Guarding Your Own Heart

Every leader has two lives.

The public one everyone sees. And the private one that only God truly knows.

People see the practice. They don’t see the preparation. They see the sermon. They don’t hear the prayers. They see the calm response. They don’t know about the sleepless night. They see the championship. They don’t see the tears after the loss.

The greatest battles of leadership are almost always invisible.

And if we’re not careful, we’ll spend our lives caring for everyone else’s heart while quietly neglecting our own.

I have to tell you how I learned that.

I learned it the most literal way a man can.

The Hospital Room It was during COVID, and I thought I had pneumonia. Maybe bronchitis. I was tired in a way I couldn’t explain, but I had spent my whole life pushing through tired. That’s what I did. That’s who I was.

My wife Tricia insisted I go to the hospital.

If she hadn’t, I’m not sure I would be writing this book.

Because it wasn’t pneumonia. My heart was barely functioning. I was in heart failure — and I hadn’t even known it.

Think about that. I had spent decades reading other people’s hearts. Players. Students. Kids in crisis. I could see beneath anyone’s surface.

And I could not see my own heart failing inside my own chest.

Because of COVID, no one could come in with me. No Tricia. No sons. No brother.

I was completely alone.

And I have to tell you the truth about that room, because this book has no business in your hands if I’m not going to be honest in it.

It was one of the worst days of my life. I was afraid. Not movie-afraid. Shaking-afraid. I was calling out to God from a hospital bed with a heart that was quitting on me and nobody I loved allowed in the building.

At one point, a nurse helped me stand. Not because my body couldn’t do it.

Because I was shaking too hard with fear to do it alone.

I wish I could tell you I was brave.

I wasn’t.

I was a broken man being held up by the kindness of a stranger and the mercy of God. That was the whole list. And here is what I learned in that room: sometimes that’s the whole list for all of us. Sometimes the trench is a hospital bed, and the person entering it is a nurse who steadies a grown man’s shaking legs and doesn’t say a word about it.

I’ve spent this book telling you to be that person for others.

That night, someone was that person for me.

The doctors could tell you about my heart in medical terms. Let me tell you how it actually got there.

You know most of my story by now. The cave. The U-Haul. But there’s a piece I’ve been holding back, and this is the chapter where it belongs — because this is the chapter about the leader no one sees.

I moved to New Hampshire to save my marriage.

It didn’t work. I divorced.

If I’m being honest, it’s still embarrassing to write. I did not want to be divorced. I had spent my whole life trying to be the opposite of my father — the man who stays, the man whose word is good — and here I was with a marriage I couldn’t save. I stayed in New Hampshire to be close to the daughter my ex-wife and I share, and I told myself: no more broken pieces.

But I was a broken piece.

I was carrying the school. The moves. The finances. The storage units full of memories I lost because I couldn’t pay for them. The divorce. Three sons watching me start over. A reputation being rebuilt from nothing. And I carried all of it the way I had always carried everything — quietly, alone, pushing through tired.

For years, I was pouring into everyone. Kids at the community center. Players. Families in crisis.

Nobody was pouring into me. I made sure of that. I didn’t let them.

My heart didn’t fail overnight.

It eroded. One loss at a time. One disappointment at a time. One long season without rest at a time.

The cardiologist has his explanation. I have mine. They’re both true.

Most leaders don’t wake up one morning completely burned out.

It’s much slower than that. It happens one disappointment at a time. One betrayal. One unanswered prayer. One criticism. One conflict. One long season without rest. One more responsibility.

Like water slowly wearing away stone, the soul begins to erode. Not dramatically. Quietly.

Until one day we discover we’ve become cynical. Short-tempered. Emotionally numb. Spiritually dry.

Not because we stopped caring.

Because we never stopped carrying.

Friend, hear me — from a man with a defibrillator in his chest: the erosion is real, and it does not announce itself. Mine got all the way to my heart muscle before I noticed. Yours may show up somewhere else. But it will show up.

