Most people treat a family like a portfolio — assets to optimize, milestones to hit, outcomes to track. But the psychologist D.W. Winnicott, who spent decades studying what actually makes children flourish, argued that the most important thing a parent can offer is not excellence but what he called 'good enough' presence — the willingness to be reliably, ordinarily *there*, without performing. The trap for driven people, especially those building businesses or wealth, is that the same disciplined goal-orientation that works beautifully in a deal room quietly corrodes at home. Families don't compound like assets do; they require something closer to what Winnicott observed: showing up imperfectly, repeatedly, without needing the interaction to 'produce' anything. The concrete carry-away: today, find one moment with someone you love where you have no agenda — no teaching, no improving, no updating. Just be alongside them. That's the whole job.

What is the opposite of what you're currently doing when you're physically with your family but mentally somewhere else — and what would it cost you to close that gap for just 20 minutes today?

Drawing from Developmental Psychology — D.W. Winnicott