October 24th, 2012, exactly 7 days after my third son was born, at a routine follow-up visit, Dr. Silverman told me “don’t break him, he’s perfect.” What are you thinking, my wife and I have two boys, 8 and 9, and I haven’t broken them yet?  Does she think I’m incapable of taking care of a newborn for a few hours? What does that mean?

Here we are seven years later and I am finally making sense of her advice.  I’ve taken a big step, I now see it as advice and not criticism, chalk one up for “making sense of experience” one of the steps in my own leadership development program.  Let me explain. 

After coaching and working with kids through the Emerge Coaching program where we focus on strengths, finding out what is right with people and doing more of it, leadership development and a peak performance mindset, I realized that “don’t break him” didn’t refer to me dropping my newborn or...