You can't? ...Hold my beer.

I have a habit. When somebody tells me they can’t do something, there is a part of my brain that immediately goes, Hold my beer.

Not because I think everybody can do everything. That’s bullshit. But people are really, really good at underestimating themselves, especially after life has kicked them around a little. We get rejected. We screw something up. We stay somewhere too long. Somebody makes us feel small. We lose confidence. We get tired. Eventually our weaknesses get so damn loud that we stop hearing anything else.

And I have always had this almost automatic reaction when I hear somebody doing that to themselves. I start looking for the other side. You tell me everything you’re bad at, and my brain starts collecting everything you’re good at. You tell me why you aren’t qualified, and I’m already remembering the things you’ve accomplished that you conveniently left out. You tell me you screwed up, and I’m wondering why one bad decision suddenly gets to testify as an expert witness on your entire life.

You tell me, “I can’t,” and most of the time I’m thinking, Are you sure about that?

I love that shit. I love watching somebody’s perspective change. I love watching somebody who has spent months or years shrinking themselves start taking up a little space again. I love giving their strengths a megaphone when their weaknesses have been screaming through the speakers. I love reminding people of the badass they were before life beat them down enough that they forgot.

And I love connecting people. God, I love connecting people.

At my previous job, that was one of my favorite parts of what I did. I was surrounded by people capable of really big things, and sometimes the magic was simply realizing that two people needed to know each other. One person had an idea. Another had expertise. Somebody else had a connection. Someone had been working on the same problem from a completely different angle. Every once in a while, I got to say, “Wait. You need to talk to this person.”

Then you would watch the pieces start moving. An introduction became a conversation. A conversation became an idea. An idea became an opportunity. Sometimes those opportunities had the potential to make a real impact in medicine or medical education, and that was cool as hell to watch.

I’ve always loved seeing ideas come to life. I love watching something that sounded impossible start becoming possible because the right people finally found each other. I don’t have to be the smartest person in the room. Usually I’m not. I just like helping get the right people into the room.

And I’m the same way with the people I love.

My kids. My barn kids. My rodeo kids. My friends. The people who have wandered into my life and somehow become mine to cheer for.

I believe in some of those people so much it physically hurts sometimes. I can see what they could do. I can see where they could go. I can see the talent, the grit, the intelligence, the stubbornness, the heart. And sometimes I want it for them so badly that I have to remind myself of something really important.

My expectation is not their bar.

That one matters, because seeing somebody’s potential does not mean I get to decide what they are supposed to do with it.

I might look at a kid and think, You could be incredible at this. But maybe incredible isn’t what she wants. Maybe she wants to be confident enough to enter the arena without throwing up. Maybe she wants one clean run. Maybe she wants to learn how to trust her horse. Maybe she just wants to have fun.

Those are her goals. Not mine.

My job is to help her reach hers, not quietly replace them with the goals I have built for her in my head. Those are two very different things.

I have to remind myself of that because when you believe in somebody hard enough, it is really easy to start thinking you know what they should do next. I see this with my own kids too. I can see potential all day long, but their lives aren’t mine to script. I can teach. I can encourage. I can open doors. I can say, “Have you thought about this?” I can stand at the gate and yell, “YES YOU CAN.”

But at some point, I have to let go of the rein.

One of my favorite memories will probably always be one of my lesson kids at her first rodeo. She was running barrels competitively for the first time, and the night before, during warmup, her horse spooked and dumped her in the arena.

Perfect timing.

Nothing says “tomorrow is going to be great” like eating dirt the night before.

So the next day comes and her name gets called. Her horse knows exactly what’s happening and starts getting excited, prancing around and ready to go through the gate. Her heart is pounding, and I can literally watch the confidence drain out of this kid.

She looks at me and says, “Wyt, I can’t do it.”

Then again, “No. I can’t.”

She meant it. She was scared. And I remember looking at her and knowing she could. Not that the run would be perfect. Not that nothing could go wrong. Not that she wouldn’t still be scared. Just that she could go through the gate.

So I told her, “YES YOU CAN.”

And I let go of the rein.

Off they went. She held on. She rode the pattern. She came back through the timer, and the smile on that kid’s face was huge.

She did it.

She was hooked.

But the part I remember most is her face.

The kid who came back through that timer knew something the kid standing at the gate thirty seconds earlier didn’t know.

She could.

That girl made me so damn proud. She was capable of so much more than she believed in that moment. She still is. Even now, when she doesn’t always give herself enough credit, I still believe every damn bit of it.

But here is what I understand better now than I did years ago.

I could send her through the gate because she still chose to ride.

That matters.

