Hi {{first_name}} : Consider this a part 2 of 3 in plotting the direction for this project. While I’m doing my best to harness the energy and enthusiasm, here’s another personal essay on the fundamental shift driving it. Thanks for coming along, and please respond with your own thoughts and observations!
Yesterday was Easter, one of the big three for western Christians and traditionalists. How did it pass through your life this year? As someone who's experienced it over and over for decades, it's met us across many different points on the spectrum. This year in particular, it hit different.
Not to worry — this isn't a spiritual essay. Death, resurrection, and transformation are themes we all experience individually, regardless of our theology. Maybe you've been through the cycle a few times already. Maybe you're aware of it for the first time because you're experiencing the front end. I think that's where I am.
The death part was coming whether I wanted it to or not. Twenty years of trying to find my "right" path as a designer, entrepreneur, builder, leader, ended with me on the steep marketing trail. I effectively decided to jump off the edge a month ago. There's a whole lot more to that story, but you could say I embraced death head on. Cut. Dried. Done.
What does resurrection look like now in this season? Beyond that, what's the transformation that will happen as a result? And deep at the root of it all — OMG what about money!?
The "pastor" of our tiny warehouse Church is a highly likable and entrepreneurial spirit. (I used quotes because from his own lips, he described it as a "...a place where Christians end up on the last stop before walking away from it entirely..." Not exactly a Church growth mentality. Which is why we're still there ironically) I met him for coffee a week ago as I've been sorting out a lot of ideas and energy. Yesterday we chatted for a split second after the service, but he sent me a podcast as a follow up. (Link at the end). I listened to it as I walked my dog this morning and immediately became lost in the relatability. The conversations, topics, and learnings that keeps coming up everywhere I turn my head are around intention, meaning, and creating.
The realization that keeps coming over me is that these three things have always—ALWAYS—followed a material or financial driver. I have spent my entire life starting with the obligation or outcome of material and financial needs. How do I attach my intention, sense of meaning, and desire to create to the money-making paradigm of our culture? Where am I going to roll the dice and sacrifice important pieces of me because that's what we do as responsible capitalists? This may shock you, but I'm still waiting for that payoff. And so I've moved through story after story and season after season assuming that I'm the one fucking it up this whole time.
What I've realized along the way is pretty important. When it comes to inherent skills— I'm terrible at making money. I have no idea how to do it, seriously. I've worked with and experienced people who can to manufacture it in their sleep. They just see in black and red. Dream in opportunity. But me, I'm allergic. I came up in a hard working Midwest environment with an educator and administrative assistant as parents. Very hard working and relentlessly active. Financially speaking, the approach I absorbed more skewed toward respecting, saving, and almost fearing money.
The inherent need and desire to make is still there, however. I recognize I've got a family to care for, and I truly want to provide amazing experiences and daily comfort and safety. But when it comes to how I’m wired and gifted, what I've realized I need is to create connection and meaning. Something original, touching, beautiful, or useful that evokes an emotional response in the reader, viewer, or user.
While I lack the money-making gene, the things I'm good at have risen closer to the surface. I'm really good at creating—especially when curiosity is untethered. I'm great at connecting and talking with people. And I'm pretty good at setting a vision and getting people excited about it.
So now here I am, ready to put all of that first for a change. Not take all those skills and figure out how I can jam them into a role that justifies my existence and allows me the privilege of a paycheck and insurance. (For instance, trying to turn credit card acceptance rates and virtual card basis points into meaning) I'm not starting from the end anymore. I'm starting from the beginning, and I haven't the faintest idea how it will pan out.
My wife and I are doing this thing now we call make room for miracles. It's not a cop out. It's a simple re-frame that allows us to trust that the investment of meaning and intention into something good and worthy will leave space for our needs to be met. Someway. Somehow.
Thus far in a matter of months, we've seen it play out in multiple unexpected ways. I don't know what it will look like tomorrow, next week, or next month. But I'm working to keep fear on the back shelf and prioritize my energy and passion for what drives me each day.
Easter this year is a reminder to me that the end is already accomplished. We don't have to earn it. It exists already. We just have get to wake up each day and spend energy and put intention moving toward it.
-Justin
Re: the podcast — The way I responded to my friend’s text as I listened was “Bill and Dave are in my head tearing down the wallpaper right now.” I’d recently learned of them and consider their work the type of thing I’m excited to consume and share. Let me know what you think if you’re able to give it a listen!
