Scott Berkun's Blog, page 19

List of Famous People Estranged From Their Parents

Along the way to writing The Ghost of My Father, I came across many stories of famous people who had difficult relationships with one or more of their parents. The samples are too random to assign any particular significance, as I learned in my own research, family estrangements are common. Are they more common among famous families or with children who become stars? Hard to say.

Here’s the rundown:

Jennifer Aniston: her mother, Nancy Aniston, wrote a memoir about their troubled history. They have recently reconciled.
Steven Spielberg: many of his early films center on absent fathers, a reflection of his experiences as a young adult.
Macaulay Culkin: has been estranged from his father for many years.
Michael Jackson: well documented history of abuse at the hands of his father, Joe Jackson
Adele: her father has made several public pleas to reconnect with her and her family
Tom Cruise: his father was absent for most of his life
Demi Lovato: her father Patrick Lovato died while estranged from his daughter
Kate Hudson: has stated “my biological father doesn’t know me from a hole in the wall”
Drew Barrymore: she doesn’t speak to her mother anymore 
Lindsay Lohan; There is a long history of conflict and estrangements between her and her father, too many to mention
Jay-Z: his father was absent for most of his life, but they did meet before he died

I’m certainly not famous, but if you want to read a great book about understanding family and learning from the past, check out The Ghost of My Father. Read the free chapter here.

Life as Reinvention

[Of the 247 kickstarter backers of The Ghost of My Father, there was one gold sponsor, contributing $1000 in return for a blog post on the topic of their choice. This fine gentleman is named Keith Klain, who is the CEO for Doran Jones. One of the projects he works on is the UDC, which teaches underemployed adults in the South Bronx how to become software testers (see story in WIRED). Keith asked me to write about reinvention and I was thrilled to oblige as it's a theme close to my heart]

There is a list of sayings on a whiteboard near my desk that I can’t help but notice several times a day. It contains ideas I try to remember, things I forget are true and important about the life I want to have. Near the top of the list is this one: you could be dead. It makes me laugh every time I see it, for reasons I can’t entirely explain. The part I know will make the most sense to you is how when we’ve been alive for awhile, we forget what being alive means. We slide into a paper cage of our own habits and forget that with a little effort we can slide our way into new habits too. I can stand up whenever I want. Or sit down. Or put on some music, or close my eyes and lose myself in silence. I could dance, scream, stand on my desk, or anything I choose to do. Anyone can do an infinite number of different things, small and large, in this or in any moment as long as they are still alive. But I forget. We all forget. We live many of our waking moments asleep in a dream of our own invention, a dream of boredom and regret that we don’t even enjoy. We become familiar with our favorite memories and allow ourselves to believe the feeling of familiarity is an acceptable replacement for investing in the life we have today.

There are hundreds of cliches about how to live life and it’s easy to dismay cliches. Sayings like “Carpe Diem”, “Memento mori“, or even “Sing like no one is listening” are reminders we often see, inspiring us to nod our heads affirmatively, “Yes! I should be more in the moment!” but then our attention moves on and we return to our waking slumber. We fool ourselves into the confusion that thinking about doing something, thinking about writing a book, thinking about changing a career, is practice for actually doing it. Merely thinking about playing guitar does not make you a better guitar player. How many people do we know who continually talk about the movie they want to make, the company they want to start, or the trip they want to take, yet never take even the smallest act towards that goal? Complacency is a disease of affluence: if our lives were worse perhaps we’d be desperate enough to take chances, since we’d be less afraid of what we have to lose.

Children are masters of reinvention. Every day for them is another dream, another game, another world of kings and queens, or dragons and unicorns. Why as adults does it become so scary to try something new? We know our proudest memories involve moments of fear, risk, and doubt that we overcame. All adults remember dozens of firsts, their first time riding a bicycle, their first good grade, their first kiss or midnight tryst, yet along the way into middle age we forget the fear we felt before we did those things. It doesn’t make sense: why do we become more afraid of fear as we age, when we should have more experience with it and how to use it to our advantage? A masterful life would have an increasing number of risks and chances, perhaps carefully considered but risks no less, taken in it, not fewer. Why not try a new philosophy? A new kind of music? A new relationship? The older we are the less there is to lose.

