I Love You. Thank You. I’m Sorry. Please Forgive Me.

This is Part 7 and the final article in my series, How to Leave Something the Right Way.

About 15 years ago, I learned about Ho’oponopono from my in-law.

Four simple phrases stayed with me:

I love you.

Thank you.

I’m sorry.

Please forgive me.

I’ve thought about those words many times over the years.

But recently, while driving from Michigan to Florida to start another chapter of my life, they came back to me in a way I wasn’t expecting.

I had stopped at Virtues Golf Club in Ohio.

I drove up the familiar hill.

I circled the parking lot.

I looked at the clubhouse.

I didn’t need to walk the golf course.

I didn’t need to talk to anybody.

I just wanted to be there for a moment.

Almost 15 years of my life were connected to that place.

And sitting there, I realized I could say all four phrases to a golf course.

I Love You

I love you.

That’s probably the easiest one.

I loved that golf course.

I still do.

Virtues was more than somewhere I worked.

It was where I grew up professionally.

It’s where so much of what I know about being a golf professional and general manager was developed.

It’s where I made mistakes.

It’s where I learned.

It’s where I succeeded.

And somehow, so much of my life grew around that place too.

My career took different turns because of it.

I met my wife, Bebe.

We had our children.

They grew up around that golf course.

When I look at the man I am today, professionally and personally, a lot of the road leads back there.

So yes.

I love you.

Thank You

Thank you for almost 20 years.

Thank you for the people.

Thank you for the opportunities.

Thank you for the difficult days.

Thank you for letting me make mistakes.

Thank you for giving me a place to learn how to recover from them.

Thank you for trusting me with more responsibility as the years went on.

Thank you for letting me eventually lead.

Thank you for the friendships.

Thank you for the memories.

Thank you for helping me build a career.

And thank you for becoming part of my family’s story.

There are things in my life today that probably would not exist if my path had never taken me to that hill in Ohio.

I don’t take that lightly.

I’m Sorry

This one is harder.

I’m sorry I couldn’t stay with you.

I’m sorry I won’t be there to watch you continue to grow and mature.

When you spend that many years somewhere, you develop ideas about what it could become.

You see things other people may not see.

You know its strengths.

You know its weaknesses.

You know its history.

And you start imagining its future.

Even after I knew it was time for me to move on, that part didn’t immediately disappear.

There were still things I wanted to see.

There were still things I wanted to do.

There always will be.

So I’m sorry.

I’m sorry I can’t stay and watch the next part happen.

Please Forgive Me

This might be the hardest one.

Please forgive me because I wanted more for you.

I wanted to keep pushing you.

I wanted to make you better.

I wanted to help lead you toward a higher place.

For a long time, part of me probably believed I needed to be there to make that happen.

But I don’t.

That’s something I’ve had to learn.

I won’t be the person making that push anymore.

Someone else will.

Someone else will have ideas.

Someone else will make decisions.

Someone else will make mistakes.

Someone else will improve things I never thought about.

Maybe they’ll change things I would have kept.

Maybe they’ll keep things I would have changed.

That’s okay.

It’s their turn.

Please forgive me that I won’t be the one taking you there.

And maybe I need to forgive myself for that too.

Loving Something Doesn’t Mean You Have to Hold Onto It

That may be the biggest thing I’ve learned from leaving.

We sometimes think moving on means we have to stop caring.

I don’t believe that anymore.

I can love Virtues Golf Club without working there.

I can be grateful for everything it gave me without wishing I could go backward.

I can want the golf course to succeed without needing to be the person responsible for that success.

I can miss parts of it and still know I made the right decision to leave.

Those things can exist together.

Maybe that’s what letting go really means.

Not forgetting.

Not pretending it didn’t matter.

Not rewriting the past so leaving becomes easier.

Just accepting that something can remain important to you even when it no longer belongs to you.

How to Leave Something the Right Way

Over this series, I’ve written about going back to say thank you.

I’ve written about the flag that brought people from different generations of Longaberger Golf Club back together.

I’ve written about leaving something better than you found it.

I’ve written about making decisions you can live with.

I’ve written about seeing your work continue to produce results after you’re gone.

And I’ve written about recognizing when your chapter is finished.

I don’t think there is one perfect way to leave something.

Sometimes you choose to leave.

Sometimes somebody chooses for you.

Sometimes you leave at the top.

Sometimes you leave with unfinished work.

Sometimes you know exactly why you’re leaving.

Sometimes it takes a while to understand.

But I think I know what I want to carry with me.

Gratitude instead of resentment.

Lessons instead of regrets.

And enough humility to understand that the places we love can continue growing without us.

That morning, I drove back down the hill at Virtues and continued south toward Florida.

I didn’t know exactly what the next chapter would look like.

But I knew what I wanted to say to the previous one.

I love you.

Thank you.

I’m sorry.

Please forgive me.

Then I kept driving.

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This is Part 7 and the final article in my series, How to Leave Something the Right Way.

Is there a person, place, job, or chapter of your life that you could say these four things to today? I’d like to hear your story in the comments.