Elevator Interview #001 Corey Morgan
Corey Morgan is co-founder of Loop Returns, and is currently helping build Nok.
#001 The Elevator
Welcome to The Elevator interview series. I’m sitting down with founders in their second or third chapter, rebuilding around balance, hobbies, creativity, and a life that’s bigger than the business.
#001 Corey Morgan is the co-founder of Loop Returns, and is currently helping build Nok. In between stepping away from Loop, and working on the next, he took a detour through culinary school and worked as a cook in restaurants.
From the states, he’s currently raising his family in Spain.
xx David
1 –– WORK
How would you describe your relationship with work?
A work in progress! My relationship with work has evolved…or maybe less “evolved” and more seesawed…over time. At different points professional work has served as a means for achievement, a vehicle to establish greater freedom and control over my time, a way to bring change (meaningful to me) to a market, and a space through which I can express my unique gifts and purpose. But in this particular season work feels like a vehicle for personal growth and reflection, a reliable mirror, a way to establish polarity in my experience.
In work I encounter resistance, uncertainty, ambition, frustration, collaboration, recognition and inspiration. It’s a space that reveals my patterns, attachments and blind spots. It provides an opportunity to exercise patience, humility, courage, and discipline. It’s also a space for shared endeavor, building some in collective, which is important to me.
Before you sit down at your desk, how do you get ready for the work day?
With digital work, I do best working in spurts. My mind grows inefficient through long stretches on a device. So in an ideal day I’ll wake up before my family, take a long walk then tackle the most important thing in the day, walk the kids to school, come back and take on the next priority, head to the gym, and then settle in for the long stretch of team meetings.
I’m 6 hours ahead of eastern time which gives me a solid block of uninterrupted time; by the time my team is online, my brain does best when its only requirement is to be present for collaboration versus switching between calls and deliverables.
But to sum it up, typically getting outside, doing something physical, best primes my mind for computer work.
Was there a specific moment you changed your whole approach to work? If so, what was the specific moment?
Many moments. One recent moment that stands out is the switch back from the kitchen to digital work. When you are working a station in a restaurant during Saturday rush you are working your ass off. You get in early for prep and are hustling, sometimes up until the minute service starts, 5 hours then goes by in a blink, certain nights you don’t stop for even a moment, the last ticket goes out and then you’re on your hands and knees scrubbing down your station. I’m 37. I’d limp out of the kitchen, drive home, and just sit in my car in the driveway for an hour decompressing.
But looking back now, you know, the best nights? The days my wife needed our car and I’d ride my bike to the restaurant, and ride home on the bike path along the river, exhausted, listening to the frogs and crickets in the pitch black.The first day I was back to computer work it astonished me that I could sit on a computer, take breaks, get up and stretch for 5 minutes, earn (>10x) with simply my mind.
The first day I was back to computer work it astonished me that I could sit on a computer, take breaks, get up and stretch for 5 minutes, earn (>10x) with simply my mind.
I recall this moment from Anthony Bourdain’s AMA:
Which was harder to master? The art of cooking or the art of writing? Thanks for doing this, Anthony.
Cooking professionally is hard work. Writing is a privilege and a luxury. Anybody who whines about writers block should be forced to clean squid all day.
But now being back to the computer work for the last 6 months, it’s easy to lose that felt-sense of relativity. It’s only a concept now. If I were to design a future work state it would be 50/50 across disciplines each week. There’s no feeling quite like wind in your face and the sound of crickets just after being in a windowless kitchen for 14 hours.
2 –– WEALTH
What’s been your greatest investment? Interpret however you’d like.
Disregarding the risk of sounding cliche, marrying the person I did. And then if I were to attribute that more deeply, I would say developing my faith and trust in the guidance and intention of a higher power. My wife and I jumped in the deep end with very little knowledge of one another, guided by our trust in our intuition. And my word has it been a blessing of a lifetime.
What’s something you’ve learned about money that you wish you’d known earlier?
I can’t say I wish I had known this earlier, I feel like it came at the perfect time, but a concept of the shifting dynamic of money, time, and health through life. When we’re young, we usually have lots of time and energy but very little money. In middle age, we often have started accumulating wealth money and still have our health but struggle to find time. Later, we regain time and have accumulated resources, but can be in a spot of deteriorating health. Being young and career focused, by the time I had some flexibility financially, my wiring was so money-focused, it was hard to understand the immense value of time (time with young kids, time to explore, etc.) now accessible to me in my middle years. Even after getting it conceptually, I resisted change until a friend really challenged me to think differently.
When we’re young, we usually have lots of time and energy but very little money. In middle age, we often have started accumulating wealth money and still have our health but struggle to find time. Later, we regain time and have accumulated resources, but can be in a spot of deteriorating health.
I’ve had numerous elders approach me in public when I’m with kids and drop the same wisdom, paraphrasing:
These are the years. they are stressful, you might even wish them away, but you will spend the rest of your life thinking back to them. ENJOY THEM
Bullish & Bearish – What’s something you would invest in right now (bullish) and what’s something you’d short (bearish) ?