She was scared, but she wanted to do it. I could encourage her. I could believe in her. I could give her the push. But she still had to take the reins.

And that lesson carries way farther than horses.

You can help people. You can encourage the hell out of them. You can connect them to the right person. You can hand them an opportunity. You can point out every good thing about them that they have forgotten. You can sit beside them when life is ugly. You can hold the ladder. You can hold the spotlight. You can stand there shouting, “YOU CAN DO THIS,” until you lose your damn voice.

But you cannot make somebody want their own life.

You cannot drag somebody into growth. You cannot force somebody to take the opportunity. You cannot save somebody who has decided they would rather stay where they are.

And whew.

That one sucks.

Especially for helpers.

Because when you are used to finding solutions, you start believing everything must have one. Surely there is another conversation. Another way to explain it. Another opportunity. Another chance. Another person they need to meet. Another angle they haven’t considered.

Maybe if I say it differently. Maybe if I help a little more. Maybe if I stay a little longer. Maybe if I carry just a little more of this for them.

There’s my damn “maybe” again.

And sometimes the answer is still no.

Not because you didn’t care enough. Not because you didn’t try hard enough. Sometimes another person simply has to choose to help themselves.

And if they don’t, eventually your helping turns into you hurting yourself.

That has been a harder lesson for me than I care to admit, because I love hard. I believe in people hard. When I see the good in somebody, I can hold onto that image long after they have stopped acting anything like it. I can see who they could be. I can remember who they were. I can imagine who they might become.

And I can wear myself completely out waiting for them to see it too.

At some point, you have to stop. Not stop loving them. Just stop trying to live their life for them.

Sometimes you have to love people from farther away.

Sometimes very far away.

Sometimes so far away that you’re like, I love you deeply, and perhaps we will try this friendship again in another lifetime.

See you next reincarnation, babe.

Because love and access are not the same thing. Believing in someone does not mean they get unlimited opportunities to disappoint you. Seeing someone’s potential does not mean you have to sit beside them forever while they refuse to use it. Helping someone does not mean setting yourself on fire so they can keep complaining that they’re cold.

I think my whole “hold my beer, yes you can” mentality has had to grow up a little.

I still want to be the person who believes. I still want to connect people. I still want to help

impossible things become possible. I still want to hand somebody’s strengths a megaphone when their weaknesses get too damn loud. I still want to push the scared kid through the gate when she wants to go but fear is trying to stop her.

But I don’t want to push someone toward a life they don’t actually want. I don’t want my vision for somebody to become pressure they never asked for. I don’t want helping to become controlling with prettier packaging. And I sure as hell don’t want to keep measuring my worth by whether everybody I love eventually becomes who I know they could be.

That isn’t mine to carry.

Their goals belong to them. Their choices belong to them. Their timing belongs to them. Their life belongs to them.

I can help. I can encourage. I can connect. I can believe.

And then I have to let go of the rein.

Which brings me right back around to the part that makes me laugh at myself.

I am really damn good at believing in everybody else.

I can tell somebody else, “One bad decision doesn’t define you,” while dragging my own mistakes around like identification. I can tell somebody, “You do not need to have everything figured out before you start,” while personally waiting for seventeen green lights, more money, more confidence, a perfect schedule and probably written authorization from the universe.

I hand other people my favorite words all the time.

What if.

Maybe.

What if it works? Maybe you should try. What if you are better at this than you think? Maybe there is another way.

But when I turn those words toward myself, they get ugly fast.

What if I fail? Maybe later. What if I’m wrong? Maybe when things calm down. What if I’m not good enough? Maybe when I feel ready.

I can turn an open door into a deadbolt faster than anybody.

GUILTY.

And maybe that is why I keep coming back to the image of that kid sitting on her horse at the gate.

I believed in her enough for both of us for a few seconds.

Then I let go.

I didn’t ride the pattern. I couldn’t. I just reminded her that fear and inability were not the same thing.

Then she had to go do it herself.

Maybe that’s really all any of us can do for each other. See something good. Say it out loud. Open a door. Make an introduction. Offer another perspective. Hand somebody’s strengths a megaphone. Believe in them when their own belief gets shaky.

But never confuse loving somebody with living for them. Never confuse their potential with your responsibility. And never forget that sometimes the kindest thing you can do is step back and let somebody decide what they are going to do with their own damn reins.

I still love the “I can’t” people.

Probably always will.

I still hear, “No, I can’t,” and immediately want to answer, “Hold my beer. Yes you can.”

But these days, I know there is one more part to that sentence.

Yes, you can.

If you want to.

And if you don’t?

I can still love you.

I just can’t do it for you.