In Shadows or On Shoulders

An Essay on Legacy, Pressure, and Redefining Success

This is a personal essay on legacy, perfectionism, pressure, and success. I hope it speaks to anyone carrying more than they’re letting on.

For most of my life, I have felt like I was living in the shadows of giants. I grew up in Victoria—the heart of Texas’ Coastal Bend—where my family has lived since the early 1800s. That kind of rootedness—in a New World defined by motion—was destined to produce a story both remarkable and complicated.

Take my great-great-great-great-grandfather James Power, for instance. This man immigrated from Ireland to Mexican Texas as an Empresario—a land agent tasked with populating the stretch of coastal prairie between the Nueces and Guadalupe rivers—my ancestral homeland. I doubt that, when he took on this challenge, he expected to be a revolutionary in the following years. Many of the Irish settling in Mexican Texas had no idea of the politics of the region—that there was a group of centralists who favored a strong national government, and a group of federalists who favored a strong state government.

In the swirling tensions of the time, what would later be known as Texan nationalism was beginning to take form. Power almost certainly had more to gain by siding with the centralists, given his land contracts with the Mexican government. But instead, he sided with the Texans. I can only imagine he did this because he felt it was the right thing to do, even though it would be at a great personal cost to him.

He was called to service early in the revolution, given his soft control over the Aransas Pass, the landing place of the first centralist troops. He organized and dispatched troops, gathered information, and communicated the unfolding calamity to the state’s Spanish-speaking Mexican population.

When Power learned that Sam Houston had been excluded from the Nacogdoches delegation to Washington-on-the-Brazos, he used his position in Refugio to ensure Houston’s participation in its delegation. It was a pivotal moment: had Houston not attended, he may never have been named commander of the Texan army. Texas, as we know it, might not exist but for James Power—a man who remained in the background.

Family lore holds that James Power was a man of quiet humility. And perhaps his absence from the pantheon of Texas heroes is evidence of just that. Names like Houston, Austin, and Travis still echo through the halls of Texas history. But few outside my family remember the man who signed its declaration and helped draft its first constitution.

But no lore is needed for the next giant—my father.

My dad never had a doubt that his path was to work for the family. He might have been surprised, though, at just how far down that path he would travel. Even if you’d told him—fresh out of college, moving back into a 1,000-square-foot worker’s house on the ranch—I don’t think he would have cared. The accomplishments he was destined to achieve weren’t what motivated him then, and they never would be.

He spent his entire 29-year career working in the family business, retiring as its CEO. His leadership ushered in the modern era for our family, helping it evolve from an archaic patriarchy to a complex network of land, investment, cattle, and energy partnerships. His servant leadership, strategic thinking, and willingness to hire and trust—rather than micromanage—remain foundational to the success we still experience today. He served on the board of directors for Texas and Southwestern Cattle Raisers Association, the board of regents at the University of Houston (where he was appointed by the governor of Texas), and held many other public and private leadership roles.

Yet, the “power and prestige” of these positions was not what he strived for. From the outside looking in, you might think he is oblivious to his accomplishments. He drives a beat-up old truck, wears stained and torn clothes, owns no fancy watch, no flashy house, no boat. Hell, he even gets his hair cut at home—by my mom. Flash has never been the point for Dad.

It's about service.

In my family, we often joke about him. It’s almost like the more inconvenienced he is for a loved one, the happier he gets. After I proposed to my wife, we needed to get her ring resized. Dad was thrilled to be the one to pick it up and drive an hour to meet me halfway, just to get it back on her finger. Another time, I needed a miter saw. This was all he needed to hear. He loaded his up in Victoria and met me halfway again. I knew I’d never be allowed to return it.

Not one of those positions or accolades was something he pursued. He never lobbied. Never asked. Instead, he led with a servant’s heart and a deep, unshakable sense of duty. That kind of humility? It draws people in. Every role he’s ever held, he was asked to fill—"asked to be of service,” as he might say.

The echoes of these giants loomed large—not only in history books and my imagination, but in my everyday life. With schools, football stadiums, and buildings around town bearing my last name, it was hard not to feel like I had something to prove.

I began developing expectations of perfection as early as first grade—something my early psychological evaluations captured in black and white, right alongside the diagnoses of dyslexia and dysgraphia.

Pressure.

I began to feel immense pressure—to be the perfect student, the perfect child. People-pleasing became instinct. Anything that might suggest imperfection was quietly repressed. Outward performance—an obsession with what people thought of me—took precedence over inner peace.

