Put On the Costume

My father never wore a costume. Not once.

He wasn’t a cold man. He was a good man. He worked long hours, he paid every bill on time, he showed up to the things he was supposed to show up to. But on Halloween he was the guy standing at the end of the driveway with his hands in his jacket pockets, nodding at the other dads, checking his watch, waiting for us to finish so he could get back to the house and watch the game.

I don’t hold it against him. That’s what men did. Somebody had to be the adult.

But I remember the dad two houses down. He was a contractor, built like a refrigerator, and every year he dressed up in something completely absurd. One year he was a giant hot dog. One year he was a pirate with a stuffed parrot duct taped to his shoulder. He’d chase his kids across the yard roaring, and they’d scream like it was the best night of their lives, because it was.

Decades later, I can still see that hot dog running across the lawn. I can’t tell you a single thing my own father said on any of those nights.

That’s not a knock on my dad. It’s a lesson about what sticks.

Here’s something I’ve noticed in almost every man I know who runs something.

We get serious. Not all at once. It sneaks up. You start a business or take on a big role, and the stakes go up. People depend on you. Payroll depends on you. Your family’s future depends on decisions you make on a Tuesday afternoon with incomplete information.

So you put on the armor. You become the steady one. The guy who doesn’t panic, doesn’t get rattled, doesn’t look foolish. And that armor is useful. It’s part of why people trust you. It’s part of why you’re good at what you do.

The problem is, you never take it off.

You come home and you’re still the CEO. You’re at your kid’s game and you’re still checking your phone between innings. You’re at dinner with your wife and part of your brain is still running numbers on a deal. You’ve been “on” so long you’ve forgotten there’s an off switch.

And somewhere along the way, you stopped playing.

Not working out. Not golf, where you’re keeping score and grinding over a three foot putt. Playing. Doing something for no reason except that it’s fun. Being silly. Being bad at something on purpose and laughing about it.

When was the last time you did that? Honestly. Not with a client. Not to make a point. Just because.

If you have to think about it, you already know the answer.

I used to think play was something you earned. Get the work done, then you can goof around. Hit the number, then you can relax.

The number never stops moving. The work is never done. If play is the reward for finishing, you will never get to play.

Here’s what I’ve come to believe instead. Play isn’t the reward. It’s part of the maintenance.

When you let yourself be ridiculous for an hour, a few things happen.

You remember who you are under the title. The guy who used to make his buddies cry laughing. The guy who’d do anything on a dare. He’s still in there. He just got buried under a decade of responsibility.

Your people get to see you. Your kids don’t need another serious adult in their lives. They have teachers, coaches, and a whole world full of people telling them what to do. What they need is a father who’s also fun. Who gets on the floor. Who’s willing to look stupid with them. That’s the version of you they’ll talk about at your retirement party, and at your funeral.

You give everybody else permission. This one matters more than people realize. When the most serious man in the room lets his guard down, everyone around him relaxes. Your wife sees it. Your kids see it. Your team sees it, if you let them. A leader who can laugh at himself is a leader people feel safe around.

You come back sharper. This isn’t a productivity hack, and I’m not going to pretend it is. But I’ve never once regretted an evening I spent laughing with my family. I’ve regretted a lot of evenings I spent half present, thinking about work I couldn’t do anything about until Monday anyway.

If this were easy, every man would already be doing it. So let’s talk about why it isn’t.

For most of us, looking foolish feels dangerous. Not in a dramatic way. In a quiet, gut level way. We spent years earning respect. We learned that the guy who keeps his composure gets trusted with bigger things. Somewhere in the back of the mind there’s a voice that says if you let them see you being silly, you’ll lose a little of what you built.

That voice is wrong, but it’s loud.

A guy in my men’s group told a story a while back that I haven’t been able to shake. He runs a company with about sixty people. Sharp, intense, the kind of man who walks into a room and the room straightens up. His daughter asked him to be in a dance number at her school talent show. Dads only, five of them, wearing matching tutus.

He said no. Told her he had a board call that night, which was true, and that it wasn’t really his thing, which was also true.

She said “okay” and didn’t ask again.

Two years later he was at another dad’s house and saw the video. Four grown men in pink tutus, completely out of sync, laughing so hard one of them had to stop and lean on his knees. And in the front row, the daughters, losing their minds.

