Kristiana Corona:
Ask yourself, is this a threat to my identity or is it a challenge for my skillset? What is this telling me about my growth opportunity? Ever feel like everyone else has leadership figured out and you're just making it up as you go? I've been there. I spent two decades leading design and technology teams at Fortune 500 companies, and for years, I looked like I had everything pulled together on the outside, but on the inside, I felt burned out, overwhelmed, and unworthy of the title leader.
Then a surprise encounter with executive coaching changed my life and dramatically improved my leadership style and my results. Now I help others make that same shift in their leadership. This podcast is where we do the work, building the mindset, the coaching skills, and the confidence to lead with clarity and authenticity, and to finally feel worthy to lead from the inside out.
Hello and welcome back to The Worthy To Lead podcast. I'm your host, Kristiana Corona, an executive coach and the founder of Worthy to Lead. My goal is really to help leaders navigate complexity so that they can operate with more clarity, more courage, and a more calm, nervous system. Today's episode is gonna be a recap of the 2026 Grow Conference that was housed in Galveston, Texas this year.
And for those of you who've never been, this is a small B2B networking conference of entrepreneurs who are building their businesses from the ground up and also building referral partners. During this conference, I was spending time with entrepreneurs coaching one-on-one, and I also got to hear several talks from the stage.
And one of the themes that really stood out to me was this idea of continued chaos that we are operating in. And Drew Bird, who is a master trainer in emotional intelligence and adaptability, was talking about this in reference to Whitewater Rapids. So for any of you who've ever been whitewater rafting, you know.
That there are periods of river that are calm and smooth and fun and beautiful, right? And then you turn the corner and you get to the rapids, it's chaotic, it's fast, it's unpredictable. You and your team are hanging on for dear life, trying to paddle, trying to avoid the rocks, and it feels very adrenaline-heavy.
And then once you get through those rapids. You're excited to have a little bit of calm in between to recover and get ready for the next ones, but the way we are operating right now in the world, we have very little recovery time. Everywhere around us, we have governments clashing, we have layoffs, we have economic uncertainty.
We have AI reshaping the way that everyone works, and leaders are supposed to come into their role and lead confidently, while privately behind the scenes. They're managing fear. They're trying to figure out, what is this gonna mean for my family? Am I gonna be okay? Is my job at risk? Is my business gonna work out?
And so. We manage that tension of this ongoing chaos with no rest in between. And yet we also still have this ambition, right? We wanna build something great, we wanna grow, we wanna give back to our communities. And so that tension is really important, and that is where we are talking about how do you thrive?
A state of constant chaos, and also learn to become resilient and do the things that you really, really wanna do in your business. So for today, what I'm gonna do is share four quick insights from the conference and then give you four specific actions that you can take that will help you to find calm in the chaos and to start building a little bit more of that internal steadiness that we all crave.
So let's dive in. So insight number one. You won't arrive at the next level. Feeling ready? Catherine Brown, who is the mastermind behind this conference, shared this insight. So she has built five businesses from the ground up, and she has always been stretching herself. Some of them were wildly successful, some of them failed.
And it felt more like a rollercoaster than this constant upward staircase. And so for her, it was really interesting because she always thought, when am I gonna feel like I made it? When am I gonna feel that sense of calm? Where it's like, I know what I'm doing, everything is secure. I have what I need. And what she revealed, and it was a really wonderful, vulnerable talk, was that.
As a high achiever and as someone who is always growing to that next level, there is no time where we feel comfortable and confident. We're always stretching ourselves, and as we do, it feels nervous, it feels unsure, we feel exposed, and we're always running at the edge of our competence. So here's the thing.
It isn't about avoiding that feeling. It's about recognizing that it's normal. And so if we can normalize the fact that, hey, you know what, that feeling of discomfort is probably me operating right where I need to be, and oh by the way, this is normal for high achievers. That is the reframe that we need to make.
All right. Insight number two, the problems that you choose shape your outcomes. So Catherine and I both love Brendon Burchard's work, and he has a book called High Performance Habits, totally worth checking out if you've never read it. But Brendon Burchard has a theory that the problems that you choose determine the trajectory of your life, of your career, of your business.
