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Last week I almost didn't post about our anniversary.

I had the photos. I'd written something about celebrating 23 years with Andrea. It was honest and real and I actually liked what I'd written. But I sat there staring at the post for like twenty minutes before I finally just closed my laptop.

Because all I could think about were the friends who are going through divorces right now. The people in my life who are barely holding their marriages together. The couples I know who looked just as happy as Andrea and I do in photos, right up until they didn't.

And I just kept thinking: Who am I to post about how great my marriage is when other people are hurting?

Here's the thing that's been eating at me for years now: I'm terrified of making my life look better than it actually is.

Not because I'm trying to be fake or create some perfect Instagram version of my life. Actually the opposite. I'm worried that even when I'm being completely honest, people will still think I'm full of it. That they'll see me talking about my marriage or my business or anything good in my life and assume I'm just another guy with a highlight reel pretending everything's perfect.

And maybe this sounds ridiculous, but I've literally been hiding because of it.

I coach people for a living. I tell them to show up. To be authentic. To create content even when it's messy. To stop waiting until everything's perfect and just start. That's what I do.

But me? I've been sitting on the sidelines, watching other people use social media to curate these polished versions of their lives, and I just... opted out. Because I didn't want to be that guy. I didn't want anyone to look at my content and feel worse about their own life. I didn't want to accidentally hurt someone by sharing something good when they're going through something hard.

But there's something else underneath that fear too.

Growing up, I saw a lot of broken relationships. My parents. Other marriages in my family. People I loved who couldn't make it work. And it's part of why it took me so long to marry Andrea in the first place—I didn't want to get into a relationship if I wasn't sure it could be forever.

So when I think about showing up and talking about my marriage publicly, it's not just about making other people feel bad. It's about the weight of saying something matters and then having to actually live up to it.

Because I've watched people close to me post about their relationships, talk about how strong their marriages were, and then... it fell apart. Cheating. Hurt. Divorce. And I know how much that betrayal compounds—not just to their spouse, but to everyone who believed them.

One of the best compliments Andrea has ever given me is that I'm a person of integrity. And that matters to me more than almost anything. It means my words and my life actually match. It means I don't say things flippantly that I'm not willing to back up with my actions.

So showing up and talking about my marriage feels like I'm making a promise. Not just to Andrea, but to everyone reading. And if I mess up—not even in some catastrophic way, just in the normal ways marriages are hard—I'm not just failing her or myself. I'm failing everyone who believed me. Everyone who looked at my story and thought "maybe it's possible."

And that weight feels crushing when I know how fragile relationships actually are. When I've seen good people with good intentions still end up divorced. When I know that integrity isn't just about wanting to do the right thing—it's about actually doing it, day after day, even when it's hard.

I don't want to be flippant about something that requires everything I've got. I don't want to make it look easy when I know it's not. And I definitely don't want to become another cautionary tale.

The problem is I'm naturally optimistic. Like, annoyingly optimistic. I genuinely see my life as a glass half full most of the time. Even when things are hard—and they have been hard, trust me—I still tend to focus on what's working more than what's broken.

Which means even my "real" probably sounds like a highlight reel to some people.

And I can't change that. I can't make myself more pessimistic just so people believe me when I say life is messy. I can't downplay the good stuff just to prove I'm not hiding the bad stuff.

But for the longest time, I tried. I just... didn't show up. Didn't post. Didn't share. Because I couldn't figure out how to do it without potentially making someone feel bad or think I was being fake.

I've been in therapy. I've invested over $50K in coaching and masterminds. I've surrounded myself with a community of people who keep telling me the same thing: You have to show up anyway.

Not because showing up is some magic solution to people's assumptions about you. But because there are people who actually need what you have to share. And by hiding to protect the people who might judge you, you're also hiding from the people who could actually benefit from hearing your story.

One of my coaches said something that's been rattling around in my head for months: "The people who are going to make assumptions about you aren't your people. Stop optimizing your life for them."

And she's right. I know she's right.

But it still feels uncomfortable as heck to show up when I know some people are going to look at my life and think I'm just another entrepreneur humble-bragging about my marriage or my business or whatever.

Here's what I'm learning though: I can't control what people think.

I can be as honest as humanly possible. I can share the hard stuff. I can talk about the years Andrea and I barely made it through. The financial stress. The times I've been a terrible husband. The business decisions that almost tanked everything. The therapy sessions where we had to rebuild from scratch.

I can share all of that and some people will still think I'm painting a prettier picture than reality. Because they're looking at my life through their own lens, their own pain, their own experience. And that's not my fault. And it's not my responsibility to manage.

My responsibility is to show up for the people who get it. The ones who understand that you can be honest about struggle and grateful for what's good. The ones who know that sharing your wins doesn't mean you're hiding your losses.

The ones who need to hear that it's possible to build something that works. That marriage can actually get better after 23 years. That you can pivot your business and not blow everything up. That optimism isn't toxic positivity—it's just choosing to see what's working alongside what's not.

So I'm done hiding.

Not because I've figured out how to make everyone comfortable with my story. But because I finally realized that's not the goal.

The goal is to show up. To tell the truth. To help the people I'm actually here to help. And to let the rest of it go.

If you're hiding too—whether it's because you're afraid of looking too successful or too messy or too anything—I get it. I've been there. I'm still working through it.

But here's what I know: the people who need what you have to offer can't find you if you're not showing up. And the people who are going to judge you? They were never your people anyway.

So show up. Be honest. Share what's real. And trust that the right people will get it.

Thanks for being here,

Ryan

PS - If you've been hiding too and want to talk about what's keeping you from showing up, hit reply. Sometimes it helps to just say it out loud to someone who gets it.

PPS - If you're ready to stop hiding and need some support figuring out what showing up actually looks like for you and your business, I have a mastermind launching in February and some coaching spots open. Go here or just reply and we'll figure out what makes sense.