There’s been a pattern in my life that, until recently, I hadn’t even noticed.
I show up somewhere, pour my heart and soul into it, become essential (maybe even irreplaceable), and then… eventually, without any real fanfare, I become expendable. Irrelevant.
I suppose the first time I felt this was back when I lived in Guatemala as part of a volunteer organization. Early in my time there, I was assigned to help with the group’s day-to-day operations across the country. Over nearly a year and a half, I became a central figure in a lot of what we were doing. I knew all 200+ volunteers personally.
One day, about fifteen months into that assignment, our group leader — a man thirty years my senior — pulled me aside and said, “I don’t like making people irreplaceable, but I think we might have done that with you.”
Six weeks later, they shipped me to Cobán — with a pager. Just in case.
The next time it happened was slower. I’d landed what I often call my first big-kid job — working for a fluid power distributor not long after I came home from Guatemala. Over the next ten years, I poured myself into that place. Wore too many hats. Showed up early, stayed late. Way too often.
When I left, I was sure the company would struggle without me. There was ego in that, for sure — but also reality. I handled their inventory. I ran all their information systems. Those were essential roles.
I expected phone calls. Fires. Pleas to come back.
But the ripple never came.
A few messages from the guy who took over, then… nothing. They moved on.
Of course they did.
That’s what companies do. Unless you’re the gravitational center of the company, things continue. And I wasn’t that. I was just a guy who was good at getting a lot of things done.
Then it happened again at the solar company. I spent years holding it together — honestly, by myself for longer than I care to admit. I kept things running that should never have been carried by one person. And now, the company is growing. Thriving, even. And I’m barely involved.
And still — I feel that ache: They really can survive without me.
In each of those roles, I wore my essentialness like a badge. It made me feel good to be irreplaceable. I craved that feeling. I wanted to matter that much.
But I’m starting to see things differently now.
There’s a kind of grief that comes with being non-essential — especially when being essential was how you proved your worth.
It’s taken me years to realize: I wasn’t mourning responsibilities or job titles. I was mourning old versions of myself. Versions that needed to be at the center of everything in order to feel valuable. Needed.
I used to call it a dream — maybe even a calling — to be the guy who could fix it all, carry it all, keep everyone moving. But now I think it was just a deeply rooted need to be needed.
Now? My kids are growing up. They don’t orbit my wife and me the way they used to. They’re building their own stories now, and I don’t want to cling to relevance just to feel important. But when one of them says, “Dad, I need your help,” it still lights something up in me.
Same at work. I want my team to thrive on their own. But I still love being the one who helps someone reach an insight they probably could have found on their own. There’s a fine line between mentoring and justifying your own existence.
I don’t want to be a bottleneck — but I can be.
I want to be a mentor. A guide.
But if I’m honest, I still chase the moment someone says, “I don’t know what we’d do without you.”
That’s what I’m wrestling with: trying to untangle the difference between being important and being whole.
Here’s what I know: if you build something — a company, a team, a family — and it collapses without you, you didn’t build it strong. You built it around yourself. That’s not leadership. That’s a liability.
The best leaders make themselves less essential over time.
The best parents do, too.
We raise kids to leave — not to orbit us forever.
My role in my kids’ stories has changed. It should change.
And that change is good, even if it feels like loss.
It’s strange to feel grief over something you expected. I knew my kids would grow up. I knew businesses would evolve. I knew I’d be less central than I once was.
And yet — there’s still that ache.
Thankfully, underneath that ache is something steadier.
It’s hard to name, but it feels like a quiet recognition: I can still show up, still contribute, still be useful — without being in control.
And the dream that’s coming back into focus?
Maybe it was never about being irreplaceable.
Maybe it was about building something that would outlast me.
I still struggle with wanting to be the hero. I’m in recovery.
I don’t want to be the hinge anymore.
I want to be the kind of man who helps others rise — and then steps aside while they do.
It’s not about being expendable. It’s about being free.
And while I’d be lying if I said I don’t still miss the feeling of being the one everyone leans on, more and more, I’m learning that becoming less needed doesn’t make me less whole.
It makes me someone who trusts that his impact is still unfolding — even after he’s no longer there.
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