The Anchor: How to Lead When Everything Feels Out of Control

A few weeks ago, I was at a private dinner with seven to ten business people. Fortune 500 executives. Seven-figure founders. People who, from the outside, look like they have it all figured out.

At some point in the evening, the conversation shifted. Someone mentioned uncertainty. Then AI. Then rapid change and what's coming next. And one by one, the side conversations stopped and everyone leaned in when the phrase "low-grade stress" hit the table... Every single person at that table recognized it immediately. Not just intellectually. Physically.

What became clear to me in that moment: everyone is carrying this. The tension around what to do next, what's going to change, how to prepare, where it's all headed. It doesn't matter how successful you are or how many problems you've already solved.

About a week later, I was at the kickoff of the Austin AI Assembly, put on by a good friend of mine. Around 60 people. Mostly successful business owners and operators from all walks. As we broke into small groups to talk about the disruptions happening around us, the same thing surfaced again. Real concerns. Real wrestling. And that same low-grade stress and tension running underneath every conversation.

This isn't just you. It’s everywhere. And unfortunately…it’s probably not going to be changing anytime soon.

But, there’s another shift happening across society and business…and in this issue we’re going to talk about it.

Why This Matters Now

Let’s skim what the last five to six years have actually looked like.

A global pandemic that shut down economies overnight. Supply chain failures that wrecked industries. Inflation at 40-year highs. Two wars with global ripple effects. AI arriving…disruptions and the reshaping of entire job categories. Tariffs redrawing trade relationships overnight. Political volatility that is now changing macro economics. And underneath all of it, a relentless noise machine designed to keep your attention locked on fear and what’s happening “outside” of you.

This isn't a rough patch. This is the new environment we live in..

According to the American Psychological Association's 2024 Stress in America report, 77% of adults said the current state of the world was a significant source of stress in their lives. And by 2025, that number wasn't improving. The APA's follow-up report found that three-quarters of adults now say they are more stressed about the country's future than they used to be. That number cuts across income levels, industries, and roles.

You are not uniquely struggling. But you are uniquely positioned to do something about it.

Because here's the truth most founders miss:

You can't control what happens in the world, but you can absolutely control your internal state. And your internal state determines everything…your decisions, your team's confidence, your ability to spot opportunity, your capacity to lead.

Uncertainty isn't going anywhere. The question is what you're going to do with it.

The Biology You Need to Understand (Before It Runs You)

When you're stressed, your body doesn't care whether the threat is a lion or a LinkedIn post.

It activates the same ancient system either way.

Your amygdala fires. Your hypothalamus signals the adrenal glands. Cortisol and adrenaline flood your system. Heart rate spikes. Blood gets redirected to your large muscle groups. And your prefrontal cortex…the part of your brain responsible for strategic thinking, creative problem-solving, and long-term planning…goes partially offline.

In that state, you are physiologically less capable of making good decisions.

Research published in Communications Psychology (2025) found that elevated cortisol levels under acute stress directly lead to lower decision quality and impaired higher-order thinking. Your body is preparing you to fight or run. Not to lead. Not to think strategically. Not to spot the opportunity hiding inside the mess.

And if the trigger is a negative news cycle… and the news cycle never stops… your stress response can become chronically activated. This path has real consequences for your business.

Flow is the opposite of that state.

When you're grounded, regulated, and present, your prefrontal cortex is fully online. You notice things you'd otherwise miss. You make better calls. You see possibilities where others see only problems. Flow isn't mystical. It's what happens when you're not in fight-or-flight.

And your ability to access that state, on purpose, consistently, is one of the highest-leverage skills you can develop as a founder.

Your Team Is Reading You Right Now

Here's something most founders underestimate.

Your internal state is contagious.

Your team reads you constantly. Not your words. Your energy. The tension in your jaw. The shortness in your responses. The way you half-listen in a meeting because you're already mentally fighting the next fire. They pick it up without you saying a word.

When you're anxious and reactive, they become anxious and reactive.

A founder I worked with went through a brutal stretch in 2023. Revenue dipped. A key client left. Instead of managing his internal state, he let the stress leak. Staff got cautious. They stopped bringing him ideas because the last three got cut down with visible frustration. Turnover started picking up slowly. The downturn compounded, not because the business fundamentals were broken, but because the culture was feeding on his fear.

