My son is learning to drive.

We got his learner’s permit a couple of weeks ago, and he’s been happily driving every chance he can get. That means of course that I am in an unfamiliar place – the passenger seat.

I love to drive. I always have. I drive places other people fly to. I have clients up and down the east coast and more often than not, I drive to see them. I find peace in driving that I find few other places. I think. I pray. I let ideas and problems rattle around in my head and find solutions and paths that I don’t find in the busyness of everyday life. And then there’s the control thing.

My son said it best on one of our first drives. “I can’t believe I am in control of this massive killing machine.” he said.

OK, maybe it’s not a killing machine, but it is a very big piece of metal moving at potentially deadly speeds. And that feeling of control as you push a car around a curve, the tires gripping the asphalt, just on the edge of control, is intoxicating.

But, now, suddenly, I am in the passenger seat. No longer in control, letting him learn, sometimes with a dollop of fear here and there, how to do it. It is an unfamiliar place.

But not a bad one.

I am getting a lot of jokes from my peers about all the gray hairs I will get as he learns to drive, but they are always surprised when I don’t join in. I am OK with it. Maybe not comfortable entirely, but very OK. Part of the reason is that he is turning out to be a good driver. He’s alert. He learns. He seems to have a native feel for the road and the car, but he is not cocky about it. You always wonder what kind of drivers your kids will be. Even though he has a lot to learn, I already know he is going to be OK. I’ve been blessed, because my daughter, when I taught her to drive, was also clearly going to be a good driver from the time she started.

The other reason is that I have long since given up on the idea that I can control very much in my life. I had that illusion once, and was, I thought at the time, pretty good at managing my life and work. Really good in fact. People seemed to like me in leadership positions. In work. At church. In other groups I was a part of. I rarely sought them but always seemed to end up leading. I ran things well. I have a good sense of what steps need to be taken to get things accomplished and am good at organizing people to get them done.

But my world fell apart about ten years ago and I learned just how little control I had over anything. I found myself divorced, struggling in my work, no longer active in ministries, and fighting a deep, deep depression. I was no longer what people had called me most of my life: “Successful.” I wasn’t a failure exactly, but I was broken. I controlled nothing.

Except myself.

It was a painful lesson, but perhaps the most powerful lesson I ever learned. That dang near every element of my life was out of my control, except for me. I could influence others, but there was no control. There are things about people and organizations and there are secrets people keep and internal battles they wage that I will never know, and all those things will work under the surface to assure that any control of anything I thought I had was no more than a temporary illusion.

You can not imagine how freeing that is, to let go of that illusion. A huge weight of responsibility lifted. All I had to do was focus on me and my responses and my own healing and growth and learning. Success was no longer important to me. What became important was significance.

Significance. Making a difference, without expectations or control. Helping those around me find a way that was truly theirs, not telling them what to do. Giving the people around me tools, but not telling them precisely how to use those tools. Helping them discover for themselves. Focusing more on the people than the task.

Now here’s the interesting thing. When I stopped focusing on success or the goals or how I wanted things to go, I had good success. I turned out to be a far better manager. The companies and organizations I worked with grew dramatically. I did well. But now I measured my success not by that growth, but by the difference I made in people’s lives not by telling them what to do, but by helping them find their own path, their own way of doing things.

It was harrowing at first. I won’t lie. I was used to working from a place of control. There is security in that. But it is a false security. Things blow up in our lives. Sickness. Lost jobs. Financial disaster. Relational collapses. And if it is control we cling to, then we too collapse when those things around us come unraveled. We blame ourselves for the failure (because we were, after all, supposed to be in control.)

But when I shifted from a place of control, of success focus, to a place of simple significance, of wanting to make a difference in people’s lives without telling them how to “fix” or do things, that pressure evaporated. My heart lightened. Sometimes I had the same kind of success I had always had. Sometimes I didn’t. But I always got to see people grow in their own way, at their own pace, and into their own skin. Not my idea of their skin, THEIR skin.

Last week I had someone contact me about being heir writing coach. Now, I have been a writer for a long time. But I’ve never taught writing and I told them so. “That doesn’t matter.” she said. “You ask the right questions. I don’t need someone to tell me what to do. I need someone to ask me questions and help me find myself.” That I can do.

And so, I realized last week as I climbed in the passenger seat next to my son, I live a life out of control. I am in the passenger seat a lot more than I realize. And I am OK with that. Which is why if I get more gray hairs, it won’t be my son’s fault. Heck, I am even starting to enjoy riding for a change. The scenery’s way better.

Be well. Travel Wisely,

Tom