Welcome back to another edition of Unthreaded.

I had a conversation with a founder recently that started as a typical strategy talk about what needed to shift in their business, and then it got real personal.

The thing weighing on them had nothing to do with strategy at all.

This week I want to talk about the guilt that comes with hard decisions concerning your team, and how to address it in a constructive way that’s helped me over the years.

Let's get into it.

It started as a normal conversation about growth and what they felt like needed to change.

They were in the middle of restructuring, and part of that meant they couldn't work with some of the same people anymore. 

It crushed them, man. 

And the word they kept using was failure. 

This is someone who by all accounts is an exceptional leader, does their best to do everything the right way, but in this moment he felt like he let people down. 

I understood it, because I've been through the same thing. Thankfully, I had someone that could walk me through the reality of it all and how to combat that feeling by changing my perspective.

It starts with acknowledging how difficult it is to do what you're doing. 

Not everyone is building a business, nor does everyone have deep pockets to pull from. You bootstrapped something, sustained it, and people earned a real living off the work you put in. 

Whether that lasted a year or four years, I give a huge amount of respect for being able to sustain it all.  That is not failure.

Then, you have to sit with a question:

Were people better off because they came across you? 

If the answer is yes, you didn't fail them. 

The guilt you feel comes from being a good person who understands what everything is tied to. But guilt and responsibility are not the same thing. 

Responsibility means making the decisions that keep the business healthy, create stability for the people who work with you, and allow you to keep building something people genuinely rely on.

Leaders who can't make hard calls don't build things that last afterwhile. And a business that doesn't last fails more people than any restructure ever will.

So if you're sitting with one of these decisions right now, take it from someone who's been there:

The weight is proof that you care, and caring is exactly what makes you the right person to make the call. 

Sort out which part of the weight is actually yours to carry, make the decision the business needs, and stay visible while you do it. 

That's the whole job some weeks.

This week, you're going to take the hard decision you've been sitting on (or the one you already made that's still sitting on you) and separate the guilt from the responsibility in it. 

Copy the prompt below and paste it into Claude (or ChatGPT, or whatever AI tool you use).

It's going to hear you out on the situation, ask what it needs to, and then help you sort what you're feeling from what you're responsible for, including whether the weight has already started pulling you out of public view.

If you notice you've been “invisible” lately, take that seriously, because that's rarely about content. 

The founder I talked to is an exceptional leader precisely because they feel the weight of these calls, and the same will be true for you. 

The people who depend on the business need you sorting the weight and still building, not quietly punishing yourself for carrying it.

I sat down with Ifeomasinachi "Ify" Ike, founder and CEO of Pink Cornrows, whose work sits at the intersection of culture, strategy, policy, and movement building.

We get into why she starts with vision before deliverables, how narrative becomes the bridge between what a brand says and what people actually feel, and how to maintain integrity when the pressure to perform, pivot, or water things down gets loud.

We also get into the real side of entrepreneurship: partnerships, money, values alignment, healthy ego, and conflict.

If today's edition was about the weight of leading, this one is about what you anchor to while you carry it.

Hear the conversations behind the lessons. Heavy on Brand is the podcast hosted by Brian Fitch where he sits down with founders, operators, and people building incredible brands to talk about what it actually takes to grow a business people remember.

Ready to build a brand that works as hard as you do? Carbon Thread is the agency behind Unthreaded. We help companies in the $1M–$50M range build brands, authority, and growth systems that actually move the needle. If you're tired of guessing and ready for a partner, let's talk.