Every winter the trees shed their leaves. They bravely drop their finely crafted foliage into the dirt, literally leaving parts of themselves and their past behind, to make room for what’s going to come next.  Life itself is a cycle of ending things to start new ones. It’s only the dead rocks and cold stones that move only when pushed. The very cells in your body don’t live forever, they fade away every few weeks to be regenerated and renewed. On each day you are lucky enough to wake up, your body has changed, reinventing itself as a natural course of your biology. It’s stasis that’s unnatural. Staying in the same place, with the same thoughts, the same sadness, takes more energy than moving on.

Half or more of my life is behind me. As the cliches go I should be stuck in the loops of my memories, telling the same old safe stories of past adventures, pretending it feels as good and as real as doing something interesting or new today. But I’m not. I’m on my second career now, not out of any particular courage but simply because I decided I wanted to live in the present, and not let myself hide in my memories or be a slave to my doubts. Even if I fail to live up to my ambitions, I wake up each day giving myself a chance to discover a new dream, a new possibility, a new chance that, however small, I’d never find if I believed all of my imagined limitations. I’m here! I’m alive! I’m doing this right now! These are things I can say to myself during my days, even if they are the only reward for my efforts. I’m not dead yet and I will treat every day as the precious mystery that it is. Life is to be lived. To try, to reach, to stretch, to dance, and sure, yes, to cry and fail at times, but the avoidance of uncertainty is a denial of life itself.

The Apprentices of The Future

Last month I was invited by Dana Nunnelly to speak to some of her students in this year’s Microsoft Apprentice Program (in partnership with YouthForce). Every year they select a group of promising teens in tough situations (financial or otherwise) who pair up with project teams at Microsoft for internships while they’re still in high school.  After talking with these young adults for an hour, and experiencing their intelligence and passion, I’m more hopeful about our collective future than ever. Can these kids take over the world soon please?

Dana explained they all have a major presentation as an upcoming assignment, so to help them out I send them a box of my bestseller Confessions of A Public Speaker. And they were excited enough about it to take a photo and send it my way as thanks. Good luck!

My Next Book? The Atheist of Jerusalem

In 2012 I visited Jerusalem for the first time and had an amazing experience. I’ve long been a student of religious history, as it’s a subject that combines so many fascinating threads about human nature (psychology, culture, philosophy and more). During my visit I was struck by how little information the important sites in Christianity (as well as Judaism and Islam) provided to visitors about what they were seeing, and an idea for a book was born.

The premise: There’s so much arguing between religions, and perhaps even more within them. Wouldn’t it be great if there was some kind of religious referee, a person without any particular faith but knowledge of them, who could help sort things out? Or make interesting observations as an informed, and mostly respectful, outsider? That will be me. The book will combine my first person experiences visiting these amazing places, with insights from history, theology and comparative religion. It will be primarily a travel book about these important places, but focused on exploring deep questions about history, humanity, belief, and the past and the future.

The details: I’ll be in Jerusalem in December spending a week in Jerusalem, observing and studying some of the most famous religious sites in the world. Chapters of the book will be subjects such as “Walking The Via Dolorosa“, “Watching at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre” and “Meditating at the Temple of The Mount“.  This will be preliminary research and I’m not certain the book will come together, or if this rough outline will hold, but there’s only one way to find out!

Photographer: I’ve hired photographer Itay Cohen to work with me on the project, and we’ll be visiting the sites together. You can see more of his amazing work in his portfolio.

Researchers: The historic and theologic depths involved are enormous and to help me prepare for my visit, and develop the book, I’ve hired Nina Skafte (M.A. Religious History, Oxford) and Margaret Harris (working on PhD in Cultural History). More research volunteers are welcome, and if you have expertise and interest let me know.

Publication: I have no specific plans for how or when the book will be published. I may discover the concept of the book doesn’t hold together at all, who knows? I’ll make decisions about this after the research trip.

If you’re interested in this project, please leave a comment or contact me. It’s another big risk for me as an author and I hope you’ll at least support my willingness to take risks. I may set up a separate blog for the project and leaving a comment is the best way to get invited to follow along.