From a financial perspective, for better or worse, I am very much in a set it and forget it space (indexes, a few long-term bets). When I’ve attempted to be more active, I noticed a lot of my mindshare flowing to thinking about investments. I’d say at the moment I am bullish on as much adventure with my family as I can responsibly pull off, and bearish on thinking too much about investments. I do expect this to seesaw as my kids grow.
3 –– WELLNESS
How do you disconnect or unplug from being online?
My absolute favorite is putting on a pack, getting into a national forest, setting up camp and hanging for a few days. Until recently my outdoor trips would be oriented on covering as many miles as possible. These days, I like to stay put. It resets my mind.
Is there a practice, tool, or teaching you use or follow regularly?
I had an executive coach challenge me for wanting to make a company value: “Breath” after connecting with the power of taking a deep breath, really in any context. In his defense, I couldn’t at the time articulate the value but I believe more in breath as a tool as life goes on. Take a deep breath; maybe sit and take 10; go for a walk and focus on it; get on a mat, start listening to it and see how my body might want to move with it.
I saw a quote:
Breath, the most powerful tool we all have. Your breath controls your nervous system. And your nervous system controls your life.
Do you have any spiritual or self development practices?
I can’t say I have specific, committed practices at the moment; I try to hike and catch the sunrise whenever I can, workout every day, fast for >24 hours at least 1x per month, and pray (1. identify where I’ve fallen short in the day; 2. acknowledge that I need and welcome the presence of my creator; 3. give thanks).
4–– DIGITAL DIET
Who are your go-to sources for good information that most people don’t know about?
Such a great question and one I don’t have a good answer for.
My guilty pleasure answer is the comments section of news sites from across the spectrum (political, global). It’s so fascinating to see other people’s experience and truth center, both in the U.S., but also on local news sites around the world. (not sure if this is “good information” or useful)
My enlightened answer is within…as the few, fleeting moments have really changed things for me when I’ve been able go there and get quiet enough to listen (for me this is quieting my mind, taking my awareness to my gut or my heart and just waiting until feelings, ideas, visions start to emerge).
What are you currently reading, watching, or listening to that’s shaping how you think?
I’m trying to immerse myself in content in Spain. Whether that’s casual Spanish podcasts, news, or Spanish history. Interesting to learn about a country’s evolution post-dictatorship. One thing that has struck me is the reverence for Spain’s former dictator, Francisco Franco, still present for many Spaniards (not shared countrywide, I don’t think; we are currently in Madrid)...the content I consumed prior to coming here characterized him very negatively. We are headed to the U.S. for the summer, but when we come back for the kids’ school year I’m really intent on having deeper conversations with people to more deeply understand their viewpoint.
What’s your favorite app right now? Why?
Right now it’s gotta be Wise, the currency converter. It makes moving money across markets very easy, something I perceive was incredibly difficult in the past.
5 –– WISDOM
What are you practicing right now that you’re still bad at?
I have say moving wisdom from cognitive belief and understanding to embodiment. Also physical flexibility/mobility. And patience, non-reactivity in conflict.
In one paragraph, describe what does your next chapter look like?
My wife will complete a healthy pregnancy (likely her last) and we’ll have a newborn next January. With previous kids, birth to about 6 months is a toss up in terms of routine, so we’ll settle back into normalcy next summer. We’ll wrap up our time in Madrid and get to a coast. Stacey will start painting again. We’ll immerse into the ocean, diving and surfing. I’ll help get the company I’m working at to a stable spot and step back a bit. Hopefully still contribute in some way, but get back into a kitchen somewhere here in Spain a couple days a week. We’ll spend the summers back in Ohio, squeezing as much life out of time with friends and family that we can.
If I had to write it!
What one piece of wisdom that you’d like to share with the other entrepreneurs reading this?
Immerse yourself in relativity anytime you’re in a rut, and enjoy the flow otherwise.
And every now and then, consider the possibility that it’s all already written. That your life will turn out exactly the way it’s meant to, not as a way to encourage inaction, but as a reminder that you’re exactly where you’re meant to be, and given that you can’t change the outcome, you might as well be fully present for the ride and enjoy it. Consider, too, that you may have already been here many times, and may be here many times again. That you don’t have to figure it all out in this particular go-around.
I’m not necessarily advocating this as belief, it’s just…in my experience around entrepreneurs…we can be relentless in our devotion to agency. That if we don’t “make it happen,” nothing will happen.
I’ve found it helpful to occasionally entertain an alternative: that life may be something I participate in as much as something I control. That not everything is up to me. And oftentimes the absolute best things come without any of my doing.
Whether any of that is true, I don’t know. But I’ve found that introducing the toggle, or even a dimmer (being able to slide along the spectrum of agency and surrender) can bring a little more ease, a little more presence, and a whole lot more peace.
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xx David