Make Room For Defying Gravity
Despite my Viking genes, Texas upbringing, and 15 years of New York City grit and hustle, I am an absolute softy when it comes to show tunes and Broadway musicals.
My favorite experience to take visitors to in NYC is a small basement bar in the West Village that has a piano player leading a sing-a-long every night. The entire bar knows the words to every song, and the closer you are standing to the piano, the better a singer you likely are. When they inevitably play One Day More from Les Miserable, the regulars all know who will take the five leads, and the rest of the bar knows when to come in on the eight-part harmony for the finale. It'll give you chills. (I am intentionally not including the name of this bar because I don't want to wait in any more lines to get in - but if you ask, I'll tell you.)
That's why, when my wife asked me to see the new Wicked movie, she knew I'd say yes, even though she asked me to go on a Sunday during Fantasy Football season. That is how much I love my wife and appreciate her theatrical upbringing, her tolerance of me singing along loudly when we put on a Broadway playlist on a road trip, and my more common binge of Red Zone on Sundays.
I knew some of the songs from Wicked but having never seen it, didn't fully appreciate the storyline. I grew up loving The Wizard of Oz, but this was a new twist that I thoroughly enjoyed.
As the movie progressed and I more fully understood the power dynamics of the characters in Act One, I couldn't help but think about how many Elphabas there are in the world that remained hidden for far too long because their "green" was a little too much for others.
I have spent a lot of my life with people like that.
In 2012, I helped build an entrepreneurship academy in Santiago, Chile. Over the next seven years, our programs had more than 1,400 students from 47 countries participate. Our youngest was 13, our oldest was 67. Many of them were the Elphabas of their family and home country. They were misunderstood and saw the world differently, and they were some of the most fascinating people I have ever met. I am still in contact with many of them, having invested in their companies, coached them and their friends, hired them and helped them get visas to the US, and have an active group chat with those who found friendship in this community amongst other untapped geniuses.
Through that process, I realized something had changed within me and that something was not the same.
Only recently have I let my "green" show as much as I have. I have always been a little much for the places I grew up as I made my way in this world. I learned and played by the rules so no one would question what else was happening beneath the surface. Being good at the stained glass mascarade on Sundays in Texas meant no one saw my "green" clearly, and I could move unnoticed amongst those that it would be most perplexing to. I learned to be okay with only being partially known. I was hiding in plain sight, which was lonely, but if I was flying solo, at least I was flying free.
But over the past few years, I've decided to try to defy gravity.
I've decided to be more open about not playing by the rules of someone else's game.
In doing so, I'm finding more I am not the only one. More people who are through accepting limits, just because someone says they're so. Sure, there are some things that can't be changed, but until we all try, we'll never know.
I believe that we all deserve the chance to fly.
And more and more, I'm convinced that when we get clear on what special and unique gift we have, our "green" - no one is ever going to bring us down.
Video That You Need Today
Shout out to my friend, author, and playwright Jared Glenn, one minute reminder of what really matters.
Workshop I Wish I Was Attending
Edward Sullivan, my Executive Coach for 4 years and the one who recruited me into the industry is leading an incredible workshop at the Modern Elder Academy that I know some of you reading this would greatly benefit from attending. Check it out!
Essay I Will Read Again
The CEO of one of the leading AI companies in the world wrote a 14,000 word essay on why he is hopeful about the future ahead. His concept of a "condensed 21st century," where all the advancements that would happen by 2100 pre-AI will happen in the next 10 years, is both incredibly exciting and incredibly concerning all at the same time.
Dario Amodei