This model for living was destined to fail. The first magnificent crescendo came in my early teen years. My parents had gone on a trip to Mexico to celebrate my grandmother’s birthday, and I was left to stay at my grandmother’s house—alone—for the week. It made sense. Her house was next door to my best friend’s and just a few blocks from school. I seemed responsible and well-adjusted. There was no reason to think things might go sideways.

But there, alone with the crushing weight of my perfectionism, I became unbearably depressed.

One night, I took out a gun and set it on the dining table in front of me.

The next night, ammo.

The third, I loaded the gun.

The fourth, I was ready.

But instead of pulling the trigger, I picked up the phone and called my dad.

I didn’t abandon that model of living after the experience. I simply became convinced I needed to refine it—to rebalance. But in my mind, being perfect and achieving greatness were still non-negotiable.

After more bouts of depression, blind anger, and near-death experiences in college, I knew further adjustment was necessary. But I still couldn’t shake the perfectionism. And then, in my early career, a new trait began to emerge—just as corrosive, maybe worse: entitlement.

I began to feel frustrated, without realizing it was entitlement and fear taking shape. I told myself I was smart, hardworking, and honest—so why wasn’t I taking over the world?

To be honest, I became judgmental. I didn’t just feel smart—I felt superior. Not just hardworking, but harder-working than anyone around me. Not just honest, but morally above the rest. I believed I deserved success, and if it wasn’t coming, something must be broken.

What I couldn’t yet see was that the problem wasn’t the world—it was the model I was using to measure myself.

That began to change when I met a mirror.

I had been asked to help a young man who was going through serious turmoil in his life. We spent a year or so working together and got to know each other well. Unfortunately, during that time, he struggled to make much progress—and I found myself growing increasingly frustrated.

It was his entitlement that got to me the most. Nothing had ever repelled me quite like seeing entitlement in the wild. But over time, as I noticed all the things we had in common, something began to shift. A lightbulb started to flicker on.

My frustration with him, I realized, wasn’t just about him. It was about me. It was my own entitlement, reflected back at me. And seeing it that way—for the first time—was a momentous realization.

I was thrilled, actually. It felt like discovering the source of a leak I’d been trying to patch for years. I grabbed onto that moment like a drowning man clinging to a life raft.

I surrendered—the model had finally broken.

I accepted that I am human—that perfection is an illusion. I saw how I’d been comparing my insides to the outsides of others, cherry-picking metrics to feed the belief that I was destined to be a failure. I had cared more about what I did than how I did it.

I emerged not in the shadows of giants, but on their shoulders.

When I reflect on their legacy today, I don’t see unreachable greatness. I see quiet humility and a desire to do the right thing—not because it was expected, but because it was what they wanted to do. I no longer put these people on pedestals. I see them as human, just like me. Mistakes were made, lessons learned, life lived.

When I think about the legacy I want to leave, it has nothing to do with what neighborhood I lived in, how big my house was, how many businesses I started, or how much money I had. It has everything to do with how I treated people. That I was present. That I gave what I had to give. That I loved freely and cared deeply.

With that clarity, I can now ask myself each day: Is what I’m doing contributing to the man I want to be? If the answer is yes, then full steam ahead. If not, I have to ask—and answer honestly—why am I doing it? Is this another ego-feeding exercise? What are my motives?

So often, it boils down to money. The things we do to get more of it, and the reasons we think we need it. I’ve been guilty of trying to slide money to the top of my priority list. And here’s what my life starts to look like when that happens: I work long hours. I see my wife and kids for an hour a day, if that. I start wanting a new car, though the one I have is perfectly fine. Then a new watch—a gold one this time.

But when I step back and remember the man I want to be—the legacy I want to leave—I see clearly: these things are not in alignment. The trappings of life are traps.

As Morrie Schwartz said so beautifully in Tuesdays with Morrie, while lying on his deathbed:

“People are so hungry for love that they’re accepting substitutes. They’re embracing material things and expecting a sort of hug back. But it never works. You can’t substitute material things for love or for gentleness or for tenderness or for a sense of comradeship.”

I’ve been practicing this way of life for years now. And I choose that word—practicing—with care. I’m nowhere near perfect. But I’ve gotten better at recognizing when I start to chase unreasonable pressures or fall back into perfectionism.

Our culture would have us believe that being young, sexy, and rich is the path to happiness. But the trouble is, there’s always someone younger, sexier, richer. These things are fleeting. They are shallow.

Where I’ve found peace is in relationships. In service. In small but real impacts in my community. I find peace at home—being able to communicate openly and lovingly with my wife, being trusted and safe in the eyes of my daughters. Laying my head down each night with no love left ungiven, no responsibility left unmet.

I’ve redefined success to align with these things. I’ve changed my perspective.

And in that sense, I am successful.