As we continue our look at The Quest for Legitimacy research Jamie and I explore what is referred to in the book at "Breaking Moments".

What are they?

What do they feel like?

Why are they important?

We then discuss what liminality is and how we are all currently living through a period of liminality.

The Quest for Legitimacy: How Children of Prominent Families Discover Their Unique Place in the World is available to buy on Amazon and Barnes and Noble. It will also be available in book stores. 

You can follow these links to order the book: 

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hello@questforlegitimacy.com  

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Russ Haworth: 00:00:56

Hello everyone.

Russ Haworth: 00:00:57

And welcome to this episode of the family business podcast.

Russ Haworth: 00:01:02

I'm your host, Russ Hayworth.

Russ Haworth: 00:01:04

And today.

Russ Haworth: 00:01:05

We are continuing to explore the quest for legitimacy, which is an academic

Russ Haworth: 00:01:11

research project that I was asked to be, um, part of by a brilliant

Russ Haworth: 00:01:16

friend and colleague called Dr.

Russ Haworth: 00:01:18

Jamie weer.

Russ Haworth: 00:01:20

We have been speaking in the other episodes of this, uh, series about the.

Russ Haworth: 00:01:28

Background to why we undertook the research.

Russ Haworth: 00:01:32

And then on the last episode, we ran through the four phases of the quest.

Russ Haworth: 00:01:38

What we're going to be looking at on this episode of the show is something

Russ Haworth: 00:01:42

we found in the research that Jamie refers to as breaking moments.

Russ Haworth: 00:01:48

And I think you'll find the topic absolutely fascinating.

Russ Haworth: 00:01:52

What I would encourage as you are going through and listening to this

Russ Haworth: 00:01:56

episode is to think about times in your own lives, where you will

Russ Haworth: 00:02:00

have experienced breaking moments.

Russ Haworth: 00:02:02

They are universal.

Russ Haworth: 00:02:05

Um, they are, uh, as you'll hear, um, in the episode, they come in different

Russ Haworth: 00:02:10

shapes and sizes, but just have a think about, what some of those breaking

Russ Haworth: 00:02:14

moments might have been in your own life.

Russ Haworth: 00:02:17

Um, not gonna hang around too much only to let you know.

Russ Haworth: 00:02:21

To make sure you check out quest for legitimacy.com there's information

Russ Haworth: 00:02:26

there as to how you can buy the book or find out more information,

Russ Haworth: 00:02:31

uh, on either the research or the services that we're able to offer.

Russ Haworth: 00:02:36

as a result of that.

Russ Haworth: 00:02:39

And, uh, I'll pass over to the interview with Jamie now.

Russ Haworth: 00:02:42

Well, hello everybody.

Russ Haworth: 00:02:43

And welcome to this episode of the family business podcast.

Russ Haworth: 00:02:47

We are continuing our look at the quest for legitimacy, which is a

Russ Haworth: 00:02:53

research project, uh, that I have been working on with, uh, Dr.

Russ Haworth: 00:02:58

Jamie Weiner.

Russ Haworth: 00:02:59

Jamie, welcome back to the show.

Jamie Weiner: 00:03:01

Russ.

Jamie Weiner: 00:03:02

It's great to be together again.

Russ Haworth: 00:03:04

And we're talking about the research.

Russ Haworth: 00:03:08

And in the last episode, we covered off the four phases of the quest.

Russ Haworth: 00:03:16

We described how each of those may feel or be experienced by people.

Russ Haworth: 00:03:22

And today we're gonna be looking at and digging into a bit more detail around

Russ Haworth: 00:03:28

what you've termed as breaking moments.

Russ Haworth: 00:03:31

And I think this is a really important topic to.

Russ Haworth: 00:03:35

Delve into, because I think a lot of the people listening will, um,

Russ Haworth: 00:03:40

resonate and will recognize breaking moments from their own lives.

Russ Haworth: 00:03:44

But perhaps before we get into the detail around it, could you give us a

Russ Haworth: 00:03:48

kind of summary, a quick overview of what a breaking moment is, and then

Russ Haworth: 00:03:53

perhaps we can share some stories and, and delve into it in a bit more detail.

Jamie Weiner: 00:03:58

So I hope if you're li listening that, this pulls you into

Jamie Weiner: 00:04:05

something you could be experiencing now, but certainly could have

Jamie Weiner: 00:04:07

experienced previously in your life because everybody has breaking moments.

Jamie Weiner: 00:04:14

I can think about it even in my own life.

Jamie Weiner: 00:04:17

You know, you're kind of going through, you're living your life

Jamie Weiner: 00:04:21

the way you think it should be.

Jamie Weiner: 00:04:23

Things are going smoothly and it could be a little hiccup.

Jamie Weiner: 00:04:28

That's a break sign of something, or it could be a huge break.

Jamie Weiner: 00:04:34

That's kind of a wake up call that, Begins to get you thinking about

Jamie Weiner: 00:04:40

what, what, what's my life about?

Jamie Weiner: 00:04:42

What am I doing?

Russ Haworth: 00:04:43

you've, you've mentioned that it could be

Russ Haworth: 00:04:46

something that at the time seems.

Russ Haworth: 00:04:49

Relatively insignificant.

Russ Haworth: 00:04:51

I say little, a little bump and other times it can be something that's

Russ Haworth: 00:04:56

very obvious and, um, large and, and, uh, a big experience in, in

Russ Haworth: 00:05:02

people's lives to bring that to life.

Russ Haworth: 00:05:05

C can you share some of the.

Russ Haworth: 00:05:08

Examples and stories from the research.

Russ Haworth: 00:05:12

And again, this is all brilliantly captured in your book, which the links

Russ Haworth: 00:05:17

to, um, order are in the show notes.

Russ Haworth: 00:05:20

So if this is resonating with people who are listening, we, uh, strongly

Russ Haworth: 00:05:24

suggest you go and, , by the book.

