Do You Have to Be Selfish to Be Successful?

It’s my 36th birthday today, and it happens to coincide with my 40th letter to Leo. So this week, I’m looking back at what nearly five years of being a dad, and 40 Tuesdays spent writing about it, have taught me about courage, getting older, ambition and being present. I’m also asking a question I haven’t been able to put down: do you have to be selfish to be successful?

Dear Leo,

It’s my birthday today.

I’m 36. And this is letter number 40.

Two numbers I can’t stop putting next to each other.

40 letters have now gone out on a Tuesday morning. And 40 is also the next age quietly humming in the background of my own life. Not loudly. Not as a crisis. Just awareness.

When I look at other people my age, or people turning 40 they sometimes seem more adult than I feel. Some days, I get a strange sense of imposter syndrome around it all.