Welcome to Through the Window.

If you have ever left a difficult conversation still replaying it hours later, or found yourself more stressed by your thoughts about a situation than by the situation itself, you are in the right place.

Through the Window is a short weekly publication on reducing stress and thinking more clearly at work. Each edition takes about two minutes to read and focuses on one practical idea from The Interference Window, a model I built after decades of leadership experience and sustained research into why smart, capable people get in their own way.

The core insight behind everything here is simple. Every experience has two layers. There is what is happening, and there is what your mind adds to it. The second layer (the stories, the identity, the resistance) is almost always a larger source of stress than the first. Once you can see that clearly, something shifts.

The Interference Window gives that second layer a name and a shape. Through the Window is how I explore it, one insight at a time, in the context of real work and real pressure.

I am not a clinician. I am a leader who spent years figuring this out the hard way, learning from the best, and became convinced the insight was too useful to keep to myself, and built a simple tool to make it accessible. The model is grounded in 30 years of research in Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, translated into something you can use in the middle of a working day without stepping away from the situation.

If you are new here, the best place to start is the quiz at interferencewindow.com. It takes three minutes and tells you exactly where you are right now.

If you are returning after a break, welcome back. There is more here now, and it is better.