Russ Haworth: 00:05:26

but to give people a bit of a sneak on, on, uh, some of the stories that

Russ Haworth: 00:05:30

are contained in there, , perhaps we can share some of those.

Jamie Weiner: 00:05:35

So one of the stories that, um, sticks out in my mind, going

Jamie Weiner: 00:05:40

away to college in itself is kind of a potential for a breaking moment.

Jamie Weiner: 00:05:47

Cuz all of a sudden you're moving out of the world.

Jamie Weiner: 00:05:51

Maybe even with some excitement that you grew up in.

Jamie Weiner: 00:05:55

but you're also entering a new world.

Jamie Weiner: 00:05:58

And one of the subjects we interviewed

Jamie Weiner: 00:06:02

talked about going away to college, he realized when he was

Jamie Weiner: 00:06:07

there, that his family, um, had a significant role in the community.

Jamie Weiner: 00:06:13

They, they also happen to have a little bit more wealth than some of

Jamie Weiner: 00:06:17

their neighbors, but they were in a part of the country where a lot of

Jamie Weiner: 00:06:20

people had more wealth than them.

Jamie Weiner: 00:06:23

and he was a college and not everybody was like that.

Jamie Weiner: 00:06:28

And all of a sudden, as everybody else was thinking about how am I gonna make money?

Jamie Weiner: 00:06:34

What am I gonna do?

Jamie Weiner: 00:06:36

What kind of career am I gonna do?

Jamie Weiner: 00:06:39

He realized that, had an overwhelming number of opportunities and

Jamie Weiner: 00:06:45

literally became overwhelmed by.

Jamie Weiner: 00:06:48

and,

Jamie Weiner: 00:06:49

overwhelmed enough that, he, he opted to go home and leave campus

Jamie Weiner: 00:06:55

and, he spent about a year at home.

Jamie Weiner: 00:06:58

it was a period of thinking about himself.

Jamie Weiner: 00:07:03

He was what some people would call depressed.

Jamie Weiner: 00:07:06

He was sad about things and confused, which we can talk about some more, but

Jamie Weiner: 00:07:14

when he finished that period, he went back to school and went on to graduate school.

Jamie Weiner: 00:07:21

So it was a huge breaking moment,

Russ Haworth: 00:07:23

within that example, there, we covered in the previous

Russ Haworth: 00:07:28

episode, the phases of the quest.

Russ Haworth: 00:07:29

And we mentioned that they're, non-linear so certain things can happen that draw

Russ Haworth: 00:07:34

you back into phases of awareness and then that tug of war and, and into

Russ Haworth: 00:07:41

exploration and, and then onto ownership.

Russ Haworth: 00:07:44

And I think this is an example where.

Russ Haworth: 00:07:47

Somebody was perhaps when they started that journey to college, you, we

Russ Haworth: 00:07:51

would turn that as being part of their exploration phase of, of kind of going

Russ Haworth: 00:07:55

out into the world and, and exploring, um, what, what opportunities are out there.

Russ Haworth: 00:08:01

But it brought back to life of a moment of awareness that the opportunities

Russ Haworth: 00:08:05

that have been presented through the prominence of the family, That awareness

Russ Haworth: 00:08:11

was triggered by that breaking moment or the awareness was the breaking moment.

Russ Haworth: 00:08:15

And I think, again, that's an important aspect to highlight is that because

Russ Haworth: 00:08:21

the quest is nonlinear, that there can be events that create more moments

Russ Haworth: 00:08:26

of awareness and more, um, periods of tug of war and exploration, et cetera.

Russ Haworth: 00:08:31

Would, would that be fair?

Jamie Weiner: 00:08:33

Yeah, I think it's actually a great example because

Jamie Weiner: 00:08:37

when you go off to college, you kind of begin to compare yourself with a

Jamie Weiner: 00:08:41

different set of, peers around you.

Jamie Weiner: 00:08:45

and

Jamie Weiner: 00:08:46

you begin to have an understanding about the culture you were raised

Jamie Weiner: 00:08:50

in the particular, prominence could be the particular wealth, the

Jamie Weiner: 00:08:56

variety of factors, and you begin to weigh yourself against others.

Jamie Weiner: 00:09:00

And I would guess that, you know, he, he was thrown back into the awareness

Jamie Weiner: 00:09:07

that something was very different.

Jamie Weiner: 00:09:09

I, I also wonder was it, whether he wasn't thrown back into a little

Jamie Weiner: 00:09:14

bit of a tug of war between what his family was about and what it

Jamie Weiner: 00:09:20

was like to be in the outside world.

Jamie Weiner: 00:09:23

he was early in college, so he was probably at the beginning of some

Jamie Weiner: 00:09:29

independence of some exploring, And, going back home also pushed his parents to begin

Jamie Weiner: 00:09:38

to relate to him about what was going on.

Jamie Weiner: 00:09:41

So it really, it really impacted the whole dynamics of the, the family.

Jamie Weiner: 00:09:47

and what it means is parents to support somebody who's struggling.

Russ Haworth: 00:09:52

Yeah.

Russ Haworth: 00:09:52

And again, that reminds me of what we talked about on the last episode around

Russ Haworth: 00:09:56

the, the kind of tug of war phase is that sometimes in terms of the.

Russ Haworth: 00:10:02

, sort of stuff you bring back from outside.

Russ Haworth: 00:10:04

It can, it can begin as being cute in terms of the, influence of the

Russ Haworth: 00:10:09

outside work combined with what's.

Russ Haworth: 00:10:12

Uh, you've

Russ Haworth: 00:10:12

got going on with, with, the family side and then other times

Russ Haworth: 00:10:17

it can seem less cute and perhaps a bit more serious in that sense.

Russ Haworth: 00:10:21

And this example, again, highlights that something that's been brought back from.

