Block It All Out

Ships don't sink because of the water around them. They sink because water gets inside them.

Once upon a time, I was asked in an interview: "We have two teams. One is hitting their numbers and crushing it — great culture, just needs someone not to screw it up. The second team needs help — tons of potential, but baggage and lagging goals. Which do you want?"

My answer: "Give me the struggling team any day."

I've had the opportunity to turn these teams around a few times, and the playbook has always been the same. First, earn their trust by getting to know them as people — their goals, their perspectives, what makes them tick. Second, do what you say you're going to do. Sounds simple, but if you're working with people who've been promised the world and given nothing, they need to see a leader actually come through. Third, show up with consistency. People who've gone through emotional baggage need to see the same leader every single day.

It's never a mystery how teams get into these situations. It can be bad leadership, toxic environments, poor hiring — but typically, it comes back to the fact that people allowed the negativity and nonsense into the fold. That emotional baggage ends up sinking the ship because they opened the doors to let it in.

We deal in and around negativity and nonsense every single day, but the day you allow it to overtake you is the day it sinks you.

Your job is to be the seal. You are the plug that stops the water from coming in. You hold the line. You protect your space. You give yourself room to breathe again. That doesn't mean you ignore the hard stuff — it means you stop letting every wave knock you off course.

You can't stay afloat if you're taking on everyone else's drama. You can't move forward if you're carrying the weight of every opinion, every setback, every little thing that went sideways. That's why your boundaries matter. That's why your energy has to be protected like it's sacred. Because it is.

Staying grounded in chaos is a skill. It's knowing when to listen and when to let it go. It's learning to patch your own holes before everything spills out. It's trusting yourself to weather the storm.

You've taken on water before. We all have. But you get to decide what sinks you and what shapes you. It's not the waves around you that break you. It's what you let in.