Somewhere Between Becoming and Belonging

Reflections on leadership, connection, identity, and the strange beauty of an unfinished life.

I’ve been thinking a lot lately.

Which, if you know me, probably isn’t particularly surprising.

My mind has always been a busy place. Ideas, questions, projects, relationships, research, plans, possibilities. There is almost always something being built, explored, challenged, or reconsidered.

And lately, I’ve found myself wondering whether all of these seemingly different parts of my life are actually pointing toward the same thing.

Maybe they always have been.

I’m a professor. An academic administrator. A researcher. An author. A consultant. A traveler. A husband. A father. A spiritual leader. A student of human behavior. Someone who spends an extraordinary amount of time thinking about why people connect, why they don’t, and what happens when we lose our ability to truly see one another.

And beneath all of those identities, I’m still just a guy from rural West Tennessee trying to make sense of this strange, beautiful, complicated human experience.

The Professional Life I’ve Been Building

This year has been extraordinary in ways I’m still processing.

My work with UMass Global has brought a renewed sense of purpose into my professional life. Between academic leadership, curriculum development, international partnerships, and opportunities to work alongside talented colleagues, I’ve rediscovered something I didn’t realize I’d been missing quite so much.

The feeling that the work matters.

Not because of a title.

Not because of institutional prestige.

But because education can fundamentally change the trajectory of someone’s life.

I’ve watched students walk across commencement stages and felt that familiar surge of emotion. I’ve worked with colleagues who genuinely care about improving the student experience. I’ve had conversations about international partnerships that could eventually create opportunities for learners who might otherwise never have access to them.

And I keep coming back to a simple truth.

Education is one of the most powerful forms of social capital we can create.

Not simply because of what people learn, but because of the relationships, opportunities, confidence, and access that learning can make possible.

That’s the kind of work I want to spend my time doing.

The Connection Paradox

At the same time, my research and writing continue to occupy a substantial part of my world.

I’ve spent years exploring social capital, relational networks, leadership, trust, and the importance of authentic human connection.

My second book, Starving for Connection: Social Capital in a Hyper “Connected” World, continues its journey toward publication.

There have been speaking engagements, leadership programs, collaborations, research conversations, and opportunities to share these ideas with increasingly diverse audiences.

And I’m grateful for every one of them.

But something has become increasingly apparent to me.

Being an expert in connection does not make someone an expert at being connected.

That’s a difficult realization.

I can explain bonding, bridging, and linking social capital. I can discuss cognitive, relational, and structural dimensions of organizational networks. I can help leaders understand how trust influences knowledge sharing, collaboration, and organizational culture.

But none of that automatically makes me better at telling someone I miss them.

Or asking for what I need.

Or being vulnerable when I would rather appear composed.

Or navigating the uncertainty that comes with allowing someone to know the parts of me that don’t fit neatly into a professional biography.

The intellectual understanding is one thing.

The lived experience is something else entirely.

And perhaps the greatest irony of my work is that the deeper I study connection, the more aware I become of the ways I am still learning to practice it.

The Work Nobody Sees

I’ve also been spending considerable time looking inward.

Through personal reflection, EMDR, Internal Family Systems work, and a willingness to examine patterns I’ve carried for years, I’ve been trying to better understand the person beneath the roles.

Some of that work has been uncomfortable.

There are parts of ourselves we develop to survive particular experiences. Ways of protecting ourselves. Ways of seeking approval. Ways of controlling uncertainty. Ways of making ourselves feel safe.

And sometimes those strategies remain long after the circumstances that created them have changed.

I’ve been asking myself difficult questions.

Am I communicating what I actually feel, or what feels safest to say?

Am I allowing people to know me, or am I presenting the version of myself I believe they’ll most readily accept?

Am I seeking connection, or am I seeking reassurance?

And perhaps the most challenging question of all:

Can I allow myself to be fully known without trying to control what happens next?

There is no conference presentation that answers that question for me.

No academic journal.

No leadership model.

Just the ongoing work of being human.

And I’m beginning to think that this internal work may be every bit as important as anything I accomplish professionally.

Masculinity, Brotherhood, and the Need for Better Spaces

Another part of my life that has been increasingly meaningful is my spiritual work with Apple Oak Grove.

Serving as a Third Degree High Priest has given me opportunities to engage with community, ritual, service, and the deeper questions that emerge when we make intentional space for reflection.

Leading the Men’s Mysteries during Mabon brought several of those questions into focus.

What does it mean to be a good man?

What does healthy masculinity look like?

How do we balance strength with tenderness, responsibility with vulnerability, independence with interdependence?

I worry about the narratives surrounding masculinity today.

Too often, men are offered a choice between dominance and disengagement, as though those are the only available paths.

I reject that premise.

I believe men can be powerful without being controlling. Protective without being possessive. Confident without being arrogant. Emotionally available without surrendering strength.

And I believe we desperately need spaces where men can explore those possibilities together.

Spaces where brotherhood means more than shared interests.

Where accountability is an expression of care.

Where vulnerability is not weakness.

Where we can challenge one another to become better partners, fathers, friends, leaders, and human beings.

There is something profoundly important about being witnessed by other men without feeling the need to compete with them.

