Hi, friends. I’m on spring break with the kiddo this week, hopefully giving my nervous system some time and space to decompress from the barrage of the last 15 weeks. Looking through my archive for a topic to revisit, this one seemed particularly timely. Lately, the Sunday Scaries feel more like the Daily Scaries, particularly if you sell physical products.

It’s hard to know what to do when there’s no consistency in US trade policy from one day to the next. I’m reading stories of small business owners who are simply throwing up their hands and closing down.

But the world needs your work and your impact now more than ever. What should you do?

Some answers may lie in revising your centering principles. What is the problem you’re trying to solve? What impact do you want to have with your work? Why? It might mean a pivot, but there are plenty of problems to solve in the world right now. Rest, give your mind a break, and sit with your centering principles.

A few weeks ago, a friend sent me an influencer video that was making the rounds. A woman had built a seven-figure business in the span of a couple of years. She followed all the online advice she could find. She followed scale techniques from expensive workshops and masterminds. She set up consulting, then group coaching, and eventually hired a team of people to feed the lead beast and deliver scaled programs.

And sure enough, she found herself grossing over $1 million a year.

She woke up one day and realized she hated all of it. She had designed the company for a customer she didn’t want. She had built a team for a company she didn’t want to run. She felt stuck in the scale trap.

So what did she do?

She shut the company down and took a year off. She let everyone go. She didn’t know anymore who she was or what she stood for.

Longtime readers know what I’m going to say next: if you follow someone else’s playbook, don’t be surprised when you wind up with someone else’s business. 

Around the same time, Forbes published a story entitled, “How to find a greater sense of purpose at work.” It started showing up on my LinkedIn and news feeds. The article cited several studies on what we need from our workplaces to show up every day and feel good about it. The quote that stuck with me was, “Finding purpose at work requires you to reflect on your values and clarify your priorities.” 

As a founder, if you want to build a company where YOU want to work, these need to be YOUR values and priorities. 

A centering principle will clarify what products or services are for you, which customers you want to serve, and what kind of employer or partner you want to be. All of that will inform your pricing and marketing strategy.

Most business planning processes focus on the customer and the market first. Is the market big enough? What’s the opportunity?

And that’s the alignment change. In my 45-day Reset engagements, I start by asking founders what matters to them, beyond the money. Once we answer that question, it doesn’t take long for their choices to get really clear. This is for me, this is not for me. Less trial and error, more intentional direction. 

If you’re finding yourself with the Sunday Scaries about a company you’ve built, don’t throw it all away. Think about what matters to you and what you want your company to be. What would have to change? Start with that lens, and see how much clearer things become.

Chill: Speaking of calming your nervous system, does a cold plunge speed recovery? If you have two X chromosomes, maybe not. I first heard this from Emma Hayes, coach of the soccer US Women’s National Team, who is revisiting everything about performance from a female lens. Most performance research is normed to men, treating women as small men. Only 6% of studies are done on female cohorts. Newer studies suggest that, instead of accelerating your recovery, a cold plunge might be shocking yourself into fight-or-flight mode. Hayes recommended warmth, dance parties, and cooperative LEGO builds as alternate recovery tools used by some of our nation’s most fit women.

Reset: If you use a fitness tracker, the underlying data and recommendations are based on a man of your height and weight. If you’re not a man and would like to norm your data and performance training, check out Wild.ai. The app combines your personal data with female cohort study data to deliver a customized diet and training regimen, with considerations to additional cycle-based injury risks and energetic changes. (Disclosure: I like this company so much, I became an investor.)