Cherish the Friend Who Disagrees With You

Sean McVay has a get-back coach.

Which sounds like a job someone invented after losing a fantasy football bet, but it's real.

NFL coaches spend games watching plays, yelling instructions, talking to officials, and generally paying attention to everything except where their own bodies are.

McVay is particularly enthusiastic.

So someone watches him.

When he wanders too close to the field, his get-back coach pulls him back.

That's the job.

Keep McVay from wandering where he isn't supposed to be, getting in an official's way, and costing his team a penalty.

Also, presumably, getting trucked on national television.

And now I want one.

Not because I'm prone to wandering onto NFL fields.

I have other talents.

But because all of us occasionally get so absorbed in our own lives that we lose track of where we're standing.

And from inside our own lives, we aren't always particularly good at telling the difference between fear and wisdom.

Or courage and recklessness.

Don't do it might be intuition.

Or fear.

Do it might be bravery.

Or spectacularly poor judgment.

Neither arrives with a neon sign.

Sometimes we need another set of eyes.

Someone standing close enough to notice which direction we've drifted.

Sometimes that person needs to say:

Get back.

We stay too long.

Push too hard.

Ignore information we don't like.

Convince ourselves that determination and good judgment are the same thing.

We decide that because we can keep going, we should.

We need someone who knows us well enough to say:

You're moving too fast.

You don't have enough information.

You're solving a problem that hasn't happened.

You cannot reasonably accomplish seventeen things before lunch.

You are, at this particular moment, being an unrealistic rutabaga.

Get back.

But sometimes we need exactly the opposite.

Because sometimes we're nowhere near the field.

We haven't even left the tunnel.

We want to apply for the job.

Write the book.

Ask for more money.

End the relationship.

Start the relationship.

Take the trip.

Launch the thing.

Say the thing.

Want the thing.

But instead of moving, we conduct a remarkably sophisticated analysis of all the reasons we should probably remain exactly where we are.

We're not in danger of going too far.

We're in danger of never going.

And time is not particularly kind to that choice either.

In the short term, we're often haunted by the things we did.

Over time?

Research shows that regret for the things we didn't do gets louder.

The chances we didn't take.

The things we didn't say.

The versions of ourselves we never tried becoming.

Sometimes we need someone who can see when fear is masking as practicality.

Someone who listens to our seventeen extremely compelling reasons why Now Is Not The Right Time™ and says:

Go.

Someone who sees the opportunity we're minimizing.

The dream we're shrinking.

The number we're afraid to ask for.

The life we're pretending we don't want.

And gives us a shove.

Because maybe bravery isn't something we're supposed to manufacture entirely by ourselves.

Sometimes we borrow it.

Someone believes we're capable of something before we do.

They remember evidence we've conveniently forgotten.

They aren't trapped inside every horrifying hypothetical our brain has generated.

So they can look at us and say:

You're ready.

Ask for more.

Submit it.

Go anyway.

And sometimes that's enough.

We borrow their certainty long enough to move.

That's why the people I want closest to me aren't the people who always tell me to go.

And they aren't the people who always tell me to be careful.

They're the people who know me well enough to recognize the difference.

When fear is making my world smaller.

When ambition is making me reckless.

When caution is wisdom.

When caution is fear wearing sensible shoes.

When I need someone to grab the back of my shirt.

And when I need someone to shove me toward the field.

The best people in our lives aren't always on our side.

Sometimes they're bodyguarding us from ourselves.

Sometimes they're shoving us toward the thing we're terrified to do.

They aren't loyal to our comfort.

They're loyal to us.