Good morning, friends!

What has been the most defining moment in your life?

I bet I could tell a lot about you based on your answer to this question.

Some of you will answer with a joyful event that shaped you into the person you are today — the birth of your child, the launch of your business, the attainment of a big goal.

Others, however, will point to a traumatic event — a near-death experience, a tragic medical diagnosis, or the loss of someone dear to them.

These are all life moments, but defining life moments are laced with emotion. And that emotion depends on the narrator’s perception of the event. (For example, one person may say a near-death experience made them paranoid and fearful while another may say it made them loving and grateful.)

I recently wrote about how no one single event will transform your entire identity because we have a multitude of layers that make us us.

But, as humans, we have a very hard time accepting this. We often can’t make our brains understand that people can be two (or three, or four) things at the same time. We want simplicity while we resist ambivalence.

And because we want that simplicity, one moment can dominate our entire life — for the rest of our life. But it’s not really our fault. Our brains sometimes get stuck in a loop that replays the moment like a broken record.

In a recent New York Times feature, writer Taffy Brodesser-Akner says this about trauma:

“I’ve now come to understand the same thing about trauma: Happy, well-adjusted people are all different. The traumatized are exactly alike.

“I’m about to tell you a story that is nothing like a violent kidnapping — almost laughably so — but what I’ve learned over the years is that trauma is trauma. Something terrible happens, beyond what is in our own personal capacity to cope with, and the details don’t matter as much as the state we’re thrown into.

“Our bodies and brains have not evolved to reliably differentiate a rape at knife point from a job loss that threatens us with financial ruin or from the dismantling of our world by our parents’ divorce. It’s wrong, but explain that to your poor, battered autonomic nervous system.”

Brodesser-Akner tells the story of the painful, invasive, and traumatizing birth of her first child. She says that she never got over it, never stopped being bitter about it, and never quit worrying about the impact it had on her son.

“I had been rocked into a full nervous breakdown, and I had no idea what aspect of the birth did it, she writes. “All I knew was that, should something go wrong — a car accident, maybe, or a mugging — I would be prone to falling apart.”

Her son’s birth transformed from a moment into a defining moment with tentacles that touched every aspect of her life.

Now, let’s take a look at someone else.

Last week, I included a profile about a skydiver named Emma Carey who survived a 14,000-foot fall when she dove out of a helicopter into an empty cow pasture in Switzerland, with two tangled parachutes and her instructor passed out on her back.

The reporter writes:

The skydiving story is just a story, and [Carey] wrestles with how much longer she wants to keep telling IT. She wants to talk about her.

It's human nature to make a story about you into the story of you, and most of the time feels harmless. Think about how many people whose identities are subsumed going from Justin and Maria, to "Justin & Maria," to Mom and Dad, to Grandma and Pap. Everybody has a friend whose marriage falls apart and he suddenly becomes "Divorced Dave," or a cousin who has borrowed money from everybody in the family and therefore is "Broke Brooke." We connect people with one of their stories, and a chapter about them becomes the book on them.

But who wants to be simplified down to one thing about themselves? This is especially problematic for people with trauma and disabilities. Most of us have said "Heather is paralyzed" or "Mike is autistic" without thinking twice, with no ill will. But there's a reason why those affected often prefer person-first language -- Mike isn't autistic, he has autism. He also has a dog, a job, a guitar and an on-again, off-again relationship. Nobody says "Mike is guitar." And if they do, they probably shouldn't.

As the writer notes, who wants to be simplified down to one thing about themselves? Who wants one moment to become the moment of their life?

Carey survived the impossible, but understandably, she wants to move beyond it. She doesn’t want to be the girl who “fell from the sky” for the rest of her life.

I got curious. I went to her Instagram to see how she’s moved on. How she’s told the story of her. How she hasn’t let this traumatic moment become the defining moment of her entire life.

The first thing I notice is her bio: “Emma Carey: The girl who fell from the sky.”

Read it on the website

— Polina

GREAT READ: Mostly metrics is a business newsletter I’ve been enjoying lately. It goes out to 50,000+ startup CFOs and Operators each week. It's full of business insights you can actually understand. CJ, a tech CFO, breaks down financial metrics, monetization models, and topics like dilution and fundraising ... All in plain english. Subscribe today: 

Mostly metrics Business insights you can actually understand | Mostly metrics readers are the smartest people at their companies. By CJ Gustafson

PROFILES.

