What Actually Matters?
In 2011, I left the government sector and set out to learn finance and investments in anticipation of using those skills within the field to create new understanding and opportunities for myself and future family.
My first year in grad school didn’t yield much in terms of skills learned as much as it made me do two things: 1) Question myself repeatedly about why I was doing this, and 2) how does any of this stuff fit in the experiences I had already gained in the public sector and military.
Both of these questions made me realize fundamentally that I might have over-stretched myself in my latest challenge. I didn’t know much about markets or the financial systems that enable them let alone the players of those systems and their end goals. I just had in my mind that if I could learn ‘what’ the major levers of these markets were and ‘who’ were some of the key players, I could potentially create a niche for myself as well as bring a different perspective that could shape the way things were currently being done in the US cities like my home city of Chicago, IL. Fundamentally, that isn’t a ridiculous premise and certainly with the right foundational learnings and experiences, it could have led me to those objectives with a much greater chance of achieving much more than what I set out to obtain. In practice, I believe it was pretty naïve and illogical, because to truly acquire what I was looking to obtain, I would have needed to choose the study of economics first and get a more thoughtful baseline on what these markets were, what drove them, who created them, and why they still exist today.
I started to think about how I made the decision again based on my background and I thought about my parents and my upbringing. Many of you might have noticed by my profile picture that I am light-skinned African American Male. More progressive and moderate types might also say that I am “a racially-ambiguous human-being who has not declared a pronoun with a great smile”. I am both and grew up primarily in the Chicagoland area, but moved around a lot (in and out of the State of Illinois). Something I realized around the age of 10 or 11 was that my childhood experiences shaped my thoughts on the world and because of it I would act and speak differently than those around. Top that with my constant uprooting and relocating from location to location (and sometimes — house-to-house) and I can see how this might have created lots of confusion and mixed signals for me during developmental years. So much so, that my opinions on things like healthcare, nutrition, relationships, etc potentially could have been shaped and/or molded prematurely. Even things like seeking my own understanding might have been pre-disposed to the experiences I had as a young kid and my instincts on what might be the cost or benefit. My mother started taking me to schools out of my local neighborhood at a very early age to try to broaden and shift my perspective. And, what I learned very quickly is that my environment and my ‘truths’ weren’t the social norm. I was constantly in trouble with school administration for my questions and really never felt understood or part of the greater classroom/school community. So, at my first crack at college (I was expelled for unsatisfactory achievement at my first attempt at post-secondary education), I set out to do things differently. I took all the classes that I thought would make me more likely to fit into social settings. I took Greek Literature, Philosophy, and Introduction to AutoCAD. I thought who would love an interesting guy like that!? In short, I thought learning things different than my own understanding would yield me greater community and opportunity.
What I learned was that there was a greater world view than just the one I knew and that there was understandings and perspectives that were even larger than the ones my parents knew too. This led me to read and learn about things that were outside of the bounds of what I ‘knew’ to be true. This went across a number of different dichotomies; including — religion, social sciences, literature, and even sport. As I learned, I also was able to apply some of them to my own life and began seeing the rewards of that type of mindset. When I made the choice to join the US Marine Corp in 2000, I learned the importance of healthcare, regular exercise, and my diet. The habit of making this a part of my lifestyle at a very early age was revolutionary in my long-term health and personal appearance as I got older. And, while I could speak about those specific understandings in that context, I can also say that because I never stopped and asked myself ‘why’ or ‘where’ my foundational understanding came from until much later in life, I also missed out on those basic understandings having a much more deeper and useful impact than just ones I mentioned.
There are millions of people worldwide who have similar stories and if perhaps asked would be able to reflect in a similar fashion. This is what some would call an ‘awakening’ or others self-actualization. Self-Actualization is a state at which people [someone] are at their very best. One way of viewing is that it is taking someone and adding additional context and/or experiences. However, the way many view it is looking at someone with ‘nothing additional’ needed. This is someone being their complete and authentic selves and understanding ‘who’ that person is at that very moment. Authentic people know themselves and make decisions based upon their passions and current understanding. They understand their feelings better than any person or algorithm and make decisions based upon their present and current self. There’s a ‘truth’ to their decisions and choices and that truth might not make sense to anyone other than them. In hindsight, I think that some of my choice and moments of awkwardness were when I did not show up in an authentic manner. I think I made some choices that were popular and the ‘right choice’ in theory, but possibly not the best choice for me. One has to go to those places deep inside your heart and mind and uncover the things that prevent them from bringing their whole selves each day and begin to dismantle them.
As I return to the question of ‘why’ I went back to grad school, I can honestly say it was because I was attempting to generate value on my thoughts and ideas. I wanted to surround myself around people who also had this same desire and had different perspectives than myself. I wanted to reshape my understanding and adopt new concepts and tools or cutaway things that no longer would benefit me. Ultimately, I think I wound up with a mixed outcome that I am still sifting and examining, but I also think that it helped me to continue to ask the question of ‘what’ really matters to me.
And, that toe me is a great thing. There are still things for me to learn in this life if I give myself the opportunity. And, through this constant examination of my life, I can continue to find substantive ideas and processes that will create better opportunities and vehicles that might better myself and my family to come. Its why Apple, Google, Tesla, Amazon, Starbucks, and their leaders are popular and proclaimed as today’s innovators. Its the constant search for what matters in their fields and their lives. To me, that just seems intuitively correct.
Thanks for reading.