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A few days ago, I shot a text to a buddy of mine because our alma maters were playing each other in the college lacrosse national championship. It was just a quick hey, check this out kind of message, nothing more than that.
Within a few minutes, he called.
We talked for fifteen or twenty minutes. I was actually rushing to make a tee time, but I still didn't want to hang up. When we finally did, I had that feeling I always have after talking to him: my day was better than it was twenty minutes earlier; I felt lighter, happier, and filled up in a way that's hard to describe but easy to recognize when it happens.
I've got a handful of people like that in my life. Not many, but enough to recognize that every single conversation, without fail, leaves me better than it found me.
That phone call got me thinking about two things worth sharing with you.
First, the irony wasn't lost on me. I reached out digitally and he picked up the phone. There's nothing wrong with a text (the text is what started the whole exchange). Most of the time a text is exactly the right tool because it's a bid for connection, and bids matter. But he recognized that this particular one had room to become something more, and he made the call. That instinct to upgrade the medium when the relationship deserves it is rarer than it should be, and most of us stop at the text and tell ourselves we're staying connected. Sometimes we are, but sometimes the moment is asking for more, and we miss it.
Second, I started thinking about how those relationships actually get built. In my time in the Army, I watched three patterns play out, and I think they translate directly to athletics and any other team environment.
The first is what I'd call the professional-only relationship. You're assigned together, you work well together, you genuinely like each other, and then the assignment ends and so does the friendship. There's no malice in it and no falling out, just life moving on, and neither person invests in keeping the connection alive so it doesn't stay alive. Most relationships fall into this category, and that's okay.
The second is the hybrid, where the professional bond is gone but the personal connection lingers at low wattage. You catch each other on social media, you reconnect every few years when life intersects, and you're always glad when it happens. Neither of you is really tending the fire, but the embers are still warm.
And then there's the third kind, the one I keep coming back to. The professional reason for the relationship disappeared fifteen years ago, but we've never stopped checking in. There's no schedule and no rule, just an internal clock and an understanding that when one of us is buried, the other one reaches out. Whoever has more bandwidth makes the call, and that's the deal, even though we never made it explicitly.
Here's what I want you to take from this.
If you're a coach, a leader, or a parent, anyone responsible for other people, the most powerful thing you can do for someone is be the person they leave better than they found you. Not because you handed them a perfect piece of advice, but because you were present, you were honest, and you cared enough to meet the moment with what it actually needed.
And on the other side of it, take inventory of the people who do that for you, and then go do something about it this week. Send the text, and when the moment is asking for more than a text, pick up the phone.
We talk a lot in this work about culture, vision, accountability, and execution, and all of it matters. But none of it gets built by people who are running on empty, and the relationships that fill you up are not a luxury, they're infrastructure.
Be that person for someone, and don't lose track of the ones who already are that person for you.
— Ian |
