From the Ashes I Shall Rise Again Tattoo

This is an open letter to friends and family that I write annually on my altogether (October 17). You tin read my past birthday letters here . If you want to read other wonderful things that I write, only enhance your mitt . This letter deals with both nascence and expiry. Savour responsibly.

I take two tattoos.

The offset is a modest sunset I had tattooed on my back at the historic period of 19. It was meant to exist a vow: whatever the hereafter might bring, nonetheless I should abound and mature and evolve, I swore to never forget the transcendent glory of sunsets, the daily spectacle of sky melting into globe.

Some things change, and some things never do — and what could be more beautiful than the rise and fall of a sunday?

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I got the second tattoo a month later on my Mom died in the spring of 2016.

It'south a single word, in the tiniest of fonts — no wider than my thumbnail, no taller than a grain of rice — notched just atop my shoulder-blade, barely visible out of the corner of my middle.

Resurgo.

 "I Shall Rise Once again," it ways in Latin; a motto handed down to my female parent and to me from her Scotch-Irish ancestors, the McFalls. It comes with a family unit crest — a phoenix — that has been in the family for hundreds of years.

When I was young my female parent gave me a signet ring with the phoenix crest and the wordResurgoengraved in gold. I was foolish and devil-may-care and promptly lost the heirloom. After her diagnosis, equally she got her affairs in club, she arranged to have a second set of rings cast for me and my blood brother, and presented them to us in a touchingly ceremonial fashion 1 summer evening in our backyard. I was older past and so only apparently not whatsoever wiser; heartbreakingly, I managed to lose that ring, equally well.

Thus the tattoo… may ink prove more permanent than gilt. For as long as I'm alive, I won't lose this one.

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Tattoos live on the surface of our skin; and on the surface, at least, it made sense to commemorate my mother withResurgo.

  It was meant to correspond legacy, for heritage, and (I believed) for her indomitability, the staying power of her soul across the confines of the mortal.Resurgo, I thought to myself — may she rise once more! A strong woman and a stronger spirit however — she is dead but never gone; on my pare, in the corner of my middle, for the rest of my life, she is eternal. The lord's day sets, and rises again the next day; why shouldn't my mother every bit well?

 A nice thought, of course, simply similar so many nice thoughts it fails miserably to describe things as they are.

  Mom won't rising again. Strictly every bit a affair of fact, in this world at least, she is both deadand gone. She isn't coming dorsum. To deny that would be to foist upon her an immortality — an unnaturalness — that she herself would have plant heedlessly clingy and distasteful.

This is not to say that her imagination was bound by materialism — far from it! Often and indulgently she would speculate about the existence of loving ghosts, or the quantum transformation of souls into energy, set free to soar around the universe on absurd and cosmic adventures.

It is simply that having lived a most extraordinary and inspiring life, she inspired me most of all with the grace that she showed in the face of expiry. Non a fighting spirit, non a determined volition to survive, not a flame of resistance. She did not rage against the dying of the light. She embraced it — with grace and humor and curiosity and peace.

 She did non die to one mean solar day rise once again. She didn't die to do anything — she but died, considering that's what humans do.

Sure, she was classy nigh it, simply a classy death does non a resurrection brand. Some things alter, and some things never practise.

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I went this twelvemonth for the first time to Burning Man. Information technology'southward a calendar week-long party cum mystical retreat in the desert that handily serves as both a cultural cliche and a genuine exploration of man possibility.

 Every twelvemonth they build in that location, far out in the desert playa, a Temple: a grand, hollow home for our memories and attachments to those that are gone. All day and all dark, people assemble there to pray and cry and remember and transcend, to weave hymns of sand for those we've lost. At the end of the calendar week, the Temple burns.

Perhaps simply at the Wailing Wall in Jerusalem have I witnessed so much spiritual energy — so much raw man emotion — concentrated with such focus into a single space that it almost condenses into physical energy, a palpable current of electrical sorrow.

 From the instant I entered that space, I was in tears.

