When Anxiety Isn't A Problem To Fix

Recently, I was featured in a Forbes Coaches Council article on anxiety in entrepreneurship. While I appreciate this conversation becoming more public, there’s something essential that often gets missed.

Most people, including entrepreneurs, accept anxiety as part of the deal. 

It’s expected. 

Normalized. 

…Often, quietly tolerated.

But tolerance is very different from capacity.

Emotional regulation matters—it helps you notice your reactions and stay functional. It’s necessary.

And, it’s also entry-level.

Anxiety has a way of revealing where our internal capacity is being asked to grow so we can show up as more conscious leaders, parents, and citizens of the planet.  

Capacity determines how much uncertainty, pressure, and responsibility you can hold without losing access to yourself.
Without tightening. Without bracing. Or without quietly disappearing inside your own leadership.

This is where anxiety is revealed.

Not as a problem.
Not as a flaw.
But as a signal.

It shows up at the edges of our roles—leader, parent, partner, human—precisely where more internal room is being asked for. 

When decisions carry weight.
When timing matters.
When there isn’t a clear answer waiting to be found.

We don’t lead, parent, or live well by controlling our emotions in those moments.

We do it by staying present with them.

That isn’t willpower.
It’s capacity.

Many people pride themselves on handling a lot— but what they’re often doing is enduring.

Holding their breath…
Powering through…
Managing themselves tightly enough to keep everything moving…

That’s tolerance.

Capacity feels different.

There’s space in it.
breath.
…and movement.

It allows us to stay relationally available, not just functional.
Connected, not just composed.

And this—is where mastery becomes visible.

Mastery isn’t about having fewer emotions. It’s about having a wider internal range.

It’s about having the ability to stay with discomfort without rushing to certainty.
To hold pressure without hardening.
To be steady without becoming rigid.

That kind of capacity isn’t a mindset shift. It’s an internal expansion that quietly changes how we show up.
In our leadership.
In our relationships.
In the way we meet the world.

Anxiety, when understood this way, isn’t something to fix.

It’s valuable information.

When we listen, it points us—gently and precisely—toward deeper capacity, and a more conscious way of living.