10/10 Do Not Recommend the Hospital Food. Would Recommend Asking for Help.

I just spent a few days in the hospital for voluntary treatment of my chronic migraine. I'm home now and doing okay. But I keep thinking about the fact that the hardest part wasn't the needle in my arm 24/7 or trying to do yoga in the depressing patient lounge with an IV in my elbow.

It was the email I sent beforehand. The one where I told my friends and family I was going in, that I was vulnerable, afraid, and might want visitors.

For years, I've powered through chronic migraines, working through hotline shifts, sitting through countless dinners and leadership meetings, and praying the pain would go away with a smile on my face. I pretended I was fine because, well, I thought I should be.

I’ve always been more comfortable being the person who handles things than the person who asks for help, but being in the hospital took that option away. I couldn’t power through. I couldn’t jump in and manage the situation. I couldn’t be the capable one who makes it work. I had to ask. I had to depend. And I had to sit with how uncomfortable it felt to let go of appearing okay (something I hadn’t realized I’d been holding onto so tightly).

Tiny, Kept Promises

What stayed with me most during that week were the nurses. Not because they were altruistic or heroic (though they often are), but because they did exactly what they said they were going to do.

When you're in a hospital bed, you have no choice but to rely on strangers. You don’t understand half the vocabulary, and the entire environment is designed to remind you that you’re not in control. You ask for pain medication, and they say, "I'll be back in ten minutes," and then they are (10-ish). You say, "The beeping is making me lose my mind," and someone shows up, touches a button, and makes it go away. You press the call button at 3 a.m., and a human being appears.

What I realized, maybe more somatically than in my head, is that trust is built on follow-through: doing what you said you were going to do, consistently and reliably. Trust is the accumulation of tiny, kept promises.

And trust doesn’t just require someone who keeps their word; it also requires being willing to let yourself need anything at all.

I expected something about this hospital stay would end up in a newsletter. This just wasn’t the leadership lesson I thought I’d learn.

When Powering Through Stops Working

If you've spent years doing everything yourself, powering through, over-functioning, and micromanaging out of necessity or fear, never delegating because you can just do it better, then the people around you are never given the chance to build trust with you.

You never experience the feeling of being able to depend on someone. Not because they're incapable, but because you've never let them show you who they can be.

If you're reading this and thinking, "That sounds fine for other people, but if I want something done right, I need to do it myself," I SEE YOU. I am you. I'm not saying leave for vacation tomorrow and cross your fingers that your team fends for themselves. But maybe start with something small: one tiny ask for help.

Because what I'm learning is that so much of my "I'll just do it myself" mentality is actually perfectionism wearing a productivity badge.

Perfectionism Masquerading as Productivity

In restaurant culture, perfectionism looks like high standards, ambition, hustle, and a relentless sense of urgency. It looks like being the person no one has to worry about: competent, reliable, consistently executing, and chasing “excellence” (a highly overused term, in my opinion). Every owner’s dream employee.

But inside, perfectionism is often a survival mechanism.

Maybe you grew up in chaos and learned early that being “the responsible one” kept you safe. Maybe you believed that if you did things perfectly, no one could be disappointed. Maybe rest came to mean falling behind. Maybe asking for help felt too vulnerable.

Whatever its origin, perfectionism comes with a cost.

You Can’t Build Trust in a Vacuum

Over time, perfectionism creates an all-or-nothing trap. If it can’t be done flawlessly, it’s not worth doing. If someone can’t do it your way, you step in. If your team struggles, you quietly rescue the situation, and eventually, they stop trying.

It convinces you that doing it alone is faster and safer. But you can’t build trust while performing self-sufficiency in a vacuum. You can’t experience reliability from others if you never give them the chance to show up.

Left unchecked, perfectionism becomes a kind of self-imposed micromanagement. It blocks support, breeds resentment (in you and in them), and quietly erodes your well-being.

Dinner service can run with someone else expediting. The Instagram post can go live without you copy-editing the caption. Your events person can make the final decision on the price of the Christmas Eve menu. The ship can sail without you.

This doesn't mean lowering your standards or pretending everything is fine. It means recognizing that excellence and depending on others can coexist.

Trust requires delegation.

Delegation requires vulnerability.

Vulnerability requires the willingness to let yourself be human, not perfect. And it requires letting your team be human too, which means they get to fail safely sometimes.

One Small Ask

So if you want to build trust, or rebuild it, try this:

Make one small ask today. Something bite-sized. Let someone feel great helping you. Not "Can you run the entire service?" but "Can you handle the produce order this week?"

Tell someone their follow-through mattered. When your sous shows up early to prep without being asked, say it out loud. Reinforce the behavior you want to see.

Allow someone to disappoint you safely. Trust isn't the absence of failure. It's the presence of repair. Let someone miss the mark, then coach them through it instead of taking it back.

Practice saying: "I need help with..." Trust requires interdependence, not performance. Start small. Start honest.

I used to joke with my high-performing friends about writing I’ll Just Do It Myself, a memoir by [insert name of high-performing friend here]. It always got a laugh, mostly because it was true.

Lately, I’ve been less interested in rewarding that story. A short article feels more appropriate. Something closer to Today I Asked Someone for Help.

No big reveal. No dramatic transformation. Just a small shift, practiced over time.

And if this is something you or your leadership team are ready to practice too, you know where to find me!