Some years ago, I was helping a client navigate a tricky professional situation. He was at a fork in the road – facing a choice between several business opportunities, each with multi-year contracts and long-term financial commitments. He had recently wound up a previous business, and was ready to start a new chapter in his life.
We were on the phone late one night talking through his options, weighing outcomes, and looking into some of his potential business partners. It was a heady whiteboard session type of phone call.
He was a ball of anxiety and struggling to get through our conversation. His previous business had required his all-in commitment – mentally, emotionally and financially – and he was scarred from the experience. He made it through the gauntlet, but it was a bumpy ride. He was afraid of making the wrong choice going forward, and understandably so. But the scars from his past were hijacking his emotions. He couldn’t focus.
I had known him for a long time and knew he welcomed tough love, so I said, “Hey, we’ll get through this. Be a warrior, not a worrier.”
He refocused and we finished talking through everything. He made his decision shortly thereafter, smartly protected his downside (i.e. all of the stuff he was worried about that night on the phone), and he has gone on to enjoy more success.
I never forgot the words I said to him that night: Be a warrior, not a worrier.
I think about the concept of “worry” a lot. I try not to engage in it too much personally, but my professional life – as a go-to consiglieri for highly aspirational business people – puts me in the middle of a lot of worry storms. Situations where there are a lot of variables, chances for both highs and lows, with me trying to calm someone down so they can think rationally. Good decision making during worry storms requires a calm, patient mind. When my client’s mind is racing, mine has to go slower.
Over time, I’ve become more and more effective playing this role with clients, especially the more seasoned business executives who are facing multivariate situations. They need a sounding board to hear themselves talk through the different decision trees, with me helping them apply game theory to predict what will happen down the line. This exercise requires them to adopt objectivity and drop their emotional attachment to particular outcomes.
Often, they just need to stop worrying about what they can’t control and focus on what they can. Who knew the serenity prayer was so on point? Cliché, but true.
During worry storms, our minds spin aimlessly when there’s not a clear answer as to what to do next. We are looking for clarity when there is none readily available. Hence why we have to slow our minds down and find clarity beneath the surface-level chaos.
For me, that’s what “worry” is: those troubling periods leading up to major decisions and big life events, when our minds become overly busy questioning everything. It’s a whirlpool of confusion that quickly leads to a feeling of existential crisis. A feeling that if we don’t make the right decision, everything will fall apart. In other words, when things are more complex, we catastrophize.
What’s at the core of these chaotic downward thought loops, often filled with negative thoughts, is this: A fundamental built-in worry for all humans is that we are scared of death. Our minds perceive the idea that everything can fall apart as an actual life-or-death scenario. But it’s not. It’s made up.
I once read about a WWI soldier who developed a philosophy framework for dealing with the actual realities of worry and death. His name was John “Max” Staniforth, a British soldier who served in WWI.
For context, WWI was extremely gruesome and possibly contained the most gory combat ever. Hand-to-hand combat was still prevalent in those days, while advanced weaponry was starting to come online. This combination resulted in ghastly scenes of violence from which the participants rarely recovered. Even if they survived physically, their minds were scarred forever. Anyone who watched the Shelby brothers navigate post-WWI life in Peaky Blinders knows what I’m talking about.
Here was Max Staniforth’s worry framework, from a letter written to his parents from the front lines in 1916:
The only way to be here is to be philosophical. We have evolved a philosophy accordingly. What do you think of it?
If you are a soldier, you are either:
(1) at home or (2) at the Front.
If (1), you needn’t worry.
If (2), you are either (1) out of the danger zone or (2) in it.
If (1), you needn’t worry.
If (2), you are either (1) not hit, or (2) hit.
If (1), you needn’t worry.
If (2) you are either (1) trivial or (2) dangerous.
If (1), you needn’t worry.
If (2), you either (1) live or (2) die.
If you live, you needn’t worry: and – If you die, YOU CAN’T WORRY!!
So why worry?
I liked this so much, I wrote it out in a diagram to help me remember it:

Max’s point is so simple and obvious. There is an inevitability that each of us is going to die one day. So worrying about death is pointless. And therefore, worrying about anything is pointless.
Every circumstance in between birth and death. Every decision that feels super important. Every anxious moment that either verges on life-or-death, or at least feels like it. All of the worry during those intermediate life experiences can be simplified away and discarded. Just ask a WWI soldier on the front lines.
Max Staniforth, who survived a gruesome war, discarded worry as only a true warrior could. And he left us with a great reminder to get out of our heads and face the reality of the moment. To focus on the next step and keep marching. To stop dwelling and keep living.
Cheers to Max, who taught us all to be a warrior, not a worrier.