This post is part of my Saturday Morning Life Lessons series, where I mine the 80s cartoons of my childhood for the emotional wisdom no one expected them to have. If you want more nostalgia-fueled truth bombs, you can check out the full lineup.
Want to hear this post instead of reading it? Just hit the play button below, and I’ll happily read it out loud for you.
There are some things from childhood that stay with you forever. The smell of Play-Doh. The sound of a VHS tape rewinding. The chaos of trying to eat breakfast while also watching cartoons because missing even ten seconds might mean missing the exact moment the heroes finally combine forces into the giant robot we were all actually waiting for.
Which brings me to Voltron.
Voltron was this wildly dramatic animated series from the 1980s, where five pilots each controlled a giant mechanical lion. And listen, the lions could put up a decent fight on their own—lots of laser blasts, lots of heroic yelling, very on-brand for that era—but everyone knew the real power didn’t show up until they connected. Literally. They would lock together, piece by piece, to form Voltron, a massive robot built for taking down whatever galaxy-destroying villain wandered into the episode that week.
But here’s the thing: Voltron was never actually about the individual lions. Yes, each lion had its own cool factor, and every pilot came with big hair and even bigger emotions, but if you watched the show for more than two minutes, you knew the real magic didn’t happen until everyone stopped trying to win the battle solo and finally yelled, “Form Voltron!” That was the moment everything clicked—when strength stopped being individual and started becoming collective, when five separate pieces became something stronger than they ever could be alone.
Every week, I acted surprised. Every week, they fought too long individually. And every week, I sat there thinking, “Guys. Sweet heroes. This alien monster literally breathes fire. Maybe just… combine?”
And honestly, if that isn’t the most “adulting” thing I’ve ever seen reflected back at me through a childhood cartoon, I don’t know what is.
Because here’s the truth that sneaks up on you once you pay a few bills, navigate a few workplaces, and realize that 90 percent of life’s battles are not won with independence, but with interdependence: We’re not meant to be the whole robot. We’re meant to bring our piece – the leg, the arm, the head.
And I know. I know. The myth of the lone hero is intoxicating. Especially for our generation. We grew up on action stars who went in guns-blazing and problem-solved through sheer grit and witty one-liners. Somewhere in there, we internalized the idea that the strongest person in the room is the one who needs the least help.
But that’s not real strength. That’s stubbornness.
Real strength is knowing your role on the team. Real strength is trusting the people around you to bring their part. Real strength is saying, “I am excellent at forming an arm, and I do not need to be the leg, the torso, the sword, and the motivational speech.”
Real strength is stepping into formation.
Now, if you’ve ever worked in an office, you’ve met every lion from that show.
There’s the Red Lion person: fiery, talented, allergic to sitting still in a meeting longer than eight minutes.
There’s the Blue Lion: steady, grounded, making sure no one accidentally sends an email that will get the entire department audited.
There’s the Green Lion: techy, creative, doing wizardry in spreadsheets that defies natural law.
There’s the Yellow Lion: the reliable backbone, the one who doesn’t panic at 4:59 p.m. when someone mysteriously discovers a crisis that allegedly “just came up.”
And then there’s the Black Lion: the connective tissue, the leader who isn’t perfect and doesn’t pretend to be, but cares deeply enough to pull everyone together when the alien monster of Adult Workplace Chaos rears its head again.
The point is: everyone brings something. And the trouble starts when we—yes, even the well-intentioned humans among us—try to be all five lions at once.
Ask me how I know.
I spent years trying to be the entire robot. I tried to be the strategist, the emotional support, the technical expert, the planner, the peacekeeper, the problem-solver, and the one who remembered everyone’s birthdays and favorite candy. It wasn’t sustainable. At one point, I think I actually believed the workplace would implode if I didn’t personally manage every email thread. (To be fair, one email thread absolutely would have imploded, but still.)
It’s human nature to play whack-a-mole with responsibilities because the world tells us:
If you want something done right, do it yourself.
If you don’t do everything, you’re not doing enough.
If you need help, you’re behind.
But here’s the plot twist—the one Voltron taught us long before corporate training sessions tried to turn it into a trust fall exercise: Your strength isn’t meant to stand alone. Your strength is meant to interlock with others. Work isn’t won by lone wolves. It’s won by people who can fit their strengths together like puzzle pieces and form something bigger than any one person could accomplish alone.
I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been in a meeting where five extremely competent adults circled the exact same problem from five different angles, each convinced they needed to personally solve it. Meanwhile, the solution was sitting squarely in the middle of the table like, “Hey. I’m right here. Combine forces and let’s get on with it.”
And maybe that’s the real warning sign we should all listen for at work. Not chaos. Not stress. But that moment when you start feeling like you have to shapeshift into every lion to keep the wheels turning. That’s the moment Voltron is whispering, “Stop. You have a team. Form the robot.”
And even more than that: you deserve to be part of a robot that actually works. You deserve to be in a community where your strengths matter, and your weaknesses don’t disqualify you. You deserve to bring your piece to the puzzle and trust that others will bring theirs too.
Because here’s the thing we don’t say out loud very often: it is exhausting to fight every battle alone. It is lonely to think you’re supposed to have every answer. It is depleting to pretend you are five lions’ worth of capability in a single human body that still has to remember to buy milk and schedule dentist appointments.
Life gets easier—not because the challenges shrink, but because the load is shared.
Every great workplace I’ve ever been in, every great team I’ve ever been a part of, has had a Voltron moment. That instant when each person gave up the need to be the hero and instead became part of something heroic.
It’s powerful.
It’s beautiful.
It’s wildly efficient, which my adult self appreciates deeply.
And at the end of the day, that’s the lesson I want to carry with me, and maybe with you too:
You are not here to be the whole robot.
You are here to bring your lion.
Bring your strengths.
Bring your weird quirks that somehow make you perfect for that one job no one else can do.
Bring your steady, your fiery, your thoughtful, your witty, your strategic.
And trust the people around you enough to let them bring theirs.
Because when we combine?
When we finally lock into place and stop trying to fight every battle solo?
That’s when the magic happens.
That’s when the monster falls.
That’s when the workday becomes winnable again.
So go ahead.
Take your place in the formation.
Find your fellow lions.
And let’s form something stronger together.
Rachel L. Richard is a small-town farm girl turned suburbanite, a delightfully irreverent optimist, Mrs & Mama, floppy dog ear scratcher, lifelong learner, channel surfer, wanderer, believer, occasional creative, out-of-practice musician, cupcake addict, book devourer, and lover of all people.
Leave a Reply