Four Lenses on Stress: Focus, Purpose, Presence, and Emotional Intelligence

When kindness becomes infrastructure.

Over the past year, I’ve realized that stress never really goes away — it just changes form. Some days it hums beneath the constant Slack notifications, deadlines, and decisions. Other days it sneaks in quietly, showing up as fatigue or that uneasy feeling that everything is urgent.

What’s shifted for me is seeing stress not as a flaw, but as feedback — a signal that something inside me is off-balance: focus, alignment, or purpose.

Four teachers have helped me reframe that signal: Frances Frei, Simon Sinek, Pema Chödrön, and the science of emotional intelligence. Together, they’ve taught me that stress doesn’t have to drain us — it can deepen us.

Frances Frei’s concept of “daring to be bad” changed the way I lead. She argues that true excellence comes from ruthless prioritization — choosing what to excel at and consciously letting other things be “good enough.” That’s hard for those of us wired to care deeply. But as Frei says, “Trying to be good at everything leads to exhausted mediocrity.” Now, when my calendar looks like a losing game of Tetris, I ask myself: What are the one or two things that truly matter this week, and what can I let go of without guilt? Focus, I’ve learned, is not failure. It’s compassion with boundaries.

Simon Sinek reminds us that “Working hard for something we don’t care about is called stress. Working hard for something we love is called passion.” That quote sits on a sticky note by my monitor. When I start feeling overwhelmed, I ask if the stress I’m feeling comes from overload or from misalignment with purpose. When I reconnect with my “why” — building strong teams, empowering others, and creating systems that last — the stress changes shape. It becomes meaningful effort. Sinek’s Infinite Game mindset reminds me to zoom out. My goal isn’t to win every sprint; it’s to build something sustainable — people, culture, and systems that endure long after the deadlines fade.

Pema Chödrön, drawing from Tibetan Buddhism, teaches that most stress comes from resisting reality — from our discomfort with uncertainty. “We think that if we just get everything in order, we can relax. But it’s the very effort to control that keeps us anxious.” Her idea of groundlessness — learning to live with uncertainty — has been a lifeline for me. In tech leadership, the ground is always moving. There’s always another release, another incident, another change. Chödrön encourages us to turn toward pain instead of running from it, to pause, breathe, and meet discomfort with curiosity instead of fear. She uses a metaphor I love: “You are the sky. Your emotions are the weather.” The storms come and go. Beneath them, there’s always stillness — if you can remember to look up.

If Buddhism gives us presence, emotional intelligence gives us the tools to live it. EQ allows us to recognize, understand, and manage emotions in real time. It’s what lets you stay grounded when the sprint derails or the meeting heats up. “Leaders with high emotional intelligence don’t react faster — they react wiser.” Through self-awareness, I catch early signs of tension before they spiral. Through self-regulation, I pause before I respond. Through empathy, I connect instead of control. Emotional intelligence doesn’t erase stress; it helps us metabolize it.

Frei teaches me what to focus on. Sinek reminds me why it matters. Chödrön teaches me how to be present with it. And emotional intelligence gives me the tools to handle it gracefully.

Stress is inevitable, but how we meet it defines who we become. When we dare to be bad, reconnect to our why, and meet uncertainty with compassion, stress stops being a sign of failure and becomes proof of growth.

Because the truth is, kindness scales best when we’re calm enough to apply it. And somewhere between the Slack notifications and the quiet moments of reflection — that’s where real leadership happens.