[AndrewKemendo]

If what I _do_ is be a Google employee and all I _am_ is a Google employee, what room is there left to grow?

Because it is itself the process of growing. It is an intermediate phase.

Using myself as an example I know where I want to be in the next 20 years, but I also know there are some intermediate steps to get there. All of those require my identity to be tied to the thing I am working on in order for me to

1. Truly dedicate the work needed to make it successful and

2. signaling to the world that I am tied to these successes and organizations.

You know that Elon musk (or insert person) was part of Paypal/SpaceX/Tesla/SolarCity (or insert company) because he ties his personality to it.

[jedunnigan]

>Because it is itself the process of growing. It is an intermediate phase.

I think you missed what I was saying, you are conflating issues as well. I believe you can be tied to your successes and dedicate yourself to something without it consuming your identity.

I am not saying that what you do is not a part of who you are, of course it is. But I believe there is a greater whole being ignored when your identity is limited to what you do at any given time.

Said differently: I simply don't believe you can be something external to yourself. Certainly you can trick yourself into thinking that it is who you are (in whatever "phase" of life you are in), but again, IMO, that is a reductive line of thinking.

As for the Elon Musk example, you are flipping the conversation. You are attributing personality traits to a companies actions. Of course that will happen, a company is made up of people who make decisions. That does not mean the company makes the man.

[AndrewKemendo]

I simply don't believe you can be something external to yourself. Certainly you can trick yourself into thinking that it is who you are (in whatever "phase" of life you are in), but again, IMO, that is a reductive line of thinking.

That's the crux of it and I think is wrong with lot's of examples to prove otherwise.

Look at any U.S. Marine. They ARE Marines, or any Olympic athlete, they are whatever their sporting role is.

Of course setting up the idea as though the only way to do it is to "trick yourself" makes it impossible to refute so I will just leave it at this:

Common startup wisdom seems to believe that if you want to be the founder of a billion dollar company, you probably need to "trick yourself," or however you want to say it, into believing you are your company.

[jedunnigan]

Fair enough, my wording was a bit more limiting than I meant it to be. But I hear you, and you make some good points.

I guess I'll just use an old saying to put it one other way: 'the river is separate from the bed on which it flows'.

[mattgreenrocks]

It's very reductive, and it's also supported by culture. Culture wants to objectify you into being the x guy, whether it's FP evangelist or maintainer of $COOL_OSS_PROJECT or whatever.

Resist that for your own sake. You cannot reinvent yourself if you've cast your identity in stone.