Happy 4th of July

I’m an immigrant which means I chose to call America home. This year I'm holding on two things that don't cancel each other out: I’ve been able to build a life and companies that I couldn't have built anywhere else, and I'm more worried about where this country is headed than I've ever been. 

These are the same concerns, I’ve been hearing from almost every executive I coach.

I was born in Japan, raised in Germany, and people can't tell where I’m from by looking at me. They guess Latino, never what I actually am, and in a country where nearly all of us came from somewhere else, everyone but the Native Americans, I still come across as other. Most of the people I worked with and got to know here didn't care where I’m from. Being hard to place has been a kind of protection plenty of people don't get, and I know that's mostly luck, the same luck that lets me call this a hard year when for some of us it's something far heavier.

The thing I love most about being here is also the hardest part to live in. A country this full of different people, from everywhere, believing all sorts of things, was never going to agree with itself. It's also why I got to build a life here.

For the leaders I work with, the economic and structural uncertainty makes it hard to lead. No one can say what the next year of policy or the economy will do, so decisions stall, and it shows up in their teams and the sleep they're losing.

What I keep coming back to is that most of what shapes a life isn't in your control, and most of what happens isn’t fair. But what I’ve learned is gripping what I can't control depletes the energy I need for the things I can. What stays mine is what I choose to live by, my own values instead of my parents', my neighbors', or the country's, which isn't selfishness so much as being honest about the one life I have.

Nothing about this country was ever finished. It's been an argument since the first day, an unfinished experiment, and a lot of what we feel now is the discomfort of wanting something that won't hold still. The version I arrived into isn't the one I'm living in now, and the one my kids inherit won't be this one either. It doesn't stop being made, and we're each here for a stretch of the making.

None of this stayed abstract once I had kids. I'm raising them here, the way I was raised in countries my parents chose before me, and what I want for them is the exact thing this place gave me, the chance to try something before they've proven they're anyone. I can't promise them that version of the country will still be standing when it's their turn. That's the ache underneath the gratitude, and it's the one I feel in my chest, watching them, on a day like this one.

I don't get to control where the country goes, only whether I show up well for my stretch of it. So this Fourth, I'll still be trying to be worth the chance I got.

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