Leaving What Once Grew You
When the soil no longer fits the roots
👋 Hey, it’s Bryan. Welcome to BEing Human, where we talk about what it really takes to lead, grow, and live awake.
There’s this thing that happens to plants…
A friend recently reminded me that even if you water them, feed them, give them sun, and do everything right, they will eventually stop thriving.
Not because anything’s broken.
Because they’ve outgrown the pot.
Their roots have nowhere left to go.
That’s what Silicon Valley became for me.
A place that raised me, shaped me, and gave me everything I thought I wanted.
Eventually, I became too small to be who I was becoming.
I was born there.
Built businesses there.
Raised a family there.
Got sober there.
Found purpose there.
And even now, I still have friends there. People who know parts of me that I miss deeply.
And still, I left.
Because to stay would’ve meant shrinking myself to fit a life I had already outgrown.
The quiet drift we try to ignore
It didn’t happen all at once. It never does.
It was a slow unraveling.
The networking events started to feel hollow.
The conversations skimmed the surface.
The energy that once lit me up started to wear me down.
Even joy began to feel… scripted.
Then I got sober.
And everything I’d been numbing out came into sharp focus.
I didn’t just quit drinking.
I quit pretending.
Sobriety cracked something open.
It made it impossible to keep lying to myself about what was working and what wasn’t.
It stripped away the narrative I’d been performing and left me staring at the truth:
I had outpaced my life.
So much of it was still running on autopilot - the meetings, the metrics, the hustle.
I was playing a role I no longer believed in, in a place that rewarded the mask more than the man.
Lisbon isn’t the answer. It’s a mirror.
Eighteen months ago, with our kids out of the house and my parents and extended family already gone, my wife and I moved to Lisbon.
Not as some grand reinvention.
But because the quiet had gotten too loud to ignore.
Lisbon didn’t save me.
But it reflected the man I was ready to become.
Here, time breathes differently.
People linger. Conversations last. No one asks what you do before they ask who you are.
It’s a place full of imperfect streets, long meals, and space…
Space to think.
To breathe.
To stop pretending.
Where San Jose felt like acceleration, Lisbon feels like presence.
And something in me finally let go of the white-knuckle grip I had on a life that used to work.
What really changed (it wasn’t the city)
People think stories like this are about moving.
They’re not.
They’re about stopping.
Stopping the performance.
Stopping the pretending.
Stopping the lie that staying where you are, even when it no longer fits, is safer than stepping into the unknown.
I didn’t leave because Silicon Valley changed.
I left because I did.
And staying would’ve required me to betray that change.
There’s grief in that.
I miss my friends. The places. The rhythms that once shaped me.
But what I miss more is the version of me who could still live there and call it home.
Where are you rootbound?
You don’t need to move across the world to wake up.
But maybe there’s a place in your life that feels… tight.
Forced.
Compressed.
A version of you walking around with roots tangled in a too-small container.
Maybe it’s not the job. Or the relationship. Or the city.
Maybe it’s your relationship to yourself inside it.
Because growth doesn’t always begin with motion.
Sometimes it begins with the simple, radical act of telling the truth:
This no longer fits. And I’m done pretending it does.
Stay human,
Bryan
P.S. If you’re standing in that in-between, knowing something’s shifted but not sure what comes next, that’s where I meet people. Reach out if this lands for you.
I’d love to hear what this stirred in you. Share a thought, a feeling, even just a word.
You are reading BEing Human, a weekly newsletter about an honest exploration of trust, leadership, and mindfulness from the bestselling author of Human-to-Human and Shareology, CEO, and TEDTalker. Written by Bryan Kramer, an executive coach and advisor to Fortune executives, we dive into what it means to lead ourselves in life, business, and the moments that matter most.
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I find it even more complicated to accept when you feel like you don't belong in the same environment at all, or feel like you haven't been to the fullest of your potential. I'm at a stage where I was a plant and I'm not transferring pot, I'm becoming another species all together.
This is so true in so many ways. A very nice and much needed eye opener.