Embracing Your Own Purgatory, with Geoff Curtis

In a very honest conversation, Geoff Curtis shares his personal journey through identity collapse, depression, and finding new purpose after leaving his corporate career. We explore the importance of vulnerability, redefining success, and the role of purpose in navigating times of chaos.

Topics

• Identity collapse and its impact
• Redefining success on personal terms rather than societal expectations
• The relationship between purpose and identity
• Strategies for navigating career transitions and chaos
• Understanding how identity is often tied to external roles and metrics
• The importance of vulnerability in leadership and personal growth
• Using purpose as a guiding light during times of chaos and change
• The value of self-awareness and presence outside of professional roles

Chapters
00:00 Introduction to Geoff Curtis and the Purgatory
02:57 Experiencing Depression and Identity Collapse
06:39 Finding New Purpose and Meaning
11:15 The Complexity of Identity and Purpose
16:28 Vulnerability and Its Importance in Leadership
21:41 Advice for Young Professionals Facing Uncertainty

Keywords

identity, purpose, vulnerability, career transition, mental health, self-discovery, leadership, resilience, non-profit, personal growth

Guest Contact Details:
Geoff’s book, “Embracing Your Own Purgatory” is available on Amazon. He may be contacted via geoffcurtis1@gmail.com 

Thanks to Jacopo Lazzaretti for the intro/outro music:  https://jacopolazzaretti.bandcamp.com/album/secret-love

For all contact details (including our Associates) and useful self-worth resources, see www.SelfWorthAcademy.com

Transcript

John Niland (00:00)

Welcome to Self-Worth in Times of Chaos. My guest today is Geoff Curtis. And Geoff has written a fascinating book called Embracing Your Own Purgatory. And I will let Geoff tell you the story of that in a moment. But what really fascinated me, and one of the reasons I've been so looking forward to this conversation, is that Geoff writes right from the messy middle of it all.

he doesn't necessarily show up offering solutions. He's talking very much about what happens when identities collapse. Geoff, welcome to the conversation.

Geoff Curtis (00:35)

Thanks for having me, John. Looking forward to the conversation.

John Niland (00:38)

So let's begin. What prompted the book?

Geoff Curtis (00:41)

Well, i i I'll try to keep this as short as possible, but I exited my corporate career in twenty twenty-three, the fall of twenty twenty three, immediately jumped into something else, which was a fellowship at the University of Chicago where it was designed to help me find kind of that next thing and what the next path was going to be, all through the lens of social impact. So how do you take what you've learned throughout your entire career and impact society and use that to impact society in a different way?

I did that. I finished that at the in the spring of 2024, immediately started consulting. So going back to my old identity that I just left and immediately started consulting. And I just wasn't happy, John. I wasn't happy doing what I was doing. And I knew that I needed to do a lot of work in order to on myself in order to move forward. I got severely depressed toward the end of 2024 and knew that I had

a book in me, but I didn't really know what shape it was going to take. And so I started speaking with publishers and and sat down to to write. And I I really wanted to write it from, as you mentioned, what I was going through versus the other side, because I really want people to see kind of the work that needs to happen when you're in this type of place versus just the the finished product.

And so I knew that I had to be vulnerable. I knew I had to be authentic if this was going to be meaningful for me. And so that's the that's the impetus for it. It was it was a lot it was a year packed with different experiences that I finally decided to deal with.

John Niland (02:21)

Let's go back to that year for a little bit. you mentioned depression. What was that like? Why how was that showing up in your life?

Geoff Curtis (02:30)

It was just impacting everything that I was doing. I mean, I was noticing a lot of old habits because again, and I know you're familiar with this, when we are so consumed with our identity and then that goes away, we're still measuring ourselves and our success, so to speak, against old metrics. And I was doing exactly that. And I wasn't feeling that I was being as successful by those old old metrics as I was in the past.

And that just sent me down a spiral. I I was working on clients. I was felt that I was doing good work, but it just wasn't meeting the standards that I had. And I was being very difficult on myself. I was it was impacting relationships. It was just I don't know. It was it was a mess. It was a a an absolute mess.

