Hi friends — Warm greetings from New York City. After spending three inspiring and restful weeks on the road, I’m finally back in the Big Apple, and it feels grounding to be home.
Over the weekend, my wife and I made a significant decision: we’re relocating to the Hudson Valley this summer. Since purchasing a home in a quaint, wooded town outside the Catskills in 2015, we've gradually fallen in love with the area. As we spent more time there, especially over COVID, it became increasingly clear that this was the perfect place to embark on the next chapter of our lives and raise our daughters. The surrounding nature, the slower pace of life, and the community we've begun to form there are irresistible. Additionally, the escalating costs of raising a family in NYC are becoming difficult to justify unless we fully immerse ourselves in all that the city has to offer.
This move will mark a considerable life transition for us. Having lived in New York for over fifteen years, I've spent more time here than anywhere else, even my hometown. It's where Eliza and I met, where I achieved sobriety, where we became parents, and where I built my career. To say that I hold a deep love for this city would be an understatement. Nevertheless, we're approaching this move as an experiment—we can always return.
The weight of our decision hit me hard this week. On Monday morning, while taking my daughter to school, I was suddenly overwhelmed with a mixture of grief and sadness. As I walked down Church Street, my eyes welled up with tears, and my chest grew heavy with emotion. Every step felt more significant as I began to notice previously imperceptible details in my neighborhood. The process of grieving and bidding farewell—the first stage in any transition—began for me that morning.
It feels as though I'm saying goodbye to a dear friend whom I love and respect, but who is no longer the right fit for me. Letting go is challenging, but I know that beyond this farewell lies a new beginning.
In light of these changes, this will be the final podcast episode of Where the Road Bends for the foreseeable future. Over the coming months, my focus will be on helping my family settle into our new life upstate, delving deeper into my writing, and evolving my coaching practice. All that said, I still intend to record and publish new episodes, but only when I feel inspired and called to.
Speaking of the podcast, I'm excited to share episode 007 with Andy Johns, founder of Clues.life, a prolific writer, and a passionate mental health advocate. Andy's mission is to “help others heal from emotional pain, transform themselves, and discover their life purpose.
With Clues, Andy aims to "create the most useful mental health library on the internet." Additionally, he is actively involved with the Heroic Hearts Project, an organization that connects military veterans suffering from mental trauma with psychedelic therapy options.
Before devoting his time to Clues, Andy was a Silicon Valley startup veteran, holding executive, product, and growth positions at unicorns like Wealthfront, Quora, Twitter, and Facebook. His keen eye for spotting great companies led him to become an early investor in Robinhood, Webflow, Reforge, Blue Bottle Coffee, and Homebrew Ventures. He has also advised companies like Opendoor and Poshmark.
In this thought-provoking episode, we delve into topics such as:
The impact of childhood trauma on mental health and self-identity
The role of therapy in addressing harmful identity structures
The liberating power of authentic self-expression
The significance of space, play, and experimentation in emotional healing
The role of community and acts of service in the recovery process
As you will soon discover, Andy brings a remarkable depth of knowledge, experience, and wisdom to the table, offering valuable insights to help others heal. This conversation is truly a treat.
To follow Andy's journey, you can find him on Twitter at @cluesdotlife and subscribe to his Substack.
Listen below or on Apple, Spotify, or Simplecast. I hope you enjoy this conversation with Andy.
🤔 For Contemplation
Over the past month, as I've stepped on the gas at work, I've felt this growing sense of exhaustion and started noticing a few familiar patterns, negative thinking, scattered attention, and the tendency to force outcomes.
As soon as I noticed that my energy was plummeting, I turned to one of the most impactful “journaling invitations” from Reboot: Leadership and The Art of Growing Up by Jerry Colonna:
In what ways do I deplete myself and run myself into the ground?"
Where am I running from and where to?
Why have I allowed myself to be so exhausted?
By reflecting on these important questions, we can begin to uncover the root causes of our exhaustion and take steps to create a more sustainable and balanced life.
🌱 Seeds of Change
Here are five things I’ve been pondering over the last few weeks. If any resonate, feel free to share them with those in your life.
💸 What’s the Actual Cost?
My dear friend, Holly Whitaker, reached a significant milestone earlier this week: 10 years of sobriety. Congrats Holly! To commemorate this achievement, she turned to her Substack to share her reflections, but what emerged was unexpected—enoughness. As she put it, “for the first time in my personal history, everything feels like enough. I feel like enough. What I have feels like enough. My efforts feel like enough. My life feels like enough. Everything is enough, which ironically is more than I could have asked for.” Holly’s message is an important one—when we feel like we’re enough then we can mentally account for the hidden and unconscious costs of our future success, and decide whether that’s what we really want. Read on Recovering (10 minutes)
⛵ Drifting
I've been a huge fan of John Mayer's music since the release of Room for Squares, and his latest solo tour has only deepened my appreciation for his artistry. In particular, his new song "Drifting" has really struck a chord with me, and I've been listening to it on repeat ever since I had the pleasure of seeing him perform it live at Madison Square Garden last month. Its soulful lyrics and melody capture the feeling of being lost and adrift in life, something I think many of us can relate to. If you're feeling aimless, unsure of your direction or searching for someone, give "Drifting" a listen - it might just provide some comfort and inspiration. Watch on YouTube (4 minutes).
💓 The Power of Memetic Desire
Episode 138 of The Knowledge Project is an excellent discussion featuring entrepreneur, author and professor Luke Burgis. The conversation “goes deep on how understanding mimetic desire can help you better connect the dots between where you are now, and where you want to go. Burgis breaks down the theories behind mimetic desire and the teachings of René Girard, why all of our behaviors are imitative, why we desire things we don’t need, and why this all leads to missing out on aspects of life that are far more meaningful and valuable.” Listen on Spotify (2 hours, 13 minutes)
👩💼 Working Identity
After reading my last essay on the power of experimentation, a friend recommended Working Identity: Unconventional Strategies for Reinventing Your Career by Herminia Ibarra a Professor of Organizational Behavior at London Business School. Ibarra shakes up conventional wisdom on career planning, urging people to actively explore and uncover their true professional callings. By offering nine unconventional strategies, Ibarra helps readers redefine their careers by making incremental changes, acting their way into a new way of being, and seizing unique opportunities when they emerge. For those of you who don’t want to read the book, here's an excellent summary. Read on Harvard Business Review (8 minutes)
🪴 The Midlife Reorientation – A User’s Guide
Fellow coach and friend Ryan Vaughn of Inside Out Leadership published an excellent essay on what he called “the midlife reorientation.” In this thought-provoking piece, Ryan delves into the transformative process that many of us undergo within the midlife passage. His examination of the midlife reorientation explores the shift from "acquisition to expression" and from an individualistic focus ("I") to a more collective one ("We"). While he wrote this for entrepreneurs in midlife, I believe it’s relevant for anyone who is undergoing this reorientation but doesn’t have a language to describe what they’re experiencing. Read on Inside Out (5 minutes).
Herminia Ibarra's "Working Identity" was excellent - the most rigorously researched among the crop of books that came out in the 2002-2004 flourishing of books on this topic. For readers who would like something less academic and more anecdotal from that period, here are three more that stand out: "What Should I Do With My Life?" by Po Bronson (2002); "Second Acts" by Stephen Pollan and Mark Levin (2003); "Life 2.0" by Rich Karlgaard (2004). The first two are still available in paperback.