Tell them now

I've been thinking a lot lately about rites of passage, and how few of them we have left.

For most of us, especially guys in this country, there isn't really a moment where someone older pulls you aside and says, "Here's what it means to step into this next thing. Here's who you're becoming. Here's what we expect of you, and here's why we believe you're ready." We've mostly lost that. Boys just sort of drift into being men, unmarked, unblessed, figuring it out alone and hoping they land somewhere decent.

So when my circle actually makes space to mark one of these moments, it hits me hard. And this week, we're making space.

This week I get to be part of a blessing for my best friend's son. He's headed off to college, into all of it, the freedom and the pressure and the thousand small decisions that are about to start shaping the man he'll be.

A group of us who love him are going to gather around him. We're going to tell him what we see in him. We're going to encourage him and, honestly, challenge him a little too. We want to send him off with more than a packed car and a good luck. We want him to carry something.

Mostly we want to remind him of a couple of things that are easy to forget once life gets loud. That people matter more than almost anything he'll chase out there. That part of his purpose, wherever he lands and whatever he does, is to love the people in front of him. And that no matter how it goes, how badly he stumbles or how far he wanders, there's a group of us back here who are for him. Cheering. Supporting. Loving him no matter what.

I wish every kid got a night like the one he's about to get.

Here's what all of this has stirred up in me, though.

We are terrible at telling people what they mean to us before it's too late.

I've got friends who are genuinely remarkable. Not famous. Remarkable. People who are extraordinary at their work and would never say so. People making quiet, daily, invisible sacrifices to raise good humans. People who are generous to total strangers when nobody's watching and no one will ever clap for it. And most of them have no idea anyone notices, because we save our words for funerals and graduations. We wait for the ceremony.

But the ceremony often never comes. Most of the beautiful things people do never get a stage or a microphone or a night where everyone gathers around to say "we see you." Most of it just goes unmarked, the way most of us go unmarked stepping into who we're becoming.

So maybe we stop waiting.

Here's my challenge for you this week, and I'm doing it too.

Take two minutes today and send someone a message telling them the impact they've had on you. Not a big production. Just the truth, said out loud, while they can still hear it. The friend who showed up when it counted. The mentor who saw something in you first. The parent, the coach, the coworker, the person who quietly made you better and never got told.

Don't wait for the ceremony. It may never happen. You be the ceremony.

As you go through this week, I hope you remember your own mission, too. If you've forgotten your why, if the work has gone gray and monotonous and it's started to feel like it's only about the paycheck, let this be a small nudge. You have the power to make somebody's day better. You always have. That's worth so much more than a paycheck, and it's sitting right there in your pocket, one message away.

Go tell somebody.

Grateful for you, and I mean that,
Ryan

P.S. If you do send that message this week, I'd love to hear how it went. Reply and tell me who you reached out to and what happened. Some of my favorite emails are the ones where someone tells me they finally said the thing they'd been sitting on.

P.P.S. Quiet behind-the-scenes update: I've started booking podcast appearances as I gear up for the marketing push ahead of the book, which comes out first quarter. If you host a show or know someone who does and it feels like a fit, hit reply. I'd love to come tell some stories.