The First Gen Impact & Your Inherited Identity

Our parents, the immigrant generation uses survival as a compass. 

The second generation, us,  inherits the drive but loses the directional clarity — they were raised to not suffer what their parents suffered, which means they often don't have a meaningful "why" behind their striving. They perform success without owning it.

Your inherited identity is what your family taught you who you are. Based on how they were raised. 

Every dinner conversation, every car ride, pick up and drop off, everything that they instilled in you to make you who you are. 

But then, your life at school and work came into direct conflict with what your parents told you. 

You wanted to fit in, be happy, and not live in the restrictions and limiting ideas your culture put on you. 

You got highly educated. 

You got the career and job that was expected of you. 

You earned a socially acceptable income. 

You bought the homes and the properties. 

You may have tried to continue to hold on to your inherited identity through marriage and the children you created. 

But you kept running head on into internal quiet conflicts because you never got a chance to build your self created identity. You're holding onto your inherited identity like sand slipping through your fingers but you don't find happiness in it. The world around you is moving on, and you’re stuck and trying to evolve with it and its compromising your potential. 

OR

You could’ve shifted and could have broken the mold even by marrying outside of your culture. 

Your children are of mixed race, but you’re holding on to something from your culture, but have not allowed yourself to be fully bi and multi - cultural. Your created identity is ½ baked. The internal conflict is there though - of how much you do hold on, and how much do you let go? 

You both face the same conflict. 

How much do you hold onto? And how much do you let go? 

So, who are you now? What do you do now? 

And then let's talk about how you do it. 

Identity trumps strategy.  Truth before visibility.  Reconstruction before rebrand.