Not for Mom, or for myself, but for that greater sadness that we all must feel, the sadness of certain loss, the pain common to mortals who can possess only in moments, yet yearn in eternities.

 It was a greater sadness built-in, I promise, of a greater dear.

 And it was through those tears that I realized it:

I'm okay with mom being gone at present.

I all the same feel sadness, of grade, and I still feel pain — but I am no longer in grief.

I miss her (oh how I miss her!) — but I no longer mourn her.

 Information technology's been over two years at present. I can beloved her, and let her go.

 And in that, another revelation still:

Resurgo.

Information technology wasn't her that was meant to rise again. It was me.

It was in that location all along, of grade, similar any good mystical truth, the conjugation written in plainly ink on my pare: Resurg o — I shall rise again.

Resurgo doesn't celebrate man triumph over expiry; that's a fantasy. It celebrates man triumph over grief. Mom is non a phoenix, rising unscathed from the ashes of mortality. I am a phoenix, rising from the ashes of loss.

And what could be more than beautiful than the autumn and rising of a son?

(This alphabetic character is about to get a lot cheerier. And a scrap self-promotional.)

Dear friends, it is with pleasure and pride that I can report that on my 34th birthday I am the most happy, confident, energized, optimistic, and in-my-element that I've been in years.

 I can experience the darkness receding, the light of a new dawn on the horizon. We may very well be on the brink of Rechtmanaissance.

Here's a long-winded update:

 Professionally, I am moving up the value chain with a mission.

 I go on to interpret for important meetings and cool people, simply I'm also diversifying and upgrading my freelance work for lower volume and college impact.

I've begun accepting more engagements as a speaker and bilingual event host; at this bespeak I'g MC-ing or speaking at several events a month now, typically on cross-border communications, tech, investment, entrepreneurship, and social affect. (Idea-leadership got a nice bump last calendar week when an article I wrote on A.I. versus human translators was published beginning past the World Economic Forum web log and and so syndicated by TechNode!)

  More exciting still is an executive coaching business concern I've been building over the concluding twelvemonth, which draws on my decade of experience in VIP cross-cultural communications to aid the C-suites of Chinese multinationals arts and crafts and present their bulletin to strange audiences (PR/IR/GR + internal comms). This piece of work combines my love of linguistic communication, brand strategy, business organization logic, and charisma and has given me the opportunity to work extensively 1–1 with some of China's most influential and well-respected founders and CEOs. Information technology'svery absurd (and lucrative!).

 In addition to these revenue-generating businesses, I'grand continuing to build equity value in a growing portfolio of projects and people I believe in.

Cadence Interpret has comeso far in the past twelvemonth; all the numbers have just gone upwardly and to the right, and virtually importantly the team is stronger and more professional and so ever before. Special thanks to my business organization partner and Cadence CEO Matt Conger for steering the send through chaos and calm alike. If you lot ever need an interpreter for a business coming together or phone call, in any language, delight go along united states in mind!

 I'm excited to have on a new role this year as a venture partner at iAsk, a media and investment firm founded past ane of China's leading tech-finance talkshow hosts, Gloria Ai. I'll exist helping to internationalize her content and scout VC/PE deals in global media-tech for her fund. Lots of opportunities to learn and leverage here— watch this space

I'm also excited to exist investing as an LP (a showtime for me) in a new early-stage fund that invests in women-impact startups across Asia. Led by Lean In Communist china founder Virginia Tan, information technology'south the first gender-lens fund of its kind in the region, focusing non exclusively on female founders but rather on technologies and business organisation models that empower women as entrepreneurs, every bit decision-makers,and as users and consumers. Happy to put you in affect if you want to learn more.

And (see selfie below) I'm still really into my lifestyle portfolio favorites Mantra Eyewear and The Hatchery. Go ahead, buy yourself a cool pair of shades! Beta-test an F&B concept in Beijing! Live a little!

