“How could anyone love me if my own mom didn’t want me?”

I don’t remember the first time I thought that.

I just remember believing it.

When you’re given up for adoption as a kid, you don’t stop and think about all the reasons why. You’re a kid.

The conclusion I came to was simple.

If my own mom didn’t want me… why would anyone else?

That belief followed me for years.

It showed up in my friendships.

My relationships.

The opportunities I took… and the ones I talked myself out of.

Whenever something good came into my life, I found a way to question it.

“This is too good to be true. Something bad is bound to happen.”

The part I didn’t realize was… eventually I became the thing that made it happen.

Not because I wanted to.

Because deep down, I didn’t believe I deserved it.

And now that I don’t look at vulnerability as a weakness anymore, I can admit it.

I was scared.

Scared of being let down.

Scared of being hurt again.

So before anyone else had the chance…

Ladies and gentlemen… I’d like to introduce you to the king of self-sabotage.

At the time, I would’ve told you I was fine.

Nothing was wrong.

Looking back…

I was just trying to make sure nobody could hurt me again.

Everything changed when my daughter Taylor was born.

I’ll never forget holding her for the first time.

For the first time in my life, I remember thinking…

My life matters.

Not because I’d accomplished something.

Not because I’d figured life out.

Because this little girl deserved the best version of me.

And if I’m being honest…

She wasn’t getting him.

I made a promise to myself that day.

I’d been in therapy before. Most of my life, actually.

But this time was different.

This time I was ready.

I wasn’t going because someone else wanted me to. I was going because I refused to let my daughter inherit the pain I’d spent my life carrying.

Therapy helped me understand where many of my beliefs came from.

But coaching challenged me to ask a different question.

Was the conclusion I’d been living from the only possible conclusion?

One of the most powerful things coaching taught me is that two people can experience the exact same event and walk away with two very different conclusions.

We can’t always change what happened.

But we can examine the meaning we’ve attached to it.

That’s the power of reframing. It can move us from feeling powerless about what happened to recognizing the choices we still have.

Growing up, little Sharif (yes… I’m talking about myself in the third person for a second) believed his mom gave him up because she didn’t want him.

I don’t fault little Sharif for believing that. He was a kid trying to make sense of something he didn’t yet have the perspective to understand.

But grown-up Sharif gets to look back through a different lens.

Today, I don’t believe my mom gave me up because she didn’t want me.

I believe she loved me enough to make one of the hardest decisions a parent can make. She recognized she couldn’t give me the life she wanted for me and trusted another family to do what she couldn’t.

That realization didn’t change what happened.

It changed what it meant.

And if I’m being honest…

I don’t beat myself up for not knowing what I didn’t know as a kid…

…but damn, I wish somebody would’ve taught me that sooner.

That experience didn’t just change how I viewed my past.

It changed how I showed up in my present.

I became a better listener. A better father. A better husband. A better man.

If you’re reading this thinking,

“Listening? That’s the big breakthrough?”

Yeah…

Turns out my ex-wife and kids had been trying to tell me that for years.

I just wasn’t nearly as good at it as I thought I was.

Today, I have relationships with my children that I honestly don’t know if we’d have had years ago.

Not because they changed.

Because I did.

Today, I’m a husband, father, grandfather, and professional coach. I’ve built a life I’m proud of—not because I’ve somehow figured everything out, but because I’ve learned how to recognize when I’m getting in my own way and do something about it.

I’m still doing the work too. The difference is, now I have the tools to catch myself a hell of a lot sooner.

That experience fundamentally changed how I coach.

If someone procrastinates, I’m not just interested in why they keep putting things off. I’m curious whether somewhere along the way they concluded, “If I can’t do it perfectly, I shouldn’t do it at all.”

If someone struggles to say no, I wonder if somewhere along the way they learned that disappointing people meant losing love or acceptance.

Once we uncover the conclusion, the behavior starts making a whole lot more sense.

Because all of us have moments in life where we quietly come to conclusions about ourselves.

Some of those conclusions serve us.

Others quietly hold us back for years.

Mine was, “I’m not worthy because my mom didn’t want me.”

It wasn’t until I questioned that conclusion that my life began to change.

That’s why when someone sits across from me and asks,

“Why do I keep getting in my own way?”

I don’t immediately look at their behavior.

I get curious about the conclusion they’re living from.

Because sometimes the thing standing in our way isn’t what happened to us…

It’s the meaning we’ve been carrying ever since.

That’s where I’d start.

Not by trying to fix you.

By getting curious.

Because that’s where my life changed.

And maybe…

That’s where yours changes too.