LEADERSHIP INSIGHTS BY DOUG STODDARD - 6 MIN READ
Awareness Begins Where Defensiveness Ends
The first step toward real change is becoming willing to see what is beneath the surface.
Who Are We Really?
I remember noticing something as a teenager. When my dad was out in public, especially working with people, he showed up as his best self. He could be kind, helpful, patient, and attentive. People loved him.
But then he would come home, and sometimes the version we experienced at home felt different from the version others experienced in public.
As a teenager, I did not understand it. I wondered, Why does he seem different out there than he does in here?
"Many people carry a lot internally
while trying to show up externally."
I could see the difference, but not the cost. Dad paid an energy price to hold together his public self.
Years later, I understand something I could not understand then: My dad was not fake. That version of him was real. He cared about people. He wanted to serve. He wanted to do good.
But I believe it cost him more energy than I realized. He grew up poor, and I believe he carried conclusions, judgments, and pressures easier to manage in public than at home. To hold back that part of himself cost him energy. In the context of home, he, and we, paid a price.
I understand that many people carry a lot internally while trying to show up externally. Much of it lives in the dialogue inside their mind, below the surface.
By the time they get home, the people who matter most may not receive the best of them. They may receive what is left.
Sometimes the people closest to us do not get our worst because we love them less. They get what is left because we spend much energy managing what is unresolved.
That is the part I did not understand as a teenager. I thought the difference was hypocrisy. Now I wonder if much of it was depletion.
That reflection caused me to look at my own life differently.
Where do I spend energy showing up well for others that I have less presence left for those closest to me? Where does my public life receive my patience, while my private life receives my pressure? Where do the people I love most get the version of me worn down by patterns I have not faced?
That is not easy to admit. But awareness often begins where defensiveness ends.
The public version can reveal who we are at our core. The private version can reveal what is unresolved. The goal is not to become a different person in private. The goal is to become less divided.
Maybe the deeper question is this:
Why do we not settle what is unresolved so the people who matter most experience who we truly want to be?
Maybe because we have never learned to see the patterns underneath it. We keep trying to manage behavior, when the real work is becoming aware of the thinking, meaning, and identity patterns driving it.
We handle ourselves well in public because the public demands it. We can also handle ourselves well in private for a better reason: because we demand it.
What version of you comes home?
Want To Explore This Further?
A conversation can help you see the patterns more clearly
and what may be possible for you and your team.