I’ve written many posts about religion in the past, and you can read some of the best ones here:

On God and Integrity
Why I’m Not A Fan of Teams or Religions
Is Being Spiritual A Cop-Out
Innovation vs. Tradition: The Vatican and Sin
The Founding Fathers and Their Faith
Why Does Faith Matter
The History of Religion: Explained
Book Review: The True Believer
Book Review: Man and His Symbols
On Free Speech vs. Religious Respect

Notes from visiting the WWII museum on Veterans Day

On the end of a long road trip through the southeast, I spent yesterday at the WWII museum in New Orleans. I didn’t even know we had a museum for this war, and was surprised to discover it’s not in Washington D.C.  The museum is located in New Orleans in part because the Higgins boat was invented there: it’s the amphibious vehicle used for the D-Day invasion at Normandy.

Higgins boat in use at Okinawa, April 1945

The museum itself, I’m sad to say, is one of the more confusing museums I’ve ever been to, with exhibits divided over several buildings, and not ordered in any obvious fashion (like say, chronological). There is an amazing and powerful story told here, but the overall experience is disorienting and it’s easy to get lost or go the wrong way through some exhibits. The Final Mission: USS Tang experience exhibit is the worst of the bunch, an under designed and barely interactive experience “simulating” the last mission of the U.S. submarine Tang, the most honored and successful submarine of the war.

I’m glad they chose to tell this story, as it’s a heroic and tragic tale, but it’s poorly told and a film would have been far more engaging than the underwhelming simulation they provided (I had to read about the last mission online to understand what the simulation was trying to explain. The Tang sank after being hit by it’s own stray torpedo).

The offering with top billing is the 4D experience Beyond All Boundaries, narrated by Tom Hanks with many famous actors in voice only roles, a 20 minute summation of the entire war. It’s well done and comprehensive, establishing how the fate of the world was at stake in this war, something that has not been true for any war since (despite the endless fearmongering of every war the U.S. has entered or caused since).  The story told has an  unsurprising focus on American’s role in the war, which is certainly important and worth in many ways, but there’s very little mention of the Soviet Union’s major, and possibly larger, contribution to victory. The U.S. lost 600,000 people in WWII, the Soviet Union lost nearly 20 million. I visited the WWII museum in Kiev, Ukraine in 2009 and was fascinated by the comparisons and contrasts to U.S. tellings of the same war it provoked.

My favorite exhibit, perhaps because I learned the most new insights from it, was Manufacturing Victory. The central argument it makes is the primary reason we won, and were even able to put up a fight, in WWII was the transformation from the U.S, with only the 18th largest army in the world in 1937, into a major military production power. Without guns, tanks, boats and planes to fight, the war would have been over before it began. One of the displays in the museum showed the relative size of the armed forces of Japan, Germany and the U.S. (shown below) early in the war. We were an isolationist and peaceful country with few ambitions for world power.

General George Marshall is the hero of the exhibit. He pushed his way into a conversation with FDR, convincing him the U.S. was woefully underprepared and needed to make radical changes to protect itself, much less win the war. His persistence led to the plans that made co-operation between government and business possible. Ford converted car plants to make warplanes, Motorola made the walkie-talkies used in WWII and dozens of other companies shifted their production from consumer goods to war goods. The exhibit details just how many people and organizations contributed. There are so many untold stories in just this one aspect of what was involved in winning the war.

It was also made clear how every American was asked to help with the war effort. It wasn’t just the existence of the draft which gave most Americans a personal connection to the war (something we’ve lost in our wars since abolishing the draft). There was a kind of civic pride and patriotism that’s rare today about making sacrifices for the nation. Shortages of rubber and copper meant citizens were asked to donate the supplies they had, and many items, like food cans, were recycled for the war effort. Unlike being told our duty is to consume, it was made clear that every American should take pride in sacrifice for the greater good and helping with the national effort.

