What Brings You Back to Center?

We all need something that helps us find our footing when life starts moving faster than we can process. An anchor, if you will.

An anchor keeps something from drifting. It offers support when the current gets strong, and we use the word in all kinds of ways. Ships have anchors. Newscasts have anchors. Relationships can become anchors. Routines can become anchors. Home can become one too.

This week, home was mine.

Katie and I celebrated our twelfth wedding anniversary. Twelve years of marriage, three kids, countless ordinary days, and a whole lot of choosing each other in the middle of real life.

We spent most of the day in the pool, both of us reading. No packed schedule. Just water, books, sunshine, and quiet. We needed that, because the week had been full.

At JHD, we stepped into a project that came to us in crisis. A large online marketplace, built over many years and recently rebuilt into something that was not working the way it needed to, needed help. A rescue.

Our team came in alongside another group of developers and started learning the system in real time. We asked questions, solved problems, found broken pieces, and tried to bring calm to a situation that had very little of it.

Design and development aren’t only about making things look good or function correctly. Sometimes the work is about helping people breathe again. Sometimes it is about walking into the middle of something tangled and helping everyone see where to start.

And I’m excited about this project. I am excited for JHD to become a primary support for it.

Still, I would be lying if I said doubt never showed up throughout my work week.

Even when the work is in front of you and the opportunity is clear, imposter syndrome can sound like a bug in your ear: Are you sure you are ready for this? Are you sure you are the right person to help?

Yes, I am. And being called into the rescue is part of my value.

Because by the time a situation reaches that point, the room doesn’t need theory. It needs calm, clear thinking, and someone willing to start untangling the mess.

An anchor.

That made me think about the word in another context.

A news anchor is not called an anchor because they control everything happening in the world. Their role is to help people make sense of what is happening. In moments of uncertainty, they bring order to the noise. They help people understand what is known, what matters, and where the story stands.

I think people are hungry for that kind of steadiness right now. Every day brings another headline, another warning, another crisis. It can feel like the world is constantly refreshing before we’ve had time to understand what we just saw. That kind of pace can leave a person feeling untethered.

And that kind of steadiness isn’t something we can really draw from in daily life, but I think it does show up in people. It makes me think about the friend everyone calls “the rock.” 

Most of us know someone like that. The person who stays steady when everyone else is spinning. The one who answers the phone, tells the truth, makes room for the mess, and somehow helps the room feel a little less chaotic just by being in it.

A news anchor helps people locate the story. A steady friend helps people locate themselves.

Both remind me that being an anchor is not about controlling what happens next. It ‘s about becoming a trustworthy place to return to when everything feels like too much.

I spend a lot of my life trying to be steady for other people. At JHD, in rooms with founders, at The Nexus, and at home, I want to be someone others can count on. I want to bring calm and care into the places that need it.

But being steady for others does not mean I stop needing steadiness myself.

So I keep coming back to the question: What do I trust to bring me back to center?

For a long time, my answer was the gym. Two hours. Non-negotiable. That routine helped hold the rest of me together.

This summer, with the kids home from school, the answer has shifted. Now, it’s home.

It looks like the pool. It looks like bowling with my family. It looks like books sitting on a wet towel and the ordinary noise of the kids being nearby.

It also looks like the daily check-in with Katie that has somehow stayed part of our rhythm after twelve years of marriage and three kids. I’m grateful we still make sure we’re in touch with each other, every single day. Because the questions don’t stop just because life gets full.

What pressure am I carrying that does’t need to come with me?

What doubt am I giving too much authority?

What would it look like to trust the work, trust the team, and trust that being steady is enough?

At JHD, I want people to feel that when they call us into a difficult situation, they are getting a team that can help bring order to what feels overwhelming.

We don’t have to make the pressure disappear to be useful. Sometimes the value is being calm enough to see the next right step and committed enough to take it with them.

As we move toward our twenty-fifth year in business, that is the kind of company I want to keep building. It’s also the kind of life I want to keep building.

I got to be steady for a project in crisis this week. Then I got to come home and remember that I do not have to be the anchor in every room, all the time.

An anchor does not stop the water from moving. It simply keeps you connected to something solid while it does.