Coffee on Purpose - Maryann Lombardi

Zipping across the ether and bingo, just like that, ladies and gentlemen, we are live. My name is Scott Perry. I'm the author of Onward! and Chief Difference Maker at Creative on Purpose. If you are ready to beat burnout, make a bigger difference by making better decisions, go to creativeonpurpose.com and grab yourself a complimentary copy of The Burnout Solution. This is Coffee on Purpose, where we have interesting caffeinated conversations with inspiring difference makers. I am delighted to have my friend Marianne Lombardi, no relation to my favorite coach of all time. And we're going to have a conversation about identity, one of the subjects near and dear to our hearts here at Creative on Purpose. Marianne Lombardi, welcome to the broadcast. Please tell our viewers who you are, what you're up to these days, and where can people go to learn more about you and the difference you're making?

Yeah, absolutely. Thank you so much, Scott. I'm thrilled to be here and happy to be talking about this, this topic. So, yeah, as Scott mentioned, my name is Marianne. I'm an entrepreneur and executive I'm a creative coach and an author, and I'm in right now in the revisions cave for my first book, which is titled It's Your Story to Tell: Essays on Identity from a Messy Life Well Lived.

The revision— revisions cave. Is that what I heard you say?

Yes.

I love it.

Yes. Yes. All of us who are in this revisions— I mean, you know, you wrote a book, right? Like, you write a book and then you go, yay, I wrote a book. And then you go back, you're like, wait a second. Now I have to revise said book. So I have been down in that cave revising this, this book and just coming out of that cave right now.

That's awesome. Just so you know, you know, writing a book is like running a marathon, and then revising a book is like running a second marathon. And then when that marathon is over, they take you to the marketing marathon starting line. So yeah, but you look pretty fit. I think you're going to be okay. I think you're going to make it. Well, we're here to talk about identity. And as we were just discussing before we hopped on the live broadcast, there's lots of ways that we could go with this. But I always like to just start with defining our terms. Identity is a word that's getting a lot of play in the culture right now. What does identity mean to you? And how— and why your interest and how does it inform and inspire your work?

Yeah, absolutely. So for me, this journey was really about getting to know myself better. So I think at its core, that is really what identity is about, is understanding self, you know. And so this book came about because of my, my child is non-binary. And when they came out as not identifying with the gender they were assigned at birth, one of the things that it required me to think about was the fact that I was no longer a mother of a daughter.. And I had taken for granted and was really loved the story and the narrative all around this idea of being the mother of a daughter. But now I was no longer that. And in that process, I had to better understand why did that matter so much to me? Why did I was still the mother of this pretty kid, this great kid, you know, who is still the same human doing the same cool stuff. But, but for some reason, I was really attached to that label. And so that sent me down a rabbit hole of, of really unpacking all of the labels and the narratives that I was attached to and really asking myself, well, why? Why is that? So when I think about identity, I really think about it as a journey to better understand ourselves. It's not that we ever, at least in my view, that we somehow find ourselves as a destination. But I think it is a process of really learning who we are in a way that can be applied and deployed in so many other areas of our lives.

Mm, so much good stuff there. I love that you brought up the idea of story and narrative, because I totally agree. I think identity is a story we tell ourselves about ourselves, a story we tell ourselves about other people, a story we tell ourselves about our situation, a story we tell ourselves about the stories we think other people are telling themselves about us. It gets very complicated very, very quickly. And I also love the idea that you brought it up of process, because one of the things that we talk often about at Creative Our Purpose is that you, you know, forge identity and meaning through work. And that doesn't necessarily mean the work that you do as your occupation, as the means to fulfilling your financial responsibilities and obligations. But, you know, work at its most basic level is just the exchange of energy by living things to make change happen. And so, you know, you can, you can build identity and forge meaning through your occupation if it happens to have turned out to be your vocation. And if you're one of those people, kudos to you. That's a hard thing to do. But we do it in our relationships as spouses, parents, friends, neighbors. And we might do it in our hobbies, our side hustles, our passion projects, or just, you know, the things that we care about. So, I just feel like identity is something that's always being forged, but most often kind of in the background. I don't think we spend a lot of conscious— we don't naturally spend a lot of our conscious energy thinking about like, who am I? And who do I want to become? And so just curious about any reflections on that, but also curious about sharing more about your journey, like what have you learned as you've been unpacking identity as it applies to you and your relationship with your child?