John Niland (03:17)

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I think there's a there's a reason we're connecting, isn't there? Because while some people experience this for involuntary reasons, like they have chaos thrown at them by external events, for still other people it's an internal thing that happens when the work that we were doing somehow no longer fits. And we try and make it fit and the world tries to make it fit, and the more we try, the more it doesn't.

Geoff Curtis (03:23)

All right.

John Niland (03:47)

So I'm sure many people listening will identify

Geoff Curtis (03:50)

Yeah, and I think too, what's an important thing to know too is that it's just you don't realize what that scaffolding that you've built over the course of your career does. It insulates you and then when it's removed for whatever reason, voluntary or involuntary, it exposes something and you don't know if there is a I mean, at least for me, I didn't know that there was a real Geoff underneath any of that. And because the the work had been so important and the scaffolding that I built.

was so important and so protective that when it went away, it was an it was a new experience. And I I really didn't know how to deal with that. And I'm sure some of your listeners can relate to that point. But it was it was a very it was newness, a lot of newness for me. And I think that's what where a lot of fear set in and w how I was going to handle it, what I was going to do with it.

John Niland (04:42)

Indeed,

indeed. Jamie Seaton, whom who is a journalist I've just interviewed two or so episodes ago, depending on the sequence they actually get published in, has talked about exactly this. She talked about a thirty year career being called into question when she hit this dry desert spell. It it cast a doubt over everything that had happened previously.

Geoff Curtis (05:08)

Yeah. I I I completely agree with that. And that's what I went through from a psychological standpoint, particularly when you get into the consulting piece of it that I mentioned. When I'm a a solo consultant without a team behind me, and depending on how much work's coming in, the work that I'm doing, the renewal of a contract, whatever it may be, all of those things call into question what you just spent a majority of your career doing and you really

depending on your personality type, start to question your your self-worth, your value, your impact, and you don't want it to be erased, but there's both internal and external validation pressures that come into all of this that makes you question everything that you've done.

John Niland (05:56)

I think that description will probably send some listeners racing straight to your book, by the way. The link will be in the show notes. Let's go on from there. What's life like now, right now?

Geoff Curtis (06:02)

No test.

It's interesting. I'm I think I'm getting to a place, John, where I'm finding purpose in something new. The book gave me purpose and meaningfulness. It was very therapeutic, cathartic, however you want to put it. I needed to do that. I'm I'm venturing in, my wife and I are venturing into the nonprofit space. we launched a nonprofit. So again, from a purposeful, meaningful standpoint, it's something that

cause that's very near and dear to us. So that's sending me down a path that is hopefully the path that I will continue on. I'm I'm looking forward to the work there. However, the obstacles I still face, John, are those that I mentioned before, measuring my success or my progress against old metrics. And how do I, how am I more attentive to things that are happening externally, reacting to those things and understanding how to move on a little bit more quickly.

I still get hung up on a lot of the external validation stuff, a lot of the why didn't things go this way? Why aren't people responding to me? Which again sends me back to those things of am I not relevant anymore? Did that not was that last thirty years not meaningful? So it's a little bit of a push pull. I'm trying desperately to find that purpose, the things that give me joy, but also battling against

the thing the old identity and those old concepts that are still pushing against me.

John Niland (07:42)

Push pull, very interesting metaphor right there. let's start with push. What's what are the push forces?

Geoff Curtis (07:46)

Yeah.

Well the push forces for me is are again that impact piece. How can I make a difference in a different way than I was previously? And so that that is pushing me. I we've with with the nonprofit, I'm gonna continue to use that as an example because that's kind of what we're building or what I'm building in the next phase.

Again, it's focused on one using my experience that I had. So I feel good about that. I feel that I can use my experience to contribute. Also focused on my experience throughout my entire entire career. I'm a first generation college graduate. The nonprofit is focused on first generation college students. And so mirroring matching those two things there are pushing me in a direction that really starts to make me feel good, but also gives me the outlook that I may be able to find joy and positivity in this direction.

