I spend a lot of my time coaching.
Coaching myself, coaching my team, coaching clients.
And yet some of the very things I spend all day thinking and talking about, I still forget to actually do at home, with the people who matter most.
Woody and I got married 14+ years ago in Highlands, NC. Every year, while Grace is at camp, we go back to Old Edwards Inn to celebrate another year. It’s become one of my favorite traditions.
This year, we did something a little different.
Before the trip, we both listened to a Jefferson Fisher podcast where Shawn and Andrew East broke down the regular check-ins they do, weekly, monthly, and yearly, to stay aligned in their marriage. Something about it stuck with both of us, so we decided to try it ourselves.
Over a few unhurried meals, we worked through a set of intentional questions. Some looked back. Some looked forward.
What were the favorite standout moments over the last year?
What are we most proud of?
What surprised us?
What didn’t?
What are our goals for the rest of the year? For ourselves and for our family?
What do we want to make important about the second half of summer and going into fall?
It felt like a planning session, but not a formal one. Nothing rigid or corporate. We celebrated milestones, we named what was great and what was hard. We talked about Grace coming home and the ways we wanted to use her return as a reset.
It was surprisingly powerful.
Here’s what struck me most: I do this all the time in other places. I coach clients to do it. And yet I’d never done it so intentionally with the most important person in my life.
How often do we miss out on real connection with our people, not because we don’t care, but because we never stop to ask the right questions?
It’s all about being intentional.
A few weeks ago, I was talking with a friend who was venting about a past relationship. She was describing a season when she would take the time to make her partner a sandwich at night after a long day, and he’d ignore it and go out to eat with his friends instead. Understandably, this led to hurt and frustration.
So I asked her: Did he ask you to make the sandwich?
Well, no, she said. But they had been trying to eat healthy and she was trying to help.
I’ve done versions of this more times than I can count.
We all do.
We make up a story about what we’re “supposed” to do, what’s “expected” of us, and we operate from that place, often without ever checking whether it’s true or not.
And when the frustration comes, instead of getting curious or asking questions, we avoid the hard conversations and the disconnect builds.
The way you do anything is the way you do everything. What happens at home is often a mirror of what happens at work and vice versa.
It all comes back to leadership and asking yourself, where else does this pattern show up?
Where is a lack of intentionality sabotaging my efforts?
The most effective leaders are the ones willing to ask questions, especially the uncomfortable ones, and especially in the relationships that matter most.
Here’s the thing I keep coming back to: we have so much more agency than we give ourselves credit for. We can’t make other people change, but we can ask the questions. We can challenge the story. We can start the conversation we’ve been putting off.
That’s true at home, and it’s true in every room you lead in.
We don’t drift into connection. We don’t accidentally end up aligned. It takes intention, the willingness to stop, ask, and actually listen.
So where in your life are you waiting for things to get better on their own, when what they really need is for you to be intentional?
Start there.