Hey {{first_name}} - I’m back with another creator conversation this week, as well an essay that again steers into the personal and introspective journey I’m on.

In this week’s conversation I caught up with Dan McGee who overlapped with me at Rally Health in Chicago around 2017-2018. He shares about the stops he’s had along the way since then at other startups and what he’s been building with a partner.

Follow Dan on LinkedIn and check out his work on Entalas / Clarity Boss

Where I came from, being “in the world not of it” meant not listening to secular music or watching a movie over a PG rating. It meant condemnation of gays, atheists, agnostics, alcohol, bikinis, Hollywood, divorce, and democrats.

Everything was based on external indicators. Something you could point a finger at as right or wrong. Looking back, I can see where my obsession of measuring "rightness" on the inside became fully dependent on evidence from the outside.

Consider this example: In junior high I committed a few years to being on something called the "Quiz Team" at my church. There were about 6 of us, complete with a set of coaches, who participated in competitive Bible trivia. I’m talking weekly practices, traveling hours to competitions at other churches, and even study retreats.

Competition was structured as 4 v 4 — tournament style. A match consisted of two teams sitting side by side facing the judge’s table, from which a moderator would read either read a passage or name a book, chapter, and verse (NIV, if you're translation curious). The first person to stand and correctly finish the passage verbatim or name the precise scripture reference would win a point. I think we played to 17.

How did they knew who stood first? We were each seated on a small, pressure sensitive electrical pad that would light up on a board at the judges table. Once you stood and were identified as first, there was a time limit within which your answer must be completed. There were other rules as well, like how if you missed too many in a match you were disqualified and had to remain seated for the remainder.

There were microphones, stages, and audiences. There were tourney brackets and trophies. There were cross-team rivalries and crushes. There was pride and there was shame.

Mostly, there was a lot of time invested in externalizing knowledge to show how much you "knew" inside. The focus was on speed, accuracy, and winning.

Care to hazard a guess at how much knowledge I retained or was transformed by from all the studying, practicing and competing?

I recall this experience for a few reasons. First, I think it's safe to say it instilled in me a sense of worth measured in results. (It's one of many examples) I participated because it felt like the right thing to do. Because it was a more worthy way of spending time and energy than memorizing movies or TV shows. Because it would show that I was putting in the work on learning something important.

Second, it has since struck me how little actually changed inside of me, despite all this effort. I did not gain a better understanding of scripture, or of Jesus's teaching. I was spending an inordinate amount of time "learning" and experiencing very little fruit in terms of impact or application. What I did gain was an anxiety that I wasn't studying hard enough or taking it as seriously as our team all-stars.

Here we are over three decades later, and the parallels to what I've been experiencing in work and life are startling. I've had a spotlight aimed at my internal sense of value, meaning, and purpose lately. What appears is a bulletin board where accomplishments and results are meant to be posted. Sections labeled for metrics achieved, follower count, compliments received, awards won, equity value, financial status, salary band, retirement security. Stuff that's all measured and reported from the outside.

I've spent a lot of time going the opposite direction recently. What I'm coming to understand, and what I'm desperate to fully embrace, is a reality where internal meaning and worth is actually where the light is shining from. It's not an evidence locker. It's not informed by what's happening outside. It's a radiant source that's supposed to be flowing outward, not the other way around. But painfully, I just haven't been experiencing it that way.

We're a data driven and results oriented society through and through. Our fitness as citizens is measured in material contribution to society, participation in the economic system, and adapting to modern behavioral expectations. We're obsessed with meeting those expectations but often don't even know where they come from, except that they come from everywhere.

We don't know how to be still anymore. To sit with ourselves and understand what's going on inside. We've lost the capacity and patience for boredom. We tell ourselves we can rest once we get across the next set of train tracks. Our life is like a Hotwheels car being driven with our hand (or someone else's) clinging to the top, whipping it around at speeds, angles, and obstacles of unsustainable recklessness.

I'm in a phase of at least recognizing this, and attempting to move (shrink?) to inside the car. Behind the wheel where I can start to navigate from a manageable perspective with meaningful engagement with the gas, brake, and steering wheel. With intent and clarity and understanding of where I truly want to go.

A few weeks ago I wrote about my interest in, and seeming disillusionment with, the idea of energy and manifestation. I've been reading books authored by career and life coaches who adhere to the notion that our meaning, worth, and creativity comes from inside, and that our outside world becomes a reflection of our inner world. I don't disagree, but there's still something not fully connecting. It' still about getting to a result on the outside.

Recently I was introduced to a book that goes a level deeper. The premise is that the entirety of our outer life circumstances doesn't just come from inside us, but specifically from our ability to be emotionally integrated and present in every single second we experience. So that we're in a perpetual state of clarity, incapable of ending in a undesirable outcome. It may sound similar to the others, but the difference is that it's not focused on the external evidence that results. (If interested, it's called The Presence Process by Michael Brown. Thank you dear subscriber who made the recommendation :)

It's deep, intense, and I can't put it down. Line after line resonates to my core. After all the time and effort I've invested in achieving stability, pivoting over and over, it's clear that this is an operating system issue. I need an update that will only happen from going deeply inward.

Will it result in a complete change of course? Will I end up doing something wholly unrelated to where I've spent my career thus far? Will I stay, but with a renewed sense of purpose and increase in impact and fulfillment?

Turns out it’s rather hard to be an amazing creator when you’re struggling to understand where you’re creating from or what you’re creating for. It’s hard to run design programs when the OS is on the fritz.

I so badly want to rush it. I wish I had started 6 years ago, not 6 months ago. The natural impatience and desire for results is pervasive.

As hard as it is to not be in control the way I want to be, I guess it's unfolding in the necessary way. The turn inward requires a particular posture that can't be rushed or forced. So for that reason, it's found me where I am.

Being in the world not of it starts to mean something entirely new through this journey. The "of" is so much bigger and inclusive than what I was originally led to believe. It's not just about virtue signaling and moral agreement on this or that. It's the temptation to believe we're the sum of our experiences, behaviors, and accomplishments in this material realm. That the things we're obsessed with obtaining, achieving, measuring, and defining ourself by are our true nature. To be in but not of it means we are anchored to something far deeper inside.

I think what we truly "are" is going to shock us one day. Maybe soon, but probably not. The only way to move closer though is to embrace the inward turn.

-Justin