You are the weather in your organization. Whether you want to be or not.

⚠️ Here's your warning sign: if you're becoming more negative, more short-tempered, more critical of the people around you, that's not a character flaw. It's a signal. It means you're losing your grounding. It means it's time to return to center, not push harder.

Your team doesn't need you to have all the answers. They need to see that you're not rattled by the things you can't control.

That kind of grounded leadership is rare right now. Develop it and it will help you build extraordinary loyalty.

The Inner Game: What 20 Years of Studying the Mind Taught Me

Michael Singer wrote something in The Untethered Soul that changed how I think about running a business:

"The only permanent solution to your problems is to go inside and let go of the part of you that seems to have so many problems with reality."

Your mind is a pattern-matching machine. Over years and decades, it has built a very specific set of beliefs about who you are, how the world works, and what things mean. And when events happen that don't match those beliefs…a market shift, a difficult client, an unexpected disruption…there's disruption inside. Tightness. Resistance. Discomfort.

Most people try to resolve that feeling in one of two ways. They cling to what they know, refusing to let the new information land. Or they push the discomfort away, suppressing it, distracting from it, numbing it out. Neither one actually works. The energy doesn't disappear. It accumulates. And it starts leaking through into other areas of your life.

Singer describes this as carrying a thorn. You can spend your whole life trying to avoid triggering it and feeling pain. Or you can learn to let the feeling move through you.

For founders, this is quietly one of the most powerful things you can learn.

Because when you can feel the stress rise, the uncertainty spike, the fear that comes with a slow month or a team conflict or a headline that affects your industry… and you can stay present instead of reactive… you allow it to pass through you. The next time? Slightly less stress. This is how you show up better and better over time.

The practice isn't suppression. It's not toxic positivity. It's learning to observe the discomfort, acknowledge it, and allow it to pass without letting it hijack your next move.

Here's the reframe: You are not your thoughts. You are the awareness behind them. The market can swing. The news can spiral. Your beliefs can get triggered. And you can still choose how you respond. That gap between stimulus and response? That's where your freedom as a leader lives.

I've built this practice into my life over 20 years. Daily anchor time in the morning to set up and maintain grounding. Weekly resets to step back and get perspective. Journaling to get out of my head and onto paper. Meditation. Long walks. Time in nature.

The specific practice matters less than the consistency of returning to yourself.

Because the game of business and life is won on the inside first. What you build internally is always reflected externally. Always.

How to Apply This (This Week)

This is a practice, not a one-time fix. Here's how to start building it into your actual life:

1. Create a daily anchor. Carve out 10–20 minutes every morning before the noise starts. No phone. No news. No email. Breathe. Sit. Meditate, journal, or simply be still. Return to yourself before the world starts pulling at you. This one habit has done more for the founders I work with than almost any business tactic I know.

2. Schedule a weekly reset. Block time once a week, Friday afternoon or Sunday evening work well, to step back from the business. Ask: What's actually true right now? What am I certain about? What's just noise? Write it down. Get perspective before the next week starts.

3. Learn your personal warning signs. You have specific signals that you're getting off-balance. Maybe it's irritability. Maybe it's catastrophic thinking. Maybe it's withdrawing from your team. Get to know your pattern so you can catch it early, before it affects the people around you.

4. Practice letting it move through. When something triggers you, pause before acting. Feel it. Name it. What am I actually feeling? Let the energy be there without making a decision in the middle of it. Then respond.

5. ✅ Control your inputs deliberately. Limit news consumption to a specific window. Be intentional about what you feed your mind. The algorithm is not optimized for your clarity, health, or success. It's optimized for your engagement. Treat your attention like a business asset, because it is one.

Final Thoughts

The world is not going to become more predictable. The pace of change is not going to slow down. Uncertainty is the operating environment now, not the exception.

But here's what I know after 20 years of studying the mind and running businesses through some volatile seasons: the founders who thrive in uncertain times are not the ones who have better information or better luck. They're the ones who have developed an unshakeable inner foundation.

They stay grounded when their team is watching. They make clear decisions when the data is murky. They spot opportunity in the noise because they're not consumed by it.

The business game is won on the inside first. Build that, and everything else becomes easier.

This is Issue 48 of Modern Operators. We help founder-led businesses scale smarter by turning clarity into their ultimate growth lever.