Russ Haworth: 00:10:27

Kind of the outside world into the family is something that is more serious

Russ Haworth: 00:10:32

and something that needs to be looked at and, and perhaps spoken about.

Jamie Weiner: 00:10:38

where there's an adjustment, both for parents.

Jamie Weiner: 00:10:42

And for the rising gen family member,

Jamie Weiner: 00:10:45

I suspect, like the last couple years with COVID, there have been more and more,

Jamie Weiner: 00:10:52

you know, people launching and then all of a sudden needing to come back home.

Jamie Weiner: 00:10:59

And I think that's an awkward adjustment for everybody

Russ Haworth: 00:11:03

And so in, in terms of the experience that that person had.

Russ Haworth: 00:11:13

The awareness and the, the overwhelm that was experienced as a result of

Russ Haworth: 00:11:19

that awareness, there may be some out there that go, well, because they grew

Russ Haworth: 00:11:24

up in a wealthy family because they grew up and had wealth that it's easy

Russ Haworth: 00:11:31

in inverted commerce to kind of pay for that kind of struggle to go away.

Russ Haworth: 00:11:35

But again, what we experienced in.

Russ Haworth: 00:11:38

The interviews and the discussions that we had is kind of the opposite to

Russ Haworth: 00:11:45

a lot of the stereotypes and, and pre preconceived ideas that people have.

Russ Haworth: 00:11:50

And the, the biases that people have towards people who have grown up in a

Russ Haworth: 00:11:55

prominent family, be that through role in the community, or be that through wealth.

Russ Haworth: 00:12:02

Again, I think it highlights the fact that.

Russ Haworth: 00:12:04

That it it's, you know, it's irrespective of that, that this can have a profound

Russ Haworth: 00:12:10

impact on people and something where there is the need for some support

Russ Haworth: 00:12:15

and some, um, empathy and some, uh, guidance for, for people who are

Russ Haworth: 00:12:21

experiencing this, is, is that fair?

Jamie Weiner: 00:12:25

I would really focus on the prominence.

Jamie Weiner: 00:12:28

Portion of it.

Jamie Weiner: 00:12:29

I'm focusing on the prominence portion, cuz if you already believe that, um, see,

Jamie Weiner: 00:12:38

perceive your parents as giants and you're struggling to measure up to what they've

Jamie Weiner: 00:12:43

done and what they've accomplished.

Jamie Weiner: 00:12:45

and maybe that a, that a sibling was going off and seems to be doing okay.

Jamie Weiner: 00:12:51

There's a lot of pressure.

Jamie Weiner: 00:12:52

It evolved, to feel that you, you can accomplish enough, to, to be able to stand

Jamie Weiner: 00:13:00

up in your own, uh, in your own right.

Jamie Weiner: 00:13:02

And find meaning in your life and a sense of purpose.

Russ Haworth: 00:13:06

You mentioned about the feeling of sadness and, uh, again, what

Russ Haworth: 00:13:13

people may, may term as depression, you you've defined that in a, in a

Russ Haworth: 00:13:19

slightly different way within the book and, and within the researchers, what

Russ Haworth: 00:13:25

you've turned as a period of liminality.

Russ Haworth: 00:13:28

C can you.

Russ Haworth: 00:13:30

Again, give us an overview of what we mean by that period of liminality.

Russ Haworth: 00:13:36

And then I think it would be good to again, share some other examples of

Russ Haworth: 00:13:40

breaking moments and those periods of liminality, and then tie that

Russ Haworth: 00:13:43

all together in terms of, of why these are, why they're so relevant

Russ Haworth: 00:13:48

in terms of what we discovered.

Jamie Weiner: 00:13:50

So as a psychologist

Jamie Weiner: 00:13:53

by background, um, I wanted to differentiate, , the classic

Jamie Weiner: 00:13:57

term of depression of not being able to get out of bed.

Jamie Weiner: 00:14:02

Not being able to move, having no hope or an enjoyment for life and talk about

Jamie Weiner: 00:14:09

instead, , which I think is much more prevalent than, , anybody realizes,

Jamie Weiner: 00:14:17

, hitting a point where something breaks and, , and you feel Bewitched in between.

Jamie Weiner: 00:14:26

Your idea of who you were and what you were gonna be

Jamie Weiner: 00:14:29

is, is altered.

Jamie Weiner: 00:14:31

It's not replaced yet with another sense of what you're gonna be.

Jamie Weiner: 00:14:41

So it opens the door to feeling sadness.

Jamie Weiner: 00:14:46

It opens the door to feeling isolated alone, because you can begin to feel

Jamie Weiner: 00:14:51

like, well, nobody else is going through this, which may or may not be true.

Jamie Weiner: 00:14:56

There may be a lot of people going through it, which is part of what we found.

Jamie Weiner: 00:15:02

Just nobody's talking about it.

Jamie Weiner: 00:15:04

There' no place for it.

Jamie Weiner: 00:15:06

you pointed out to me that the beauty of the word.

Jamie Weiner: 00:15:09

limital is that it comes from the term lemon, I think

Jamie Weiner: 00:15:13

Lyman which means an opening

Jamie Weiner: 00:15:16

and,

Jamie Weiner: 00:15:17

in an age where people worry both the rising

Jamie Weiner: 00:15:20

gen and the generations before probably a great deal.

Jamie Weiner: 00:15:24

it becomes important to change the context into, oh my God, this is so terrible.

Jamie Weiner: 00:15:32

I feel so sorry, which it, you may feel it's terrible.

Jamie Weiner: 00:15:36

There is suffering through it's hard to say that suffering's a good thing.

Jamie Weiner: 00:15:42

Suffering is, um, impetus to sort things out and hopefully doesn't

Jamie Weiner: 00:15:48

mean having to hit bottom, but it, it does mean that, you begin to have an

Jamie Weiner: 00:15:56

Ahaha, I mean, need to need, need to do something different about my life.

