Every day I wake up convinced that no one will ever ask me to speak again. I wish I were exaggerating. I wish I could say that, after years of keynotes, momentum, and training thousands of leaders, I’ve finally reached a place where I enter a new year feeling calm, collected, and confident. But no. My default setting is: This is it. The ride is over.
In 2025, I set a goal of delivering 35 keynotes. I wanted to surpass the 30 I delivered in 2024. I didn’t. I finished the year having delivered 26. And because I am a highly evolved human who understands nuance, my brain naturally concluded: you’re circling the drain. It’s all coming to an end. Everyone hates you. <smile>
It doesn’t matter that 26 keynotes is still an extraordinary privilege. It doesn’t matter how many emails I’ve received from people telling me something I said shifted their perspective or their leadership. It doesn’t matter that my 2026 calendar is already filling up. The human brain is a drama queen. And mine deserves an Oscar.
There’s something about reflecting on a year that amplifies it. As I looked back on 2025, I started doing the math. The comparisons. The quiet catastrophizing that masquerades as strategic planning. I analyzed the dips and ignored the wins. I decided that unless every year crescendos upward in perfect linear growth, I’m failing. And logically, I know it’s ridiculous. Other speakers—the ones who’ve been doing this far longer than I have—tell me their numbers fluctuate every year. The industry is cyclical. Budgets shift. Conferences pause. The world gets weird. But logic doesn’t stand a chance against insecurity.
So I panic. Quietly. Functionally. Productively. With a smile and a notebook full of new ideas—because panic, for me, looks a lot like ambition. And then something familiar happens. The invitations start rolling in. Organizers reach out. Teams share how my message impacted them. I reconnect with the truth that things tend to work out—not magically, but because I show up every day and do the work. The panic dissolves… until next time.
And that’s what I want to talk about—not the speaking industry, but the loop so many of us live inside: fear, panic, relief, forget, repeat. Because this post is not really about keynotes. It’s about the mental gymnastics we all perform when faced with uncertainty. It’s about the worker who assumes one misstep means they’re on the chopping block. The parent who fears one hard moment means they’re failing their child. The entrepreneur who believes a stalled season means the dream is dying. The human who thinks one setback means they’ve been exposed as an imposter.
We do this because our brains are wired to overestimate threats and underestimate wins. Psychologists call it the negativity bias, and it dates back to when survival depended on spotting danger every single time. A rustling in the bushes meant potential death—not potential opportunity—so uncertainty still registers as a threat. Research shows that negative events imprint more deeply than positive ones, and uncertainty triggers stress responses similar to real danger. In other words, you’re not weak. Your brain is trying to protect you. Badly. But with good intentions.
Layer on imposter syndrome, cognitive distortions like catastrophizing, and the identity we attach to the work we love, and it’s no wonder a single doubt can spiral into an existential crisis. For high performers—yes, I’m including you—fear isn’t a signal that something is wrong. Fear is a signal that you care. That you’re in the arena. That your work matters. And yet we still let insecurity narrate our downfall long before anything is actually falling.
So here’s what I’ve learned to do when my brain tells me the world is ending. First, I shrink the frame. Instead of trying to predict how the entire year will unfold, I focus on what’s directly in front of me—one commitment, one conversation, one opportunity to show up well. Momentum is built through micro-moves, not through forecasting the future.
Second, I rely on evidence, not emotion. Emotion says I’m slipping. Evidence says I showed up consistently, was trusted by organizations and leaders, and kept creating work I’m proud of. Emotion catastrophizes. Evidence clarifies.
Third, I create instead of ruminating. When fear convinces me I’m becoming irrelevant, the response isn’t reassurance—it’s action. I build a stronger keynote. Sharpen a message. Develop a better story. Write a better blog. Creation is the antidote to insecurity.
Fourth, I practice gratitude. I’m not interested in toxic positivity, but I am committed to telling the truth. People invited me into their rooms. They trusted me with their people. They believed I had something worth saying. That matters. Gratitude keeps me anchored when my mind tries to sprint toward imaginary disaster scenarios.
Finally, I accept that fear isn’t going anywhere. We don’t overcome fear by outrunning it. We overcome it by walking with it. High performers don’t eliminate insecurity. They simply stop letting it drive.
And here’s the real invitation of this post—the part that’s not about me at all. If you’re starting this year feeling behind, unsure, unsettled, or quietly questioning whether you’re still on the right path, you’re human. Fear is the tax we pay for caring deeply about what we’re building. It’s proof that we’re still stretching toward something meaningful, not hiding safely in the middle.
As you move forward into this year, I want you to look at the evidence of your life: what you built, what you survived, what you created, what you learned, what you tried, what you carried, and who you became. None of that disappears because something didn’t work out, because you’re still waiting for clarity, or because the path looks different from what you imagined. You are not circling the drain. You are standing at the edge of your next beginning.
And when the fear whispers otherwise—as it inevitably will—let it. Fear has always been loud right before something expands. The mistake is listening. You don’t slow down now. You don’t soften the edges. You don’t retreat. You take everything you’ve built, everything you’ve learned, and you push forward with force. This is your moment of reckoning. Go.
