On the Riverbank

Last month, I left my job. Here's why.

Photo by kazuend on Unsplash

I was two pina coladas into the evening when my friend

Tom Morgan

leaned over and said something that filled my stomach with ice.

“Transformational change is not some path out there, already set out for you to discover,” he said. “It’s you stepping on stones across a river that keeps flowing swiftly under your feet.”

I don’t know if Tom came up with that one himself. He’s smart enough to have done so, but knowing him, he probably got it from some post-modern philosopher or neuroscientist somewhere. He’s a magpie of wisdom, always picking up brilliances and stuffing them in his pockets to hand out at moments like these and to people like myself. I took out my cell phone.

He tilted his head, confused. “What are you doing?”

“Writing this down,” I said.

“Why?”

“Because it’s good. Because you scared the shit out of me.” I grinned, maybe somewhat maniacally. “That’s how I know it’s good, actually.”

With a laugh, he waved me on. “Whatever makes you happy.”

When I was finished, I returned my phone to my pocket and thought no more about it that night. 

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For weeks, though, my mind kept drifting back to our conversation. After I’d turned Tom’s words over and over so many times that the rough edges had smoothed away, I realized something inconvenient.

My first instinct upon hearing words with the potential to turn my world upside down had been to write them down. 

Not to internalize them, nor rationalize them, nor push them away, nor any other sort of intellectual gymnastics. My gut reaction was to record them—as if I were still a reporter on the quest for that perfect kicker quote.

Trouble was, I hadn’t written any real reporting in three years.

Oh, I’d written plenty of words, both professionally and not. I wrote content guidelines and departmental resources. I wrote PowerPoint presentations. Employee reviews. Lots and lots of emails.

But a piece of honest-to-goodness journalism, with facts and source quotes and the five Ws and one H carefully arranged in an inverted pyramid structure?

That wasn’t my job anymore.

No, as editor-in-chief, my job was to help others write those stories. That’s a vital, noble pursuit, one I was honored and privileged to undertake, and which I’d worked my ass off to attain.

Plus, I was good at it. Really good.

When I came on board at VettaFi (then ETF Flows), our editorial department had three employees, myself included, and no full-time writers. Over three and a half years, I built a full bench of staff writers, editors, and publishing staff. We nearly doubled the number of stories published each month, surpassing 1,000 across our various websites. We expanded our editorial capabilities to include regular columns, newsletters, podcasts and video, and more. Through blood, sweat, and tears, I built a newsroom that could power a billion-dollar company.

But. (There’s always a but in a story like this.) Something was missing. I wasn’t telling stories any longer. As an editor, I had written my last word.

As it turned out, I still had more to say.

Which is how I found myself on the bank of the aforementioned swiftly flowing river, wondering how the hell I could get across without drowning.

---

Like most writers, I can confidently say that I don’t write to be happy. The actual physical process of writing is hard, painful, boring. Awful.

I wouldn’t change this about myself, even if I could. Writing isn’t about happiness, because happiness isn’t a state of being with any lasting momentum. Happiness is ephemeral. Nearly as soon as you grasp it, it slips from your fingers; moreover, however you achieved that happiness won’t be how you achieve it in the future.

Happiness, by itself, holds little meaning.

Ironically, I suppose, it’s the journey toward happiness that provides meaning. Even if you can’t see the path in front of you—even if no path exists at all—still you must move. One foot in front of the other—it’s the only way to feel a sense of purpose.

In other words, living a life of meaning isn’t about happiness, but chasing the force vectors of happiness. Those pushes and pulls that inspire you to overcome your inertia and move already.

Or, as Tom had said: Whatever makes you happy.

Writing is my force vector. I write because it’s how I think through things; it’s how I perceive and understand the world and my place in it. I write because it’s inextricable with who I am. My sense of self is writer.

Without writing, I don’t move.

Weirdly, it’s exhausting not to move for three years. I could only maintain it for so long before my knees and heart gave way, and I had to move.

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So I left VettaFi. I have no set path before me now. It’s just me and the river. But now my foot’s on the first rock.

Where I go next is yet to be determined.

You see, the thing about crossing a swiftly flowing river, stone by stone, is that no amount of planning can prepare you for how to get to the other side. Even if you can see the stones that lead from one side to the other, there’s no guarantee that you’ll end up taking them. Rocks you think can hold your weight will shift as soon as you apply the slightest pressure. Conversely, you might slip from a rock, only to find purchase on a submerged, hidden boulder you couldn’t know was there until you landed on it.

In other words, the path you use in crossing a river is never the one you think you’ll take at the outset. In some ways, it’s better not to have a path at all. Instead, you should seize the opportunities as they present themselves. Be open to possibility.

That’s where I’m at now. Open to possibility.

That said, I do have some ideas of how to get to the other side of that river. Big ideas. Crazy ideas. Some of which I’ll work out through this blog, and I hope you’ll come along for the journey.

First, though, I need to reacquaint myself with my own voice. On this Substack, I plan to experiment with all the writing I’ve wanted to do for years.

Of course, I’ll cleave to my personal interests—finance, ETFs, the art and science of storytelling—but I don’t see Shoe Leather limited in that way forever. (Like I said, I have big ideas.)

To start, I’m going to kick off with some writing, podcasting, and other content exploring the values I hold dear. Truth. Inquiry. Curiosity. Dialogue. My Guiding Principles, so to speak. 

Then I’ll move onto crunchier reporting, the stuff that takes time to uncover and do justice. I’ll focus on deep investigation, inquiry, and research. Cutting through bias and narrative to reveal the truth of a matter, however deeply it may be buried.

Above all, I just want to keep moving.

Because I can. Because I need to. Because the river awaits.

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