From a NY Times online article on Dr. Phil McGraw, the "life strategist" who has his own show on TV.

"Dr. Phil McGraw argues that the key to anyone's authentic self can be reduced to "10 defining moments, 7 critical choices, 5 pivotal people."

I've been thinking about what I would put on these lists.

Off the top of my head for 7 critical choices:
1) going to college where I did;
2) moving to San Francisco instead of New York City;
3) leaving my long term five year job, where I was comfortable and well paid, but unbelievably miserable;
4) pursuing creativity which I'm now exploring with writing;
5) decided to divorce, because I was so incredibly unhappy.

Off the top of my head for 5 pivotal people:
1) my acting teacher who told me I would be great writer one day;
2) my junior high english teacher who told me smile and be proud of where I came from, my background and what I would accomplish in the future;
3) the priest who served our church throughout most of my youth, whose sermon on the The Lord's Prayer, shaped much of my spiritual thinking and leanings.

Off the top of my head for 10 defining moments:
1) my public relations failure - when the peace rally that I was organizing took place on the same day as the Tianemen Square incident and we got zero publicity and I took a ton of heat for it - my most memorable professional failure;
2) deciding to walk out on my alcoholic boyfriend, whom I loved very much, because being with him was killing me;
3) looking down a cliff into the ocean one night at Big Sur, when the vastness and beauty of the world hit me for the first time;
4) noticing the mountains in the back of the mall back home on Kauai, and watching a white bird fly across, reminding me that I was born and grew up in one of the most beautiful places in the world.

I'll have to think about these lists some more. Perhaps my off the top of my head lists will change, once I really sit down and think about what defines my "authentic self".