🧠Weekly MindSweep No. 228 | What’s On My Mind | Uncertainty
May 2026
Week 225: Curated Conversation: Uncertainty
Week 226: Mind Your Business: Uncertainty
Week 227: Manage Your Mind: Uncertainty
*Week 228: What's On My Mind: Uncertainty
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In the MindSweep this week:
Weekly MindSweep: Past issues live here.
Jamie’s Second Brain Corner: Links to references & MindSweep Mapping
What’s Inspiring Me - The War of Art by Steven Pressfield
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What If It All Turns Out Beautiful
A final word on uncertainty, and a challenge for you.
I want to tell you about my grandmother's hands.
Her hands are small, but they have held so much. Babies, grief, Sunday dinners, and a hundred ordinary mornings. Last week, I held one of those hands in a quiet room in Florida and said, "You can rest now."
I've watched what happens when a life winds down. I've been in the rooms where the decisions are made, where the paperwork piles up, and where resistance shows up in questions that have no easy answers. I have seen what it looks like when someone reaches the end, and the life they built is complete: everything they created, the relationships they cared for, the moments they chose, and the ones they missed.
Here is what I have been thinking about after spending a month exploring uncertainty.
Tomorrow is not promised.
Something I've learned from watching a life coming to a close, especially one lived with so much love and also with so much unfinished, is that we have today. We have this moment, right now.
And what we do with this matters more than we let ourselves believe.
What This Month Taught Us
If you have been with us all month, you have come a long way. If you are just joining us, welcome. Here is what we have covered:
Week 225: Curated Conversation — Uncertainty Called. It Wants Credit. We introduced uncertainty properly, not as a problem to be solved, but as something that had been quietly running the show all along. We met two entrepreneurs I know well: the one who perfects until it feels safe, and the one who launches before the path is built. Same fear. Two different costumes. The invitation was simply to notice where uncertainty already lived in your days.
Week 226: Mind Your Business — Uncertainty Is Open For Business. We explored how uncertainty appears in the daily work of creative entrepreneurship: in the busywork that fills quiet moments, the performing that stands in for real progress, and the exhaustion from pretending certainty is something you can earn. We named five smaller, more honest steps forward and recognized something important. You are not behind, and you are not alone in finding this difficult.
Week 227: Manage Your Mind — Your Brain Is Not Broken. It's Busy. We looked at the science behind it all. We discussed the amygdala alarm, the rush of cortisol, and how the prefrontal cortex shuts down just when you need it most. For entrepreneurs with ADHD or other neurodivergent traits, we talked about what makes this even harder: the dopamine system, three brain networks that can go offline at once, and the cycle that keeps spinning when your nervous system cannot settle. We shared a simple, evidence-based truth: take care of your body first, then your mind.
The Thing Underneath the Thing Underneath the Thing
What I didn't expect from this month was where it would take me personally.
I began writing about uncertainty in May and ended up experiencing it in ways I did not expect.
In the hospital hallways, quiet rooms, late-night phone calls, and paperwork I had never faced before, I kept coming back to a statement I now carry like a smooth stone in my pocket.
The stories our minds create are not facts.
They are old stories, learned behaviors, and past experiences. Our biology is doing what it was meant to do: keeping us small, keeping us safe, and holding us back from things that might not work out.
Your nervous system cannot tell the difference between a real threat and an uncertain business decision. It reacts the same way to both. For many of us, especially those with ADHD, big dreams, and full hearts, that reaction is always there in the background of every launch, every proposal, and every moment we think, "maybe I should wait just a little longer."
We have called this caution, or strategy, or simply not the right time.
And, sometimes it is.
But sometimes, it is just uncertainty that keeps us playing small.
Here's What I Dare You To Consider
We are all living on a moving rock hurtling through space.
That is our reality. And today, right now, we have gifts, ideas, and offerings that others need.
What if you created something that brings you so much joy that it fills your cup daily?
What if it also generated the revenue that supports the life you actually want to live?
