I’m not known for being an emotional person. I don’t wear my feelings on my sleeve, and I’m pretty comfortable with that. Ask anyone who knows me well, and they’ll probably confirm this before you even finish the question. I’m the guy who holds it together, pushes forward and finds the solution. That’s just who I am. And for most of my life, it’s served me pretty well.

So, when I decided to give my wife a fill-in-the-blank book called “Things I Love About You” for her birthday, I figured it would be a quick exercise. Sit down, flip through the pages, and jot down some answers. Done. Maybe an hour of my time, tops.

It was not an hour.

The book is small—almost embarrassingly small. About 45 pages with simple prompts like “I love when you…” and “When this happens, I feel…” On the surface, it looks like something you could knock out on a lunch break.

But somewhere around page three, I realized what was actually being asked of me. It wasn’t enough to list facts about my wife. I had to express how I felt about those facts. And every time I put pen to paper and tried to write something that actually meant something, I felt a sensation that I can only describe as deeply uncomfortable.

I’ve known my wife since she was 16. I know her better than I know any other person on this planet. And yet, sitting alone with this tiny little book, I felt completely exposed. Like I was handing over a piece of myself that I’d never handed to anyone before, including her.

And here’s what made it worse: There was no backup plan.

In past years, I could rely on jewelry or a trip. If something didn’t land perfectly, you laugh it off and try again next time. But this book was the gift—all 45 pages of my most unguarded thoughts, just sitting there. If she opened it and thought, “Wow, this guy really doesn’t know me at all,” there was nowhere to hide. No diamond earrings waiting in the wings. (Which, for the record, wouldn’t have helped anyway because she’s not a diamond person. But still, the point stands.)

I didn’t realize until I was deep into those pages how many years I had spent keeping a comfortable distance from my own feelings. Not out of indifference. I care deeply about the people in my life. But caring and expressing that care are two very different things, and I had spent the better part of my life getting very good at the first one while largely avoiding the second.

What I found in that little book was that vulnerability isn’t a personality type. It’s a choice. And for people like me, it’s a choice that requires real effort.

Leaders, in particular, tend to feel enormous pressure to be the rock—always steady, always in control, always the one who holds it together when things get hard. And there’s real value in that. But if we’re not careful, the same composure that makes us effective in a boardroom can quietly hollow out our most important relationships at home.

The people who love us most don’t need us to be unshakeable. They need to know that we see them. That we feel things because of them. That they matter to us in ways that go beyond what we do for them.

My wife already knew I loved her. But that book gave her something different. It gave her evidence. Specific, handwritten evidence that I had sat alone, thought deeply, and put it on paper—awkwardly and imperfectly, but genuinely.

And honestly? I think I needed to do it just as much as she needed to receive it.

So here’s my challenge to you. Think about someone in your life who deserves to know exactly how you feel about them. Not in a general, “Of course I love you,” kind of way, but in the specific, detailed, “Here’s what I notice about you and here’s what it means to me,” kind of way.

Then tell them. Write it down if you have to. Find the little book. Send the long text you’ve been overthinking. Leave the voicemail you’ve been talking yourself out of.

Do the vulnerable thing. You might be surprised how much you needed to say it just as much as they needed to hear it.