John Niland (08:31)

Mm-hmm.

Okay. That's a big push. That's a big push. Huh.

Geoff Curtis (08:45)

So that's the big that's the big pushing piece of it. Yeah,

and and and and I'm I and again, I'm starting to feel good about directionally where there's a g though that is going, but also being aware at the same time of what may pull me back and hold me back from a progression standpoint.

John Niland (09:06)

Pull forces?

Geoff Curtis (09:08)

the that that I I guess the the negativity that exists based on the old metrics. And I don't mean that from the context of that everything that I did was negative. It's just that there is negativity involved in old metrics because I'm not measuring myself on things that I used to. I'm not necessarily measuring myself on external validation or or validation from a boss or a team member. I don't have

Communications goals related to my former life. I don't have any of that, but there are still some old habits that come into play of what triggers me to feel a certain way, react a certain way based on what I perceive as success through an old lens. And so what I'm trying to work on now is how do I change that lens? And was what does success look like? The success of the nonprofit isn't just necessarily dependent on me.

John Niland (09:55)

Yeah.

Yeah.

Geoff Curtis (10:05)

We're serving 23 students from six different universities. Their success is really up to them. I'm providing a vehicle for that, but that isn't necessarily my metric. It's their metric. And so how do I start to separate myself a little bit more to say, look, I'm trying to make an impact on these students' lives. And that should give me a different feeling than it just being focused on my success. And so it's a it's a different.

John Niland (10:18)

Yeah.

Right.

Geoff Curtis (10:34)

approach that's new for me and I'm sure new for a lot of people who are kind of making a transition, trying to reinvent themselves, trying to pivot, whatever you want to call it.

John Niland (10:45)

And it's a tricky one, isn't it? Particularly in the non-profit sector. Because if we zoom into that just a little bit, so on the one hand, we have the desire to contribute, the desire, the sense of purpose that accompanies that orientation towards value, which is enormous and is at values level, not just at needs level. So those of us who know about it, we can feel it. We don't need to think it, right?

Geoff Curtis (10:46)

Yeah.

Right. Right.

John Niland (11:15)

But that that's fine in the orientation to produce value. No problem there. But it gets tricky when it spills over into dependence on results. Because if if somehow those results aren't materializing or they're taking longer to materialize, or whatever, in in whatever way we might be contingent on results there. And and I'm sure we mean we're not just talking financial results. We're we are talking other real world results that we very much want to bring about.

So the the orientation to bring it about is tremendously important for a sense of purpose and a sense of energy. But the d the very dependence on them that very quickly arises around that actually undermines the very energy and purpose that's driving it in the first place. It's it's quite a tricky balance, isn't it?

Geoff Curtis (11:49)

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

It is. And I think you really have to look at why did you why did I do it? Why did I want to do it? Was it for me to make me feel good and to feed into the other things that have previously made me feel good from a a work and a business standpoint? Or is it to really help the students and by their success, even if the metrics are mixed?

There will be success out of that cohort. I'm a a cohort of student nuts. I'm confident in that. Is that going to be enough for me? And do I how how much do I have to remind myself the reason why I took this step to do this? And again, I'll I will be f fully transparent. Right now, I think a lot of it was, yeah, I need to feel good about myself. I need to feel good that I'm doing something positive for society, for my industry.

John Niland (12:41)

Yep. Yeah. Yep.

Geoff Curtis (13:04)

for someone who's gone through the same experiences that I have. And I think that was the impetus, but now it's start I mean I need to start to separate that because what I'm realizing is that mindset only, as you pointed out, impacts me negatively if something doesn't happen the way I think it's supposed to happen.

John Niland (13:07)

Yeah.