— The athletes proudly taking steroids [**HIGHLY RECOMMEND**]
— The collector of dead brands
— The audio investigator
— The man who knows why you’re lonely
— The media company grappling with the culture wars
— The Tesla of sneakers

PEOPLE TO KNOW.

The athletes proudly taking steroids: Biotech entrepreneur Christian Angermayer has backed ventures including longevity science, brain computer chips and mushroom therapeutics. His newest venture is something called “Enhanced Games,” an alternative to the Olympics in which athletes will compete in 10 events, from sprinting to weightlifting to an as-yet-undecided combat sport, while proudly taking growth hormones, anabolic steroids and other performance-enhancing drugs. “We have a chance to make the Olympics completely obsolete,” he says. (Bloomberg; if you can’t access this article, try this link)

“It’s going to be one of the biggest media spectacles in the world.”

The collector of dead brands: Almost every U.S. president has been inaugurated in a Brooks Brothers suit. Civil War soldiers were outfitted in the brand. After a couple of failed ownership changes, the 202-year-old company finally sought Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection soon after the pandemic. The only one celebrating? Jamie Salter, ready to pounce on the iconic retailer for a fire-sale price, adding it to his portfolio of famous dead brands. Since its start in 2010, Salter’s Authentic Brands Group has been stalking troubled retailers and picking through their corporate carcasses for one valuable thing: their name. Authentic, valued at about $17 billion, now owns more than 50 brands and is the third-largest licensor of IP after Walt Disney and media conglomerate Meredith Corp. (Bloomberg; if you can’t access the article, try this link.)

“If Jamie Salter wants to buy something, Jamie Salter gets what he wants”

The audio investigator: Abu Hamdan, 39, has conducted audio investigations all over the world, including in Syria, Lebanon, Palestine, France, and England. He often works in collaboration with non-governmental organizations such as Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, Defense for Children International, and B’Tselem. He has also been commissioned by media organizations, including the Washington Post and ITV, a British television channel, to provide audio analysis to their investigative teams. Abu Hamdan calls himself a “private ear,” which calls to mind classic detective narratives. But he often works on investigations that challenge traditional notions about the nature of proof. (The New Yorker; if you can’t access the article, try this link.)

“You can close your eyes. But you can’t close your ears.”

The man who knows why you’re lonely: More than two decades ago, Robert Putnam became something rare: a celebrity academic. In 2000, he published a groundbreaking book, “Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community,” in which he demonstrated, with copious data, that America was transforming from a nation of joiners to a nation of loners — we were going to church less, joining clubs less and, he warned, losing trust in our fellow Americans and our institutions. Putnam is now 83. He has watched as the nation has become more divided, more lonely, and less confident about the way forward. Here’s what he has to say about where American community stands today. (The New York Times; if you can’t access the article, try this link)

“We’ve become more socially isolated, and we can see it in every facet in our lives.”

COMPANIES TO WATCH.

The media company grappling with the culture wars: Joe Kahn, the executive editor of The New York Times, wants to incentivize his staff to take on difficult stories, even when they might engender scrutiny or backlash. But, because we live in this insane time of 2024, that’s somehow a controversial directive. Independent journalism has gone out the door in favor of activism and advocacy. In this interview, Kahn explains just how important it is to do real journalism. (The New Yorker)

I think it is really important for journalists to understand that the craft of journalism requires you to put the journalistic mission before your own personal views about the issues.

The Tesla of sneakers: Every once in a while, the sneaker market is reinvented, because of leaps in design or technology or both. On, the sneaker upstart Swiss brand started in 2010, has created  the Cloudboom Strike LS, a new sneaker that doesn’t look like any sneaker anyone has ever seen. The shoe was created from a single semi-translucent synthetic monofilament almost a mile long that was extruded by a robot arm, engineered to fit an athlete’s feet, and then heat-fused to a foam rubber and carbon-fiber sole. Is this the craziest shoe on the market right now? (The New York Times; if you can’t read this article, try this link)

“We know the shoe is very fast. We know it’s superlight. What we don’t know is whether people will like it.”

✨ The rest of this newsletter is only available for premium members of The Profile, whose support makes this work possible. If you’re not already a premium member, consider upgrading your subscription below for access to an additional section of weekly audio + video recommendations. ✨...