Why I Cried in Paris (and the Changes I'm Making)

Read time: 4.5 minutes

I'm sitting in a Paris cafe contemplating my existence.

When I told Melissa this is what I was off to do, she replied:

"How very French of you."

And I laughed, loudly.

But I wasn't laughing yesterday as I sat in the Panthéon with tears running down my face.

For the last seven days, I've been with my family in Paris, mostly unplugged, on my first proper vacation with no client calls in longer than I'd like to admit. In this time we've walked 142,371 steps (that's about 113 kilometres or 70 miles) while admiring historic architecture, looking at famous art, devouring delicious food, and enjoying each other's company. The conversations between palaces, paintings, and crepes have been filled with laughter, and reminders of how quickly my children are growing up.

So how did I find myself crying in a Parisian museum on a sunny Friday afternoon?

It started earlier in the day as my teenage son and I visited the Paris Catacombs. If you're not familiar with them, they're underground ossuaries that hold the remains of more than six million people in tunnels below the city. They were built in the late 1700s to alleviate the overcrowding in both the city and its cemeteries. The Wikipedia page explains: "from 1786, nightly processions of covered wagons transferred remains from most of Paris's cemeteries to a mine shaft."

This underground burial site is open to the public.

As I stood silently observing the seemingly endless floor to ceiling stacks of skeletal remains that filled room after room, it dawned on me: It didn't matter if they had passed away so poor that they'd been buried in one of the mass graves or if they'd amassed a small fortune that had allowed them to have the largest tombstone in the graveyard, all of them were now just a part of the same pile of bones with everyone else. There was nothing to distinguish one person's remains from the next. There was no telling who was a shopkeeper or a panhandler, who spent their days caring for children, who made art, or who had pursued a career in politics.

My mortality was on my mind as we climbed the spiralling steps back up to street level.

The full weight of the emotions didn't hit until later that day when we visited the Panthéon. It's a grand monolithic building inspired by Roman architecture which houses the remains of French dignitaries. The following words are engraved across the top of the entryway in massive letters, "Aux grand hommes la patrie reconnaissante" which roughly translates to "To the great men, from a grateful nation." It's a reminder of the significance of those inside which includes Alexandre Dumas, Victor Hugo, Voltaire, and others. As we explored the spacious and dimly lit crypt, I came across a wall listing the names and ages of dozens of people who died in the French revolution. 33, 17, 26, 41 years old, they were all younger than me when their lives ended.

The Confucious quote began ringing in my head: "We have two lives, and the second begins when we realize we only have one."

Not only was I feeling consciously clear that I have just one life, but the feeling that I'm definitely beyond the midway point of this life felt undeniable. The wave of emotions hit hard. I told Melissa and the kids that I needed to go with some level of urgency and made my way up to the ground floor where I sat under the cupola of the dome (pictured below), tears now running down my face.

I have a lot to be grateful for.

I wake up each morning without an alarm clock, live in a beautiful house, and have built a multi-six-figure coaching business. People from around the world that I love to serve trust me to mentor and guide them. It's incredible. But I often let my work consume me at the cost of what I'll publicly say is supposed to be most important in my life: My relationships with Melissa and the kids.

It's not good.

It's embarrassing to admit the amount of conversations I've had with them where I nod along while my mind isn't registering a word. Sure, my body is physically present at the dinner table, but my thoughts are often on the work I'll do "as soon as we wrap it up". When I'm at my worst, I'll work to the point of such exhaustion that all I'm able to offer Melissa as "quality time" is to zone out in front of a movie together because I'm so fried.

I tell myself it's in ebbs and flows, but in the last 4 years, it's been a lot more ebb, and not enough flow.

If it's not a new program or new clients, it's a book, an in-person event, an online workshop, or a speaking engagement. Lining them up one up after the other in back to back sprints that start to look more like a marathon when you zoom out. I've told myself that these recurring big pushes are for my family, so I can provide more for them in the future. But I'm trading time with them now, that's impossible to get back, for a future that's not guaranteed.

And what's clear to me after this week of being truly present, is that the kids and Melissa long for more quality time with me now, while I'm still here.

And nothing feels more meaningful to me.

So what now?

I'm making these changes to my schedule, immediately:

• I'm no longer touching my laptop after 5pm during the week. No matter what.

• My routine of no work on Friday afternoons is a must. This is something I was starting to let slip. 

• Other than creative writing that I love on Saturday mornings, there'll be no plugging in on weekends.

• I'm reinstating an old habit that I let fall off: having at least one "no call day" per week.
  

I'm going to be asking myself these two questions regularly:

• What is the true cost of this when considering its impact on my ability to be present with Melissa and the kids?

• What would it look like if this was easy?
  

This newsletter will be changing:

• I'm committing to writing another 9 Saturday issues of the weekly Growth Habit to bring me to a full year of sending these.

• What happens after that? I'm not sure yet, but it's going to evolve because the weekly stress of having a deadline every single weekend bears a cost on me and the humans I cherish most.

• I'm giving myself permission to evolve the format. I'm proud that you could take many of these newsletters and assemble them into a valuable mini-course and I suspect many of the issues going-forward will continue to include practical strategies and tactics that you can apply to help you help more people and increase your impact, but some issues will be different/more reflective (like this one).

Whether you've read all previous 42 issues or this is your very first one, I'm grateful for you spending your time with me.

🙏
-Robb

_________________________________________________

When you're ready, here's 2 ways I can help you...

1. Clarity, Clients, + Confidence Workshop: Want to learn exactly what you need to consistently grow your coaching business with clients you love to serve, without the BS? Check out the free workshop here.

2. Die Before They Do: "It's a work of art! The depth and raw humanity is unparalleled!" and "Must read for anyone on a personal development journey- especially entrepreneurs." Those two of glowing five-star reviews of my book Die Before They Do.