Pressure Is Trainable
140 Feet Down and the Leadership Edge
If you can’t handle pressure, you can’t handle private equity.
You can train for it.
Yesterday I finished my deep dive specialty course—140 feet down.
At that depth, it’s not just beautiful.
It’s risky.
Six atmospheres of pressure slow your thoughts and ability to reason.
And if something goes wrong, you can’t sprint to the surface.
The margin for error is razor thin.
Which is… basically a Tuesday in private equity.
Pressure doesn’t create your patterns. It exposes them.
Pressure reveals what’s real
Pressure doesn’t just test skills.
It tests nervous systems.
If you get anxious, you consume air faster.
If you rush, you make mistakes.
If you panic, you lose clarity.
The environment doesn’t care how smart you are.
It cares how regulated you are.
Leadership under pressure works the same way.
For me, risk is the multiplier of experience
Experience expands your capacity.
Instinct tells you when to lean in.
Intuition guides you to the edge—or reminds you when to sit one out.
That’s the difference between growth and bravado.
Here’s the part most leaders don’t admit
A lot of leadership pressure isn’t technical.
It’s emotional.
It’s identity.
It’s the fear that if you choose wrong, you’ll lose trust, status, credibility, control.
So leaders try to eliminate uncertainty.
They delay decisions.
They keep options open.
They call it “being responsible.”
But the environment keeps moving.
So the pressure increases.
And the cost of hesitation becomes the real threat.
A pressure filter you can use immediately
Next time you’re at the edge of a decision, ask:
Is the return worth it?
What’s the margin for error?
What’s the best exit if I’m wrong?
If you can answer those cleanly, you’re not reckless.
You’re calibrated.
And calibration is what makes pressure trainable.
The closing truth
Some of the biggest decisions of my life have been made underwater.
Not because I was seeking an answer.
But because I stopped forcing one. It came in stillness and clarity.
Trust what you know.
Multiply what matters.
Even at 140 feet down.
Ready to Turn Hesitation Into Clear Action?
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