In a way the massive armada at D-Day, one of the largest every assembled in history, was the output of the collective effort of an entire nation. Britain and Canada made similar sacrifices and contributions (and of course it was England that had the strength to remain the last free country in Europe, fighting for years before America entered the war). Even during the revolutionary war American citizens were largely divided and there’s an argument to be made that WWII had more support from its citizens than any war fought before or since.

The D-Day armada

The carnage at D-Day, and during the war, is explained in graphic detailed at the museum. The prolonged end of the war was horrible on so many levels, and even more futile and pointless, than the heart of the war itself. It’s hard not to feel something deep and sad about how many people lost their lives during the war and how much pain and suffering the entire endeavor caused for everyone involved.

Over 60 million people died during WWII, nearly 2.5% of the entire population of the planet at the time. The entire idea of war seems so foolish and futile, yet we continually find ourselves stumbling backwards into more of them.

For Veterans day my thoughts are with everyone who has volunteered their time and service for a greater good. I just wish those sacrifices could be made in ways there weren’t in opposition to other nations. I hope for a day when the lessons form the past are so broadly and deeply understood, that few people ever have to die or suffer again for so little gain. I feel tremendous respect towards everyone who serves their communities, and only wish more of our sense of service was directed at civic, peaceful endeavors, a thought that weighed heavily on my mind as I left the museum.

Help wanted: researcher & photographer for next book

My latest book, The Ghost of My Father, is barely two weeks old but I’m starting research on another book. This time the topic is religion, architecture and place. The tentative title is The Atheist of Jerusalem.

The pitch: Jerusalem has important sites for three major world religions, and each religion has different claims about which buildings and locations represent  the presence of the divine. Who would be best to arbitrate their claims? It would be an atheist, someone with no stake in any particular religion who could visit these places, make observations and ask questions the faithful wouldn’t think to ask.

The book: I will visit the major religious sites in Jerusalem, and write about the experience. What do I see? What questions do I have? What are the answers? What does it feel like to be a curious, well-read and mostly respectful atheist to visit some of the most religiously significant places in the world?

Chapters might include:

Walking the Via Dolorosa
“Praying” at The Western Wall  (I’m of Jewish heritage, thus the quotes)
Watching at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre
Thinking at the Temple of The Mount

The book’s primary goal will not be a manifesto on religion or to debate theology, but instead to use the physical experience of visiting these places, and both their history and the experience of visiting them today, to explore the questions and answers they raise.

Help Wanted: Researcher(s)

I need one or two people who are experts at doing research to help me study the history of each site I’m planning to visit. Before I go (Dec 1st) I need to know how each site has changed over time, how the meaning has changed within the particular religion, and be prepared with specific questions and ideas before I arrive. The research goal is to provide me with a dossier for each location.

Ideally you’d have a background in religious history, religious studies, architecture or live near Jerusalem. The position would be paid with a stipend for the project and a major acknowledgement in the book.

Time commitment: a few hours a week through November and early December.

Help Wanted: Photographer

I need to partner with a local (e.g. Jerusalem) photographer who can come with me as we visit each site. The photographs would be central to the book, documenting what I saw, what the experience was like, how I tried to answer the questions I had, etc. As a local you’d possibly help co-ordinate the project logistics and intangibles I’m overlooking.

The position would be paid with a stipend for the project, I’d cover at least some of your meals, and you’d get a major acknowledgment in the book.

Time commitment:  you’d need to spend a few hours a day with me while I’m visiting Jerusalem (first week in December).

How To Apply

To apply for either position, do the following:

Take a deep breath, they’re good for you. Follow this list carefully.
If you’re interested in research, explain how the Via Dolorosa’s location has changed (or has it?), with references. One page is sufficient.
If you’re a photographer, send me to your portfolio and list any relevant professional/documentary shooting experience. (Note: ideally you live in Israel. If you don’t live in Israel you’d have to be willing to go there first week in December.)
Tell me your favorite meal (and why you love it).
Contact me with the above here

Is it common to be estranged from family? Research results

In my research for my new book The Ghost of My Father, I was surprised at how little data there was about estrangement. I wanted stories and research from people in situations like mine, but I didn’t find much.

To fill the gap I did an informal survey last week of 91 adults, primarily through twitter, to get some baseline data. Here are the results.

