Ryan’s mom is a worrier.
One day he asked her why she worried so much.
“My mom was a worrier,” she said.
And her mom?
“Her too.”
Now Ryan’s sister is a worrier.

Think about that for a moment.

His great-grandmother’s worry is living in his sister today. Nobody chose it. Nobody sat down and decided to pass it on. It just came along from one generation to the next, like the good china.

Ryan had a way of putting this that I still can’t shrug off.  The past is not yet done.

Who is Ryan, you ask?  My guest on this month’s podcast.  

We all carry something like this

Most of us never notice it, because it doesn’t feel inherited. It feels like who we are.

• Maybe it’s how your family talked about money. Or didn’t.
• How conflict got handled, or buried.
• What happened at the dinner table when someone said the wrong thing.
• Maybe it’s the first boss who taught you never to let them see you sweat, and you’re still not sweating decades later.

Whether you’re still leading a team or you handed over the keys years ago, you’re carrying patterns you never picked. Some of them are still quietly running your life.

Here’s mine

I worried I would never have ‘enough’ financial security. That worry sat underneath more of my decisions than I’d like to admit.

I picked it up from my father. He always worried he had to hold on to everything. So he did.

Then, eleven years ago, came my minor medical miracle. Many of you know that story. What I talk about less often is what it made me face. For the first time, I had to look squarely at losing everything.

And somewhere in that, I did something my father never did. I defined what ‘enough’ meant. For me. Not what the worry told me. What I actually needed.

I discovered I had more than enough.  Even after everything that followed the minor medical miracle.

My father held tight. I let go. Same worry. Different ending. And the only reason the ending changed is that something forced me to see the pattern instead of just living it.

It’s not only families

Families pass patterns down. So do companies. So do whole societies.
In business, we’re still running on thinking that arrived with Ford’s assembly line. New leaders, new frameworks, new buzzwords. Same operating model. Then we wonder why the results look so familiar.

That’s what my conversation with Ryan is really about. Not worry, exactly. Seeing. How the way we look at the world gets handed down to us, and how it quietly decides what we can and can’t imagine.

Meet my guest, Ryan

Ryan grew up in Boston, played baseball and earned a finance degree. Then he spent 14 years in 65 countries learning from Indigenous elders, wisdom keepers, farmers and business leaders. People who think in generations, not quarters.
What he brought back is a simple idea with big consequences. Most of us look at the world with one eye closed. We see the data. We miss the relationships. And we keep misjudging the distance.

The series is called The Other Eye. Four episodes:
•    What Happens When You Stop Looking With One Eye Closed. Where Ryan’s story begins, in a village in Cameroon where he was sent to teach farmers when he’d never planted a seed.
•    Hearts Only Have One Colour. Why elders who had every reason not to trust him chose to teach him anyway.
•    The Elephant Isn’t the Problem. The Room Is. Where the worrier story lives, and why the past keeps showing up in the present.
•    You Can’t Trojan Horse Your Way Into a Different Future. What to actually do about it.

You don’t need to be running a company to get something from this. Some of the best listening will come from people who finally have the time to look back at what they’ve carried and decide what to hand forward.

The first episode dropped yesterday.  You’ll find the link in the usual spot. 

Before you press play, sit with two questions.

What are you carrying that was never yours?
And what are you handing down?