This past month has humbled me

It's been a hard few weeks at the Kroes house.

Work stress and home stress at the same time, including helping our 16 year old navigate a breakup that's been more emotional and complicated than I expected.

I won't say more than that publicly. It's her story more than mine.

The whole situation has me thinking about a handful of things I believe, and it's sharpened a few of them.

Here are the most important truths I’ve come back to.

We can't control outcomes.

We can't control the choices other people make. We can't control the seemingly random events of the world.

But we can control our own choices. And our choices matter. They shape the people around us and they influence the way things go. Influence isn't a guarantee, and I think a lot of us quietly believe that if we just do enough of the right things, we'll get the outcomes we want.

That's not how it always works. Not with your kids, not with your marriage, not with most things we care about.

In chaos and uncertainty, my job is to absorb anxiety.

When things get hard, the leader’s job is to absorb stress instead of amplifying it.

Absorbing it takes a few things.

First, honesty about how I'm actually doing. Not how I'd like to be doing. And an awareness of how other people are experiencing me right now, because I'm not always the best judge of the energy I’m putting giving off.

Second, actually reading each person in my family and what they need. My kids might need room to talk without me trying to fix anything. Brittany might need for us to stop processing out loud and just go make a plan.

Those are different needs and they're not interchangeable. Getting them backwards makes things worse. Give a kid a plan when she needs to be heard, or hand your wife your unprocessed anxiety when she needs you steady, and you've added to the load instead of carrying it.

I need other men who I can be honest with.

I've had a lot of conversations the past few weeks with some of you. Some one-on-one, some in a group setting.

My perspective was different coming out of every one of them. Not because anybody solved anything, but because saying it out loud to someone who isn't in the middle of it changes how you see it.

I need to talk to Brittany. But that's not the same thing. She's inside the situation with me. I also need men who have enough distance to push back on me and tell me when I'm not seeing something clearly.

If you don't have those men right now, that's the gap I'd close first.

I can't root my identity in my family.

This one is uncomfortable to write, and it's probably the most important one on the list.

I take pride in being a husband and a father. I know that decades from now I won't regret prioritizing family over work. I believe my relationships with Brittany and my kids and grandkids will be one of the great sources of meaning in my life.

I also write about this. I built a program around it. I coach other men through it.

Which creates a risk I have to watch. If my identity is sitting on top of how my family turns out, then I've got a stake in them performing. A father with a personal stake in his kids' performance is a father who will quietly pressure them to be something for his sake instead of their own.

That's pride, and it needed to be humbled. These past few weeks did some of that.

I'd say the same to any of you whose sense of self is riding on your kids, your marriage, your company, or your title. They're all the same trap. It's just easier to spot in someone else's life.

Which brings me to the last one, and it's related.

I can't lead well without being led well.

Anyone who's been around my stuff for a while knows I'm unashamed about this. A family needs teamwork, and it also needs one person who takes responsibility for the outcome. That's my job.

But I want to make a distinction I don't make often enough.

I preach self-leadership. I don't preach self-reliance.

Those get confused all the time, and the second one will break you. We need our wives, who see things we don't. We need other men walking the same road. And we need to be led by our Father and Creator, which is the part I'm most grateful for.

Leading your family doesn't mean carrying it alone. It means making sure it gets carried.

Keep leading,

-Andrew