The story you tell yourself at 2am is running your life more than any strategy you’ve built during business hours.

I want to tell you something I don’t say often enough.

The version of you that’s questioning everything right now - the relevance, the direction, the identity you spent years building, that version isn’t broken. That version is paying attention.

I’ve been there. More than once. The one that sticks is the layoff - six months of uncertainty, 400+ applications, being the sole income earner for a family of five at the time and only one mortgage payment left in the bank and it was December. What I remember most isn’t the fear, though the fear was real. It’s the voice. The one that ran on a loop at 2am asking whether I’d built my whole sense of self on something that no longer needed me and would this ever end.

What I didn’t know then but what I know now after 25 years of helping people navigate these exact moments is that the voice isn’t a signal that something is wrong with you. It’s a signal that something is shifting. And shifting, as disorienting as it feels from the inside, is not the same as breaking.

The ground is moving and we all know it. For a lot of us, it’s moving faster than we’ve ever experienced. AI is accelerating a disruption that isn’t just about jobs it’s about our own identity. It’s about the story we’ve been telling ourselves about who we are and what we’re worth.

That story deserves more than a career pivot plan. It deserves someone who can sit with you in it and say:

I see you. I know this terrain. Come on.

That’s what this newsletter is for. Every week, one truth, one insight, one small act. Enough to keep the pen in your hand through all the change. 

Here’s something that took me years to understand, and I hope maybe it will save you the time if you're struggling with it.

When we feel our identity threatened and AI disruption is, at its core, an identity threat, we don’t respond rationally. We respond protectively. The brain treats identity disruption the same way it treats physical danger. The threat response activates. Clarity narrows. Options disappear.

This is why good advice doesn’t land when someone is in the middle of it. It’s not that they can’t hear you. It’s that the threat response has narrowed their field of view so significantly that the possibility you’re pointing to is literally outside their range of vision.

What restores the range of vision isn’t more information. It’s safety. Specifically, it’s the felt sense that the core of who you are - your values, your competence, your fundamental worthiness is not on the table.

This is the difference between a change plan and a change anchor. A plan tells you what to do. An anchor tells you who you still are while you figure out what to do.

You cannot build the bridge until you know what ground you’re standing on.

ONE THING THIS WEEK

Not just a to-do but a question to sit with.

What is the story you’ve been telling yourself about what’s happening and who wrote it?

Not “what are the facts.” What is the story. The narrative with a villain and a verdict and a version of you that may or may not be accurate.

Write it down if you can. Sometimes just getting it out of your head and onto a page is enough to see that it was never the only story available.

Honestly? Chocolate. And the fact that daylight savings just stole an hour of sleep from everyone on the planet simultaneously (or at least in the US), which feels like a very on-brand disruption for a newsletter about navigating disruption.

But what I’m actually sitting with this week and the thing that keeps pulling me back is what it feels like to work on something that genuinely lights you up.

I’ve spent enough time in containers that didn’t fit to know the difference. There’s a specific kind of tired that comes from doing good work in the wrong direction. And there’s a specific kind of energy that shows up when you’re finally moving toward something that’s yours.

That feeling isn’t frivolous. It’s a signal. It’s your authorship trying to get your attention.

If you felt even a flicker of it this week then follow that. It knows something your resume doesn’t.

Warmly,

— Heather

P.S. If this resonated and you want to do this work live I’m hosting a 90-minute workshop on April 9th called The 2AM Anchor. Details and registration here:  https://www.leadingchange360.com/pl/2148754552 

Heather Stoffle is the founder of Anchored in Possibility™. The Change Anchor™ newsletter lands weekly.