I called a mate the other day who's in the thick of something hard.

He built something real. Years of it. Blood, sweat, the whole thing. And now he's being pushed out of it, fighting to get back in, and it's not just the one thing — it has a real carry-on effect. It's touching his family time, his friendships, his own health, the way he sleeps, probably the way he looks at himself in the mirror some mornings.

I said something like you can't control that, only how you perceive it. Or maybe it's the ego getting in the way — what's the actual thing you're trying to protect here, and does it need you in the driver's seat to still happen?

I could almost hear him squirming down the line.

It's not just him either. I've had versions of this conversation with plenty of people over the years, and with myself more times than I'd like to admit. Nobody wants to hear that their ego is driving the situation, even when it's true. Especially when it's true. It's hard advice to swallow when you're in the middle of losing something you built. I know the theory is sound. I still don't know if it's helpful, in the moment, to the person who's drowning in it.

Zeno taught philosophy at the Stoa, a painted porch in Athens, which is where the word Stoic actually comes from. People walked up. Sat down. Listened, because they'd chosen to be there.

Nobody rang Zeno at his worst moment and got cornered with a lecture on perception while they were still bleeding.

That's the bit I keep circling back to. There's a difference between wisdom offered to someone who's come looking for it, and wisdom handed to someone who just wanted to be heard. I'm not always sure which one I'm doing when I call.

I get in my own way constantly. Ego-driven decisions, reactions, all of it — and I very rarely see it happening while it's happening. It's usually Elise, my wife, who calls me out on it. She'll say something short and direct, the kind of thing nobody wants to hear in the moment, and I'll feel the flash of defensiveness before I even process what she's said.

I always come round to it eventually (well, most of the time). Always end up grateful she said it. But never in the moment. Never once has someone pointed out my own ego to me mid-flare and had me go, yes, you're completely right, thank you.

So what does that make the advice I'm handing my mate, mid-crisis, while he's still bleeding? Probably true. Probably still hard to hear regardless of how true it is. Both of those things can sit there at the same time.

I don't know if the right move is to keep giving him the Stoic version, hoping some of it lands later, in hindsight, the way Elise's comments land for me. Or whether the right move is to just be the ear. Sit there. Let him say the hard things out loud without immediately trying to fix the way he's looking at them.

Maybe both are true depending on the day. Maybe some days he needs the porch and some days he just needs someone on the other end of the phone who isn't trying to teach him anything.

I don't know that I've ever been completely certain that any piece of advice I've given anyone was the right one at the time. You mostly find that out later, if at all, and by then it doesn't matter much whether you were right — only whether the person's still standing.

He's still in it. I'll keep calling. I honestly don't know if I'm helping him or just making myself feel useful while he sorts it out on his own.

Might be both of those too.

Until next time,

Broden Johnson