He told us he’d moved that board call three times since then for things that mattered a lot less.

He wasn’t beating himself up. He was just being honest. The cost of looking foolish for four minutes was nothing. The cost of not being in that video was something he’d carry for a long time.

That’s the trade. It almost always is.

Halloween is next Saturday night.

If you have kids under twelve or so, you’ve got a narrow window here. There’s a stretch of years where your kid still wants you to come trick or treating. Where they’re still proud to have you walking up to the door with them. Where they think it’s hilarious when you dress up.

That stretch ends. Not with an announcement. One year they’ll just say, “Dad, I’m going with my friends.” And you’ll say “sure,” and you’ll mean it, because that’s how it’s supposed to go.

But you’ll think about the years you stood at the end of the driveway checking your phone.

And if your kids are past that point, or you don’t have kids, this still applies. Your wife married a guy who was fun once. Your friends remember a guy who’d go all in on a dumb idea. Your team has never seen you laugh until you couldn’t breathe. There’s always somebody who’d love to meet the version of you that isn’t working.

Next Saturday night, put on the costume.

Not a lazy one. Not cat ears from the drugstore and a “this is my costume” shrug. A real one. Something a little embarrassing. Something that makes your kids roll their eyes and secretly love it.

Here’s how to do it right.

Let them pick. Ask your kids what you should be. Then do whatever they say, within reason. If your eight year old wants you to be a dinosaur, you are a dinosaur. Commit.

Go all in. Half effort is worse than no effort. If you’re going to be the pirate, be the pirate. Do the voice. Chase them across the yard. Roar. The point isn’t to look good. The point is that you didn’t care about looking good.

Leave the phone at home. Or in a drawer. One night. The world will survive three hours without you. If you’re worried about missing something, tell your number two you’re offline and to call your wife’s phone if the building’s actually on fire. It won’t be.

Be the good house. If you’re staying home to hand out candy, be the house the kids talk about. Full size candy bars. A fog machine. Sit on the porch in your costume and make the little ones laugh. Generosity and silliness in the same night. Not a bad combination for a man to be known for.

Bring your wife into it. Matching costumes, if she’s up for it. Or at least ask her what she’d like the night to look like. She’s probably been carrying the Halloween logistics for years. Take some of it off her plate and see what happens.

And if you’re an empty nester or Halloween isn’t your thing, find the equivalent. Take your wife somewhere ridiculous. Play pickup basketball with your buddies and be terrible at it. Get on the floor with your grandkids. Go to a karaoke bar and sing badly. The costume is just a symbol. What I’m asking is that you spend one night next week being a guy who’s not in charge of anything.

I’m not asking you to become a different man. Monday morning the armor goes back on, and it should. Your clients need the steady one. Your team needs the guy who doesn’t flinch when a deal goes sideways.

What I’m asking is that you prove to yourself the armor comes off. That there’s still a version of you who can be loud and goofy and completely unproductive for an evening without the world ending.

Here’s the funny part. The men I know who are best at their jobs are usually the ones who can do this. They can be dead serious at 10am and dressed like a pirate at 7pm, and they don’t see any contradiction in it. They’re not less respected for it. They’re more trusted, because people can tell they’re a whole person and not just a role.

I think about legacy a lot. Most of us do once we hit a certain age. We think about what we’re building, what we’re leaving, what people will say when we’re gone.

We usually think about the big things. The business. The money. The house. The name.

But ask anybody about their father and listen to what they actually say. It’s almost never the big things. Nobody says, “My dad grew the company 30 percent in 2019.” They say, “My dad used to make pancakes shaped like our initials.” They say, “My dad dressed up like a giant hot dog every Halloween and chased us across the yard.”

The small, silly, unproductive moments are the ones that last. They’re the ones people tell their own kids about.

You’ve spent a lot of years being the serious one. The steady one. The one who carries the weight. That’s honorable, and I’m not asking you to stop. Your family needs that man.

They also need the other one. The guy who can put the weight down for a night and be ridiculous with them.

So next Saturday, put on the costume.

Somebody’s going to remember it for the rest of their life. Make sure it’s the good kind of memory.

Refined. Relentless. Unapologetic.

Marcus