Disclaimer: since I recently published a memoir about my family and survey participants self-selected, it’s almost certainly biased towards higher reports of estrangement than average. This research is intended only to be a first step towards collecting more balanced data.

1. How old are you?  Gender?

Nothing interesting here. Twitter and my following on it are unsurprisingly male and around middle age. 66% identified as men, 33% as women and 1% as other. 73% of respondents were from North America (U.S. & Canada) with 16 countries with at least one respondent.

2. Are you currently estranged from an immediate family member?

Nearly 50% of respondents are currently not speaking or relating to someone formerly close to them.

 

3. What is your relationship to them? And how did the estrangement start?

I wanted to know if particular kinds of familial estrangement happened more often. Fathers were most common, at 26. Mothers next at 18 and siblings third at 17.  The second part of this question was unintentionally biased, as one of the respondents pointed out, in that there is no option for mutual initiation. Slightly more respondents initiated the estrangement (37) than did not (35).

Of course every family is complex and each relationship can influence the others. I did not ask for example if respondents were estranged from their entire family, parts of it, or just one person. Adoptions, divorces and other specific situations were not identified.

4. How long have you been estranged?

The majority of estrangements (45%) have lasted more than 5 years, 1 to 5 years were 34% and less than one year was 20%. This is likely indexed to age, as older people have been alive longer and the possibility for longer estrangements increases.

5. Have you tried to reconcile?

73% of respondents who are or were estranged from a family member have tried to reconcile. Only about half of them were successful.

Reconciliation can mean many different things and I left it to respondents to define the term. Specific situations liked adoption were not isolated from more common situations.

6. Comments

These situations are unsurprisingly tough and complex and many respondents left a comment with more of their story or details they though were relevant. Here are a few edited comments:

“It’s weird – I don’t know why it happened. There was no event. We both gave up on the relationship without communicating anything.”

“never estranged. Physically and financially family has always been together. But emotionally, in terms of open conversation, not so much.”

“I had enough of an unhealthy relationship with my mother after many years of trying, so I ended it. There have been life moments (sickness and deaths), with some contact, but that’s it. She hasn’t known my children for the past decade.”

“My father remarried and we haven’t talked much, if at all, since.”

“My family sucks”

“I’m sure my brother thinks it was me :)”

7. What’s Next?

I’m trying to find psychologists doing research in this area who might be interested in doing more. If you know of anyone studying these questions professionally please send them my way or point them to this summary.

On Sale NOW – The Ghost of My Father – Launch Day

I’m pleased to announce the launch of book #6, The Ghost of My Father. It’s on sale now on kindle and in paperback.

Please buy the book today, as buying on launch day helps greatly in raising its rank and visibility on amazon in one big wave. 31 reviews so far (4.7 out of 5 average), dozens of mentions on twitter and Facebook. Its been a good day so far.

If you’re not sure if you like memoirs, or would like mine, give the free chapter excerpt a try.

If you can help for one minute to spread word today I’d be grateful. Details here or for quick reference:

Best single link: http://bit.ly/ghost-pb
Excerpt link: http://bit.ly/ghost-excerpt
Book cover link: http://bit.ly/ghost-cover-small

 

FAQ about The Ghost of My Father

Tomorrow my 6th book, The Ghost of My Father, launches (you can help here). Most of my books are about business or creativity, and many people have asked me why I decided to write such a different kind of book. Here’s the list of FAQ and answers. I’ll update this page as new questions come in. The book itself answers many questions people have, so I recommend reading the chapter excerpt here (PDF).

Q. Why did you decide to write a memoir? Who do you think you are?

People assume only famous or important people have earned the right to write a memoir. I don’t think this is true. Most of us lead ordinary lives and well written books by ordinary people can be far more compelling and inspiring that books by people lost in their own fame.

We also generally confuse autobiography with memoir. A good memoir is not comprehensive. Instead it takes one thread of a life and carefully explores it. Someone with a drinking problem, an interesting job or a specific question they’ve explored, can write a fantastic memoir even if the totality of their lives isn’t historic.