So there's a big difference between fighting random fires versus finding meaningful problems to solve the one. Focuses on overwhelm. If we're fighting random fires, we are always going to be overwhelmed, versus if we choose meaningful problems, then we feel like the work we're doing has intention.
Through that uncertainty, one of the things that we often feel is, again, a sense of discomfort, but that is usually a sign that it's a problem we're solving. So think about it this way, if you are someone that has a business that's growing, but you don't feel comfortable with sales, you're probably gonna feel some discomfort.
You're probably going to avoid it. You're probably gonna find excuses why it doesn't work. Maybe you have an amazing product that you've developed. You don't know how to market it, and you don't like using social media. So what do you do? You find all the excuses and the reasons not to do it, and that becomes a hurdle for your business.
So when we think about the problems we need to solve, our goal is to say, what is the one most meaningful thing that I could sell this week or this month or this quarter? That would make everything else easier. And once we identify that, we often know what it is, it's easier to avoid than to do it, but we just need to do the hard thing.
And as Cody Sanchez would say, we need to eat the frog, which means we need to do the hard thing first. So if the hard thing is selling, then go do the selling first until you build that fluency in that muscle. If the hard thing is marketing, then go out and start posting on social media every day until you learn how to do it.
The sooner we find that thing that is challenging us and make meaningful progress on it, the better we are going to grow and build the business that we wanna have. And so oftentimes, that signal that says, Hey, this is really hard. That's the signal that we should keep going. Insight number three. All progress starts with telling the truth.
So there was a really amazing thread throughout the Grow Conference and the coaching conversations that I had, and that was small business owners were able to be very honest with me. They were honest about, Hey, here's where my revenue is drip dipping. Here's what's broken in my process. Here's what I don't know about marketing.
Here's where I lack the partnership that I need. And here's the thing. They were facing it head-on. And why that matters from a neuroscience perspective. When we sit with ambiguity for too long, it creates a stress response, a threat response in our body, and our neural pathways take this uncertainty and interpret it as the same as they would pain.
And so our brain really craves that hard truth. We would rather know something really difficult and figure it out than be in uncertainty for a long period of time. And you know this to be true because you've probably sat there having to wait for an important decision to come through. Maybe you were getting approved for a loan, maybe you were waiting to hear, you know, if you got that college application accepted or rejected, whatever that decision might be, sitting and waiting in, that makes you feel sick to your stomach, right?
Like you have a physical response. And so the sooner you can rip off that bandaid and say, okay, here's what isn't working. The sooner you can reduce the cortisol in your body, the sooner you can find that agency and build that strategy and do the things that you need to do in your business. So the bottom line here is to tell the truth.
Tell the truth about what isn't working. Tell the truth about what you're avoiding and start making progress sooner. Alright, insight number four. Adaptability is the new stability. So Drew Bird, who is a master trainer in emotional intelligence and adaptability, gave an amazing talk about Whitewater Rapids and this analogy of always living in this constant sense of chaos.
So there are many things that make us uncomfortable, right? Like the idea that AI might take our jobs, or the fact that things are changing so quickly, it's just hard to keep up. But the number one trait that we really need to develop in today's day and age is adaptability. And that's not a personality trait.
That's actually a skill that can be learned. So some of the things that he talked about were what we are sure of and what we're assuming. And often those can appear to be the same things. And so if we think about an example like loading a dishwasher, how do you know? Which way the, the silverware should be loaded?
Should it be loaded, facing up, or facing down? Is it just because that's the way you've always done it, or did you actually read the manual and know the best practice for how to load a dishwasher? So many things in our life we are taking for granted, or we assume, or we just do it based on our own experience, but we need to learn how to question and say, is that actually the best way to do it?
Since that worked for me in the past, do I know that it's still working for me today? The more we learn to ask ourselves these questions, the more we can start to unlearn unproductive habits, unproductive beliefs, and unproductive behaviors that no longer serve us. The second thing is we may think that we're playing to win, but often we're playing to protect and not lose.
And so it's really good to evaluate as we're thinking about risk, as we're thinking about new opportunities to question, where am I playing to win? And where am I playing to protect what I have? And there's no one right way to do it, but we need to understand what is it we're protecting? Are we protecting our ego?
