The Distance Between Advocacy and Action: A Leader’s Awakening

When my son was born, I was on the front lines of New York City’s Ebola response team. In a decision that still haunts me, I returned to work after just a couple of days. At the time, I justified it as the noble choice – I was helping protect our city during a public health emergency. I told myself this was what dedication to public service looked like.

The irony cuts deeper though. Throughout my career, I’ve been the one in meetings championing gender equity, pushing for better parental leave policies, arguing for workplace flexibility. I’ve delivered countless presentations on dismantling patriarchal systems and advocating for women’s advancement in the workplace. Yet there I was, perpetuating the very patterns I criticized in others.

Years later, I made another “career-driven” choice. As Chief Strategy Officer at Red Hook Initiative, I committed to a three-hour daily commute, convinced that the importance of the work justified the sacrifice. While I was facilitating workshops on gender justice and developing equity frameworks, my wife was silently making hard decisions about her own career to accommodate my absence. I was the public face of progressive values while unconsciously maintaining traditional gender roles at home.

Then COVID hit.

Suddenly, those three hours of commuting vanished. The endless stream of meetings and crisis responses paused. For the first time, I was truly present with my wife and three kids, and I couldn’t hide from the patterns anymore. The same man who spoke passionately about breaking down systemic barriers for women had created barriers for his own wife’s professional growth. The advocate for racial and gender justice hadn’t examined how these inequities played out in his own home.

The pandemic stripped away my ability to hide behind noble causes and righteous rhetoric. In the quiet moments between Zoom calls and homeschool sessions, I had to face an uncomfortable truth: I wasn’t living what I preached. While I built a career advocating for systemic change and equity, I had unconsciously maintained the very power dynamics I fought against professionally.

This isn’t just my story. Whether you’re moving through corporate America, running your own business, working construction, or holding down any other profession, many of us are wrestling with similar disconnects. We might champion equality in public while unknowingly perpetuating inequality in private. We’re trying to step up as partners and fathers while still building our careers. We’re attempting to break generational cycles while creating new opportunities. And too often, we’re doing it without a real space to talk about the weight of it all.

For me, these realizations led to completely rewriting my story – starting my own consulting firm and teaching at Columbia. But the bigger revelation wasn’t about changing careers. It was about the need for honest conversation about what we’re all facing:

• The gap between our public advocacy and private actions

• The struggle between showing up for our families and building our dreams

• The challenge of being vulnerable when we’ve been taught to be strong

• The ways our partners silently absorb the impact of our choices

The pandemic pulled back the curtain, but it also opened a door. A chance to reimagine how we show up for ourselves and our people. To have honest conversations about navigating a world that keeps changing the rules on us. About being strong enough to be vulnerable, successful enough to be present, and secure enough to admit when we’re struggling.

We need spaces where men can speak their truth without judgment, share their struggles without shame, and support each other in growth. Because the path to becoming better men isn’t walked alone – it’s built through community, through real talk, through shared experience.

This is just the beginning of a bigger conversation. One that needs to happen in our communities, our workplaces, and our homes. Because when men have the space to be honest about our challenges and support each other in growth, everybody wins – our partners, our children, our communities, and ourselves.

So here’s the question: Are you ready to get real?

I am.