Yeah. So I think first and foremost, so much of our identity is provided for us, right? And part of this journey in this book was really trying to distinguish between what part of our identity is something that's provided to us, that is told to us, required of us, expected of us, and how much of our identity is really something that we choose. And I think often, to your point about we don't spend a lot of time sitting down asking ourselves, so wait a second, who am I? Right. Part of the reason we don't do that is because so much of our journey and our path is prescribed in some way, shape, or another. And that starts when we're born. Right. Like, that starts before we're born. I mean, we get like, you know, a little thing that says you're having a boy, you're having a girl. You know, like, then at that point, you've got all these expectations about who you should be and what you should do and what your opportunities are and all of this kind of stuff. And a lot of times that people aren't necessarily trying to cause a problem by doing it, but it is, but it can cause problems by doing it. So I do think that it helps us to take a minute and step back and go, the lives that we're living, the things that we're choosing, the stories that we tell, are those stories our own or are those stories that somebody has given to us? And to your other point, we also probably shouldn't be telling stories of other people unless those are their stories to tell, not necessarily our stories to tell. So for me in this process, you know, I was really trying to figure out what is my story as I go down that rabbit hole. What is my story? You know, there are certain things like, as absurd as it sounds, I never really knew how to answer the question of where am I from? Right. And it's the first thing everybody asks you. The first thing they ask is where are you from? You know, and but there's a lot to unpack there, right? Like, I've moved a ton. I don't really have any, like, connection to where I grew up. So am I from where I grew up or am I from where I am now? Like, what does it mean to ask somebody where are you from?? You know, so it's questions like that that I unpacked. Even the, even the ideas about gender in and of itself, right? Like, I just assume and take for granted that I'm a woman. Well, what the heck does that mean? You know, and, and I have this really awesome kid who knows the difference between their, their personal identity as well as their sort of like role identity, the place that they fit in the world, right? Like how other people see them. Whereas I never really thought about this, just distinguishing the difference between those two. Sort of how do I feel? I'm very clear about how other people's view of me in the world. But there's a whole other thing underneath that about how do you personally feel about who you are. And then getting to your comment about work, I think the reason this is so important is because it's very hard to figure out what you want to do and where your passions are if you have no clue who you are and what you want and what you need and what your values are. So when I'm thinking about the idea of upstream, right, when we look especially on the coaching side of things, when I'm working with clients and they can't figure out exactly how to get where they want, how to launch the thing, how to be, how to do. Part of that, a huge piece of that comes back to the fact that they have no idea who they are. They have no idea what they want, what they need, and what their values are. They may sort of know that, but they haven't really centered in on those kind of things. And it's very hard to execute on something, especially when you're an entrepreneur, if you have no idea what you want and who you are.

Mm-hmm. Yeah, I love that you brought up values, obviously. You know, with a brand that's got purpose in it, in its title. We are very focused on values. And, you know, and the— so, you know, all we hear about anymore, since thanks to Simon Sinek, is start with why. You have to figure out your why. And you know what, what— and I get that. And I appreciate Simon's, you know, point of view and the work that he's done and just bringing purpose into the conversation. But I don't think your why is at you can't define your why until you define who you are. And who you are is a result of your core values and guiding principles, the stories you tell yourself about yourself, and the way that you interpret and handle the stories other people tell themselves or tell you about yourself. And so I think that I totally agree with the importance of values and And also that, you know, one of the things that Simon says that I don't— Simon Says— that I don't really agree with is, you know, that your why is kind of fixed by the time you're in your early 20s. And I just— that's not been my experience. Like, you know, there may be a thread or theme or, you know, common thread running through your life that connects everything, but We are creatures that are constantly becoming what, what we are becoming. To your point, we can bring consciousness into that. And, you know, without clinging to expectations, desires, or specific outcomes, we can, we can step into our aspiration to become who it is that we wish to become. The other thing that you were saying that what came to my mind around the values and, you know, how we don't really spend all that much time in conscious thought thinking about this is— and totally agree that institutional education and occupation is a big factor in this. You know, we are— our lives are dictated to us, or we accept the, the, the orders, the rules that we're given, um, far too, far too much. Um, but a lot of our identity stories and a lot of our willingness to step into our potential and possibility is tied to trust and worthiness. I'm just wondering if you have any reflections on, um, you know, how you think about those two terms in our quest to become who we seek to become?

