Dan Duckworth Editor

IN THE HOUR OF NEED

A group of women gathered at a mountain camp. Ten of them stepped onto a log on a steep hillside. There were smiles, support, and the usual tension that belies trust-building games.

Then one woman fell.

She tumbled. Fifteen yards down a steep slope. Over brush and broken limbs. There was silence. Then a scream. In the dust, there was blood. And panic.

And in that moment—no conscious choices. Only scripts.

One woman whispered affirmations. One ran for the camp director. Another searched for first aid equipment. Most froze. They all deferred to the nurse—a competent medical professional who was decidedly not a leader.

And the whole scene floundered.

In moments like this, you don’t rise to your intentions. You fall to your formation.

We imagine ourselves as we hope to be—clear, composed, decisive. But when something ruptures—when fear walks in, when routine is shattered—you don’t get to summon your ideal self.

You revert to what’s been formed.

In the hour of need, your behavior isn’t drawn from training. It’s drawn from wiring.

And for most of us, that wiring was shaped by systems that taught us to defer, comply, perform care, and wait for permission.

Even if the people are suffering.

If you’ve never gone on the journey to rewrite your instincts—never thoughtfully examined your own reflexes—then what will show up in the hour of need won’t be leadership.

It will be survival.

A profoundly sick society—whether a family, school, workplace, or congregation—isn’t just broken, it rewrites the definition of health. It rewards numbness, normalizes dysfunction, and teaches you to suppress what’s real.

In such places, being “well adjusted” means being quietly complicit.

Leadership begins the moment you stop adapting—and start questioning the story you’ve been asked to live.

→ What is real—in your heart, in your community—that the system is teaching you to suppress?