Russ Haworth: 00:16:02

I think that's a, such an important.

Russ Haworth: 00:16:05

Point to make in terms of it, it may feel as though.

Russ Haworth: 00:16:11

It particularly in that at the moment of ality, if in a particular between it

Russ Haworth: 00:16:15

can, it can kind of feel a bit confusing and a bit, you can feel a bit lost within

Russ Haworth: 00:16:20

there, but that's also the opportunity that as you say, that the, the, um, basis

Russ Haworth: 00:16:26

of the word is, is the, is the opening.

Russ Haworth: 00:16:29

And for, for people to move towards an opening as an opportunity for growth and

Russ Haworth: 00:16:33

an opportunity to move on in terms of taking ownership of certain aspects of,

Russ Haworth: 00:16:41

um, what's happening in, in their lives.

Russ Haworth: 00:16:43

And I think that is the encouraging element of it because the inclination

Russ Haworth: 00:16:48

could be from hearing this that, well, the best thing to do is to

Russ Haworth: 00:16:51

avoid breaking moments and is to avoid those periods of liminality.

Russ Haworth: 00:16:55

And I protect myself from.

Russ Haworth: 00:16:57

Some of the perhaps confusing feelings that, that I would have at that time.

Russ Haworth: 00:17:03

But you then miss out on the plus side of that potential for growth and a

Russ Haworth: 00:17:08

potential for, um, taking ownership.

Russ Haworth: 00:17:11

Right.

Jamie Weiner: 00:17:11

Yeah, because I think what's opened up is an opportunity to say so.

Jamie Weiner: 00:17:16

given the world I grew up in given the world I'm , exploring and learning

Jamie Weiner: 00:17:21

about what's important to me, which, which are the elements that I'm gonna

Jamie Weiner: 00:17:27

take and integrate into my decisions.

Jamie Weiner: 00:17:31

And you know, some of the decisions may be.

Jamie Weiner: 00:17:35

Who to have a relationship and maybe about what kind of work do I wanna do?

Jamie Weiner: 00:17:40

It may mean what's my relationship to the, the world that I grew up in.

Jamie Weiner: 00:17:46

And, um, that's particularly true in, uh, wealthy families

Jamie Weiner: 00:17:51

and business owning families.

Jamie Weiner: 00:17:53

But, you know, I grew up the, the son of a rabbi and at one point I thought, oh,

Jamie Weiner: 00:17:58

wait, am I, you know, am I gonna follow, um, am I gonna join the family business?

Jamie Weiner: 00:18:03

And am I gonna become a rabbi as well?

Jamie Weiner: 00:18:06

Um, there was no money there.

Jamie Weiner: 00:18:09

So it wasn't, uh, it wasn't about collecting the.

Russ Haworth: 00:18:13

mm.

Russ Haworth: 00:18:14

Mm-hmm.

Jamie Weiner: 00:18:14

Um, we weren't bad off, but, it, it is certainly not

Jamie Weiner: 00:18:18

the same as some of the families, both you and I have experienced.

Jamie Weiner: 00:18:22

and the question maybe is just simply, how do I make the most of this?

Jamie Weiner: 00:18:28

And one of the examples, and I think we've we've in over the couple years,

Jamie Weiner: 00:18:35

we've become very close with him, was a gentleman who went to work.

Jamie Weiner: 00:18:40

Um, in his family business, there are many elements cuz his

Jamie Weiner: 00:18:44

father was Indian by background.

Jamie Weiner: 00:18:47

So, um, they're different cultural values.

Jamie Weiner: 00:18:51

His mother wasn't Indian.

Jamie Weiner: 00:18:54

Uh, actually in his first meeting, he described the fact that there were

Jamie Weiner: 00:18:57

two weddings to, or both traditions.

Jamie Weiner: 00:19:01

he made several attempts in his life and made some real

Jamie Weiner: 00:19:05

contributions to help the family out

Jamie Weiner: 00:19:08

both.

Jamie Weiner: 00:19:08

as he was finishing up his undergraduate degree.

Jamie Weiner: 00:19:12

But then when he finished his advanced degree and, one day he

Jamie Weiner: 00:19:17

was coming back from the world cup and his father sent him an email.

Jamie Weiner: 00:19:23

Didn't put it in exactly these words, but to sum it up, what the email said was

Jamie Weiner: 00:19:29

you're fired, you know, longer have a job.

Jamie Weiner: 00:19:32

Now I was putting in the terms of restructuring.

Jamie Weiner: 00:19:36

but given it was a family, it was not a discussion.

Jamie Weiner: 00:19:40

It was not, what do we do?

Jamie Weiner: 00:19:41

This?

Jamie Weiner: 00:19:42

This is a hard time.

Jamie Weiner: 00:19:43

It was a decision.

Jamie Weiner: 00:19:46

And he literally stopped communication with his, his, his mom and his dad

Jamie Weiner: 00:19:52

for a couple years while he sorted out who he is and what he wanted

Jamie Weiner: 00:19:56

to be before he came back and knocked on the door of his parents.

Jamie Weiner: 00:20:01

not knowing what the response would be on the other side of the door.

Russ Haworth: 00:20:05

Yeah, and we speak about it in terms of the.

Russ Haworth: 00:20:12

The significance of him going and knocking on his parents' door and the conversation

Russ Haworth: 00:20:17

that he had with his father, where he.

Russ Haworth: 00:20:20

Thank you because I wouldn't have been able to make the first move

Russ Haworth: 00:20:22

in terms of rebuilding bridges.

Russ Haworth: 00:20:25

And so in that example, the breaking moment is very

Russ Haworth: 00:20:29

obvious and pretty significant.

Russ Haworth: 00:20:32

I mean, we have spoken about the fact they don't always have to be significant.

Russ Haworth: 00:20:35

I would argue that's a fairly significant moment in anybody's life.

Russ Haworth: 00:20:40

Um, the.

