Diversify Your Identity and Your Life
A conversation on identity, adaptability, fatherhood and why the best version of you requires a diversified life.
Recently I was on the Allsmith podcast with my good friend Bryce Smith, someone I respect and admire for his ability to cut through the noise, ask the tough questions, and drive deep, meaningful conversations.
We chopped it up for 2+ hours, and the episode, which is beautifully produced by the way, came out today!
So I figured I would get out of the way and share that along with the newsletter he sent out to his audience.
I hope you enjoy, learn, think, and challenge yourself in some way after reading and listening.
Allsmith Newsletter
Kyle Gonzalez has spent his career at the intersection of human performance and human experience.
Then he became a father. And the over-optimizer had to let go.
The long scheduled workouts, the regimented routines, the control — gone. What replaced it was something more useful: clarity on where he was going, and flexibility about how he’d get there.
“Be clear on where you want to go. Be flexible on how you get there. The energy and vigor I have for life has never been higher.”
The conversation turned to identity. Specifically, what happens when the thing you’ve been using to define yourself gets taken away. For Kyle it was the structure of over-optimized performance. For Bryce it was basketball — a college career that never quite fit, followed by a phone call to play professionally overseas that he credits with saving him from a much narrower life.
What both of them learned: you are not your job. You are not the labels the world assigns you. And if you put all your identity in one room — athlete, coach, entrepreneur, parent — and that room gets taken from you, the question becomes a terrifying one.
Who am I without the thing?
The Lesson
Build an identity house. Spread the rooms. Don’t put all your marbles in one basket — because if that basket disappears, you need to know who else you are.
Kyle travels, cooks, writes, reads, parents, coaches. His identity isn’t attached to any one of those. It’s the sum of all of them. Which means when one shifts, the foundation holds.
“Strong convictions, loosely held. Open to being wrong. Open to growing. That’s not weakness. That’s how the best people in every field actually operate.”
“Don’t shoot yourself with the second arrow. The first arrow is what happens to you. The second is the judgment and shame you pile on top. Let the first one land. Don’t fire the second.”
This conversation goes deep into fatherhood, the myth of selfless giving, the Harvard study on relationships as the number one predictor of health, what it means to truly come alive versus just getting through the day, and why the beginner’s mindset with a scientist’s approach is the most powerful combination in wellness.
Two people cut from the same cloth. Worth every minute.
This Week’s Question
If the thing you call yourself disappeared tomorrow — what would be left?