There is a moment in the 1993 film, The Sandlot, where one of the characters declares a pause in the shenanigans the young men are embarking upon in order to retrieve a baseball that has landed in the yard opposite the sandlot where they play pickup baseball every day.

He declares, with all the weight of an exasperated grown-up, “I think we’ve gone off the rails here. I really blame myself.”

And of course, the reason the line works as a joke is that no adult ever says that, much less thinks it about themselves when a project “goes off the rails.” The other reason it works is that every adult thinks this about another adult and blames them when a project “goes off the rails.”

It takes the innocence of a child to call a pause, take on some accountability, and return to the drawing board.

In every project you’ve ever been on, there have been opportunities to engage in the way that Tommy Timmons did in that iconic film, and there will be more in the future.

All you have to be is brave enough to say the words out loud.