By ETJ Life – helping PE-backed CEOs thrive in work and life.
Stop Trying to Make Them You
There’s a story worth sitting with. What happens to a butterfly when you put it in a box and close the lid? It suffocates.
The people closest to us are the ones we most want the best for, and love has a quiet way of turning into an urge to shape them into a version of ourselves. We want our kids to make the choices we’d make, our spouse to want what we want, our team to think the way we think. It comes from care. But hold anyone too tightly and you close the lid on the very things that make them who they are.
That instinct runs strongest in high achievers, because you got where you are by having answers and driving outcomes. So you tell people what to do. Here’s the catch: you can’t actually change anyone’s behavior by telling them to change. Every time you try, you send two messages at once, which are here’s what I’d do, and I don’t think you can figure it out on your own. The second one is the one they hear, and it’s exactly why they dig in.
The better move is smaller and harder. Instead of handing over the answer, ask a question: what do you think you should do? It creates the space for the other person to find their own way, which is the only way real change ever sticks. Open the box, and you’ll be surprised what unfolds.
Now It’s Their Turn
For most of your career, the people you love have been along for your ride. This chapter is your chance to get on theirs.
Think about how a driven career actually runs. Your calendar sets the family’s calendar. Your next move sets everyone’s next move. Your kids and your spouse have spent years, maybe decades, in tow behind your ambition, cheering it on and arranging their lives around it. They did it gladly. And now, as the seat loosens its grip on your time, one of the best opportunities in front of you is to turn that around.
Ask a question you may not have had room to ask in a long while: what are their dreams, and how can you help make them come true? Not the family’s dreams as an extension of yours, but your spouse’s own dreams and your kids’ own paths. Getting behind someone else’s ambition, with the same energy you once spent on your own, is some of the most rewarding work of this season.
It also reframes what the next chapter is for. The wins that meant the most on the way up were rarely the numbers. They were the people. Opening the box and backing their dreams is how those relationships get even better in the years you finally have time for them.
ETJ Life is a community for CEOs in the Transition season. This perspective reflects ongoing member interactions and real leadership challenges in the next chapter.