What if the thing you keep almost launching, almost finishing, or almost saying out loud is exactly what someone is waiting for?
Heart-centered creative entrepreneurs are change makers.
We are a gift to those around us. They need what we have to offer. When we hide our light because uncertainty makes us afraid of what it might cost, when we hold back and keep adding things to the list before we feel ready, I want to say:
How dare we?
How dare we not share our offerings?
How dare we not communicate the gifts we bring?
How can we keep ourselves small on this moving planet, with one wild and beautiful life to live?
We have today. We have this moment. That is not nothing; it is everything.
So, with the new awareness we've built this month about where uncertainty lives, what it does to your brain, and why it keeps you looping, I challenge you to play big. Be loud. Be proud. Be the thing you came here to be.
Because what if it all turns out just as beautiful as you?
A Beautiful Reminder
Before we finish this month, I want to share something that came from inside our Chickbook Creative Curated Conversation community, because it deserves to be held.
Melissa Dorsky of Melissa Dorsky Designs shared a quote by Nicola Jane Hobbs that gives us exactly what we need as we wrap up this series: a way to stop the story your mind creates before it takes over. It was labeled The Uncertainty Pledge, and I cannot think of a better way to end this month than with these words.
"Whenever I feel the anxious, queasy energy of uncertainty and notice myself overplanning, overthinking, and grasping for control, I place my hand on my heart and gently remind myself: Uncertainty is where possibility lives. Uncertainty is where freedom lives. Uncertainty is where hope lives."
— Nicola Jane Hobbs, shared by Melissa Dorsky
Put your hand on your heart. Say it out loud if you need to. Carry these words with you into whatever comes next. Find your place of belonging and support, and practice every day.
Fully Present. Couldn't See Clearly. Waved Anyway.
She thought it was a FaceTime.
That is my grandmother, waving at a photograph she did not realize was a photograph. She was fully present, fully herself, and gave it everything she had.
That is the image I keep returning to as I finish this month. Not the paperwork, not the tough decisions, not the uncertainty that still lingers. I keep thinking of her, waving at something she could not see clearly, trusting that whoever was on the other side was worth showing up for.
I think that's what we're doing, too.
Every time we create something new, every time we publish without knowing the outcome, every time we say the number out loud, send the email, or show up for those who need us, we are waving at something we cannot see clearly yet.
And it's worth it. You're worth it.
That is what I am thinking about as we finish this month of uncertainty. It does not get easier, and our nervous systems will keep doing what they do. But we will keep going. We will wave at the camera. We will play big, stay loud, and stay proud, because the other option is a life spent waiting for certainty that will never come.
Tomorrow is not promised.
We have today.
Go be beautiful.
My questions for you this week:
What has this month of uncertainty shifted for you, in how you see it, how you feel it, or how you respond to it?
What is the one thing you've been "almost" ready to share, launch, say, or do, and what would it mean to do it anyway?
Reply and share with me!
✨ You Belong Here. I can help.
Understanding your brain is one thing. Building a business that actually works with it is another, and that's where I come in.
As a brain-based business strategist, I work with creative and neurodivergent entrepreneurs who are tired of forcing themselves into systems that were never designed for the way they think. Together we build strategies rooted in how your brain actually operates, not how productivity culture says it should.
If you've ever thought I know what I need to do, I just can't seem to do it, that's not a willpower problem. That's a strategy problem. And it's exactly the kind of problem I help solve.
It starts with one conversation.
Curated Conversation
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Curated Conversation is where you stop doing it alone.
We read together, sit with the hard questions, and close with five minutes of guided meditation with Terri Hamilton. It's the work, in community, in real time.
Your first month is free. Come find out what it feels like to be in the room where it's safe to say the thing out loud.
Listen if you want. Speak if you're ready. Stay if it feels like home.
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What I’m reading
The War of Art
by Steven Pressfield
If you create anything — a business, a brand, a body of work — this book will name something you’ve been living but couldn’t quite articulate.
What has stayed with me is recognizing how sophisticated Resistance can be.
In other news…
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