How Jungian Psychology is Making Me Better

How much do you really know about yourself? How deep can you look inside with clear and truthful eyes before turning away?

I learned recently that answering questions like these is much, much harder than it seems.

Let me explain.

Since I cannot resist the temptation to relate everything back to Ancient Greece, I’ll begin there. An inscription found at the Temple for the Oracle at Delphi famously reads:

 “Know Thyself and Nothing in Excess.”

Pretty good advice! What strikes me as true about modern life though is that we have constructed a society and culture where failure in these two pursuits is all about assured. Surrounded by the technology of distraction, inundated by the artificial, we live in a time where indiscipline and unconscious forces reign supreme. 

As someone who has dedicated a lot of time and energy to reflective work—i.e. journaling, meditating, writing…etc.—I thought I was different, perhaps even better. But what I’ve discovered lately is that I was just as lost to myself as everyone else.

Look, I know this newsletter is usually about wealth building, citizenship, and growth but stay with me…

For 10 long years, I’ve been searching for a new way of being. I felt called—first by the stress and crisis of a business blow up and then by becoming a father—to a serious reexamination of just how I wanted to live and why. And this call led me down many philosophical and spiritual paths. On fire for truth, I read voraciously and widely, sampling from all the great traditions, the sheer excitement of which sustained me for years. In a way I almost felt awakened or maybe partially so. But as good as I felt, in my heart I knew something was missing and I felt kind of stuck. 

I kept at the reading and study, thought about it a lot, almost obsessively, and even tried a bunch of new things, including writing this newsletter and producing my podcast. I thought maybe I could experiment my way to the answer. While I certainly made some progress in my understanding, the feeling of being stuck remained.

Eventually, I turned to a practice that has served me well over the years: systematically facing my fears. Several times now in my life I’ve used this practice. It’s how I met my wife, how I got started as an entrepreneur, and how I got comfortable with public speaking. Basically, I sit down and write an honest list of things I’m afraid of and then I put a proactive plan in place to face those fears head on. Well, this time two things came up: dancing and talking to a therapist. 

I wasn’t expecting either of these! But I wanted to stay true to the practice. 

We will have to talk more about the dancing some other time but I’ll share this: I did sign up for lessons and picked the absolute scariest thing I could think of—hip hop. After a few really stiff and awkward sessions, I got my groove! Now, despite what my wife and kids may think, I’m on way to actually having some game. 

As for the therapy, I knew exactly where I needed to go. For years, I’ve been fascinated by the revolutionary ideas of Carl Jung. This goes all the way back to my childhood, as my father has long been a fan and student, and came back recently in one of my rich conversations with my friend and business partner John Young. If you are at all interested in leaning more, the best starting place is “A Life of Meaning” by James Holis. 

After months of hesitation, I finally took the plunge and scheduled a session with a Jungian analyst. Nothing could’ve prepared me for the staggering degree of emotional challenge I’ve experienced in this process. I thought I knew myself pretty well but turns out I hardly knew a damn thing. To really look inside at yourself, to examine with clear eyes the things you’ve done, the things you are ashamed of, the things you feel guilty about, and the things you fear, is frightening, painful and humbling. It’s also wildly clarifying. I have learned more about myself in these last few months than I had in years of deep study and introspective work.

I won’t bore you with all the symbols and archetypes that have been coming up in my dreams, I’ll just tell you this: our dreams are real, meaningful, and full of medicine. How can we assume otherwise? We are of Nature, who wastes nothing, and spend half our lives sleeping and dreaming. 

I learned right away that I have real problem just talking about my feelings. It took me about a month before I opened up and when I first started crying in a session, I felt so incredibly awkward. I don’t know why but being vulnerable like that in front of a stranger just felt weird. But good things happen when you allow yourself to feel what you are feeling. 

I’ve always been a much a better listener than a talker and for the longest time just assumed I was just really good at emotional regulation. Maybe in a way I am—people have always been drawn to my emotional steadiness and predictability—but I realized I’ve also just been too afraid to look inside. I discovered that behind this mask of composure there’s a deep and rich layer of emotionality that I wanted to pretend didn’t exist. 

I became a master at repression and compartmentalization and developed very powerful and useful defense mechanisms like seeking refuge from the chaos of life in intellectualism and hiding from the potential pains of my own emotional life by focusing on those of others. So, when facing my own crisis, rather than dealing with the intense emotions that came from my own failures, I spent a decade seeking universal truths. I was so interested in finding “the” answer from others I closed myself to the reality that there might not be one, at least not in the form I was looking for. And I completely missed the possibility that the answer, if there is one, might only be found inside myself. 

While I’m still so early in this process, I couldn’t be more excited. I feel like I’m getting better in every roll I play in life, even in business. I’m absolutely going to see this Jungian process through and plan to share more with you all along the way. Today, I’ll leave you with a few ideas that have come up that might be useful to our Profit+ mission.

My respect for the meaning of individuality has grown immeasurably. We matter because we exist. Period. And what binds us together in this crazy, unpredictable life is that we are all so profoundly psychologically vulnerable. Even the strongest among us will tremble when they look inside. 

This is why it’s so important to pursue self-knowledge and to do so like our hair is on fire. The Ancient Greeks were right—to know thyself is absolutely essential. 

This is also why it’s so important to conduct our economic life in the right ways. We absolutely cannot take advantage of others, especially psychologically. What the tech industry has been doing these last decades is unconscionable in light of what we know about our psychological vulnerabilities. When it comes to business, we must do better. We need to engage with constant care and compassion and keep the well-being of others always on our minds. 

Finally, this is why we MUST pursue a society that protects the freedom of the individual above all else. We cannot sacrifice or abandon even a single soul for the purpose of some collective convenience and still preserve our humanity. 

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