A close friend was offered a VP role shortly after his first child was born.
He turned it down.
My first instinct was to push back. I couldn’t understand walking away from something like that, especially with a new kid on the way.
But after we talked, I got it.
He’d already done the hard years. Long hours, overseas assignments, years of grinding. For him, this time in his life was about being present, not proving anything else.
I respected that completely.
For me, fatherhood had the opposite effect.
I’d been thinking about starting my own brokerage for two years. Good job, paid well, comfortable.
And comfortable was exactly the problem.
When we found out we were having twins, something shifted. It wasn’t panic. It was clarity.
If not now, when?
Just before they arrived, I launched my own brokerage.
It hasn’t always been easy. But I’ve never really questioned the decision.
I think a lot of fathers carry some version of this tension without saying it out loud.
Do you push harder now that more people depend on you?
Or do you pull back and protect what’s already there?
Fatherhood doesn’t push every man in the same direction. But it changes what’s at stake.