ohjay: You know, that's a terrifying thought. In my world, that's the nightmare scenario. All your work, your strategy, just gone.

ohjay: Thanks for having me, Eleanor. That framing is fascinating. The idea of rebuilding from inside the crisis is... well, it's the reality of any complex system, isn't it? You rarely get to pause everything to fix one part.

ohjay: An external disruption.

ohjay: Wow.

ohjay: That's powerful. It's the ultimate external shock to the system. In the tech world, it's like your entire platform being shut down by a regulatory change or a partner pulling the plug. Your identity as 'the app for X' is just... gone. The knee-jerk reaction is to mourn what's lost, but the strategic move, the one Hollis is pointing to, is to ask, 'What are we now, with the assets and team we still have?' It's a forced re-definition. You can't get the old identity back, so you have to build a new one from the foundation that remains.

ohjay: The dream, right?

ohjay: That's the slow-burn crisis. I see this in product development. We call it technical debt, but this is like... soul debt. You build a product, it's successful, it has users, the metrics look good. But you, the creator, realize it's not the product you're passionate about anymore. The mission feels wrong. And the hardest part is admitting that the 'successful' identity you built is actually the source of your misery. It takes immense courage to call bullshit on your own success and say, "We need to pivot, even if it confuses our current users."

ohjay: And that decision is the new strategy. It's the first line of code for the new version of you.

ohjay: It's a calculation. A conscious choice.

ohjay: I can't even imagine.

ohjay: That's the core of prioritization, isn't it? In my job, when you're launching a new medical device or software, a million things can go wrong. The fear of failure, of bugs, of negative feedback from clinicians, it can be paralyzing. But then you look at your team who has poured their lives into it, and you think of the patients whose lives could be improved by this technology... and you realize that is more important than your fear. You don't stop being afraid, you just act anyway because the 'why' is bigger than the 'what if'.

ohjay: Okay.

ohjay: Wow. That's... heavy. And it speaks directly to that 'Protector' instinct that I know is a big part of my personality type. As a leader, or a parent, or just a human being in a community, you are part of an ecosystem. Your 'downtime' affects the entire system. It's not about being a superhero and pretending you're not in pain. That's not sustainable. It's about finding the support you need, so you can still provide the essential support others need from you. It's about maintaining critical functions, even when the rest of the system is on fire.

ohjay: Right. You have to keep the server running, even if you're rewriting all the code in the background. The people who rely on you need that stability.

ohjay: Exactly. It's a two-part framework: strategic re-evaluation and disciplined execution. You can't just have one without the other. A great strategy with no execution is just a dream, and execution without a clear strategy is just chaos.

ohjay: They do. But I think the most powerful tool Hollis gives us is that one question, the one that powers the courage hack. It's something anyone can use, right now, in any situation.

ohjay: Yes. If you're facing a crisis, a fear, a moment of doubt at work or at home, don't get stuck asking 'how do I stop being scared?'. That's the wrong question. Ask yourself the question Hollis forces us to answer: 'What is more important than my fear?' The answer to that question... that's your new roadmap. That's the first feature you need to build.

ohjay: It was my pleasure, Eleanor. It's a reminder that the best systems, whether they're products or people, are the ones built to be resilient.