Yeah, I think there's a lot to unpack with trust and worthiness. I mean, I think that in general, trust, trust is a, trust is a conundrum, right? Because I think that trust is something that, that we all have to learn and earn and understand in a way that is, you know, deeper. Right. I think that often the hardest trust is really to figure out how to trust ourselves. Right. And that gets at the worthiness, you know. Trusting other people has some boundaries around it in some ways that you can learn how to do that, right? Like, you, you can give people the benefit of the doubt, and then if, if they, they don't do right by you, it's easy to learn how to trust through experience, right, with other humans and other people. But I do think that, that trust is a much harder thing to learn within yourself, like how to trust yourself. And I think a lot of that comes down to this, this big thing called confidence, you know. And a lot of times we think that in some ways confidence is, is a, uh, is a trait, but the reality is that confidence is actually a skill. It is a thing that you can learn. It is something that, that you can structure systems around to help you be able to learn how to be confident in your ideas and to understand what risk is and how risk plays into that and all of that. And so I think that, that there is a— that worthiness is something that comes down to really understanding this thing that is self-doubt, understanding this thing that is confidence, really understanding yourself, because a lot of times it comes from places, right? Like it doesn't just pop out of nowhere. Our feelings about ourselves come from like where we came from, right? So we bring a lot to the table, which is why it's important to really understand where you come from when it comes to all of this kind of stuff. So, so I think the only other thing I would add is sort of jumping back to your earlier comment about your knowing your why is that I'm so glad I didn't know my why when I was in my 20s. What the heck did I know in my 20s? Right. I think there is such a youth obsession, this idea that, that we have to understand everything. We have to know everything, you know. And that's absurd, right? Like, life is this process of constantly learning and growing and changing, and you never actually find yourself again. Like, I think that's a little, like, odd, right? It's not like you're some Easter egg somewhere and, like, you didn't know yourself and then you found that egg and now you do know yourself. No, I mean, there's no fun in that. Like, the job of our life is to continually grow and learn and to be open and to absorb and to do all of that. So I would hope people are still questioning this thing that is their why and understanding yourselves way past their 20s. Because Lord knows I didn't know squat in my 20s. I did a lot of interesting stuff in my 20s, which is great. That's what you're supposed to do. But, you know, I'm so glad I've had the opportunity to rethink about those whys as my life has changed.

Yeah. Well, it's, you know, some of this is again tied to kind of false ideas we've been fed about like where purpose, things like purpose and passion lie. Like part of, part of what we're told is your purpose and passion is out there, go find it, you know, you'll find it. Or your purpose and passion is something that's in here and you have to excavate it. And I don't know that it's one or the other, or, and maybe it's both, but in my experience, purpose and passion are are skills that you earn by doing the work right in front of you, engaging in the relationships right in front of you with purpose and passion. Purpose and passion are revealed through acting as if you have purpose and passion. And I love what you were saying about— I mean, I love that you said confidence is a skill, something that we say here at Creative on Purpose, because it's true. You like, confidence is not something that you're born with. It's something that you earn through practice. And you, you didn't become a confident walker by— because you were born with confidence that you would walk. You, you became a confident walker by doing a lot of bad walking in your pursuit of becoming a walker. And then suddenly one day you became so good that you didn't even think about it anymore. And so it's something that you earned through repetition, through the daily practice of, you know, doing something that was worth doing. And I think I think of trust and worthiness as skills as well.

Well, think about the— with the walking example, you know, if you had somebody who was standing next to you while you were walking and saying, hey, you're a crappy walker, you really should sit your butt down, right? Because you really don't deserve to be walking because the way you look like when you're walking right now, that's not so cool. So why don't you just sit in the back and like, just don't walk. So, you know, it— so confidence is a thing that is in you, but it is also about how you— who you're surrounded by impacts your confidence. But the older you get, the more you have a choice about that. I mean, when you are a toddler, when you're learning to walk, you may not have a lot of choice over who's around you. And so that can have an impact on whether or not you end up being a good walker or not. But as you grow into an adult, you have a lot of autonomy to say, you know what, that stuff you sitting there telling me that I'm a bad walker is not helping me walk right now. So I need you to step back and get out. So I think that the thing that is confidence and self-doubt is fed by the community that you have around you. And so part of learning the skill of it is learning how to create that right community and to say no to the people who, who impact you in a negative way and tell you you can't walk.