As coaches, parents, teachers, pastors, and leaders, we spend our lives pouring into others. Encouraging. Correcting. Listening. Comforting. Teaching. Serving.

But eventually every leader reaches a moment when they realize something uncomfortable.

You cannot give away what you no longer have.

If peace isn’t growing in me, I cannot consistently give peace. If bitterness fills my heart, eventually bitterness leaks into my leadership. If I’m exhausted, people begin feeling my exhaustion.

Leadership is always an overflow. People don’t simply receive our knowledge. They receive our emotional health.

One of the most overlooked rhythms in the Gospels is this: Jesus often walked away.

Not because He didn’t care. Because He did.

After healing crowds, He withdrew. Before choosing the disciples, He prayed. After feeding thousands, He sought solitude. Before the cross, He went to the garden.

Rest isn’t weakness. It’s worship. It reminds us that God is God — and we are not.

I used to read those verses and keep scrolling. Now I read them like a prescription. Because I’ve learned what it costs to skip the dose.

One of the subtle temptations of leadership is allowing our identity to become attached to our usefulness.

People need us. Depend on us. Thank us. Applaud us. Slowly, without realizing it, we begin believing our value comes from what we produce.

Then something changes. The applause fades. The position ends. The season closes. The children grow up. The team moves on. The church calls someone else.

If our identity was built on being needed, we’ll eventually feel lost.

Our identity must be rooted somewhere deeper.

We are loved because we belong to Christ. Not because we’re indispensable.

I learned this lying in a bed where none of my titles could visit me. Coach couldn’t come in that room. Founder couldn’t come in. Counselor couldn’t come in. The only identity that made it past the COVID restrictions was child of God.

It turned out to be enough.

Who coaches the coach? Who encourages the teacher? Who counsels the counselor? Who parents the parent?

Every leader needs someone who knows the person behind the position. Someone who can ask, “How is your heart?” Not, “How’s the program?”

Healthy leaders refuse to live in isolation. They invite trusted people to speak truth into their lives. Not because they’re weak. Because they’re wise.

God has given me those people now. Tricia — the love of my life, who gets the best version of me, and because she does, everyone else does too. My brother, who drove hours just to lay eyes on me, then drove my disabled nephew ten hours home, turned around, drove ten hours back, and went to work. My therapist. My doctors.

It took heart failure to teach me to let people carry me.

Learn it cheaper than I did.

David has always encouraged me because he refused to pretend.

Read the Psalms. He celebrates. He doubts. He fears. He rejoices. He grieves. He repents. He questions. He worships.

He tells God the truth.

Somehow we’ve convinced ourselves that strong leaders never struggle. Scripture tells a different story.

Strong leaders struggle honestly.

That’s why I told you about the shaking. About the nurse. About the divorce I didn’t want and the fear I couldn’t hide. I could have written this chapter as the comeback story — heart attack to healed, fifty pounds down, hero of my own recovery.

But God cannot heal the parts of us we continue pretending don’t exist.

Healing begins where honesty begins.

Mine began in a hospital bed, out loud, alone with God.

For years I thought guarding my heart sounded self-focused.

Now I see it differently — and now I mean it in both senses of the word.

After that hospital room, I turned everything around. I lost fifty pounds. I changed my diet completely. I take my medications. I keep my appointments. Today, with great doctors, medication, and a device in my chest, my heart is functioning far better than it should have any right to.

But I guard the other heart just as deliberately now. The rhythms. The rest. The honesty. The people who ask how my heart is and wait for a real answer.

Because if my heart is becoming hard — or failing — my family will feel it. My players will feel it. My students will feel it. My coworkers will feel it.

Guarding my heart isn’t just about me. It’s about everyone God has entrusted to me.

Healthy leaders create healthy environments because healthy hearts naturally overflow into healthy relationships.

Both kinds of hearts.

Reflection Slow down for a moment. Ask yourself:

Remember: the condition of your heart today will become the culture of your leadership tomorrow.