Russ Haworth: 00:20:43

The feelings of confusion and being Bewitched in between the period of

Russ Haworth: 00:20:47

liminality afterwards, that, that turned into that opportunity for growth that

Russ Haworth: 00:20:52

this particular person took on and, and did grow and, and developed themselves.

Russ Haworth: 00:20:58

And that, I guess that the ownership element was demonstrated through.

Russ Haworth: 00:21:05

Walking up and, and knocking on his parents' door, not knowing

Russ Haworth: 00:21:09

what the response would be.

Russ Haworth: 00:21:10

And, you know, we, we know the story and, and how that pans out and that it's,

Russ Haworth: 00:21:16

you know, things are going well now.

Russ Haworth: 00:21:17

And that the relationship is, is prepared and, and, and

Russ Haworth: 00:21:20

things are okay on that front.

Russ Haworth: 00:21:21

But again, the temptation would be to say, well,

Russ Haworth: 00:21:26

surely it would be better to avoid those moments.

Russ Haworth: 00:21:30

Now, in this case, You could always go back and look and say, well,

Russ Haworth: 00:21:34

maybe it could have been done in a different way, but the fact of the

Russ Haworth: 00:21:37

matter is the relationship is as it is now with this person and, and

Russ Haworth: 00:21:42

their, his parents and, and, uh, siblings as a result of the growth that

Russ Haworth: 00:21:47

happened beyond that breaking moment.

Russ Haworth: 00:21:49

Right.

Jamie Weiner: 00:21:51

know, I think it's important and it was true without everybody we

Jamie Weiner: 00:21:56

interviewed, whether they had terrible relationships with their parents or

Jamie Weiner: 00:22:02

connected relationships with their parents, there is a very powerful,

Jamie Weiner: 00:22:07

desire, to find a sense of connection to parents, to make

Jamie Weiner: 00:22:12

a contribution in a family.

Jamie Weiner: 00:22:15

it's can often be, be mistaken as, something that should be

Jamie Weiner: 00:22:20

there too early, particularly in, in the world of family business.

Jamie Weiner: 00:22:24

cuz there's a difference between being part of a family business out

Jamie Weiner: 00:22:28

of compliance and out of ownership In this CA in the case that we talked

Jamie Weiner: 00:22:34

about, he went on to find a position at a university, has coached other

Jamie Weiner: 00:22:41

young people, still, probably more so now than before his dad turns to him.

Jamie Weiner: 00:22:50

has.

Jamie Weiner: 00:22:52

More connected, feeling conversations with him, even though the cultural

Jamie Weiner: 00:22:58

wish that someday, um, his son will, you know, wake up and go I'm I'm the

Jamie Weiner: 00:23:06

air I'm gonna take over the family business is gonna rise to the surface.

Jamie Weiner: 00:23:12

under that surface response.

Jamie Weiner: 00:23:16

is a, is a real sense of respect.

Jamie Weiner: 00:23:20

And he also has a concern about his two siblings.

Jamie Weiner: 00:23:23

It, it, it all works kind of in the dynamic of a larger family.

Russ Haworth: 00:23:28

Yeah.

Russ Haworth: 00:23:29

And we've used a couple of examples of breaking moments that.

Russ Haworth: 00:23:34

Uh, could be termed as negative experiences as, as a break in moment.

Russ Haworth: 00:23:40

And we also mentioned COVID and one, one of the things we were, I I'm reluctant to

Russ Haworth: 00:23:46

use the word fortunate in terms of being able to speak to the people pre COVID

Russ Haworth: 00:23:52

and then during the, the, the pandemic, I don't mean it in the sense of, um,

Russ Haworth: 00:23:57

that fortunate that COVID happened of for obvious reasons, but, but in terms

Russ Haworth: 00:24:01

of a contrast of how lives were being led, Uh, the first time that we spoke

Russ Haworth: 00:24:06

to, to many of our participants and, and the second time, which was predominantly

Russ Haworth: 00:24:12

sort of almost right in the center of, of the pandemic and the significance of

Russ Haworth: 00:24:17

that for other people in terms of what we see as, I mean, it's being termed as the

Russ Haworth: 00:24:23

great resignation where people are going, actually, I need, I need to find my.

Russ Haworth: 00:24:28

Purpose.

Russ Haworth: 00:24:28

I need to find what my calling in life is because the, the pandemic

Russ Haworth: 00:24:33

has created an environment where I've had to start thinking about this.

Russ Haworth: 00:24:37

And we would consider that as again, a relatively significant breaking moment.

Russ Haworth: 00:24:42

And then maybe people who are feeling that right now, who are listening,

Russ Haworth: 00:24:47

what advice do we give to them in terms of how to, how to take this

Russ Haworth: 00:24:52

period on, in, in their lives?

Russ Haworth: 00:24:54

Again, it's not the natural inclination is to perhaps avoid things that are tough.

Russ Haworth: 00:25:01

But I think what, what we are saying is go through the, go through the opening,

Russ Haworth: 00:25:06

use this period of, of liminality to explore and, and to, um, to grow.

Jamie Weiner: 00:25:11

So Russ lately, I've been joking with people that, we didn't

Jamie Weiner: 00:25:16

plan COVID and in order to be able to do the second interviews asked after

Jamie Weiner: 00:25:22

a huge moment of ality in the world.

Jamie Weiner: 00:25:25

But, COVID for everybody

Jamie Weiner: 00:25:28

may be a great metaphor and it's more than a metaphor for understanding what

Jamie Weiner: 00:25:34

it means to go through a period of ality.

Jamie Weiner: 00:25:37

Cuz it's so recent that you can, everybody can think back to.

Jamie Weiner: 00:25:42

Ah, it's not quite such a big deal.

Jamie Weiner: 00:25:45

I don't think change things are gonna change very much.

Jamie Weiner: 00:25:48

Oh my goodness.

