Biology has gifted us with exquisite machinery.
I love that our bodies and minds are a near-perfect orchestra of systems, with synchronicity and automatic functions ensuring we don’t just live but live well. This progress has blessed us, but at times, it also works against us.
Today’s stressors cause us daily whiplash, throwing us into fight or flight mode, triggering an avalanche of hormones. In 2025, we are not being chased by a lion across the savannah; we are being chased by the volatility of stock markets, policy swings that ricochet unpredictably, climate patterns that seem adversarial, and rising operational costs that can send even the most stable plans into disarray. It is enough to cause panic, and so panic many folks do. This is not even speaking to the stressors of our personal lives, families, and communities.
The last thing our bodies want to do in a state of unrest is wait for the answers to come, for the tunnel vision that we have succumbed to, and the walls that are closing in to cease their escapade.
Over the years, as life has become more complicated and complex, what I have to lose gains more and more value, and I have learned to wait and listen. Let the orchestra of systemic functions slow; let the tide go out; let the sky clear. Much of what is revealed to me is right in front of my face. It is a door already available to me; I just could not pause long enough to hear it knocking.
So, why all this? Why this reminder I give myself to pause before reacting, to override my system that has kept humans alive for so long? Because the threats I feel are real, they’re just not a lion.
The threats you feel—to keep the lights on, to keep the customer and consumer happy, to tell your brand’s story in the perfect way as the clock ticks relentlessly on the latest harvest—are real.
Sustaining life is not what it used to be, and the hair-trigger decisions we make today will not save us from being eaten. They will cost us the better decisions we just can’t see yet.
Wait and listen. Seek stillness. The answers will come.
