Stop Outrunning Your Brilliance
A nervous-system reset for visionaries addicted to speed
Welcome to Iteration #4 of Standup & Surrender
This is part 4 of the Favorite Self series. An account of drop-ins with high-capacity leaders who don’t need “fixing”, just remembering.
This iteration: Sophia.
The visionary.
The spark.
The one whose brilliance outran her own nervous system.
🌀 The Drop-In
When Sophia arrived to our session, she was magnetic. Vision on fire. Ideas stacked like Post-Its in a sprint backlog.
And yet—
“Why do I feel so alone?” she asked.
Sophia had built her entire leadership arc on perfecting the pitch, translating the impossible into possible.
Ambition wasn’t the problem.
Belonging was.
Her Favorite Self had been buried under:
performing to prove
creating to stay included
shipping features to feel worthy
Her body was moving at the rhythm of truth while her mind burned through fuel it never needed, in a desperate attempt to reach her goals.
Fifteen minutes of somatic exploration revealed what her mind had distorted:
The vision is not the burden.
The speed of delivery is.
「✦ Sophia’s Insight ✦」
“My vision wasn’t wrong. My environment was.”
I thought I had to pitch it perfectly every time.
That if we slowed down, momentum would vanish.
Turns out, I was whipping out flawless user stories while ignoring the story beating in my own chest.
I realized I can only co-create confidently with others when my body keeps pace with my ideas.
Presence is what makes people follow the vision, not relative performance.
🟣 Sophia’s Reconnection Map
We remapped Sophia’s inner system using 4 recalibration pillars:
Each one connects to one of the six key observations she made.
🔴 Belong before brilliance : urgency is fear in a fancy suit
🟡 Slow is still safe : calm is the bridge that tends the spark
🟢 Trust the Pace : self-worth is not tied to output
🔵 Presence fuels vision : vision expands with safety📍 Six Shifts Sophia Made
① Urgency is fear in disguise
Sophia felt a stomach-drop before every roadmap review. Slack pings made her gut clench. The reflex to speed up felt like survival. For a visionary, slow can feel dangerous.
It wasn’t always clear to Sophia why slowing down triggered such a visceral reaction.
She’d always equated speed with success. Shipping features, launching products, keeping every stakeholder smiling. Velocity was her trademark.
But behind that polished performance was a nervous system in quiet panic, dressed in a high-performance costume.
Urgency, it turns out, was fear in disguise.
Remember when we learned urgency is just fear? That really stuck with me.
I thought going fast was safe, and slow was risky.
After our talk, I respond to these emotions less like danger. I am noticing that they are signals from my body pointing to something to observe.
In my first week on the new project, a manager asked for too much. Normally, I'd agree quickly to keep people happy.
But this time, I stopped and took a breath. I noticed the urgency of the ask and how it made my mind go into production mode. Instead of problem solving, I asked, “What if we slowed down?”
The mood changed right away. The manager laughed about their own “urgency programming”. It was a connection moment. Trust grew because I chose calm. I realized my fear wasn't about losing speed. It was fear of not fitting in.
Later, another tight deadline made my shoulders tight and my breathing shallow. I understood urgency wasn't needed. It was old fear pretending to be strategy.
I have been practicing slowing down before I speak. Giving the plan space. Each pause builds trust.
My vision feels stronger because it's guided by calm, not fear.
② Belonging never demands overachievement
Sophia had built her brand on being “the fixer”.
The one who saved the launch, the team, and the deliverable.
They need me to be the best.
Her body told a different story → a pulsing heat behind her ribs whenever someone praised her “grit”.
We explored that signal.
It was hot, brittle, and lonely.
She was performing to earn connection, trying to prove her right to belong.
But no one had actually asked her to do that.
It was an old wound from childhood echoing through the boardroom.
Sophia thought her brilliance had to buy her a seat at the table.
True belonging doesn’t negotiate.
It waits patiently for you to remember you never had to outperform to belong.
Every standup, my shoulders would tense if someone challenged my ideas. I felt I had to have all the answers or they would leave me behind.
I remembered what we explored. How presence makes everyone feel safe. So, rather than problem solve right away, I let my spine relax, stayed present, and trusted the moment. No one is asking me to be the hero. They just want me to be there with them. I feel like I’ve stopped trying to do everything by myself. When the team is collaborating my vision flows differently. It feels safer. It lands.
