The Unsorted Baggage
Inspired by on Lenny's Podcast
Bruce Springsteen spent 25 years in therapy because he knew: if you don't sort your childhood baggage, your kids will pay the price.
Jerry Colonna's favorite quote comes from Bruce Springsteen's autobiography. The Boss spent 25 years in psychoanalysis. Twenty-five years.
Springsteen writes about "the unsorted baggage of our childhood." We all have it. And at some point, we're going to pay the price of not sorting it.
As parents, the price is often paid in tears - but not always ours. It's the patterns we repeat without realizing. The triggers that make us snap when our kid does something that's actually fine. The fears we project. The dreams we impose.
Jerry sees it constantly in leadership: entrepreneurs sabotaging successful businesses because deep down they believe they don't deserve success. Teams recreating the dysfunction of their family of origin.
The good news? You can sort the baggage. Therapy, journaling, coaching, radical self-inquiry - whatever works. The point is to make the unconscious conscious before it directs your life and your children's lives.
If Bruce Springsteen needed 25 years, maybe we can give ourselves permission to do the work too.
PM Theme: Self-awareness and blind spots
Parenting Theme: Doing your own inner work
“One of my favorite books is Bruce Springsteen's autobiography... he talks about having spent 25 years in psychoanalysis. He has this passage where he talks about the unsorted baggage of our childhood. What he rightly asserts is that we all have unsorted baggage, and at some point we're going to pay the price of not sorting that baggage.”Jerry Colonna · 00:20:08
“If you continue to bypass sorting out your baggage, there's going to come a day where you're going to have to pay that price. It could be in your own depression... entrepreneurs sabotaging their successful businesses because the belief system from their childhood goes something like, I don't deserve success so let me blow it up.”Jerry Colonna · 00:21:21