(Oh that reminds me — last year I asked y'all to buy yourself Mantras for my birthday. Thanks to all of yous who did!This year I want to ask you lot — as a birthday gift to me — to buy yourself a copy of my father'south newly published book!Information technology'south a super-savvy, folio-turner political thriller almost a neo-con plot to hijack the U.S. Supreme Courtroom (I think he wrote it as fiction but it's hard to tell these days!). The Ashwander Rules, by Neal Rechtman, just released, bachelor now on Amazon and iBooks. Buy it, read information technology, share it — information technology'll be the best birthday souvenir this boy could e'er enquire for!)

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 Ok, in addition to plugging the business and pleading for gifts, I do want to give a quick update on how I'm staying active on the not-for-profit and social side of things, equally well.

 A community project I started last yr, Attitude of Gratitude, is my favorite for its elegant simplicity: every day, share 3 things you are grateful for with 3 people for 33 days. That's it.

The AoG model has taken off like crazy, with over a thousand participants from around the earth sharing gratitude daily in small chat groups, and was recently accepted into the inaugural batch of the Transformative Technologies Academy. We're about to gloat our ane-year anniversary and launch our next round of sharing on November. 1 — if you want to cultivate a happy daily addiction of appreciation using just one minute a day, come join us! (Currently on WeChat only).

I've also spent a lot of fourth dimension and thought this year articulating my personal values —the existential imperatives that make me me. My cousin Jeff Rechtman and I have worked on this together and nosotros check in with each other weekly to meet if nosotros're living life according to our JR Values. Just this week we met in Bali to review and update JR Values ii.0 -- take a glance, share feedback, and bring together us for weekly Values cheque-ins (yours or ours) if you recall that sounds interesting/helpful!

On the more than institutional side of things, I was recently invited to serve every bit a mentor at the prestigious Schwarzman Scholars program at Tsinghua Academy, and as a startup mentor at Chinaccelerator, one of the largest VC/accelerators in the region. I finally got kicked out of the World Economic Forum's Global Shapers Community (they put you out to pasture after five years) but on my way out I was honored by my peers with the Beijing Hub's countdown Klaus Schwab Honor for Improving the State of Gild, an honor I feel I scarcely deserve but promise to work hard to live up to.

  But not piece of work too hard — I value my leisure, later all, and a big function of my "ascent" this year has been reinvesting in my health, happiness, and quality of life.

I've made a conscious endeavour to cutting back on travel this year, which has washed wonders for my social life in Beijing (I'chiliad hosting so many little gatherings at my flat these days that a loving friend custom-printed "JR Productions" t-shirts for my guests!).

 Less time on planes also means more time for new hobbies. I started learning tennis and piano from scratch six months ago and tin now hit a decent ball on the courtroom and play the opening to Fur Elise.

I have acquired a fish tank and four pet goldfish, the biggest and brightest of which I phone call my Mom Fish in loving memory. The fish die every couple weeks, of course, but I merely buy more fish. Some things never change, etc.

(I hope you don't observe all of this unbearably morbid… I find it quite humorous and call back my Mom would, as well. She delighted in morbidity. I imagine the two of us sharing a wicked chuckle at all of this, and I smile.)

The punchline is… there is no punchline!

(The freedom to express joy at ane's pain, incidentally, is a delicious feeling. Emerging from grief feels a bit similar ending a bad relationship —the newfound liberty is exhilarating, just at that place's a sadistic and giggling desire to poke at it every in one case and a while just to brand sure information technology's actually over. If yous wince, information technology might not be. If you lot express joy, and laugh truly, y'all might just be over information technology).

Anyyyyyway…

Every bit I beginning this next lap around the lord's day, I experience rich with friends, suffused with love, free from grief, and unbearably fortunate.

When Mom died, I fell.

At present I ascension again.

Though I say this each yr, information technology is no less true: I could not have washed it without you. Yesy'all, my dearest friends and family, my allies and alibis, my errant mentors and long-suffering supports.

You. I am rising because you elevator me.

For that my center holds a gratitude that you can't possibly know and I can't perchance limited.

I hope you kind of go the picture, anyway.

With a greater dearest, I am yours truly,

 Jonathan

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