Hey {{first_name | there}},

Forgive me, friends, for I am going to talk about sports.

And before your eyes glaze over, know that this will only last for the intro (and maybe the outro!), and I swear I’m going somewhere with this!

I was talking to a fellow Hoosier this week, and we were joking about how many football games we went to in college in the pursuit of scoring great basketball tickets (IYKYK). But after literal decades, we can look back and say we weren’t bandwagon fans, because the Indiana Hoosiers finally have a National title, after a chef’s kiss perfect season.

This is somewhat old news by the time you’re reading this, but while I was talking to my friend, he mentioned Curt Cignetti, Indiana’s head coach, and his “standard.”

Cignetti’s method is quite simple. He describes it as, “Playing to a standard, not the circumstances of the game.”

And this explains everything. Why is face is a perpetual in the expressionless face emoji 😑 no matter what’s happening on the field. And how Indiana managed to have a perfect season while also holding the spot for second most losses in major college football history.

I’ve been thinking about this “standard” since our conversation. Because that’s something I’ve been lacking in my own business. Instead, I’ve been building around whatever emotions are loudest given the circumstances.

That’s this week’s issue of Brand Burnout.

I first heard about the core emotions in—say it with me now—therapy! As someone whose initial response to most situations is anger, I started working with a therapist to figure out what I was just so…pissed. That might surprise a lot of you to read, but I’ve also done a lot of therapy.

Part of my work with my therapist was diving into my emotions a bit deeper, and we did this by looking at an emotion wheel to dissect what I was really feeling.

And the more I dug into this work, the more I realized a lot of my decisions—around business, life, everything—could be traced back to something I was feeling at the time. And if I take things a step further, I can trace back phases of my business to a specific emotion.

The primary emotions are anger, disgust, fear, happiness, sadness, and surprise. Different models may use different words to describe these emotions, and some models even include eight primary emotions.

Looking back, here’s how (and when) they’ve shown up in my business.

Anger—Historically, this was my baseline. And in 2020, I was thriving in this space, but it didn’t feel great. I left my toxic job (as proven by the way my exit was handled!) and began building my business with something to prove.

Sadness—After the shiny newness of starting a business wore off, I started to feel sad and a bit lonely. I was still finding my way, looking for community, and grieving a lot of pre-COVID life. Sadness was in the driver’s seat of my decision-making. I also went through a period of Big Sad in 2025 after our first family dog passed away, followed by the passing of a close friend. 2025 was a heavy year, and a lot of my decisions were guided by the idea of what’s the minimum I can do to function day-to-day?

Disgust—In 2022, I created Strange Salt as a way to work with people and combat some of the loneliness in my work. And in 2023, as I worked to build the business, I felt a sense of disgust at what I’d experienced in the agency industry. I decided to rebel and build a new business model (that didn’t end up working).

Surprise—Late 2023 and into 2024 were the Scopecreep years, when I was hosting an award-winning podcast with my friend and colleague, Liz Talago. We set out to share our own stories and were not expecting the show to take off as it did. It was a pleasant surprise, and a really fun ride to be on. But how I spent my time and the quality of my work were guided by fleeting moments of virality.

Fear—In late 2024, I started to feel an emotion I’d never experienced in my business. I kept telling people that “This is my first ‘normal’ election year in business, so I’m nervous about how it will go.” I’d heard horror stories about how election cycles upend business, so I was prepared for the worst. One of my largest contracts expired in August of 2024, and I set out to rebuild my recurring monthly revenue. The pursuit went through 2025, and I found myself taking on a lot of projects—and building new services—in the name of “what if?!” and ended up with some what of a monster of a business model I was no longer interested in managing.

Happiness—Today, after a lot of trial and error, I feel like I’m operating here. I still experience all the other emotions, of course, but I’m doing work that excites me and finding overall enjoyment in the process. This was never an end goal, and not something I was intentionally working toward. It’s just the cycle of what’s happened, I think, and the pendulum swinging as I continue to crawl my way out of sadness.

I’m working hard to not to get too swept up in the feeling and instead am focused on using this momentum to set that Cignetti-Like Standard that can serve as a baseline for my business, no matter what the circumstances of daily life bring.

This experience isn’t unique to me. Most founders I talk to will admit that they’ve made a pretty big decision based on what they were feeling in the moment. So the question isn’t whether this happens, it’s whether or not you notice it.

And to be clear, these emotions aren’t problems. They’re signals. They tell you something about what’s going on, what you care about, and what might need attention. But at the same time, they’re not meant to run a business.

Here’s what decision-making can look like when they are running the show:

These are different emotions, but they all create the same pattern. Your business starts to move with whatever you’re feeling at the time, and that shows up in ways that are easy to miss when you’re in it.

Your offers shift depending on what leads are coming in.

Your pricing moves up and down based on your confidence at any given moment.

Your focus gets pulled in different directions.

You feel like you’re starting over again…and again…and again.

It can feel like you’re adapting, but in reality, you’re reacting.

This isn’t about avoiding all of these emotions altogether. They matter and often keep you safe, pointing out things that need attention. But if they’re the only thing that drive your decision-making, your business will feel unsteady.

This is where defining your standard comes into play.

I can already feel you squirming in your chair as you think about setting a standard to live up to. There’s a lot of pressure there—trust me, as an overachiever in all things, I get it! But instead of thinking of a standard as this high bar or impossible task, I like to think of it as something to ground in.

It’s the thing we can come back to when our emotions are loud—which is often in 2026, amiright?

If emotions are the signal that something needs to change, our standard is what keeps you anchored in what’s actually true. And your standard is built from your reality.

If you can’t answer those clearly, you don’t have a standard yet. You have preferences, and they’re likely in constant flux. But when those answers are clear, things get simpler.

And notice I don’t say easier—just simpler.

And that’s because you have something to measure against that isn’t your current mood.

A standard will change that. It doesn’t make the decisions for you, but it gives you something steady to return to when things feel uncertain, urgent, or off. Instead of rebuilding your business every time something changes, you’re returning to what’s actually true.

And unfortunately for those of you who glazed over at the beginning, we’re back to sports.

Cignetti isn’t ignoring the game. He’s not detached from what’s happening on the field. In fact, he’s really in tune with all of it. He’s just not letting the circumstances of the game dictate how he operates.

Your emotions can inform how you build and run your business, but they don’t need to lead it.

Thanks for reading,

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