Routines and relationships. We talk about that all the time here because that's— you in our community, we're just having this conversation earlier this morning. We referenced two of my favorite quotes. One is from Goethe, which is, "As soon as you trust yourself, you will know how to live." I've been chewing on that one since the 7th grade, and it still nourishes me every single day. I haven't sucked all the marrow out of that one. And then one is, I think, falsely attributed to Aristotle, but he could have said it, which is, "You are what you repeatedly do. Excellence, therefore, is not— is is a habit. And so this idea of routines and relationships that— I totally agree with what you said, that, you know, if you are lucky enough to have been born into a come from where you get, you know, all, all of your existential needs met adequately and have the love and support and encouragement that enables you to realize, you know, more of your potential That's fantastic. At some point, regardless of whatever story you want to tell yourself about parental support, scholastic support, community support, you do at some point get to decide who, who you're going to spend your time with and what you're going to spend your time on. And, and so identity, to circle back to the initial topic, is not something that's fixed. It's something that is always, and you referenced this earlier, a work in progress, a process that we can choose to bring a little bit more consciousness, a little bit more intention, and a little bit more integrity into.

Yeah. Yeah. And I think we need to loosen the grip on it a little bit, right? Just loosen the grip on the idea that there are right and wrong ideas around this big thing called identity, that there are right and wrong ways that our children should be, that we should be, that the things we should think, the things we should do, that are categories categorizable into the right and wrong. I mean, there may be ways of categorize them, but I just think the right and wrong part of that is, is, is a little whack, you know?

Well, I, I just to be completely vulnerable and transparent, you know, in the issue that you're writing about, um, you know, in your child's identity journey, this is, I live in a community where there are many young people going experiencing and, and leaning into the exact same edge. And I have, I have had difficulty trying to figure out, like, how, how can someone that young decide that, you know, they're going to make this transition? And when a friend said to me something that completely changed my mind around all this, which is, do you have to know? And it was, it blew my mind. It was like, actually your entire— as a guy that talks all the time about embracing uncertainty, I was having a really hard time embracing the unknowing and the not understanding and the fact that there's no absolute clear right or wrong way to think about this. And to just hold, like, to what you're saying, a little— hold, hold the uncertainty and the not knowing a little bit more loosely. And bringing less of my expectations, value judgments, prejudices based on come from and culture to the equation. And it has completely cleared the static and the dissonance. And, you know, just embracing this conversation. So just, just put— putting that out there for those of you who, like me, or who look like me, you know, if you're, if you're struggling with this. Holding, holding your lack of knowing kind of away from yourself and a little bit more loosely and embracing the uncertainty could be very helpful.

Yeah, I think that's absolutely true. And I think that we are by nature uncomfortable with change, right? Because we have this— because we're all inter-beings that are connected. There's no way that we can function in the world without our interconnections. And our survival is dependent on it, right? That is, that is sort of like baked into us that we need other people. And so the idea that when things start shifting and changing around us, people identifying differently or thinking differently than we do or functioning differently than we do, that there is this, this relatively understandable feeling of, of, of worry, of discomfort because we are connected to other people in that way. But the reality is we are, we are all okay even as the world changes around us. Us. It does not— it feels disruptive in many ways, but we are, we are still going to be okay. Change is inevitable. It always is inevitable. And, and, and in my view, I like— I take a very human-centered approach to all of this. And the idea that, you know, like, it's not my job to tell my, my child who they are and how to live. It is my job to love and support them and provide them all of that is necessary for them to be the best human that they can be.. But it is not my job to walk in the room and say, well, no, uh-uh, you can't, you can't be the human that you were discovering that you are, because hell, I wouldn't want somebody telling me that.

Yeah. Yeah. Well, I love that you were weaving in this idea of the status quo, because I think, um, yes, we are, we are creatures that are born with, um, a curious, creative nature, and We have a societal impulse that is responsible for us surviving when everything else on the planet was bigger, faster, and stronger than us and wanted to eat us for lunch. And we have this capacity, this consciousness, this capacity to reason and to a rational capacity that too often we use to rationalize our bad ideas and mistaken assumptions. You know, we are, we embrace this, we love the status quo because we like to know where we stand and what's expected. And we have this striving nature that does not accept that this is as good as it can be, that we are not as, you know, we have not, we can be and do more and better. And we're holding these opposing ideas in our head at the same time, and we can toggle back and forth. Between the safety of knowing what the status quo expects and intends and leaning into the edges of our understanding and ability and developing our potential and delivering our promise. One of the things that I think, in terms of our building identity and forging meaning in our lives, is being— circling back to what you were saying earlier— being intentional about who we do that work with and for. The relationships and the, and the way and the routines with which we approach doing that work will inform and inspire the people that, you know, the identity that we're, that we're cultivating.

