Friday Debrief for July 24, 2026
The strongest people I know are the worst at asking for help
Ten months. That’s how long the crew of the USS Gerald R. Ford has been at sea.
While I do think about the folks on the flight deck when I read something like that, I also try to think about the house they left. Somebody back home has been solo since, what, last fall. The 2am fevers, the water heater that dies the worst possible week, all of it handled alone. No medal for that one. They just do it.
I know this one from the inside. I met my wife on a deployment. 2013, she was running the medical side, I was the ops officer… we were two people who were world-class at stuffing it down and functioning. In that world asking for help gets read as a liability, so you don’t. You carry the weight, then a little more of it, and one day you look up and you’ve decided all on your own that needing anybody is a crack in you.
And of course… this goes way past the military. The single parent. The founder floating payroll off a personal card and not telling a soul. Whoever’s white-knuckling some season right now because they think they’re supposed to.
The strongest people I know are the worst at asking for help. Costs them the most, too. The weight is quiet. It just wears on you, slow, until you’re worn down and lonelier than you’d ever say out loud.
So. Friday debrief. Five quiet minutes, and be honest.
What am I carrying solo right now that was never a one-person job?
Who keeps offering, and I keep waving them off?
What would it cost me to just say yes?
And one thing I could hand off before Monday. What is it.
Deployed, holding down the home front, starting up that company… you weren’t built to run it alone. Set some of it down. Let somebody in.
What are you asking for help with this week?
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