Wiggle your fingers. I’ll explain.
Before you read another word, try something with me.
Stretch your arms straight out to your sides. Now wiggle your fingers.
Can you see them moving at the edges of your vision? Without turning your head, you’re taking in almost 180 degrees of the world.
Now turn to your left, arms still out. Wiggle again. Same thing. You just scanned the entire room, simply by paying attention to the edges.
I learned that exercise in a six week self-defense course I took after 9/11, back when I needed to feel safer in the world. I never forgot it.
The barbecue that started this
Over the July 4th weekend, I was at a barbecue with some fellow Harvard-Westlake parents. One mom shared that she’s setting up a self-defense course for her kids before they head off to college.
I love this idea so much.
I had my daughters take that same kind of training a few years ago through Impact Personal Safety, a Los Angeles nonprofit that later became a Citrus Studios client. Their method was born in the 1970s, after a female black belt was assaulted and her dojo came together to ask how that could happen.
What they discovered changed self-defense training forever.
Adrenaline creates instant muscle memory. And how you train is how you fight.
That conversation got me thinking. The best lessons from my six weeks of training went far beyond physical safety. They were lessons in awareness and readiness.
And those are the exact two muscles that carry an entrepreneur through everything.
Lesson one: You already have 360 vision
Most founders run their businesses with tunnel vision.
We lock our eyes on the big client, the big launch, the big fire. Meanwhile, the real story is happening at the edges. Cash flow drifting a little each month. A team member who’s gone quiet in meetings. A competitor quietly testing a new offer. A loyal customer whose orders are shrinking.
In my training, we practiced watching the periphery instead of staring straight ahead. Scanning the edges takes seconds. It can save you months.
Andy Grove, the longtime CEO of Intel, built a whole philosophy on this. He pushed leaders to watch the periphery: the odd data point, the small complaint, the startup nobody takes seriously yet. By the time a threat is obvious to everyone, it’s usually too late to respond.
Lesson two: Build your trigger phrase
Here’s the tactic I still use today, more than two decades later.
In class, we learned to soften our knees, bring our hands up in front of us, and say two words out loud: “What’s going on?”
Those words became a switch. The moment I say them, everything I learned in those six weeks comes flooding back. My body remembers before my mind catches up.
Impact teaches that adrenaline creates instant muscle memory, and I can tell you from experience that it’s true. On their website today, a student describes shifting into a ready stance without even realizing it, because “all the instructions had come flooding back.”
I watched this play out with a friend not long ago. She’s petite and has studied jujutsu for years. She was reaching for a plate on the top shelf of her kitchen cabinet when she lost her footing.
She didn’t crash to the floor. Her body took over, and she twisted midair and landed on her feet, one knee pulled up and the other leg stretched out to the side, like she’d planned it. It’s the same landing you see in a fight scene, right after the trained fighter drops from somewhere high and lands like a cat.
She told me later she never decided how to land. Her training decided for her.
You can build the same switch for your business. A phrase and a posture that move you from panic into assessment.
Your step-by-step guide: The Founder Readiness Drill
Step 1: Schedule your edge scan.
Put 15 minutes on your calendar once a week. Look only at the edges: the numbers you usually skip, the team member you haven’t checked in with, the customer whose behavior changed. Write down one thing you noticed.
Step 2: Name your blind spot.
Every founder has one. Ask yourself: “What am I avoiding because I don’t want to see it?” Say the answer out loud. Naming it shrinks it.
Step 3: Choose your trigger phrase.
Pick two or three words that snap you into assessment mode when something feels off. Mine is “What’s going on?” Yours might be “Pause and scan” or “Feet on the floor.” Keep it short enough to say under stress.
Step 4: Practice your stance.
Yes, physically. Soften your knees so you stay flexible. Ground your feet, the way your values and your numbers ground your business. Bring your hands up, because boundaries belong in front of you, ready. Do this a few times and your body will remember it for you.
Step 5: Rehearse before you need it.
Pick your scariest business scenario. Your biggest client leaves. Your key employee quits. Write your first three moves now, on a calm day. Under pressure, we fall back on our training. So give yourself training to fall back on.
One more thing
Readiness works quietly. Nobody sees the weekly scan, the rehearsed plan, or the trigger phrase. They only see a founder who stays calm when everything shakes.
If you’d like a partner in building that kind of calm, strong readiness into your business, I’d love to talk with you.
Book a discovery call and let’s build your stance together.
DOWNLOADABLE WORKSHEET
The 360 Founder Audit
Use The 360 Founder Audit to scan the edges of your business, name the blind spot you’ve been avoiding, and create a simple readiness ritual you can use when pressure hits.
