Who Are You?

The alleyways in Varanasi, India are narrow, bright and chaotic. The ancient city spills up against the Ganges River looking toward the flood plains south of the Himalaya Mountains. Walking there, I thought about a television show I had left behind.

At CNBC, I had helped create Fast Money. It became a hugely popular show. Millions of people heard what I had to say. Before that, I had found success as a financial reporter, executive and host at Bloomberg.

When millions of people listen to you, it becomes easy to believe that what you say matters more than what other people say. The title, the audience and the recognition begin to feel less like things you have and more like who you are.

That is when success becomes a trap. You can be rewarded for your work while becoming a prisoner of it.

I had left. Walking through Varanasi, I was still there.

That sounds obvious until you consider how many people spend their lives terrified of losing a position. I was able to walk away because I understood that my work was something I did. It was not who I was. Television could give me an audience. It could not give me my value, and leaving it could not take that value away. In fact, staying if it meant compromising my moral core was far more terrifying.

Near Varanasi, I found myself drawn again to Buddhism after visiting a temple where the philosophy was born 600 years before the birth of Christ.

Of all the spiritual traditions I have encountered, its understanding of impermanence speaks to me most deeply. Everything we have changes. Everything we do ends. The roles we occupy, the things we want and the things we fear losing all pass.

Much more is lost in the clinging to what we fear to lose than in the losing of it.

That is terrifying if you believe those things are you. It can also set you free. You can leave a job, lose a title, change your mind and begin again. The thing you thought you could not survive without can disappear, and you remain.

Last Friday I wrote about Muhammad Ali’s shortest poem: “Me, We.” Before we do anything, before we earn, possess, want or lose anything, we are. I am. You are.

That spiritual grounding is about to matter to millions more people as artificial intelligence changes what we call work. Some will gain new capabilities. Others will lose a job or discover that a skill which once distinguished them no longer does.

The economic disruption will be real. So will the question beneath it: If I am no longer needed to do this, who am I?

Economists call the replacement of old work by new work creative destruction. From a distance, the phrase describes how an economy renews itself. Up close, it can mean the loss of an income, a profession, a community and an identity at the same time.

People resist that loss because our culture has taught them to measure their worth by their position.

That fear reaches the top as well as the bottom. A person with immense wealth can still be terrified of becoming less important. And a powerful person who cannot imagine life without his position has the means to protect it. They can buy influence, block competition and hold an institution in place long after it has stopped serving anyone else.

Much of the destructive force we see in the world comes from people defending a position they believe they cannot survive without.

They are wrong about their own value and the damage they do while defending that false belief is substantial.

We need an economy in which people can earn a living, learn new skills and take part in what comes next. We also need the freedom to know that losing a role does not mean losing a self.

I left Fast Money. The show was gone from my life, and I was still there, walking through Varanasi.

I am. You are. We are.

That is where our value resides.