Dear Friend, (7 min read)

I did a backflip on the beach.

Then a roll. Then I ran straight into the water and slammed my full body weight into a rock with my left foot.

For the next day and a half, I could barely walk on my left foot.

This was the second to last day of the second week of a two week missions trip in Central Asia. And here's the strange thing. I actually think the timing was good.

Really quick… if you want to hear my full thoughts on this trip here’s a podcast for your next walk or cardio session. https://open.spotify.com/episode/6s5b3yArkb9t3QIautQoFA?si=44uaEoIBRjSFc3iYJuYoCg

Okay, this rock? It hadn't hindered me at all. By that point in the trip I had already poured everything out, taught what I came to teach, been fully present for the people I came to be present for. There were still things I wanted to do with my friends in those last couple days, and yes, I could have done them on my own. Slowly. Limping. Stubbornly.

Instead, me and some friends were about a quarter mile from the lake. Tim carried me most of the way. Then Tim and YaHyl carried me back after we watched a beautiful sunrise and talked for hours.

I want you to sit in that image for a second. Because I almost didn't tell you this story, and the reason why is the whole point of this newsletter.

Here's the thing. I am the guy who trains so I have excess capacity to help other people. That’s not by accident. It’s intentional.

It’s why I hired an assistant, build the systems so other people don't have to struggle. Being the giver is comfortable for me. It's familiar. Safe.

Being carried down a beach by two of my friends because I literally could not walk there myself? That's not comfortable. Or it didn’t used to be. That's the opposite of every instinct I have built my identity around.

Here’s what the old Daniel (before this trip) believed: Needing people is a weakness.

Yes, I have the capacity to help others. I built my whole life around having excess capacity. But this time, for maybe the first time, I was actually more than happy to accept the help. I recognized something simple. They had a strength right then that I didn't. Usually it's the other way around. Usually I'm the strong one, the capable one, and accepting help from someone else is the thing I struggle with most.

This time it was easy. I think I'm learning how to receive a lot better.

This is where it gets interesting. Because that lesson did not stay on the beach. It followed me into a hike I did about a month before this trip even started.

I was deep into a long day hike. Six miles round trip by the time it mattered. And I had run out of water. Not "getting low." Actually out, with no real way to get more.

It was a: “and it was at this moment that he knew, he messed up,” type of situation.

I was walking alongside a guy I had just met, along with his dad. We'd had a great conversation, the kind that makes a long trail feel shorter. I never said a word about needing water. I didn't ask. He told me about his dreams. Of helping people see this trail. Of 200 years that gold minors used to use all of this conversation with a stranger I thought I’d never see again.

But on the way back. As I need water. I see him and his dad again inside I’m thinking I NEED water. But I didn’t want to ask. He just looked at me and the first thing he said, "Hey, do you need water?"

That's the part that stuck with me. I had assumed I would be the one who had to ask. I always assume that. And instead, he was the one who noticed, and offered, before I said anything at all.

We walked together for almost an hour then used his filtered water bottle, and I drank some of the best water I've had in a long time.

Do you see the pattern yet?

God provides. And almost every single time, He does it through people.

Here's what I mean by that, practically.

This trip cost real money. I did ceramic coatings for the leader of the trip, and that single job covered almost half the total cost. Eighteen other people gave between twenty and a hundred dollars each to cover the rest. Eighteen separate people decided this mattered enough to put their own money behind it.

The first year I did this trip, it was almost entirely funded by other people giving. The second year, it was almost entirely funded by my own business. This year was both, woven together. And I do not think that is an accident either. I think God uses whatever channel is available, business or generosity or both, and the common denominator is always people choosing to show up for me.

But the provision did not stop at money. It showed up in capacity.

The week before I left, I had a friend's birthday. We did an eight hour hike through Redwood National Forest. While I was on that hike, completely offline, completely unreachable, the guy I had just hired to help with short form video editing for my detailing business sat down and edited sixty reels. Sixty. In eight hours.

I remember staring at that number going, this is not possible. I create so much content that I genuinely cannot keep up with editing all of it myself. And in the time it took me to hike a mountain with a friend, someone else closed that entire gap.

I have had so much fear around hiring people. Real fear. The kind that whispers you're adding overhead you can't justify, you're losing control, you should just do it yourself like you always have. And I almost let that fear keep me from bringing on help right before the worst possible time to try it, one week before I left for three weeks.

But I did it anyway. I hired an assistant to handle client communication for my detailing business, trained her just enough in that one frantic week, and then got on a plane.

And the business did not fall apart. It ran. Clients got responses. Same day requests got handled. I got to be fully present on a mission trip on the other side of the world, and the thing I built kept breathing without me hovering over it.

That is provision. Not in the abstract, theological sense. In the very concrete, very specific sense of: I needed help, and help showed up, through actual people who chose to give their time, their money, or their skill, right when I needed it.

Here's what I think this means for you, whether you share my faith background or not.

You do not have to be the one who does everything. You do not have to be the strongest person in the room, the one who never runs dry, the one who always has it together. The instinct to refuse help, to insist on being the giver and never the receiver, feels like strength. I am not so sure it is.

What if the people around you who want to invest in you, carry you, hand you water at exactly the right moment, what if letting them do that is not weakness? What if it's the true strength?

Your assignment this week: think of one person who has shown up for you recently, in a way you maybe brushed off or didn't fully let yourself receive.

Tell them specifically what it meant. Not a generic thanks. Tell them the feeling, the behavior, and the impact. I feel grateful, because you did this specific thing, and here is what it made possible.

Then notice what happens. Not for them. For you.

Well, that's all for now.

-Daniel

P.S. Part 2 is coming. There’s also an hour long rambling podcast if you want to hear all my thoughts in a less structured format. https://open.spotify.com/episode/6s5b3yArkb9t3QIautQoFA?si=44uaEoIBRjSFc3iYJuYoCg