The Ikigai Explorer

Article 5: You Are Not Your Job Title

Introduction

There are moments in life when our identity feels stripped away, especially after a job loss or a personal failure. We feel adrift because we’ve unknowingly tied our sense of self to a role we played or a title we held. This article is about those moments and how to reassert your true identity when life shakes the ground beneath you. It's also about learning to never surrender that identity again.

Reclaiming the Core of You

A career setback or job loss can be devastating because it feels like a piece of you died with it. But that’s only true if you let your identity rest on external things. In the video production world, it is often feast or famine. Studios hire when the projects are lining up and fire without much care when the project list is getting thin. If you place your self-worth in the validation and reassurances of other people, you will have a terrible life. Most employers pay you to take on stress so they don’t have to. They are concerned with their goals, dreams, and lack of stress. They are not at all interested in yours. 

You have to make your fulfillment and interests a priority, or life will pass you by, until the stress takes you off the playing field. This may sound selfish at first, but if you are a mess, what good are you to the people you love? I want to teach my daughter that her well-being and identity are more important than any dangling career carrot. That the search for fulfillment and an authentic path are more important than people pleasing or towing the line. If you have children, trust me, they are watching you. They will model at least part of themselves based on observing you. So what are they learning?    

After my trip to Nepal (a means to reassert my sense of self), I made a quiet promise that I would never again surrender my identity to anyone else.

Because here’s the truth: You are not your job title. You are not your follower count. You are not the version of you someone else once imagined.

You are what you do consistently. You are the choices you make when no one is watching. You are how you see the world and how you respond to it. You are what you love and the choices you make, not what loves you. 

The Illusion of Stability

I’ve worked a variety of jobs. At one point, I was a General Manager at SkyZone, a trampoline park. The money was decent. The job was secure. The path forward was clear: stay put, climb the ladder, build the resume.

But deep down, I knew that staying would be the beginning of forgetting who I was. The stability felt like a trap, not a gift.

So I left. I gave up a stable job to join a start-up that needed someone to document their European conferences and travels. The money was far from guaranteed, but the chance to travel, film, and create was everything I needed. Because it brought me back into alignment with who I really was: an explorer, a documentarian, a storyteller.

That decision wasn’t easy. But if I had stayed at SkyZone, I may never have left. I might have looked back twenty years later with regret instead of stories.

When a Role Ends, You Begin Again

You can lose a job. You can lose your reputation, your home, your income. But you can’t lose who you truly are, unless you hand it over.

So when life knocks you down, return to your center. Do the things that are unmistakably you. Watch the movies that shaped your spirit. Go outside and reconnect with the world. Write. Draw. Travel. Photograph. Or do whatever it is that reconnects you to your true self. Rebuild not from the outside in, but from the inside out.

At some point, we will all face an identity crisis. The key is to stop anchoring your self-worth to things that change. Instead, root your identity in timeless qualities: curiosity, resilience, creativity, and contribution. Let your Ikigai be the anchor when the winds shift.

Reflections

When you’ve felt lost or broken, ask yourself:

• Was I mourning a job, or the version of myself I imagined inside that role?
• What are the things that feel undeniably me, the ones no one can take away?
• What identity have I allowed others to define for me?
• How can I reclaim who I truly am and express that in action, not just thought?

Closing Thought

The world will always try to label you. Some labels will flatter you. Others will limit you. But none of them are you.

Only you get to define who you are. And when you live from that deep place of truth, not even job loss or failure can shake it.

Looking Ahead

In the next article, we zoom out. We’ll explore the concept of legacy, not just what we leave behind for others, but the story we write for ourselves, one decision at a time.