In my case I’m a writer. My life presented me with a difficult story about my family and I felt someone needed to tell it. There are many people who have serious relationship issues with their fathers or mothers. I’ve wanted to write different kinds of books and this seemed an obvious time to take that risk.

Q. Do you think many families have stories like yours?

I know many people have longstanding unresolved issues with at least one of their parents. Most of us ignore it, trying to keep the past buried in the past, and we feel the pressure at every family visit, this bottling up of something powerful and important that we don’t know how to release, or worse, feel we’re allowed to express. While I know not every family has a father like mine, or the dramas we’ve endured, my aim was to use my story to ask universal questions about being an adult, and what we can do with the things in our past we’ve never fully explored or understood. I very much want my story to help other people figure out theirs, which is why 50% of the profits of the first edition will be donated to Big Brothers Big Sisters.

Q. Did you family know you were writing about them?

Early on in the crisis I told my brother and mother I was thinking about writing a book, and they agreed someone should do it. I don’t know that they fully understood what this would mean (or that I did) but it was something we talked about. I interviewed my brother and mother many times, and my father once (which is captured in the book itself).

Q. How did you prepare?

I’ve always kept a journal and once this all happened and I thought about writing a book about it, I kept a separate journal of thoughts and correspondence related to my family. When I sat down to start writing the book in earnest I had a stockpile of archival material that helped me get started.

Q. Was writing the book cathartic?

Serious writing of any kind os cathartic. I was surprised how in each draft there were things about my family’s story that still hit me hard, or didn’t make sense, even though I’ve known these stories all of my life. Like I describe in the book, life presents us with situations that don’t make sense but happen anyway. We have to fight to live in the present and find ways to escape the past without falling into denial. I discovered reviewing the 5th of 6th draft of your own story of  your own life forces you to review, and review, and rethink, the memories that never leave you, and why they behave that way. It’s a difficult process but I highly recommend it. Our memories don’t behave the way we think they do, but until you try to sort them out you’ll never believe this is true.

Have a question about the book? Leave a comment and I’ll add the answer here.

Help me launch the new book Today

If any of my work has helped you in the past, here’s an easy way to return the favor. My 6th book, The Ghost of My Father, launches on Wednesday. Every single mention or purchase of the book on the day helps tremendously in helping this new book find its way in the world.

50% of profits of this first edition are going to Big Brothers Big Sisters, so you’ll be helping a great charity too.

How to help TODAY:

Set a schedule reminder for one or more of the following (iCal appt):

Buy the book on launch day :) For now only on Kindle and paperback
Post on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn with the link
Email your friends and family about the book
Post an Amazon.com review when you finish reading (and Facebook / Tweet about it)
Spread word of the sample chapter
Multiple mentions throughout the day can help

Sample Facebook / Twitter text you can use:

Best single link: http://bit.ly/ghost-pb
Excerpt link: http://bit.ly/ghost-excerpt
Book cover link: http://bit.ly/ghost-cover-small

The hashtag is #ghostmf. Feel free to reuse, borrow, snip and edit these:

Twitter: “New book by @berkun, The Ghost of My Father, fantastic story of understanding the past, on sale today: http://bit.ly/ghostofmyfather #ghostmf”

Twitter: “New book by @berkun, The Ghost of My Father, read the powerful chapter excerpt and buy today:  http://bit.ly/ghost-excerpt #ghostmf”

Facebook: “One of my favorite authors has a new book out today. If you have issues with your parents you’re still trying to work through, get this book. His story will help you understand yours: http://bit.ly/ghostofmyfather – 50% of profits donated to Big Brothers Big Sisters”

Early Reviews:

“Not only captivating, but also insightful… digs deep into many themes; family dynamics, forgiveness, grace, legacy, hope…” – Jen Moff

“Thought-provoking read, and highly recommended…” – Thomas Duff

“When I finished it, I felt more human and less alone.” – Heather Bussing

Want a Reminder?

If you’re following me in any medium you’ll be reminded on Wednesday :) There’s a special Facebook Event page, but my twitter, Facebook fan page and mailing list will all be updated in the morning, and likely throughout the day with news.

If you leave a comment on this post I’ll make sure you get an email too.