In this solo monologue, Jake Burhans reflects on his experience as a stressed leader while building a business and describes a pivotal mindset shift that transformed his leadership style. He explains how constantly reacting to every issue created a chaotic, tornado‑like state, and how learning to pause, breathe, and respond rather than react brought greater calm, presence, and effectiveness. Burhans emphasizes the importance of anticipating problems, delegating responsibility, and stepping back to view the situation objectively. By adopting this ‘pause’ approach, he moves from trying to control everything to influencing outcomes, leading with composure and strategic focus.
Chapters
I was such a stressed out leader for the longest time, especially as we've been building this business and progressing, until I realized that I needed to stop reacting to everything and just respond to it. Because as you move from doing the thing to yourself to having other people do it for you, you start trying to— by trying to control everything. And when things don't go wrong, it's like the end of the world and you got to try to fix it. But a much more peaceful way to lead is to understand that things are going to happen that that you don't want to happen. And instead of reacting to them and hoping that never happens again, just respond to it, right? So I kind of expect those things to happen, not expect it, but I know things are gonna go wrong. So I'm ready for it. And I'm just more present and calm. And it's just like, okay, what happened? What's the issue? Let's pause, let's take a breath and then let me respond to the situation versus just reacting. So when you're just reacting all day long to this and that, and there's so much stimuli, you're like caught in the tornado. You are in a tornado every day with everything you need to do, but don't be caught in it, right? You need to remove yourself from the tornado and view the tornado and then respond to certain things as they happen. So that difference between responding and reacting has changed the game for me.
