Push, Pull, or Hold
I spent a life in the push
I spent most of my life pushing. I want to say that gently, the way you’d introduce a habit, but it wasn’t gentle. If a room went quiet, I filled it. If someone pulled back, I leaned in, with more words, more warmth, more reasons, certain that if I just reached far enough and said it well enough they would come the rest of the way. I made a life out of it. A career, even.
I remember learning from a friend about Monty Roberts. The more I learned about him, the more he intrigued me. Monty was thirteen in 1948 when he was sent into the high desert of Nevada to help round up wild horses, and he wasn’t much interested in catching them. He wanted to understand them. So while the crew worked the ropes, he lay in the field with a pair of binoculars and watched the mustangs run their own world for the better part of a week.
What he saw didn’t match the pattern I had been running. When a young horse stepped out of line, the lead mare didn’t chase it. She squared her body, locked eyes, and held. Pressure without a single step. The colt drifted to the edge of the herd, alone, until the moment she softened, turned her shoulders away, and let it come back on its own.
Everyone had told Monty you break a horse with force. He was watching one get drawn in by the opposite.
I spent years confusing the intensity of my pushing or pulling.
The hold is the hardest thing I've had to learn, gentler than pushing but so much harder, because it feels like doing nothing, and doing nothing has always felt to me like losing.
Maybe you know this too. Maybe you’re like me, the one who fills the silence, who reaches when someone pulls back, who mistakes the effort for the love. Or maybe you’re the colt at the edge of the herd, waiting for the pressure to let up so you can come back on your own.
The big learning here for me is that we don't push people closer. We become a safe place worth coming to.
Stay human
- Bryan
I’m Bryan, if you’re a leader or executive, pull up a chair. Before any of this, I built companies in Silicon Valley, gave a TED Talk, and keynoted more conferences than I can count. Then I crashed, hard, and found my way back: lost 85 lbs, ditched diabetes, moved to Lisbon, and discovered you can operate differently at any age.
Now I work with leaders and teams who’ve proven themselves but know something needs to shift.
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i feel like many of us are collective rewiring what "intensity" and "achievement" mean.
i was taught that reaching out was ambition. and relentless pursuit was success...if i wanted connection, opportunity, or happiness, i had to go make it happen.
it's sad and disorienting to realize how much of my "career" is unpaid emotional labor. i now spend my days in nature, surrounded by dolphins and horses and my dog (who gives black cat energy). they don't perform for belonging. they don't "reach out" to prove their worth. they just bask in their aura.
i learn so much more from these animals than humans.
I’ve been working in this lesson too! It’s a strange thing to find this non resistant flow. It’s been there all along but the muscle memory of push is very real. Like a momentum that only stillness can settle