When white-knuckling your way forward stops working.

Looking for some support? If now is the time to consider coaching, reach out here.

Years ago, I was in an Airbnb in Topanga doing a guided journey with my longtime therapist.

Lying on my back with an eye mask over my eyes, I saw something I did not fully understand at the time, but which has since become a centerpiece of my personal journey.

I saw a small child in a dark underground prison. Alone. Cold. Shivering.

Over the years since, I have come to understand that the child I saw was me. The fact that he was underground, alone, and shaking was a sign that there was a part of me I had abandoned for a long time. My young self. My emotional self. My creative and intuitive self. These parts, and others, were wrapped up in that boy.

In my work with founders and CEOs, one of the most common patterns I see is the same one I know well in myself: an identification with pushing through, taking the hard way, and getting the job done no matter the cost.

It shows up as a willingness to white-knuckle our way through things. To sacrifice ourselves for the good of the company, the good of others, or the good of our families.

For many of the leaders I meet, this pattern has historically served them well. It helped them stay safe in their families of origin. It helped them contribute in ways that kept the family system steady. It helped them earn their way into great schools and early jobs where they achieved outsized things.

This was true for me, too.

But many of these same people eventually reach a moment when this white-knuckled, self-sacrificing approach begins to drive their lives, or their companies, into the ground.

Some catch it earlier, when they simply have a haunting sense that the way they have been living and working is no longer tolerable or sustainable.

Others arrive at our first call in tears. They confess they are not sure they will be able to get out of bed the next day.

Growing up, in its deepest sense, is the process of examining the patterns and beliefs we were handed as children. Over time, in order to find our way to our authentic adult selves, we must determine which patterns and beliefs are truly ours and which are not.

Years ago, I wrote a post about waking up halfway through my last company and realizing I was profoundly burned out. I could see clearly that the work I was doing was no longer authentic to me. I was white-knuckling my way through the business, trying to keep it alive, keep it growing, and create a return for investors.

Inside, I was collapsing.

I meet people every week who are in a similar spot.

Sometimes the way forward is one of reorienting the role or the work. It means waking up to our own needs. It means finding a way to let that inner child out of the prison and bring him back above the surface, into life, into community, into love, and into the work.

Other times, the work itself is out of alignment with the core self. In those cases, the compassionate and necessary path is a slower one, over months or years, of finding a way out of the work and into something new. Into something true.

In my case, the path into coaching was very much this.

While I liked many aspects of my years as a founder and CEO, coaching was the first work in my life where, with each step I took, I felt the ground lighting up beneath my feet.

Each conversation resonated somewhere deep inside me. I could feel every part of me come alive in those calls. There was a deep knowing that this was work I was uniquely designed for.

It fed my heart, my soul, my intellect, and even my body.

I feel deeply grateful to have found my way to this phase of my life—and to those who aided my journey.

If you find yourself white-knuckling your way through life or work today, you are not alone. And you do not need to find your way forward alone.

I still find myself falling back into the pattern of self-sacrifice in different parts of my life. I still catch the message that in order for others to be okay, I must sacrifice. That no matter how costly it may be to my own heart or well-being, I must hang on for the sake of someone else.

But I have come to believe something different.

I believe the world is at its best when each of us finds a way back to our true selves. When we live and work in ways that are deeply aligned with who we are.

Step by step. Day over day. Year over year.

This is how we find our contribution.

As we recover our own hearts and the buried children within us, we uncover the gifts that are ours to give to the world.

The gifts the world has been waiting for.

If I can be of assistance in helping you find your way back to your true gifts, please reach out. I would love to meet you.

-Matt