③ Calm co-regulates my clarity
Sophia could triage 30 user stories in a day. Her brain was a machine; her body was fried. Each time she opened Jira, her shoulders twitched like she was dodging a punch.
After a team conflict, Sophia found herself spiraling. Her hands started shaking.
If I don’t fix this right now, everything will break.
In our drop in while she was feeling into this story, I asked her to notice her feet. The ground felt far away.
After a few moments she remembered: calm is not the enemy of leadership.
Slowing down let her regulate first, then respond. Our call was literally practice.
A calm body gave her permission to see more clearly, to trust her voice, and to co-create rather than command.
Calm wasn’t laziness, it was leadership. Clarity. Co-regulation with source.
I practiced pausing before looking at the backlog, feeling my feet, and noticing my breath. That helped me pick what mattered instead of flooding the sprint with extras.
“Calm curates, panic bloats” is a permanent Post-It on my monitor now.
④ Every sustainable spark needs tending
Sophia’s best ideas kept landing in backlog limbo, buried under scope creep and constant revisions. Her ribs felt tight, like there wasn’t space for her dream to survive.
If I don’t ride this energy, I’ll lose it.
She described the buzz in her chest like static electricity.
Hypervigilant.
Overcharged.
We reframed: tending to the spark doesn’t mean dimming it.
It means pacing its fuel.
I realized my spark needs time and care.
Now, I check in with my body before moving an idea forward. If it feels right, I nurture it. If not, I pause. This helps my spark stay bright and steady.
My spark is stronger when I protect it. And so am I.
⑤ Vision expands with safety
Sophia used to hoard opportunities. Every brainstorm, every investor pitch, every “let’s collab”.
What if I miss the big one?
Her lower back ached, heavy, carrying twenty unfinished projects at once.
In our drop-in, we explored what it feels like to let an idea wait.
She asked me if she could open her notion board. When I said no, the ache rushed in. Panic.
Then we explored where in her body her last idea flowed from. Her spine lengthened. She felt spacious. And the one before that? She found it flowed from the same place.
Vision, she remembered, is renewable.
Presence is what makes it spark.
There was a safety in knowing she didn’t need her notion board.
I was in a brainstorming session without notion access and didn’t panic.
I slowed down and breathed into my idea space.
I felt into the abundance of my renewable energy source instead of the scarcity of not having my notion board.
I think I merged 3 different ideas into 1, and we created something completely synergistic!
⑥ Presence is enough
Sophia had tied her worth to outcomes. OKRs. Metrics. “Proof.”
If I can’t measure it, is it real?
Her throat had felt tight every time she pitched a new concept, a lump of fear saying “you’re not ready”.
In our drop in, I asked her to find the place she spoke from the last time she was completely unprepared.
She spoke from her heart with no slides, and no bulletproof pitch.
And they listened. They felt her. It felt amazing.
The rush that started her career had nothing to do with any metrics.
And now, these metrics were keeping her from being present. From trusting herself.
We closed the session with the inquiry: If presence was enough then, why not now?
Showing up real and steady makes me feel strong. I’m not my burndown chart. I’ve found my Favorite Self waiting for me on Friday’s in the heat of the moment faster than I can say “missed velocity”. My presence is enough.
This Is How Vision Learns to Trust
Sophia didn’t dim her brilliance, she learned to pace it.
She traded urgency for calm, performance for presence, and panic for trust.
She stopped proving her right to belong and started co-creating it.
She tended her spark with care, letting it burn steady instead of fast.
She trusted vision to expand from rest, not fear.
Presence became her acceptance criteria. Stronger than metrics, truer than any pitch deck.
She no longer chased momentum, she became it: Breath steady. Spine tall. Voice clear.
Now her Favorite Self leads the roadmap and the room listens.
Because brilliance, anchored in the body, is unstoppable.
💬 Want to experience this kind of recalibration?
Reply to this email or DM “Vision” for a 15-minute drop-in.
No pitch. No strategy.
Just your Favorite Self, remembered.
📰 Missed a story?
→ “When Guilt Wears a Blazer” [Casey]
→ “The System Didn’t Break You” [Ava - The Intuitive Creative]
→ “Stop Chasing Promotions” [Casey - The Burned Out Builder]
🟣 Integration Prompts:
Where have you confused urgency with belonging?
Which of your ideas is secretly a plea to be seen?🍇 In awareness,
Dan