The chicken fingers were the whole point

A new season is officially here.

School just started for my two littles, and when I say little, I mean a 6th grader and an 11th grader, so, not little at all. And my oldest heads off to college in just a couple of days. I'm genuinely excited for him. I keep waiting to feel wrecked about it, and honestly, so far, I mostly just feel proud.

I love this time of year, especially in Michigan. The crisp air. The evenings that are finally cool enough for a bonfire, unlike July, when whoever suggests a fire at 80 degrees should be gently asked to leave. And Friday Night Lights are back, which have always been some of my favorite words. I loved the book, the movie, the show. But my favorite version of Friday Night Lights was always playing under them.

These days my version happens on Tuesdays and Thursdays, never actually Fridays. Let me explain.

Three seasons ago my middle kid, Charlotte, took up field hockey, a sport none of us understood. Last year I stopped just watching and became an assistant coach for the varsity team at Clarkston High School. I still barely know the rules, but I've fallen completely in love with it, with the girls, with the culture the head coach has built, with getting to do this alongside my own daughter.

If you want the whole origin story, I've told it before. What matters this week is that we're back at it, and it's every bit as good as I remembered.

Our first game was a heartbreaker, a loss in the final 17 seconds. But last night we got our first win of the season, and Charlotte scored two of our three goals. I will not pretend I was calm about this. I've also been reminded, loudly, how much I hate losing and how much I love winning. I don't fully know why it's wired into me that deep. It just is.

But the best part of the night didn't happen on the field.

After the game, as we were packing up on the field, the girls started talking about where everybody wanted to go. And then the drive home was me, Charlotte, and two of her best friends and teammates. I just got to be there. Listening to them talk about their lives, ask each other questions, laugh about nothing, dish about some school drama I was absolutely not qualified to weigh in on. I had a smile on my face the whole drive. There is nothing quite like being a quiet passenger to your kid's actual life.

While we were still packing up, the plan had started forming. We were about 12 minutes from a Raising Cane's, which, if you don't know, is a chicken finger place, and I think there's only one in the whole state. A bunch of the girls were going. And Charlotte turned to me and asked if I was going too.

Now. Here's my honest internal monologue in that moment.

It was almost 9pm. We were an hour from home. I'd already eaten dinner. I had a long drive ahead, and I knew, I knew, that a late night was going to wreck my next morning. My sleep, my workout, my whole routine that I actually love. And yes, I'm an Enneagram 7, so saying yes to everything is basically my factory setting, which means I've spent years trying to build the discipline to sometimes say no.

So the smart, disciplined, protect-your-morning answer was right there. "Nah, I'm just gonna head home."

And I almost said it.

But then it hit me. She wasn't really asking about chicken fingers. She was inviting me, in that indirect teenage way, to stay in it a little longer. To be part of the after. And I realized this is exactly the kind of moment I'll never get back. My oldest is leaving for college in two days. The window on being invited by my kids into their world is not infinite. It's closing, slowly, whether I'm paying attention or not.

So I said yes. I drove the 12 minutes. I ate chicken fingers I did not need at an hour I had no business eating them. And it was one of my favorite nights in a long time.

And here's the funny part. My morning the next day turned out totally fine. I got to bed later than I'd have liked, but I still woke up with energy, still got my day. I don't know if that was a little wink from God, a pat on the back for choosing the memory over the routine. Maybe. All I know is the thing I was protecting turned out to be fine, and the thing I almost skipped turned out to be a night I won't forget.

Here's the thing I keep having to relearn, and maybe you do too.

The moments with our kids are fleeting, and they almost never announce themselves. They don't come labeled "this is the important one, cancel your plans." They show up disguised as an inconvenient side trip at the end of a long night. And the whole trick is just saying yes to the ones that bring you life, even when they interfere with the perfectly good plans you had for your sleep, or your work, or your carefully protected routine.

This is actually why I built the life I built. When I chose to be an entrepreneur, with all the risk and stress that comes with it, the real reason underneath it was freedom. The freedom to choose. To say yes to the chicken fingers and the car full of teenagers and the Tuesday night that matters more than the morning after. One day the house will be quiet and these particular invitations will be gone, and I don't want to have spent them protecting a routine.

The people you love are handing you these moments all the time, usually at inconvenient hours. Maybe for you it's not a kid. Maybe it's a friend, a parent, a partner, someone quietly leaving the door open. And if it feels like nobody's handing you those invitations right now, it's worth asking whether you can be the one who starts. Reach out. Extend the invite yourself. It's never too late to change who's in the car with you.

So here's my nudge for your week. Say yes to the thing after the thing. Take the moment, even when it costs you the morning.

Onward, my friend,
Ryan

P.S. Next week I'm hosting a free hour-long workshop on the three videos I think every business should have to grow, serve their audience, and actually make an impact. It's the stuff I'm doing for my own brand right now, not just advice I hand out and don't follow. Wednesday, September 2nd at 1:00pm ET. It's free, and you can grab a spot here: [link]

P.P.S. If you said yes to something this week that you almost talked yourself out of, hit reply and tell me about it. Those are some of my favorite emails to get.