This is part five of my limited series, Emotions Are Expensive: the emotional cost of doing business and how to stop paying it.

In Emotions Are Expensive, we’re digging into the five biggest feels that keep founders spinning out, riding emotional highs and lows around launch goals and marketing metrics, and dancing in and out of burnout land.

Each week, I send an essay and resources on one of these big feels on Tuesdays, followed by a complementary podcast on The Resonance Effect every Friday. Emails are the theory. Podcasts are the practice — how to actually work with and digest each emotion.

⁠Click here to read the essay on sales panic and get on my list.⁠

EPISODE OVERVIEW

In the final part of this series, we dig into sales panic — that moment mid-launch or mid-campaign when you look at the numbers and think, “Oh no… it’s not working.”

We unpack why even the most seasoned founders slip into panic when open rates dip, clicks stall, or sales feel slow — and why this reaction is universal, predictable, and totally human.

Then we shift into the deeper work: increasing your capacity to experience those moments without reacting in ways that sabotage your plan.

You’ll learn how to reframe your relationship to sales data, support your nervous system inside the “it’s not working” moment, and adopt beliefs that keep you steady enough to learn, adjust, and continue selling effectively.

This episode includes a guided nervous system practice to expand your tolerance for sales panic and help you access better problem-solving instead of spiraling.

IN THIS EPISODE YOU’LL LEARN…

• What sales panic actually is and why every founder experiences it

• How external data (or lack of it) triggers internal survival responses

• Why your brain can’t make smart decisions from panic

• How “I win or I learn” becomes a strategic sales advantage

• Why “it’s not over till it’s over” is a powerful lens during launches

• How to zoom out to quarterly or yearly revenue instead of over-weighting one day or one data point

• A guided practice to expand your nervous system capacity for sales dips and slow moments

• How to access clear thinking, problem-solving, and messaging when you’re no longer reacting from fear

KEY TAKEAWAYS AND CONCEPTS

• Sales Panic: the “it’s not working” moment triggered by dips in sales, clicks, opens, or replies

• Capacity Building: you can train your system to feel panic without reacting

• Data ≠ Danger: your body responds as if sales dips threaten survival; the work is decoupling the two

• I Win or I Learn: a belief that stabilizes your capacity to read data neutrally

• It’s Not Over Till It’s Over: time expands when you stop catastrophizing early data

• Wide-Lens Thinking: zooming out to quarterly/yearly revenue protects you from reactive decisions

• Better Decisions Come From Regulation: nervous system safety is what unlocks real strategy