Yeah. And the other thing that makes it tricky, just as i as if it wasn't already a bowl of spaghetti to some extent between the the orientation to produce value and then the dependence on the on the results. But the the other thing that's a little bit tricky, of course, is this relationship between identity and purpose in the first place. Because an awful lot of people get their identity from a sense of purpose. But it's arguable that we actually need our identity in order to

arrive at a sense of purpose. And again, we could sp spend probably a an entire symposium going around the circles between between these two. But you know, if we if we look at the literature around identity, a lot of it starts with sense of purpose. And I often feel, gosh, when people have had an identity collapse, the last thing they need is that question. Which is like there there's a prior question first called who am I?

Geoff Curtis (13:58)

Right.

Right. No, I completely aligned.

John Niland (14:17)

And then maybe we'll find a sense of purpose.

Geoff Curtis (14:22)

Yeah. And I and again I think in two points on that. I a thing that I'm talking about because a lot of the feedback from the book is people are are mixed. I'll be perfectly honest with you. A lot of people want a plan. And for those who don't want a plan, this gives them permission to start to talk about this stuff or at least start to investigate themselves a little bit more, think retrospectively, look introspectively on what their purpose may be, how their identity impacted them, all of that. The question I'm telling those people

John Niland (14:35)

Yep. Yep.

Geoff Curtis (14:51)

Who need a plan, or question I'm asking those people who think they need a plan is can you answer who you are without doing the thing that you're doing? The job, similar to what you just said. Who are you without the job? And if you can't answer that, then that's where the investigation should really start. The other thing is that I often think that a lot of people start to blend.

their purpose with their job, as you kind of pointed out, but in a in a little bit of a different way. So if I'm working for a company that is very philanthropic, that has good ESG, whatever it is, and you're doing a lot of programming, you go to work thinking, this is my purpose. I work for a great company that's doing great work in the in the community. Okay. When you don't work for that company anymore, back to the question, who are you? And and so there's a there's a lot of kind of, I would say

John Niland (15:38)

Exactly.

Geoff Curtis (15:45)

detangling that needs to happen, not just focused on when the identity goes away, but it's when that does go away, as you pointed out, the purpose that happens and really looking at how much those two things were tangled together in your life. And it's fascinating to me for people who either can't answer the who I am or don't know that they've been that the the purpose, their meaning in life may have been tangled with their actual professional identity.

John Niland (15:59)

Yeah. Yep. Yeah.

Now you've obviously thought long and hard and deep about the identity question, Geoff. What happens people who don't?

Geoff Curtis (16:28)

Nice.

First, I I honestly don't know. I mean, I really don't know for people who don't think about identity at all. That's kind of a foreign concept for me. and I'm hopeful that at a minimum people who do read the book will start to realize that there is something out there that exists from

their their enmeshment with other w whether they're it's with their career or with another part of their life that exists that is driving their identity. It's an interesting question, John. I I I have never been confronted with okay, well people who don't think about I identity. It's an it's an interesting one for me.

John Niland (17:16)

Well, for a lot of people, their identity is their role. For a lot of people, it's the it's their role, it's the job title, it's the business card, it's the company I own, it's the whatever, you know, etcetera, etc. for some, of course, it will be their role as father or provider or mother or supporter or whatever it might be. But but n if we take the the this confusion between identity and role, which happens in many parts of the economy.

Geoff Curtis (17:19)

Yeah.

John Niland (17:45)

I then there are I I'm guessing all kinds of ways in which that creates vulnerability. first of all, what happens if the role disappears is cla or or the role is threatened, 'cause many people are sitting from one reorg to the next right now, worrying about what happens next time, even if they survive last time. so that's a that's a great sense of vulnerability.

Geoff Curtis (18:06)

Yeah.