Yeah. And I think that will get to your why. I mean, in many ways, when you understand who, who you are doing the work for, you know, and why that work matters to you, whatever that work is, But so, so I do think it matters to figure out who, who you are connected to, who your people are, who, why you are doing what you're doing and who it's for. I mean, I know that, that for me, the work I do is very much targeted at women entrepreneurs and executives, partly because part of my why is that I want to close the confidence gap. Like, that's my jam. Like, I just— it's very clear to me that that confidence gap needs, needs closing. And there's a lot of systems and structures that exist that keep women stuck in that confidence gap. Right? So, but that is the target that I am most drawn to is really working with women to close that confidence. And that really gets at my why. But it took a while to get there. And I'm no further behind than anybody else. I've just taken all of the experience that I've had up till now to figure out what really matters to me and what problems I really want to solve.

Yeah, well, one of the themes that has come up, and I can't remember even, like, we're way past 250 conversations at this point, that one of the most common themes is that the people that, you know, that come onto this broadcast are people that are making a difference, that they've arrived at by scratching their own itch, by solving their own problem, by leaning into their own discomforts and edges. And I think that speaks to everything that we were just talking about. You're, you're building— what I'm hearing is that you're building yourself from the ground up. You're forging an identity by leaning into Edges and doing that with and for other people, helping people become who they wish to become by leveraging your hard-earned perspective and experience from scratching your own itch, solving your own problem.

Yeah, I know. I think that's absolutely true. And that gets— that gets back to that whole idea of figuring out what your why is. And when you're forcing people to figure out your why at 20, it is really, really hard for them to do that because it's hard to know who you are until you've done a little bit of living, you know, and you've had some stuff, gone through some things, lived a life, tried some stuff. You know, I mean, I think that's what is supposed to happen. So I'm with you on the idea that, that we can take our time to figure out our why. It doesn't mean we can't not do things, right? Like, I still think we need to do things when you're young. We need to try stuff. We need to live, because if you don't live, it's really hard to get to figure that kind of stuff out. But I think we need to stop putting all this pressure on them to say, hey, you have to know your passion, you have to know your why, you've got to figure out who you are. You've got— no, just, you need to do stuff. You need to do stuff, and then you need to stop, and you need to assess what you just did. I need to be like, yeah, do I want to do that again? Maybe. Do I? No, I don't think I'm going to do that again. And then you need to try something else. That is really all we should be doing with our 20-year-olds, is helping them do that, encouraging them to do that.

Yeah. Well, I know from personal experience and from witnessing my son's experience, both my boys that my, or both my young men, that it's, it's a process. And a lot of the process is about finding all the things that you never want to do again. Not just finding the things that you're meant to do, or the things that you, you know, that really, that really give you purpose and fuel your passion. Well, Marianne, we're coming to the end of our time together. If If there were just one final tip or insight or a bit of inspiration that you have to share around people that are wrestling with, in their own ways, with either their own identity or with holding more compassionately the identity of others, what would you share?

I'm a little focused on this why thing because we've been talking about a lot of whys. And I've been having a handful of conversations recently about the Five Whys. And I don't know who came up with the Five Whys, but I would say if anybody has a really strong opinion about a certain right or wrong about identity, I would ask them to go through the Five Whys. All that is, is that you ask yourself the first why. It takes five whys to get to the root, right? That's the idea behind the Five Whys. So you hold an opinion, ask yourself, why do you hold that opinion? Come up with an answer, and then ask your— ask that answer another why. Ask that answer another why, and try to get down to the 5th why to figure out why do you really hold so hard and fast to that, that feeling and that idea, you know, and try and see if that loosens you up a little bit. So I would encourage people to, when they find themselves really anchored in to a decision or an idea about something, is to go through the 5 whys.

Love it. Always a more beautiful question. Fantastic. Well, Mary Lombardi, thank you for your time and sharing your insight and wisdom with us. And for those of you that have tuned in, we really appreciate the gift of your valuable time and attention. We hope that the conversation here informs and inspires you to lean into your adventures in identity with a little bit more courage, maybe a little bit more curiosity. If you are interested in learning more about Mary Ann, she can be found at maryannlombardi.com. It is always a pleasure and privilege to see you at creativeonpurpose.com. .com as well. Now take the insight and inspiration from this conversation and fly a little higher in the difference only you can make. MaryAnn Lombardi, thanks so much for spending this time with us today.

Yeah, thanks for having me. Talk to you soon.