Think better. Lead better.

Dear Reader

Well that was fun! A couple of weeks ago I set myself a goal to get to a 60% open rate on my emailers. You can read about that goal here.

My previous average was around 54%. And last week I hit 62.31%.

Which is either a triumph of copywriting, or proof that enough people now treat emails like a reality TV show: “Let’s see what she’s done this time.”

But settle in, here's what I want you to hear...

When I set that goal, I didn’t actually know if I’d hit it. I had a plan, sure. I had data, sure.

I also had the emotional experience of a mild internal haunting: “What if I don’t? What if I’m secretly not as good at this as I tell people I am? What if my emails are the leadership equivalent of airport sushi?”

That is the unknown.

And leadership is basically a full-time job in it.

The unknown is not the problem. Your relationship with it is.

Your struggle with the unknown is not because you lack talent, brains, or a nice enough calendar layout.

You struggle because the unknown feels like a verdict for you.

If you don’t know how this project will land, your nervous system translates that into: danger.

If you don’t know what the board will decide, your nervous system translates that into: threat.

If you don’t know whether the market will behave, your nervous system translates that into: time to control everything and become unbearable.

An anxious leader can be effective in short bursts, like a caffeinated squirrel.

But long-term? Anxiety narrows thinking. It makes you reactive, controlling, and weirdly attached to certainty.

Which is a shame, because leadership is mostly uncertainty.

So the actual work is not “be more certain”.

It’s: make being in the unknown a good thing.

Not “fun” necessarily. Not “manifesting rainbows and daisies”. Just… good enough that you are willing to go there without your whole identity getting involved.

Because if you know you’ll feel good enough regardless, you’ll take cleaner risks. You’ll make braver calls. You’ll stop trying to emotionally outsource certainty to other people.

A very famous CEO admitted you can’t connect the dots forward

Steve Jobs talked about this in his 2005 Stanford commencement speech:

Even he knew it wasn’t strategy, talent, structure, or certainty that made him successful.

It was his willingness to move without guarantees, and his trust in his ability to handle whatever happened next.

That’s it. That’s the key.

Because if you need the full map before you move, you will never move first. You will wait. You will gather more input. You will commission another deck. You will become the proud owner of a very beautiful plan that never left the building.

Jobs also told the story of being fired from Apple, which is about as existentially awkward as it gets when your identity is stapled to the company you founded.

He described that period as strangely freeing, and said it became one of the best things that could have happened to him.

That’s the unknown, retroactively becoming a plot twist instead of a punishment.

Or, more accurately: proof that even a “worst case scenario” can become raw material for something bigger and better than you could have ever imagined.

Because he didn’t know it would work out at the time. He just kept moving.

You don’t fear the unknown. You fear what it will mean about you.

The unknown is a blank page. Your brain hates blank pages. So it grabs a marker and writes a horror story in five seconds flat:

• “If I don’t have the answer, I’m not credible.”
• “If they’re unhappy, I’ve failed.”
• “If this doesn’t work, I’m finished.”

And then you behave accordingly. To try and not fail and control the outcome.

You over-function. You micromanage. You become allergic to experimentation.

You start asking for “certainty” as if certainty is something you can purchase on Amazon Prime (oddly enough it is available... as a fiction paperback or kindle download.)

But certainty isn’t the goal.

Enough internal safety and self-trust is the goal.

Safety that says: even if this goes sideways, I can handle my internal experience. I can think. I can lead. I can repair. I can learn. I can keep my self-respect intact.

That is what makes the unknown usable.

How to make the unknown a good thing in three moves

1) Stop demanding emotional certainty from strategic decisions​
Strategic decisions are probabilistic. Your job is not to be right. Your job is to choose a direction, define the assumptions, and update fast.

Try this question: “What would I do next if I didn’t need this to prove anything about me?”

2) Build “good enough regardless” into your identity​
If your self-worth rises and falls with outcomes, you will lead like a hostage negotiator with yourself.

Try this reframe: “My job is to lead boldly into the unknown, trusting I can handle whatever comes next.”

3) Treat experiments like experiments, not character tests​
My little 60% open-rate goal? It was an experiment. I wanted to see if sharper hooks and better relevance would move the number. If it didn’t, the conclusion would have been: “Interesting. Data. Adjust.”

Not: “Shame. Exile. Become a hermit who only communicates through carrier pigeons.”

This is the difference between leaders who grow with energy and leaders who are exhausted all the time with the heaviness of dread.

BONUS TIP: Treat your entire past like it was a series of experiments. Some worked. Some exploded quietly in the corner. None of them were a verdict on you. They were just information you didn’t have yet. And you handled all of them!

What this means for you, this week

If there’s something you’ve been postponing because you “don’t know yet” (the restructure, the difficult conversation, the strategic bet, the ask, the boundary), check whether you’re actually waiting for information… or waiting to feel safe.

Then do this:

• Name the unknown in one sentence. (e.g. “I don’t know if the board will back this plan.”)
• Name what your brain is making it mean about you. (e.g. “If they don’t back it, I’ll look incompetent.”)
• Interrupt it: “I can handle whatever comes next.”
• Take one small next step that doesn’t require certainty. (e.g. book the decision meeting, draft the one-page rationale, have the first conversation.)

If you can make being in the unknown a good thing, you become the kind of leader people trust in real life.

So, Reader, what’s the foggy thing you’re avoiding right now because you don’t feel 100 percent certain yet? Hit reply and tell me. Even just sharing it with another human tends to make the next step feel weirdly clearer.

Your coach,

Terez

P.S. If you are waiting to feel 100 percent certain before making your next strategic (work or life) move, I regret to inform you that certainty has been discontinued. It has joined fax machines and BlackBerry keyboards in the museum of things that made us feel comfortable once. You can either stand in the lobby complaining, or you can walk into the fog and build something interesting... And if you want a calm, slightly cheeky guide, I’m with you every step of the way.

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