Change is inevitable. Oftentimes a change happens suddenly, faster than external circumstances or your physiology can catch up with. That’s when you enter the transition phase, a state of liminality that accompanies a change. An identity shift accompanies any transition, and during most transitions there is a liminal phase, where the old identity no longer fully exists in its old form in solidity, and the new identity has yet to be formed.

A friend who saved your life, dying of cancer. Slowly losing touch with your roots as an immigrant. Impassable cultural divides between lovers. Saving a life in the tsunami, and the reverberations of that. Love lost and lessons learned. A mother fleeing during wartime, and the impact of generational trauma. Masterful storytelling, heart-wrenching and sometimes funny.

What the hell was I doing, moderating a panel discussion with two mayors of Tokyo wards, a venerable journalist, and a rep from the Viennese embassy? And in tabi boots?

We all have pressures around us in our leadership roles. Subconscious scripts that drive us, sometimes relentlessly, forward.