Fear is always there. Sometimes loud. Sometimes quiet. But always present.
And on a team? In a high-stakes project? Fear can be the thing that makes it work—or the thing that breaks everything.
We like to think fear is something to conquer. To outsmart. To overcome. To solve.
But I’ve come to believe something else:
Fear is not a thing to solve. It’s a process to manage.
Acknowledge it. Understand it. Focus it. Work with it. Work through it.
Fear(less)
During the AI Site Builder project, I had every reason to feel overwhelmed.
New technology. A tight deadline. A team I’d never worked with before. A space full of bewildering ambiguity, untamed assumptions, and enormous pressure.
And yet—when I think back...
I wasn’t afraid of the cofounders or stakeholders. They trusted me to help get it done.
I wasn’t afraid of the project team—even though we’d never worked together before, and they looked to me for guidance.
I wasn’t afraid of the deadline. It always felt impossibly tight—but we knew that going in.
I wasn’t afraid of the technical challenges. There were many. Some felt impossible. But I believed we’d find a way.
I wasn’t even afraid of failure—or of looking bad if things went wrong.
So what was I afraid of?
I was afraid the quality wouldn’t be good enough. That the experience—the promise—would fall flat. That in trying to make something good, we’d make Webflow look bad. I’m afraid the thing I build won’t deserve to exist.
I wasn’t fearless. I was just afraid of the right thing. (I think). And I let that fear focus me, instead of freeze me.
Relentless
That fear showed up as relentless action. Not stress. Not panic.
Relentless commitment to doing what it took to raise the quality of the work. Even if it meant doing things no “typical tech lead” would do.
A box had no place here. It was just me and the problem.
I studied and applied practices from manufacturing. I spent countless 2+ hour jam sessions with Sergie (Webflow’s Design co-founder). I experimented with data science. I wrote essays—not tech specs—to surface and challenge assumptions. (And so much more...)
If it helped clarify the problem or the path—for me, for the team, for the work—I did it.
I didn’t care how boring it was. How labourious. How out of scope. How “not my job” it might’ve looked (or felt).
If it moved us forward, it was mine to do. Fear didn’t slow me down.
It pointed me at the thing that mattered most. The project couldn’t break. And I wouldn’t let fear break me, either.
Permission
And the team? They noticed. They saw the intensity. They felt it. But more importantly, they saw the honesty.
I didn’t pretend to know everything. Heck no. I was transparent about what I was unsure of. But I never stopped moving. And in that—somehow—it gave others permission too.
To be nervous. To be uncertain. To be scared.
(I’m not guessing. I asked them, haha.)
It didn’t show up as hollow corporate slogans people throw around. It showed up as me saying "I don't know, but we'll figure this out". Over and over again. And not from the sidelines. I was in it with them—knee-deep in some unknown problem, figuring it out, together.
Over time, something subtle happened. The energy shifted. People started to channel their own fear into momentum. Into focus. Into breakthroughs. Left, right, and center—one after another. Compounding. Unlocking. Accelerating.
The fear wasn’t gone. It had just found something more useful to do.
Heartburn
One of my project teammates had the best term for this: heartburn.
“What’s giving you heartburn right now?”
That became a question we asked each other. A lot.
And it’s one I’ve kept using—long after the project shipped and I moved on.
It names the feeling. But it also makes it feel less intimidating. Less existential. It’s disarming. But precise. It takes fear out of the sky and puts it on the desk. From impossible to inconvenient.
It doesn’t demand a fix. It invites a naming. And once named? Fear shrinks into its true size.
Here’s what I’ve come to believe: Fear is normal. Fear is honest. Fear is not the enemy. It’s a signal.
The question isn’t “How do I get rid of fear?” It’s: “What is this fear trying to protect?” And: “How can I move toward it—with care, not shame?”
So take a moment. Take a beat.
What’s giving you heartburn right now?
Name it. List it. Be honest. (You don’t have to share it—just don’t pretend it’s not there.)
Is it the deadline? The team? The idea? Or that quiet fear… that the work won’t matter?
Understand it. Focus it. Channel it.
Hold your breath. Take one step. Then another. Then another.
You don’t need to be fearless. You just need to keep going. To feel the burn. And make something you’re proud of.