Jamie Weiner: 00:25:49

I can't go outta my house.

Jamie Weiner: 00:25:51

Am I gonna be able to get food into my house?

Jamie Weiner: 00:25:54

What am I gonna do during this period of time?

Jamie Weiner: 00:25:57

Is something gonna happen with my work?

Jamie Weiner: 00:25:59

Is this gonna impact my relationships?

Jamie Weiner: 00:26:02

and how do I, how do I stay safe?

Jamie Weiner: 00:26:08

And I remember early on some, some of, um, the people you and I know professionally.

Jamie Weiner: 00:26:15

We're saying I don't, it's gonna be the same afterwards.

Jamie Weiner: 00:26:19

Well, it's not the same afterwards.

Jamie Weiner: 00:26:23

oh, it is.

Jamie Weiner: 00:26:24

I mean, people are still people and we still like each other

Jamie Weiner: 00:26:27

and some of the basic issues of human beings haven't gone away.

Jamie Weiner: 00:26:32

But if you think about it, the number of people who are rethinking who

Jamie Weiner: 00:26:38

they are and what they're doing.

Jamie Weiner: 00:26:41

Is much more universal even than the group of people that we interviewed.

Jamie Weiner: 00:26:47

And maybe the only difference about the group of people that

Jamie Weiner: 00:26:50

we interviewed is because of the prominence of their families.

Jamie Weiner: 00:27:00

They were already set up to wonder, would they measure up.

Jamie Weiner: 00:27:05

Are they enough to have some, some added concerns about how, how

Jamie Weiner: 00:27:11

effective they're gonna be in managing.

Jamie Weiner: 00:27:15

And I think I need to add that we interviewed some people who were by

Jamie Weiner: 00:27:19

everybody else's standards really successful, but success didn't equal

Jamie Weiner: 00:27:25

feeling legitimate and they would have breaking moments and then go.

Jamie Weiner: 00:27:31

And sort out.

Jamie Weiner: 00:27:32

So who am I really,

Russ Haworth: 00:27:34

Yeah.

Jamie Weiner: 00:27:35

gonna make me feel like I'm my legitimate self.

Russ Haworth: 00:27:38

And, and that can be really confusing.

Russ Haworth: 00:27:40

Right?

Russ Haworth: 00:27:40

So it, if.

Russ Haworth: 00:27:42

I, I used an example for my own life.

Russ Haworth: 00:27:44

I, I had a, an ambition to, uh, become what's known in the UK

Russ Haworth: 00:27:52

as a charter financial planner.

Russ Haworth: 00:27:53

By the time I was 30, which unfortunately is many, many years ago now.

Russ Haworth: 00:27:58

Um, but, but the idea was that this success, these, these, the kind of

Russ Haworth: 00:28:03

validation that I would get from becoming chartered would leave me feeling.

Russ Haworth: 00:28:09

So much more accomplished and so much more confident and to, to coin

Russ Haworth: 00:28:14

the phrase that we've used several times, the, the legitimacy that I

Russ Haworth: 00:28:18

thought that would bring me, because I would know enough, I would've taken

Russ Haworth: 00:28:23

the right qualifications to, to know enough, to feel legitimate for me.

Russ Haworth: 00:28:30

It, it didn't happen.

Russ Haworth: 00:28:31

I, I got to charter status, but still felt I actually.

Russ Haworth: 00:28:35

Almost a bit disappointed because I didn't feel any different around that side of it.

Russ Haworth: 00:28:42

And over the years, it, it then.

Russ Haworth: 00:28:45

Sort of manifested itself as me having this acceptance of actually, it's

Russ Haworth: 00:28:49

better to admit what I don't know, rather than try to know everything.

Russ Haworth: 00:28:53

And that gave me far greater sense of legitimacy because I

Russ Haworth: 00:28:57

was becoming more of who I am.

Russ Haworth: 00:29:00

So rather than thinking, I have to have all the answers it's been replaced

Russ Haworth: 00:29:04

by a curiosity that has led me to the career that I'm following now.

Russ Haworth: 00:29:08

And, and I think that that's how I relate.

Russ Haworth: 00:29:10

What you've just said to my own life.

Russ Haworth: 00:29:12

And there'll be other examples out there where people will be thinking, what

Russ Haworth: 00:29:16

have I got to feel Betric and between about because everything's great.

Russ Haworth: 00:29:20

I've got, you know, a healthy family.

Russ Haworth: 00:29:22

I've got good relationships with my parents.

Russ Haworth: 00:29:24

I've not had these significant negative moments in my life that I could

Russ Haworth: 00:29:29

point to as a, as a breaking moment.

Russ Haworth: 00:29:32

But again, on that, they don't ha they're not all negative, right.

Russ Haworth: 00:29:35

Getting married can be, uh, a breaking moment.

Russ Haworth: 00:29:38

Having a child can, can be a breaking moment.

Russ Haworth: 00:29:40

Taking on a new role can, can be a breaking moment.

Russ Haworth: 00:29:43

So it, it's not about it being negative, but it that's what it brought to life.

Russ Haworth: 00:29:49

For me, as you were speaking, there is my own experience of not feeling

Russ Haworth: 00:29:54

legitimate despite having what on the surface would be the right badges,

Russ Haworth: 00:29:58

certificates, and qualifications to do.

Jamie Weiner: 00:30:02

You know, I think it's such a great example.

Jamie Weiner: 00:30:04

I view it myself as a late bloomer, so it took me a number of years to

Jamie Weiner: 00:30:09

get my doctorate degree in psychology

Jamie Weiner: 00:30:12

and.

Jamie Weiner: 00:30:13

I should have gotten up on the stage, grabbed my PLA uh, diploma and gone.

Jamie Weiner: 00:30:19

All right.

Jamie Weiner: 00:30:20

well, I was glad it was a good thing to have.

