“No one can whistle a symphony; it takes a whole orchestra to play it.”
—H. E. Luccock
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My wife makes delicious cinnamon rolls. A lot of times they are a special weekend treat at the cabin.
Recently it was just the two of us, so she made a small batch. A few rolls, spread across the baking sheet with room between them, covered and left on the counter to rise overnight.
By morning they looked perfect. With room to spread, they’d tripled. Sitting there in neat little islands on the pan, smooth and tall, ready for the same oven that’s baked them plenty of times before, same temperature, same time.
They came out flat.
Not ruined, you can’t really miss with cinnamon rolls (especially with chili, but we’ll tackle that debate another day). But they were low and dense when they’re usually light and fluffy. Not the rolls we know and expected.
We stared at them as if they would talk to us, trying to work out what had been done differently. It was the space.
When she makes a full batch, the rolls go in crowded, sides touching. Packed into the pan with nowhere to go but up. They hold each other up, and they hold each other in, and under the heat they climb.
These had room, so when the heat came, they took it. They spread into all that space around them instead of rising through it. And the sides that normally stay soft—the ones tucked against another roll, hidden from the direct heat—were out in the open this time causing them to crisp.
The night before, you couldn’t have told the difference. Spread out, they looked every bit as ready. They tripled overnight and looked like blue ribbon winners heading into the oven.
And then the heat exposed the difference.
We’ve all worked with people who sat in the pan like that. They have talent and do the work, but it’s on their terms and they always keep that air around them. It might be the far corner of the locker room or maybe never leaving the office. It’s the athlete who’s on the team without ever being a teammate. When the waters are calm and the temperature is comfortable, you’d never know the difference. They look as ready as anyone.
Then it hits the fan. The deadline hits. Things get hard. The season turns. A losing streak. A stretch where nothing comes easy. The heat has arrived.
And the ones with nobody pressed in close have nothing holding them up. They spread thin and harden at the edges. Then, upset with the results, point every direction but inward.
The ones packed in tight—shoulder to shoulder to find the fix, sitting next to someone who needs to be lifted on the bus, or simply lending that helping hand—these are the ones who climb.
You can feel where you sit on your own team. Whether you’ve given yourself a little room. A clean corner and comfortable inch of space on every side. Or whether you’re crowded in close enough that when the heat comes, there’s someone on either side of you, holding you to it and holding you up, climbing because you’re there.
I had high expectations for those rolls. They just didn’t get the support to meet them.
“No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main.”
—John Donne
Connecting this quote to the story. We may have the ability to rise on our own, but it’s the connection, support, and closeness of others that helps us rise higher.
This week’s Chasing Influence tip: Support is easiest to overlook when things are going well and hardest to replace when things get tough.