortably, yes. Too closely.

I’m not as tied up as I was, say, five years ago. I've started a business, started writing, and have had such a fulfilling career that I continue to do it by choice. I have a wide gamut of friends with interesting lifestyles. I think we all have these aspects of our identity, we just need to recognize it and invest our stock a little more broadly.

In six months, I'm going to hold a social event with these same people and do another ice breaker. This time, I'm going to talk about the things I really care about and do to enjoy my life: this blog, my vlog (which I will have started by then), my entrepreneurship, the skills I'm learning, and what I do with friends and family (not the quantity or whether or not I have them).

Mark Manson talks about the importance of diversifying your identity much more eloquently than I can could… So I’ll let him say it.

When you have money, it’s always smart to diversify your investments. That way if one of them goes south, you don’t lose everything. It’s also smart to diversify your identity, to invest your self-esteem and what you care about into a variety of different areas—business, social life, relationships, philanthropy, athletics—so that when one goes south, you’re not completely screwed over and emotionally wrecked.

Side note: I’ve been a Mark Manson fan ever since “The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck”

In closing, if you’re like me and found some introspection to be productively uncomfortable, that’s great - we’re growing again. Here’s something from Ryan Holiday’s Daily Stoic (thanks for turning me onto him Dillon) to help and two other thoughts. Events don’t upset us, Beliefs do. Control what you can and ignore the rest.

Have an amazing week!

-e

What I’m Reading Watching This Week

The Rise of Jordan Peterson (Vimeo, Amazon).

Bottom Line Up Front: Worth the watch, thought provoking and uncomfortable. If you have a person you can have reasonable disagreements with, watch it with them and discuss over a glass of your favorite beverage; you’ll learn something.

I didn’t think I would like this documentary. Prior to watching, I’d read his “12 Rules for Life” and I’ve seen the bombastic viral videos. I like a lot of what he talks about, but not everything. Merely mentioning his name incites strongly held feelings.

In my circles people think of @jordonbpeterson as either a brilliant man, pursuing truths and speaking needed messages or as the next closest thing to the anti-Christ, and phobic of anything and everything. As I alluded, I’m interested in those with strongly held opinions and especially those firebrands who blow up in a big way.

I think the documentary did well in portraying a complex person with strengths and flaws, strongly held beliefs and imperfect (like all of us) methodologies of expression and implementations. There are some uncomfortable questions and thought mazes that came from the watch.

I think the film did a good job in interviewing both ardent fans and critics and helping to articulate their points of view.

Straight from the documentary’s description. “A rare, intimate glimpse into the life and mind of Jordan Peterson, the academic and best-selling author who captured the world’s attention with his criticisms of political correctness and his life-changing philosophy on discovering personal meaning.

Christened as the most influential public intellectual in the western world, University of Toronto psychology professor Jordan Peterson skyrocketed to fame after he published a controversial viral video series entitled “Professor Against Political Correctness” in 2016. Within 2 years, he sold over 3 million copies of his self-help book, 12 Rules For Life, and became simultaneously branded by some as an academic rockstar selling out theatres around the world, and by others as a dangerous threat to progressive society.”

Jordan Peterson certainly didn’t become a phenom overnight, this had been going on smaller scale for a while and it just takes one video to go viral. But I find it fascinating for a single person to become simultaneously a sellout speaker and nearly avatar for a “movement” and a top-tier “threat” to progressive society.

Quote I’m Musing (again)

“When the winds of change blow, some people build walls and others build windmills”

-Chinese Proverb

I had a really great quote I’d been musing all week regarding frustration and I heard this quote during some random show. It was a stopping moment for me.

All week I’d been circling frustration. Reading about stress and doggedly working my way through it. I thought “Is this a real quote?” Apparently it is; and I love it.

I was building walls to buffer the winds of frustration and fear of failure in this transition. I think, as humans, we find security in the familiar and it’s a struggle to change even when we think we are open people.

I took a little 10 minute meditation session to let myself just embrace it; allowing the fear or frustration to wash over me and try to look at it as if I was an observer and not a participant – I’m not a guru, I didn’t have some great insight or revelation. But it helped me deal with the change and renewed my belief that I will benefit from it. Take the negatives I’m experiencing and turn them into something positive. “Hey, I get to learn about something new and get a new perspective” Instead of “Oh man, this isn’t even something I’ll deal with in my profession”.

Which musing is your favorite? What else do you want to see or what should I eliminate? Any other suggestions? Just send a tweet to @erichaupt on Twitter and put #SundayMusings at the end so I can find it. Or, eric@erichaupt.com for long form email.

Have a wonderful week, I’ll see you Sunday.
-e