Being Brave in the Middle
· Courage
The only way out is through. What are you currently trying to go around?
The Only Way Out Is Through
Have you ever noticed how creative we get when it comes to avoiding the hard stuff?
We reorganize our calendars instead of having the conversation. We start a new project instead of finishing the painful one. We scroll. We hustle. We rebrand. We do anything but sit still with what's actually in front of us.
Let me ask you something honest. What are you currently trying to go around?
For me, one of those moments came late at night in the office. The lights were low. The building was quiet. And I was staring at an email that made my stomach drop before my brain even fully processed it. A project we had poured months of heart, creativity, and strategy into was unraveling. Not wobbling. Unraveling. My first instinct wasn't leadership. It wasn't courage. It wasn't faith. It was escape.
Fix it fast. Spin it. Soften it. Blame timing. Blame the economy. Blame myself. Anything but sit in it. But over the years, through business setbacks, parenting challenges, leadership failures, and personal loss, I've learned something that refuses to be ignored:
The only way out is through.
We live in a culture obsessed with shortcuts. Life hacks. Growth hacks. Emotional hacks. We want the five-step formula for resilience and the 30-day reset for burnout. We want to skip the awkward meeting, fast-forward through grief, and jump straight to the polished lesson.
But pain doesn't disappear because we ignore it. Fear doesn't dissolve because we work harder. Grief doesn't shrink because we stay busy.
It waits.
It waits until you snap at someone you love. It waits until your body forces you to slow down. It waits until the quiet moment when you finally admit, "I'm not okay."
I remember writing about rest and realizing how wrong I had been about it. I thought rest meant going to the gym and going to bed early. But I was waking up drained. What I discovered is that we need more than sleep. We need deeper restoration. And I wasn't exhausted from activity. I was exhausted from avoidance.
Stillness was what I needed. Not distraction. Through.
Years ago, this lesson hit me in a way that changed me forever.
I was in Africa working on design projects in places like Uganda and South Sudan. We were creating tools to help non-literate communities express emotion. Think about that for a second. Designing ways for people to identify and communicate feelings they'd never been given language for.
In South Sudan, our team was held at gunpoint. There was no hack for that moment. No motivational slogan. No leadership framework. Just breath. Just presence. Just prayer.
Later, when I rushed home after learning my brother-in-law had passed away, I felt the full weight of what it means to walk through grief. You can't productivity your way past loss. You can't rebrand sorrow into something shiny.
You take one step. Then another. Then another. Through.
Leadership has its own version of this truth.
Every March when I watch the tournament, I'm reminded that no team escapes pressure. No champion avoids missed shots. They review the tape. They learn. They adapt. In business, when a project fails, I can avoid the hard conversation or lean into it.
At home, when one of my kids makes a mistake, I can lecture from a distance or kneel down and walk through it with them. As a leader, I can protect people from discomfort, or I can help them grow through it.
Shielding isn't strengthening. Through is strengthening.
Science backs this up. Avoidance makes fear bigger. The more we run, the more our brain labels the thing as dangerous. But when we stay with discomfort just a little longer than we want to, something shifts. We realize the wave crests. The emotion passes. We are still standing.
Each time we choose through instead of around, we build identity. I am someone who faces hard things. I am someone who stays. I am someone who grows.
That compounds.
If I'm being honest, there have been seasons where I questioned everything. Am I leading well enough? Am I present enough at home? Am I building something that truly matters?
The temptation was noise. More projects. More travel. More achievement. But the real work was quieter. It was sitting with the discomfort long enough to hear what it was teaching me.
When I wrote Life Kerning, it didn't come from clarity. It came from misalignment. In typography, kerning adjusts the space between letters. In life, it's adjusting the space between who you are and who you're becoming.
That adjustment only happens when you're willing to see the gap. And you only see the gap when you stop running.
Through.
So here's what I'm learning. The hard conversation you've been avoiding? Through.
The grief you keep postponing? Through.
The leadership mistake you're embarrassed about? Through.
The only way to the other side is not around the middle. It's through it.
Reflection
Where are you trying to go around something that needs to be walked through? What would courage look like this week in that one specific area?
Weekly Challenge
Choose one avoided conversation, task, or decision. Have it. Do it. Decide it. No announcement. No drama. Just movement. And then pay attention to what shifts inside you.
Go Be
Being brave is not about being fearless. Being resilient is not about never falling. Being Humankind is choosing presence over avoidance. The only way out is through.