That’s a kind of connection worth cultivating.

The People Who Make It Worthwhile

For all the professional activity, travel, research, and personal exploration, I keep finding myself returning to the people in my life.

Alison.

My children.

My partners, friends, and extended community.

The people who have known me for decades and the people I’m only beginning to know.

Some relationships are easy. Others require more intention. Some have changed as I’ve changed. Some have become stronger with distance, while others have revealed just how difficult maintaining connection can be in adulthood.

I’ve been thinking about how friendship evolves as we get older.

How easy it is to confuse availability with affection.

How often we assume that people who care about us will simply understand our silence.

And how much courage it sometimes takes to reach out and say, “I’d really like to spend some time with you.”

For someone who studies social capital, I’ve become increasingly aware that relationships cannot survive indefinitely on good intentions.

They require attention.

They require reciprocity.

They require the willingness to inconvenience ourselves occasionally.

And sometimes they require accepting that people have different capacities for connection at different points in their lives.

I’m learning to hold that reality with more compassion.

For others.

And for myself.

A Life in Motion

Travel continues to be one of the great privileges of my life.

France. California. Tennessee. Conferences. Universities. Airports. New conversations in unfamiliar places.

Sometimes the travel is professional. Sometimes personal. Sometimes spiritual. And occasionally it’s simply a trip back to Tennessee to build a fence at an Airbnb property.

I love that contrast.

One week, I’m discussing international higher education strategy.

Another, I’m working with my hands, covered in dirt, trying to make something stand straight.

Both feel meaningful.

Both remind me that life is bigger than any single identity.

And both give me opportunities to step outside the routines that can make our worlds feel smaller than they really are.

I don’t want a life defined exclusively by professional accomplishments.

I want stories.

I want experiences.

I want quiet mornings with coffee.

I want meaningful conversations that last longer than expected.

I want to laugh with old friends, discover new places, spend time with people I love, and continue finding reasons to be curious about the world.

I want a life that feels lived, not merely managed.

The Difference Between Success and Alignment

Something I’ve been reconsidering lately is how I define success.

For much of my adult life, achievement has been a powerful motivator.

Degrees. Positions. Publications. Businesses. Presentations. Professional recognition.

And I’m not going to pretend those things don’t matter to me.

They do.

I enjoy building things. I enjoy accomplishing difficult goals. I enjoy seeing an idea evolve into something tangible.

But I’m becoming less convinced that achievement alone is a particularly good measure of a life.

You can accomplish extraordinary things and still feel disconnected.

You can be admired by people who don’t actually know you.

You can build a remarkable professional network while struggling to identify the people you would call when life becomes difficult.

You can be successful by every external measure and still feel that something essential is missing.

So I’ve been thinking more about alignment.

Does the life I’m building reflect the person I want to become?

Do my relationships reflect the values I teach?

Am I creating enough space for joy, intimacy, curiosity, and rest?

Am I giving the people closest to me the same quality of attention I give my professional responsibilities?

Those questions are becoming increasingly important.

Not because ambition is bad.

But because ambition without intention can quietly consume the very life we’re trying to improve.

Maybe the Point Isn’t to Arrive

Here’s where I find myself today.

Professionally energized.

Intellectually curious.

Spiritually engaged.

Personally challenged.

Deeply grateful.

And still, in many ways, unfinished.

There are books I want to publish, research questions I want to answer, institutions I want to help strengthen, and communities I want to support.

There are places I want to visit and relationships I want to deepen.

There are conversations I need to have.

Parts of myself I want to understand.

Habits I want to change.

And experiences I haven’t even imagined yet.

For a long time, I think I approached growth as though it had a destination.

Become the person.

Reach the milestone.

Resolve the issue.

Figure it out.

But perhaps becoming isn’t a destination at all.

Perhaps it’s a practice.

A willingness to remain curious about ourselves even when we think we already know the answers.

A willingness to admit when our behavior hasn’t caught up with our values.

A willingness to keep choosing connection even when connection feels complicated.

And a willingness to recognize that we can be proud of who we are while still working to become someone better.

What I’m Learning Right Now

If I had to distill everything happening in my life into one realization, it might be this:

The quality of our lives is shaped not simply by what we accomplish, but by how fully we participate in the relationships and experiences available to us.

Social capital isn’t just something organizations possess.

It’s something we create in the everyday moments of being human.

In the conversation we choose not to avoid.

In the friendship we make time to maintain.

In the student we encourage.

In the colleague we support.

In the partner we allow to see our vulnerability.

In the community where we show up not because we’re needed, but because we belong.

And maybe that’s what all of this has been about.

The books.

The teaching.

The travel.

The leadership.

The spiritual work.

The personal healing.

The endless curiosity about human connection.

Maybe I’ve been trying to understand how to create a world in which people feel less alone.

And somewhere along the way, I’ve realized that I want that world for myself, too.

I don’t think that’s a contradiction.

I think it’s the most human part of the whole endeavor.

So here’s to continuing the work.

To building meaningful things.

To loving people well.

To becoming more honest with ourselves.

To finding community without losing our individuality.

And to remembering that a meaningful life isn’t something we eventually achieve.

It’s something we practice, imperfectly, every single day.

— The Social Capitalist