Still Here, Navigating.
Last week I wrote the most candid piece I’ve published in a bit. A lot of you responded. A lot of you checked in. Thank you. I’m really okay. We’re getting the support we need.
This week I want to tell you what happened next.
My capacity was being tested in a variety of ways. I was working, holding the logistics of a life that doesn’t pause because you’re in crisis. And one day the stress didn’t just stay in my head. It showed up in my body. Different parts, different signals, all of them loud. I rescheduled some meetings. I kept a couple.
In one of those meetings, I was listening to my clients talk through a big upcoming milestone. And I felt it. The stress rising in my body and my mind at the same time. A fraction of a second of panic.
And then a thought that almost made me laugh: This is exactly what I’m writing about.
This is what I teach people to do. Can I do it right now? Can I continue to lead when my capacity feels this limited?
That was the moment I reached for my own compass.
Not the whole SHIFT framework. Not all five domains at once. I didn’t try to grasp the full picture or solve everything in my head while pretending to listen. I started from the one point that felt most accessible to me in that moment. The door that was already open.
I listened for the ways I could be present and useful right now. Not after the crisis passes. Right now, in this meeting, with these people who have their own stress and their own milestone bearing down on them.
And something shifted. Quietly. I found a way into my natural strengths. And from that one accessible point, I was able to help my clients find their way in too. To see where they could be effective in their own pressure, not by addressing the whole picture at once, but by starting from the thing that felt most within reach.
That’s what the compass does. It doesn’t ask you to have full capacity. It asks you to find one point of orientation when everything else is noise. Security, Horizon, Impact, Fluidity, Ties. You don’t use all five. You find the one you can access and you start there.
I’ve taught this to hundreds of leaders. I’ve written about it for six months in a book proposal. But this was a moment where I was testing it in real time."
It worked. Because it’s designed to work when you’re not at your best. That’s the whole point. The tools that only function when you’re rested and clearheaded and operating from full capacity are not tools. They’re luxuries. The compass works in the middle of it.
I’m still in the middle of it. I’m still writing. I’m still showing up. Not because I’ve figured anything out, but because I found one point on the compass and I started there.
That’s all it takes. Not everything. Just one thing. The one that’s already within reach.