Are we protecting our family? Are we protecting our identity, or are we just protecting our comfort zone? So these are really important things to wrestle with and, you know, think about what does playing to win actually look like. So, so many great insights from the conference. I have a lot more to share, but I'm gonna cut it off there because I wanna get to the four key actions that you can take to start developing more calm in the chaos of your work and business.
The first action you can take. Is to reframe the fear you feel from threat to challenge. When you feel anxiety rising, as you think about taking on a new challenge, try this. Name that emotion precisely. Research by Matthew Lieberman at UCLA says that labeling your emotions actually reduces the activity in your amygdala, which is your brain's threat center.
So simply putting into words what you feel can actually calm your nervous system. Saying something like, I feel unsettled because I'm stretching into something new right now. Or. I feel butterflies in my stomach because I'm about to do something really important. That subtle shift starts to move you out of panic and into growth mode.
There's also research in stress appraisal that shows something powerful. When people interpret stress as a threat, their cardiovascular response constricts, so that means your air gets cut off, and you feel your throat tighten. But when they interpret the same stress as a challenge, the blood flow improves, your performance increases, and you get ready for action.
The situation didn't change, but your interpretation of it does. So when you face a difficult conversation, a revenue gap, or a layoff or a strategic pivot that you need to make, ask yourself, is this a threat to my identity or is this a challenge to my skillset? What is this telling me about my growth opportunity right now?
All right, number two is to separate the facts from the story. So when uncertainty is spiking, your brain fills in the gaps with worst-case scenarios, and that is what it is wired to do. It's doing its job. But first, I want you to take five minutes and write two columns down on a piece of paper. The things I know for sure.
On the other side, I want you to write the things that I'm assuming. Challenge yourself to really drill into the things you know. Are they true now? Were they true in the past? Are they still serving you? This practice interrupts the threat response and helps us to restore that cognitive flexibility that we need.
The American Psychological Association identifies cognitive flexibility as a core competence of resilience. When you update your thinking based on facts instead of fear, you can also see more options. All right, number three, choose a meaningful problem. Don't let chaos dictate your focus. Choose your focus.
So, like we talked about with Brendon Burrchard, the problems that you tackle. Or avoid set the trajectory of your life. So as high performers, we view challenges and setbacks as data to improve, not as reasons to quit. So when we intentionally choose a meaningful and difficult problem, we could create a more fulfilling outcome for ourselves.
So what is one meaningful problem that I could solve this week that would make everything else easier? Then go direct your attention there. Finally, number four, seek targeted help where you're stuck. One of the things that I mentioned that really stood out to me about these founders was getting targeted help where they needed it.
When mistakes are big, and you don't have a safety net, you don't have time to mess around. The best entrepreneurs don't try to brute force doing everything themselves. If marketing is your sticking point, then get help there. If sales conversations make you freeze, then get help there. If giving clear feedback to your team feels super uncomfortable, get help there.
You don't need generic advice. What you need is specific support for the bottleneck that you are experiencing. This is where working with a coach or a consultant can really accelerate your growth. When someone helps you see the pattern faster, then you start to move faster. This kind of support is strategic, and it's a catalyst for growth.
So, to wrap us up for today. These are the four actions that I want you to take to help you start feeling more calm, and centered this week in the chaos that surrounds you. So one, reframe your fear from a threat to a challenge. How am I challenging my skillset, and what is this telling me about my growth opportunity?
Number two, separate facts from stories. What is true, and where am I making assumptions? Number three, choose a meaningful problem. Choose something meaningful and difficult, where if you solve that one problem, it would make everything else easier. Number four, seek targeted help where you're stuck. Find that coach or that consultant that can really help you work through that bottleneck so that you can start to see progress faster.
Thank you for joining us for this episode today. I hope that you found these insights helpful. If you would like to subscribe so that you don't miss any of the new episodes that we release, go to worthytolead.co/subscribe, and please feel free to share this with other leaders in your life who need to hear these messages.
With that, keep showing up, keep doing the work that matters, and keep leading like you're worthy to lead because you are. Bye for now.
