By the time Jennifer Aniston was 25, she was well on her way to becoming a star actor: It was during this year that the pilot episode of Friends aired, which would quickly catapult her to becoming a household name (and signature haircut). And yet, shortly after the sitcom wrapped in 2004, Aniston would learn from a numerologist that she was destined to be a “late bloomer” in life, she recently revealed in her acceptance speech for the Sherry Lansing Leadership Award at The Hollywood Reporter’s Power 100 Women in Entertainment event. But according to numerology, being a late bloomer doesn’t necessarily mean what you might assume.
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Typically, that late-bloomer designation refers to having one of the “master” numbers—11, 22, or 33—within your numerology chart, which consists of several numbers that a numerologist can derive by way of arithmetic using your full name and birthdate. Perhaps the most famous of those numbers within Pythagorean numerology is the life-path number, or the number you get from adding up the digits of your birth month, day, and year separately, and then summing those three numbers together. (To spare yourself the math, you can find yours by plugging your birthday into this life-path number calculator.)
“11 is the number of the inspirational leader or teacher.” —Jasmine Wolfe, numerologist
Sure enough, when you calculate Aniston’s life-path number, an 11 pops up—not only as the day of the month she was born, but as the reduced total of all the digits in her 2/11/1969 birthday. “Eleven is the number of the inspirational leader or teacher,” says numerologist Jasmine Wolfe. “These people tend to face specific trials early in life that help shape their greater life story.” While you might be wondering what difficulties, exactly, Aniston might’ve encountered as a long-successful actor, numerologists say this type of struggle can often manifest in a more esoteric, ‘What am I doing with my life?’ dilemma.
It was that question that Aniston began to grapple with near the end of Friends’ run when Sherry Lansing, a film executive and namesake of the award, asked her over lunch what she had planned for her future. Aniston weighed the answer for years, up until the time that she’d learn of her late-bloomer status from the numerologist. “At first, I was a little taken aback by this label, as if I were an underachiever who hadn’t reached her full potential,” Aniston says in the speech. “But as I sat with the idea of being a late bloomer, it started to grow on me. Maybe I hadn’t done my best work yet as an artist or as a human being. Maybe I am just beginning.”
That’s a particularly fitting mindset for an 11, as folks with this life-path number tend to have a larger societal purpose in life, according to numerologist Josh Siegel. “The 11 is the messenger who awakens society to see the light, helps us shift into our better selves,” he says. “Aniston’s great success on Friends helped her to gain recognition as an actress, yet her higher purpose came into focus later.” For those with master numbers in their charts, like Aniston, that type of growth and progress can simply require more effort. “It’s a bigger reward in the end, so it’s a harder battle to get there,” says Wolfe.
In Aniston’s case, comedy—though a large part of her early success—was a stepping stone for what was to come. “I got into this business mostly because I wanted to make people laugh…to give people a moment of levity or escape,” she says in the speech. “But somewhere along the way, my motivation for being an actor, a performer, a producer, and my motivation for telling stories deepened because I deepened as a person.” Case in point? Her starring role in The Morning Show, which she also executive produces, a series that “helps us shine a light on cultural illnesses like sexual harassment, racial discrimination, and gender bias in the workplace,” she says.
To Siegel, that trajectory reflects her dedication to using her 11 status in its highest aspect and becoming the dynamic, inspirational figure she was destined to be. But he also adds that embodying the lessons of any life-path number involves growth—and in that sense, we are all late bloomers, to a degree. “We are all growing into the higher levels of our life-path numbers, and finding ways to develop through the challenges that help us bloom into our better selves,” he says.
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