Some weeks don’t arrive in a straight line.
They come in waves.
The phone rang at 9:30 last night.
I glanced down, already knowing it probably wasn’t good news.
A torrential storm had rolled through St. Louis. The power glitched, all three elevators at the studio went down, and my team was standing in Studio 80 staring at a hot box full of dinner and an entire serving line, trying to figure out how they were going to get everything downstairs.
Before I had time to process that, another change for the following morning arrived almost simultaneously.
I was sitting on my couch watching television.
Or at least, I was trying to.
That’s the thing about leadership.
It doesn’t always knock politely.
Sometimes it calls after dinner.
Sometimes it interrupts the quiet moments.
Sometimes it reminds you that while your body may have gone home, your mind never really did.
But this wasn’t where the week began.
It was simply the latest wave.
Earlier in the week, one of my employees lost her brother.
Another called because her sweet puppy dog had been hit by a car and died.
Two more called in sick.
Another left work to console her grieving friend.
By the end of the week, I had also worked over sixteen consecutive days on top of that.
Somewhere in the middle of it all, I found myself in tears over an ice cream machine.
Of course, it was never about the ice cream machine.
It never is.
Stress has a funny way of refusing to stay where it started.
It bleeds.
Work follows you home.
Grief finds its way into your patience.
Fatigue settles into your conversations.
And uncertainty quietly takes a seat beside everything else you’re carrying.
Mine had nothing to do with work.
It belonged to a different part of my life.
The kind of uncertainty that doesn’t arrive with an answer, only more waiting.
The kind that asks you to live beside questions you can’t answer yourself.
Funny how unresolved things have a way of pulling up a chair beside everything else.
They don’t replace the day’s burdens.
They simply become another burden making everything else heavier. The proverbial back breaking straw.
Just one.
More.
Thing.
Somewhere in the middle of all of it, I realized I’d become less interested in finding answers and far more interested in asking better questions.
Because “why” rarely changes the moment we’re standing in.
Better questions do.
Somewhere along the way, a friend of mine, Donny, challenged the way I think about problems. Not by giving me an answer.
By asking a better question.
What can I solve… and what must I let go of?
I’ve been thinking about that a lot lately.
I’ve spent most of my life solving problems.
Truthfully, I love solving them.
Give me a room full of uncertainty and something inside me becomes incredibly clear. While everyone else is looking for the nearest exit, I’m already looking for the next right step.
For years I thought that meant I thrived in chaos.
Maybe because I was raised in it.
As a child I never knew what was coming next.
I learned to brace for the impact, recover quickly, and prepare for whatever came after that.
By the time I reached adulthood, I had moved eighteen times.
I even attended one school for exactly one week.
I wasn’t just learning new addresses.
I was learning how to adapt.
How to read a room.
How to make friends quickly.
How to become comfortable with uncertainty because certainty was never guaranteed.
Maybe that’s why chaos has never frightened me.
It feels strangely familiar.
Not because I enjoy it.
Because I’ve spent a lifetime learning how to find my footing while the ground was still shifting beneath me.
Now I wonder if I’ve misunderstood my own gift.
Maybe I don’t love chaos.
Maybe I love bringing clarity to it.
Those aren’t the same thing.
For years I believed every difficult situation was asking something of me.
Work harder.
Be more patient.
Find another solution.
Hold on a little longer.
Because not everything is a puzzle waiting to be solved.
Some things don’t change because we become more patient.
They don’t resolve because we sacrifice more of ourselves.
Some situations simply reveal themselves over time, and our only real choice is whether we’ll keep carrying something that was never ours to carry.
Maybe that’s what this season has been teaching me.
Not how to carry more.
But how to recognize what actually belongs in my hands.
My husband tells me not to answer the phone after work.
“Let it go to voicemail.”
On the surface, it sounds like healthy advice.
But every time he says it, something inside me resists.
Because the phone isn’t just ringing.
A person is.
People sometimes assume that because my staff calls me after hours, I’m rescuing them.
I’m not.
I’m not coming into work to do it for them.
I’m answering the phone to teach them how to do it without me—creating a back-up plan in real time.
Rescuing creates dependence.
Guidance creates confidence.
I’ve never wanted people to depend on me.
I’ve wanted them to leave stronger than they arrived.
I’m not trying to build followers.
I’m trying to build leaders.
One thing I’ve noticed over the years is that stress moves.
Some people pass it to the next person.
They yell.
They criticize.
They blame.
I’ve spent years trying not to become that person.
I don’t distribute my stress.
I carry it.
Sometimes that’s a strength.
Sometimes it’s a burden.
This week reminded me of something I’d almost forgotten.
I kept wondering who was going to support me.
Then Sidney walked through the door.
“How can I support you?”
A few minutes later, MaryClare asked the exact same question.
Cassandra smiled and said,
“What do you need me to do?”
My team doesn’t step in because they’re afraid of me.
They step in because they care.
That’s not compliance.
That’s compassion.
Somewhere along the way we stopped being a group of people who happened to work together.
We became a team.
All for one.
One for all.
When my staff and I hang up the phone, we don’t say goodbye.
We say,
“Love you. Bye.”
That didn’t happen because someone wrote it into an employee handbook.
It happened because culture isn’t written.
It’s lived.
Years ago, I would have refused their help.
Today, I accept it.
Not because I need saving.
Because helping matters to them, too.
Being useful gives people purpose.
Contributing creates belonging.
Accepting help isn’t taking something away from someone.
Sometimes it’s giving them the opportunity to become the kind of teammate they want to be.
Then another question found me.
Who notices?
Every week I write schedules.
Handle administrative work.
Decorate rooms.
Run wherever I’m needed.
Most of that work is invisible.
When it’s done well, people assume it simply happened.
I don’t do those things for praise.
I do them because they need to be done.
But every once in a while…
someone notices.
On the Fourth of July one of my colleagues looked around the rooms and simply said,
“The room looks really nice.”
Such a small sentence.
Such a generous gift.
Not because I needed validation.
Because someone saw the work that usually goes unseen.
It made me realize I’d been asking the wrong question.
Not,
Who needs me?
Need is everywhere.
People need things every day.
The better question is,
Who appreciates my presence?
Who notices?
Who asks,
“How can I support you?”
Those are my people.
After a week like this, my first instinct is always the same.
Walk away.
Walk away from the stress.
Walk away from the uncertainty.
Walk away from the people who demand more than they appreciate.
I’ve learned not to trust my first instinct.
Not because it’s wrong.
Because it’s usually exhausted.
So instead of asking,
Should I walk away?
I’ve started asking a better question.
What if I just keep walking?
Not away.
Forward.
Toward the people who appreciate my presence instead of simply expecting it.
Toward relationships that offer clarity instead of confusion.
Toward work that gives me purpose without requiring me to lose myself.
Toward peace.
Maybe that’s what asking better questions has been teaching me all along.
Not to change the circumstances.
To change my direction.
Because when everything around us begins to fall apart, we don’t reveal our intentions.
We reveal our culture.
The culture that teaches people whether to blame or support…
whether to criticize or encourage…
whether to demand someone’s presence…
or appreciate it.
In the end, I don’t think our legacy is measured by the problems we solved.
I think it’s measured by the people who became stronger because they crossed our path.
Maybe that is what we’re meant to carry.