📔 Field Notes: February — Pause

Facing tension, instability, uncertainty, and what "trust recession" really means

This season, I’ve been quietly spending time, energy, and emotional bandwidth trying to understand one another at a national scale. There is an undeniable tension in the air right now as we face grief, instability, and uncertainty. Whether we articulate it or not, our nervous systems feel it.

When people are living inside collective strain, something very predictable happens: we narrow our focus and conserve energy. We become less tolerant of noise, stop entertaining fluff, and refuse to succumb to artificial urgency.

If you own a business, you may have noticed that marketing techniques of yesteryear suddenly feel inappropriate — triggering scarcity, prompting reciprocation, persuading through social proof. Not because business itself is wrong, but because emotional tone and societal safety matter more than anyone’s quarterly revenue.

And when the tone of the moment shifts, the language we use to describe what’s happening matters, too.

I’ve found myself increasingly unsettled by leaders in our industry casually referring to a “trust recession.” If you are even slightly attuned to the emotional climate, pretending it’s business as usual feels incongruent. To forge ahead without acknowledging what the fuck is happening right now is akin to rearranging throw pillows while the entire house is shaking.

At the same time, most of us are still building real businesses.

If you’re like me, you may have been quietly wrestling with what this changes about the way you operate. You don’t want to add to distraction. You don’t want to trivialize what’s happening by pretending everything is normal. And yet there is pressure to keep performing, keep launching, keep promoting — because that’s what the digital space has trained us to do.

I think we need to be careful how we describe the moment. To call what’s happening a “trust recession” is to subtly shift responsibility onto the consumer. Trust hasn’t been lost to all businesses; it’s being withheld selectively.

When creators say “trust recession,” what they really mean is:

• my audience is converting less

• buyers are much more skeptical of my marketing tactics

• sales cycles are longer and harder

That’s not a trust recession; it’s trust withdrawal. It’s demand responding to supply.

It would be more accurately described as market maturation, buyer discernment, demand recalibration, and response to over-saturation. We are operating in a new era of information surplus layered with collective emotional strain.

Consumer discernment isn’t the problem — it’s the correction. Over time, it forces supply to become better, clearer, and more fairly priced. While that may feel uncomfortable for some, it’s actually a sign of market maturation and long-term fortitude, not collapse.

And if that’s true — if markets are maturing and audiences are becoming more discerning — then it becomes even more important that what we say matches what we mean, that our tone reflects the moment we’re in, and that our actions back up the promises we make.

For that reason, this month’s Field Notes are off-template. I’d usually tell you what I’m working on — and I’m still working, as I know you are, too. I’d share what I’m systemizing, learning, and observing — doing that as well, just at a gentler pace.

I’m just not in the mood for scripts right now. I changed up this month’s content plan so I could speak more directly to the moment we’re actually in — and what it means for small businesses navigating it.

If your work feels quieter, slower, softer in this moment — that doesn’t mean it’s stalled. It may mean that it’s deepening. Maturing and evolving, just like the market. And that’s rarely a bad thing.

If you’re left wondering what to do about this from a business standpoint, I’m going to address that head on in my next email. If I were sitting across the table from you as your COO right now, I’ll tell you exactly what I’d be looking at.

It’ll go out to my email list — so if you’d like to receive it, make sure you’re on there.

Wishing you steadiness, clarity, and a good night’s sleep.