Picture this: an August run through Germantown. 

It’s a sweltering Tennessee summer, because it always is. The heat is ready to ruin your day, but you’re out there anyway. You had a five-mile goal, but now you want to cut it short. Four miles is close enough to five, right? And you’re almost there. You can turn back.

I’ve been there. And you know, I used to think of these moments as a test I was failing (and miserably so). If I felt the urge to quit, I must not have trained hard enough, or I wasn’t tough enough, or I just didn’t want it badly enough.

Pushing through was just a matter of having more willpower than not. If I could outlast it, I could win.

Picture it: drumming your fingers on top of a conference table, desperately trying to keep your eyes open as a coworker drones on about something you already know. You just want to get back to work. 

I’d wager all of us have been there before: stuck in a meeting that was only efficient at being a big waste of time. 

A few years ago, I looked at my calendar and saw eleven meetings coming up before I’d answered a single email. I’d scheduled most of them myself. Some I accepted out of routine—what’s 30 minutes out of my day?

Your phone buzzes halfway through dinner. Before you’ve swallowed your last bite of food, your hand’s on the phone to pick it up. It’s not a conscious decision, but a reflex. The family keeps chatting while you move to sequester yourself for what could be a very important call.

It happens to all of us. 

I’m never going to discount the possibility of a true emergency, but at some point, I realized I was making myself too available. Weekends, in the middle of my kids’ games, while I was already dressed for me.

I never made myself off limits. Maybe I was just telling myself that that’s what leadership required.

Most mornings, I run without a watch and by myself. And most evenings for the past 25 years, I’ve stood on a soccer field surrounded by a roster of kids who need direction, encouragement, and a reason to trust in the process of making progress.

Team versus solo.

It’s pretty easy to pit these ways of training against one another, but I truly don’t think it’s a matter of which way is better. Training alone and training with others flex different muscles and form different habits.

That’s why I’ve come to think of it less like either/or and more like cross training.