Jamie Weiner: 00:30:24

but it didn't guarantee that I was legitimate and it, it didn't mean

Jamie Weiner: 00:30:31

that, that I had a real idea of, What it was gonna take to feel that I was

Jamie Weiner: 00:30:37

doing something particularly having grown, you know, we all grow up in

Jamie Weiner: 00:30:41

families where we see, we see what other people do, who are prominent.

Jamie Weiner: 00:30:46

Uh, it's a very visible world.

Jamie Weiner: 00:30:49

We live in, it's a global world, right?

Jamie Weiner: 00:30:51

I mean, we learned that by our interviews, cuz we interviewed people

Jamie Weiner: 00:30:56

from Indonesia, um, on this medium it's, you know, over zoom it's,

Jamie Weiner: 00:31:02

it's amazing that you can do it.

Jamie Weiner: 00:31:05

the university of, um, beginning people beginning to think.

Jamie Weiner: 00:31:12

That what I grew up believing was what I needed to do to be okay.

Jamie Weiner: 00:31:18

And finding out that there was much more to it, is both, an opportunity

Jamie Weiner: 00:31:25

and, and it's not a curse, it's an opportunity or a challenge.

Jamie Weiner: 00:31:30

we would, you know, if that, that moment for you had been.

Jamie Weiner: 00:31:34

We wouldn't have started this project together.

Russ Haworth: 00:31:37

Right.

Russ Haworth: 00:31:37

Yeah, absolutely.

Russ Haworth: 00:31:40

And the, the other thing that, that Springs to mind for me in terms of, if

Russ Haworth: 00:31:45

we're looking at the kind of, um, origin of the word liminality as, as an opening

Russ Haworth: 00:31:51

there, there's that old ad there's the light at the end of the tunnel.

Russ Haworth: 00:31:54

And I think as well, the, the,

Russ Haworth: 00:31:57

the encouraging element.

Russ Haworth: 00:32:00

Once you can reflect back and look at breaking moments in your life.

Russ Haworth: 00:32:03

And then the period of liminality and growth that, um, came from

Russ Haworth: 00:32:07

that when something else happens, that is another breaking moment.

Russ Haworth: 00:32:12

You've got the reassurance of knowing, okay, I understand what this is.

Russ Haworth: 00:32:17

I can't.

Russ Haworth: 00:32:19

I can't a avoid, it it's happened.

Russ Haworth: 00:32:21

It's something that is going on in my life.

Russ Haworth: 00:32:23

But I also know that this is now an opportunity for growth.

Russ Haworth: 00:32:27

This is an opportunity for me to take ownership of things and it's,

Russ Haworth: 00:32:31

it becomes less intimidating.

Russ Haworth: 00:32:32

You wouldn't wish kind of suffering on people in, in, in that sense,

Russ Haworth: 00:32:36

but in terms of if things happen.

Russ Haworth: 00:32:38

So if there's a, you know, a significant moment in somebody's life,

Russ Haworth: 00:32:42

having the encouragement of knowing.

Russ Haworth: 00:32:46

This, this will follow a period of ality.

Russ Haworth: 00:32:49

You grow through that.

Russ Haworth: 00:32:50

You have that opportunity for growth.

Russ Haworth: 00:32:52

For me, I find that very encouraging because it's, that is that light at

Russ Haworth: 00:32:56

the end of the tunnel that, you know, although I might not be feeling,

Russ Haworth: 00:33:01

uh, a hundred percent, I, I might be feeling a bit lost in betwe in between.

Russ Haworth: 00:33:04

I know that the other side of this there is opportunity and there

Russ Haworth: 00:33:07

is, uh, development and growth.

Jamie Weiner: 00:33:10

So Russ, when you talk

Russ Haworth: 00:33:11

Mm-hmm

Jamie Weiner: 00:33:13

about that, I kind of was going through some of my

Jamie Weiner: 00:33:14

own experiences across the years.

Jamie Weiner: 00:33:17

Because I worked in a long term adolescent psych unit, not a

Jamie Weiner: 00:33:22

very up period in people's lives.

Jamie Weiner: 00:33:25

I worked at cook county jail.

Jamie Weiner: 00:33:27

I worked with people who've, lost children very early.

Jamie Weiner: 00:33:32

and there is the real potential to have life take you down.

Jamie Weiner: 00:33:38

And, you know, kind of leave you in a place that you're

Jamie Weiner: 00:33:42

never gonna rise up from.

Jamie Weiner: 00:33:45

And I think the true meaning of thinking about breaking moments, the way we're

Jamie Weiner: 00:33:50

talking about it is that it becomes a challenge to rise, rise above whatever.

Jamie Weiner: 00:33:59

And so, you know, we interviewed prominent family members.

Jamie Weiner: 00:34:03

That was their thing to rise above.

Jamie Weiner: 00:34:06

And there were variations on the story, but when I worked with people who

Jamie Weiner: 00:34:13

had no money and, maybe racial things going on, whatever it was ended up

Jamie Weiner: 00:34:20

in jail, you know, some people rise above that and, and many people Don.

Jamie Weiner: 00:34:31

and I think that's, that's both the beauty and the pity of it because

Jamie Weiner: 00:34:38

you can get caught and live a life.

Jamie Weiner: 00:34:41

That's not filled with, uh, the sense of purpose and integrity And, you

Jamie Weiner: 00:34:47

know, purpose could be, just read a book about somebody who, who got

Jamie Weiner: 00:34:52

in, um, um, repairing motorcycles.

Jamie Weiner: 00:34:56

He, he was, that was his purpose.

Jamie Weiner: 00:34:59

He, you know, he, he approached life differently and had a

Jamie Weiner: 00:35:03

passion for what he was doing.

Jamie Weiner: 00:35:05

So I'm not talking about something highfalutin,

Russ Haworth: 00:35:08

Mm-hmm

Jamie Weiner: 00:35:09

it is whatever it is that it takes to feel like

Jamie Weiner: 00:35:12

you have ownership of your life.

