“The most precious gift we can offer anyone is our attention.” ~Thich Nhat Hanh
Five years ago, my son missed a basketball tryout.
We had been out of town, and by the time we got back, the rosters were already set. I made a few calls anyway, hoping someone might give a kid a late shot. One coach said yes. He had a spot left, and he was willing to take a chance on a name he’d never heard from a father he’d never met.
That coach became one of my closest friends.
I started coming to practices to help out. Then I kept coming back. Five years later, I’m still his assistant coach, and somewhere along the way, a basketball court became the place where one of the most meaningful friendships of my adult life took hold. He’s forty. I’m fifty-two. He tells people I’m like an older brother to him, and I don’t take that lightly.
We talk several times a week. About basketball, yes, but also about our kids, our fears, what we’re proud of, what keeps us up at night, and the bigger questions that don’t have easy answers. We laugh often. We’re there for each other. And we’ve both said, more than once, that what we have is rare. Not because we agree on everything, but because we see each other. The real stuff. The soul underneath the surface.
That kind of friendship is harder to find than people admit.
Which is why what happened recently stopped me cold.
He had been up for a new job, a role that would be a game changer for him and his family. I knew the opportunity was on the horizon, but I didn’t know the timing.
When my phone rang the other day, I picked up the way I always do. We fell into one of our usual conversations, easy and unhurried. Silly jokes. Updates on the kids. The kind of talk that doesn’t require effort because the comfort is already there.
No pep talks. No last-minute prep. No mention of anything high-stakes. Just two guys talking about nothing in particular on an ordinary afternoon.
The next day, he reached out with an update. And then, almost as an afterthought, he mentioned that during our call the day before, he had been sitting in a waiting room, just minutes from walking into his interview.
I sat with that for a moment.
“You didn’t tell me,” I said. “I had no idea you were sitting there in the middle of all of that.”
He laughed the way he does. “I know. I didn’t want to talk about the job. I just wanted to talk to you. It kept me calm. Thanks, man.”
I’ve been thinking about that moment ever since.
I wasn’t doing anything remarkable. I wasn’t coaching him through the moment or offering wisdom about pressure and performance. I was just being myself, which is the only thing I know how to be when we talk. But for him, in that waiting room, our ordinary back-and-forth was exactly the footing he needed.
He just needed a reminder that a world existed outside that office. A world where he was already known. Already liked. Already enough. And without either of us planning it, that’s what our conversation became.
I’ve spent a lot of years measuring my value by the visible things. The advice I gave that someone used. The moment I said the right thing at the right time and watched something useful happen. We tend to think of impact in those terms, the big gesture, the obvious intervention, the moment we can point to and say, “I helped.”
But my friend reminded me that presence is its own kind of power. Not the dramatic kind. The just-answer-the-phone kind.
There’s something I’ve learned from five years of watching him coach my son.
The kids who grow the most under his watch aren’t always the most talented. They’re the ones who feel seen. He has a gift for looking at a young person and communicating, without making a speech about it, that he believes in what’s already there.
My son has become a better basketball player over these years. But more than that, he’s growing into the young man he was always meant to be. And a key part of that is because someone took a chance on his name on a list and then kept welcoming him back.
That’s the thread. Coming back. Paying attention. Being present and paying attention without an agenda.
We move through our days as the main characters of our own stories. We’re managing our own pressures, our own timelines, our own private concerns. And in doing so, we sometimes forget that we’re also essential characters in the stories of the people around us. Although we don’t always know which scene we’re in for someone else.
There are days when I feel like I don’t have much to offer. The path forward isn’t clear, and I wonder whether I’m contributing anything of any real value.
And then I think about my friend sitting in a waiting room, not wanting to talk about the moment ahead of him, calling because the sound of a familiar voice was the one thing that could settle his nerves and remind him to come back to himself.
On the days when we feel smallest, we might be the thing holding someone else together. We might be the calm in a storm we didn’t even know was happening.
We don’t need to be extraordinary to matter. We just need to be present. To answer the phone. To come back to practice the next day. To say yes to a name on a list when everyone else has already moved on.
My friend took a chance on my son five years ago and in doing so, gave both of us more than he’ll ever fully know. I hope that somewhere in our conversations, I’ve offered him something back. Even on the days when it felt like nothing more than two people just hanging out and talking.
We never truly know when an ordinary moment becomes the thing someone needs the most. But we can choose to keep answering, keep returning, and trust that our presence and attention are exactly enough.
About Daniel H. Shapiro
Dr. Daniel H. Shapiro is keynote speaker, workshop presenter, and mentor. He is passionate about human connection and the stories we carry with us. For more information about his book, The 5 Practices of the Caring Mentor, or his mentoring and speaking services, check out: www.yourinherentgoodness.com.
