Why Don’t You Just Pull Over:
3 Ways to Slay It - #1 from Michael Phelps.
Responsibility is a superpower. Until it becomes the dragon driving the bus off a cliff.
Here is something I have learned over the years. Adults who grew up in alcoholic or dysfunctional homes often end up over-responsible. Not lazy, the opposite. They carry everything, for everyone, all the time, because somewhere back there carrying it was the only way anything got handled.
That looks like strength. Most of the time it is. But it turns on you in two places: when you are doing so much for other people that they never have to do it themselves, and when you cannot bring yourself to ask for help.
I have done a lot of both.
“I always thought the guy who won’t pull over and ask for directions was an idiot. Then I counted the times I didn’t call a friend.”
Nate LowrieThat is the one that got me. It is easy to laugh at the guy circling the same block for forty-five minutes, too proud to roll down a window. Meanwhile I was doing the exact same thing with the things that actually mattered - a hard decision, a rough season, a problem at work - driving in circles, alone, because asking felt like admitting something.
It is not humility that keeps us from asking. It is ego dressed up as strength.
“As a male athlete, I always thought it was a sign of weakness if I showed I was being vulnerable. It’s not weakness.”
Michael Phelps28 Olympic medals. The most decorated athlete in history. And the thing he has called one of the hardest things he ever did was checking himself in and letting people help him. If that guy had to fight the same voice you and I fight, then the voice is not telling the truth.
Think About It.
When somebody on your crew is finally honest and asks you for a hand, what do you actually think of them? That they are weak? Or do you respect them more for saying it out loud?
You already know the answer. So why are you holding yourself to a rule you would never hold them to?
You know me by now. My number one go-to is the Big Guy upstairs. Before the phone call, before the meeting, before I figure out my next move - that is where I go first, every single time. And I have never once walked away from that thinking I should have handled it myself.
Then call the person. Your partner. Your best friend. Your foreman. The one who has already stood exactly where you are standing. Every one of them would rather be asked than watch you drive off a cliff being strong.
Pull over.
“Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you.” Matthew 7:7
Playing to lose vs. playing to win
Carries it alone → playing to lose
- Says “I got it” when he does not.
- Does it for people who should do it themselves.
- Drives in circles rather than ask.
- Calls the pride strength.
- Burns out and calls it loyalty.
Asks → playing to win
- Says the hard thing out loud.
- Lets people grow by letting them carry it.
- Pulls over early.
- Calls the ask what it is: courage.
- Lasts.
Let’s Play to Win
Slay the dragon and make the ask.
- Be like Phelps. Pick one place you are not OK and say it to one person. Not the whole story. One sentence, out loud, to somebody who has earned it.
- Make one ask. One thing you have been carrying by yourself. Pick the person and say it plain: I need help with this. No preamble, no apology, no joke to soften it.
- Hand one thing back. Find something you have been doing for somebody who should be doing it themselves, and give it back to them. You are not helping them. You are holding them.
Responsibility is a superpower. Asking for help is what keeps it from eating you.
And one more, because it would be hypocritical to write all of that and not say this out loud. If you have a project, a problem, or even just an idea you have been circling - a building, a remodel, a budget that is not working, a phasing plan you cannot crack - call us. You do not need it figured out first. That is the entire point. We will lean in as your partner and help you think it through, whether or not it ever turns into a job for us.
And if it is not a building at all, if it is just something you are carrying in life, family, or business and you need somebody to think it through with, my email is right there. I mean that.
Pull over. We are right here.
Let’s get after it in life, family, and business. AND LET’S PLAY TO WIN!!!
Lots of love,
Nate