It is. And I think it's p too, the important I'm glad you brought up vulnerability, because I think that's also a step that people need to take. And it's a difficult one people need to take to understand. I mean, part of the work that you need to do on yourself is being vulnerable and transparent, not just with yourself, but with others to understand your experiences. And I just from a societal standpoint, I think that's a big piece missing, not just for people in general, but I think at leadership levels too. It's

People are telling me that I when they read the book, I never knew this about you. People have known me for five years, ten years, twenty years, I never knew that this is how you were feeling. Why didn't we talk about it? And that was kind of a a l light bulb for me. And asking back, I don't know why didn't we? Because a lot of these people were feeling the same way. And I think that is an important obstacle that I think we all face at certain points is how do we start to address

that vulnerability and talking about the things how we're feeling in order to make that progress. And from a leadership standpoint, imagine, John, if you had a CEO who you're working for who was very vulnerable, transparent, talking about feelings, how much better that would make you feel, me feel, if I was confronted with obstacles throughout work, or if I wanted to talk about, look, I can't separate what I'm doing here and it's impacting my family life. Imagine what kind of doors that opens to for people.

John Niland (19:34)

Yeah. Absolutely.

Absolutely. Just think of all the people in, say, middle management positions at the moment who are who have a worry they'd love to take to their CXO or whatever or their CPO or whoever, but they're afraid of what that might be interpreted as from their perspective.

Geoff Curtis (19:55)

I think people are fair afraid of the looking weak and that fear drives that conversation. I had a former colleague of mine after he read the book, and I've known this person for 20 plus years. And he said, I was very surprised to read that you had you suffer from imposter syndrome pretty regularly. He said, I do too. Why didn't we talk about that? And I said, I don't know. I don't know why didn't we? Because he always thought that I had it together.

John Niland (19:58)

Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well

Geoff Curtis (20:24)

I was his boss and I always thought he had it together. And imagine if we would have been able to just make that bridge to have that conversation about how we felt going through imposter syndrome. And that's again, now we're talking about it's great, it's fine, but it opens up so much more.

John Niland (20:33)

Yeah. Well

Does indeed, which is, of course, the tremendous value of your book and the vulnerability that's implicit in it. If you were talking to let's say a younger professional or even a not so much younger professional today, who is in the middle of this, perhaps worried about the next re-org or worried about the effect of the acquisition or whatever it might be, what would you say to them? Apart from read the book, of course.

Geoff Curtis (21:13)

Well, I so I'm telling I'm talking to a lot of early career professionals and frankly university students about this very thing. And I'll I'll tell a quick story because I encountered a student who is a senior going to graduate next year. She came up to me and started talking to me about the book. She hadn't read it yet. I I told her to pick up a copy and then we can talk after. But she said, I want to be successful and I want a job, but I also love living life. And I said

John Niland (21:41)

Mm-hmm.

Geoff Curtis (21:43)

Great, go do that. Do exactly that. And she said, but I want to be successful. And I said, you can be. You can be. And live life at the same time and have fun. And so why I tell that story is because she had a really early realization of the things that she needs to either probably find meaning, purpose, as well as success in her life. And she was separating those two things. And so I talked her, I said, you are starting to understand who you are.

In addition to a potential career person. Keep doing that and keep exploring that piece. And so that's what I would tell people. It's back to the question, and I know it's cliche and continues to and it's a little abstract for people, but the the who you are and what you do when you're not doing the the job that you're doing is the important question to ask. And that's why I I'm telling people earlier on

To do that and to understand what that means and understand what how to define success, meaning, and purpose for yourself individually. The other thing, and what I wish I would have known or told myself earlier is be present, be present outside of your role and outside of whatever you think your identity is. I'm in the process, John, right now, of repairing a lot of friendships, relationships, all of those things.

John Niland (22:45)

Mm.

Geoff Curtis (23:07)

Because I was so enmeshed in my career and I didn't give time for true relationships that frankly probably would have given me a little bit more meaning and purpose earlier on. And so back to my experience, but also earlier career, mid-level career people who are worried about my what may happen, those are some things that can ground a little bit more just to understand who the person is behind.

what you're doing. And again, it's not going to necessarily take away the fear of losing the job, but you'll get a head start on kind of some tools and some things you need to ask yourself if that does happen at some point.

John Niland (23:46)

Great insights, Geoff. And particularly as we go further into the age of AI and all of the disruption that's going to bring, the value of what you've just shared today really shines through. Thanks so much for joining me in this conversation.

Geoff Curtis (23:59)

Thank you, John. I really enjoyed it.