Russ Haworth: 00:35:14

And I think it's important as well to focus on again,

Russ Haworth: 00:35:19

in terms of the positive emotions that come from taking that ownership.

Russ Haworth: 00:35:24

And we speak about, um, in the research and again, you capture it

Russ Haworth: 00:35:30

brilliantly within the book around.

Russ Haworth: 00:35:32

The ability to then contribute back to the, the terms institutions, but

Russ Haworth: 00:35:37

effectively your family, the, um, business, your peer groups, the, your

Russ Haworth: 00:35:42

friendship groups, however, you, you term institutions, the ability to contribute

Russ Haworth: 00:35:46

back and, and give back there the, the emotional wellbeing and, um, sort of

Russ Haworth: 00:35:53

the positive side of that happening.

Russ Haworth: 00:35:56

Again is a, a really positive element to focus on that.

Russ Haworth: 00:35:59

Although things you might be feeling a bit tweaked in between here, but when

Russ Haworth: 00:36:03

you get through that, when you go through that opening what's on the other side

Russ Haworth: 00:36:06

is a feeling of, um, That ownership and being able to contribute doesn't mean

Russ Haworth: 00:36:13

there won't again, be future breaking moments and future periods of ality.

Russ Haworth: 00:36:17

But again, I see it as kind of a continual rise, a progressive rise

Russ Haworth: 00:36:22

over time, um, that has some, some peaks and troughs along the way,

Russ Haworth: 00:36:26

but, but there's hope in this, right?

Russ Haworth: 00:36:28

That we're not talking about it being kind of, um, life full of, of breaking moments

Russ Haworth: 00:36:33

and, and feeling, um, sad about things.

Jamie Weiner: 00:36:36

Yeah, I think there's a lot of hope in it.

Jamie Weiner: 00:36:39

And I, you know, I, I think it's important to note that we talk with some

Jamie Weiner: 00:36:42

families that, you know, some people who've grown in families that were

Jamie Weiner: 00:36:46

350, 450 years of a family business.

Jamie Weiner: 00:36:51

And, um,

Jamie Weiner: 00:36:53

they still need to define their place in the world.

Jamie Weiner: 00:36:56

It wasn't like, oh boy, you know, there's and you know, one case

Jamie Weiner: 00:37:02

the family had been through.

Jamie Weiner: 00:37:04

Changes in political structure and the country they were in.

Jamie Weiner: 00:37:08

sorting that all out is a gift and it's a gift worth pursuing otherwise.

Jamie Weiner: 00:37:15

Why do the quest.

Russ Haworth: 00:37:16

Yeah.

Russ Haworth: 00:37:17

And, um, again, I think there's a, a hopeful feel to, uh,

Russ Haworth: 00:37:23

undertaking a quest that, that it's not easy, but it's worth it.

Russ Haworth: 00:37:27

Right.

Russ Haworth: 00:37:27

That that's the, the, the point of it.

Jamie Weiner: 00:37:29

Absolutely.

Jamie Weiner: 00:37:31

You know, one point in my life, I went off to a place where we hiked 70 miles

Jamie Weiner: 00:37:36

in a week and we ate vegetarian food.

Jamie Weiner: 00:37:39

We drink a lot of water and I lost a bunch of weight.

Jamie Weiner: 00:37:42

Well, when you're hiking the 70 miles, it's not like, oh boy, this is so great.

Jamie Weiner: 00:37:48

Um, you get to the end of it and you feel.

Jamie Weiner: 00:37:53

You know, I did something this was, was worthwhile.

Jamie Weiner: 00:37:57

And, um, and that was a physical quest.

Jamie Weiner: 00:38:04

Um, most of the people we talked to the conversation was about an internal quest

Jamie Weiner: 00:38:11

about, you know, that finding oneself.

Russ Haworth: 00:38:15

yeah, it's a great metaphor in terms of the, the feeling at the end

Russ Haworth: 00:38:18

of it, despite it being, um, uh, Easy.

Russ Haworth: 00:38:23

Let's put it that way.

Russ Haworth: 00:38:24

Um, in, in terms of again, if, if people are listening and this is resonating

Russ Haworth: 00:38:29

with them in terms of what they're experiencing in, in their life right now,

Russ Haworth: 00:38:33

we we've suggested and, and stated that.

Russ Haworth: 00:38:38

Not to avoid it is, is to, to rise, uh, in terms of the challenge.

Russ Haworth: 00:38:43

And, and in terms of ways in which you, you can do that.

Russ Haworth: 00:38:47

One of the, again, recurring themes that we picked up from, from the

Russ Haworth: 00:38:51

interviews that we did was that people felt that they were the only

Russ Haworth: 00:38:55

ones that were experiencing this.

Russ Haworth: 00:38:56

So I guess again, what we are trying to encourage is to talk about it.

Russ Haworth: 00:39:02

And if.

Russ Haworth: 00:39:04

You don't have anybody that you feel you can talk to you, you can obviously

Russ Haworth: 00:39:09

get in touch with, with us, via the, the quest for legitimacy website,

Russ Haworth: 00:39:13

which is quest for legitimacy.com.

Russ Haworth: 00:39:16

Um, there's a huge amount of power in, um, peer groups and, and support from people

Russ Haworth: 00:39:21

who are experiencing the same things.

Russ Haworth: 00:39:23

And the fact that, um, there'll be many people who are listening to

Russ Haworth: 00:39:27

this, that this resonates, um, for.

Russ Haworth: 00:39:31

Take encouragement from the fact that you're not alone and that,

Russ Haworth: 00:39:34

um, you know, there are others out there that are experiencing and can

Russ Haworth: 00:39:38

share their own stories with you.

Russ Haworth: 00:39:40

And I think again, that the power of that community, um, shouldn't be forgotten.

Jamie Weiner: 00:39:44

Yeah, I agree.