Growing up, I don’t remember being heard much or even feeling loved.

Now, make no bones about it, today, as an adult, I know I was. My family just struggled to share that.

However, the lack of feeling loved and wanted is still within me, all these years later.

Not having those feelings or memories has affected me as a man.

The pros are that I am able to focus under pressure for long periods of time – courage under fire.

The cons are that I struggle to find happiness in most things.

More money. Eh.  More free time. Eh.  Not much gets me going for long. Giving to others is really the only thing that gives me prolonged happiness.

I remember struggling with math as a child. Having no real male role model, I went to my grandfather and asked for his help.

He was an attorney and had a strong math brain. I was always able to come up with the answer in my brain, but I could never explain my work or how I got to the answer. I remember my grandfather getting annoyed with me. “You should understand this by now.”  He would say.

Feeling defeated, I would just say ok and move on.

These kinds of interactions were the norm for me. Leaving me feeling less-than most of my childhood and into my early adult life.

When I began in business and had lots of failures, I would just tell myself that was what was expected. To fail.

That was until I started having that “until now” attitude. Out of sheer will, I worked my way through it: through the pain, through the struggle.

But what I lost along the way was “feeling.” I turned off most of what made me feel. Being numb was better than feeling that pain. Or so I thought.

With my kids, I have consciously told them how great they are. How smart they are. How great they are with sports and theatre, in school, and more.

Whenever something negative comes up, I try to move it along and get rid of it. I try to solve it for them. Never wanting them to turn out like me or to have the feelings that I had or deal with today.

The problem with that is I cannot make it all go away. They are going to struggle at times, and they will need to find their own way through it.

But what I can do is listen. Be there. Be present. Continue to support them the way they need it.

And maybe, just maybe, those feelings that I missed as a child will reemerge as an adult.

-J.D.