Slowing Down and Seeing Clearly

In the fall, my life changed when I began facing a health issue that forced me to slow down. Most of my days are now spent juggling appointments, treatments, and resting. When I have enough energy, I use that time to reconnect with people, read, reflect, and plan for the future. This slower pace has poured gasoline on the flames of my passion and hope.

This morning, while clearing out my inbox, I found a foreword written by Alyson Shontell, the Editor-in-Chief of Fortune Magazine. She wrote about Donald Trump as a “CEO-President” and what that means for the U.S. economy and big business. I wish I could say I was shocked by what I read, but I wasn’t. Instead, I felt a deep disappointment. This was not because I disagree with someone’s politics, but because of what the article suggested about our country’s values and corporations' responsibilities. What we are willing to ignore for the benefit of a few.

Watching Like It’s a Silent Movie

In her article, Shontell suggested that business leaders could watch Trump’s presidency like an old silent movie. Her advice was basically this: If you are a CEO whose company is making more money because of Trump’s policies, such as lower taxes, fewer rules, and a rising stock market, then you should just enjoy it and turn off the “sound” on everything else. That means ignoring the increase in hateful and violent language, the attacks on democracy and our institutions, and the growing divisions and fear in our communities. In other words, if you are making money, you do not have to worry about the damage being done to people who are not in the room: The majority of Americans.

To me, this is not just about politics. It is about what kind of people we want to be, what kind of organizations to we want to lead, and what kind of country we want to live in. If we only care about ourselves and ignore everyone else, that is not just selfish, it is dangerous and unpatriotic. History has shown us that this approach never ends well.

Drawing My Line in the Sand

Reading that article had me reflecting on my own values and my work with All Aces, Inc. It reaffirmed a decision. I will only work with organizations that are truly purpose-driven. This includes small and mid-sized businesses, nonprofits, and government agencies. I will not work with any organization that says one thing in its mission but does something different in practice, or wants to make tiny changes just for appearances while avoiding real change. I am not interested in helping companies that copy what others are doing just for good PR. If a company’s actions do not match values like equity, justice, shared well-being, and excellence, I am not the right partner for them. I want to work with leaders who care about building a better, stronger future.

When a Country Is Run Like a Company

The Fortune article described Trump as a “super-CEO,” running the United States like a company in trouble that needs a fast turnaround. In this story, the old rules get thrown out, “inefficiencies” are cut even if people get hurt, and the main goal is to “win” and move fast, no matter the cost. On paper, some numbers look good for big companies making record profits. For many CEOs, this is success. That is why so many are quietly cheering from the sidelines.

But I have to ask two simple questions. Success for whom? And at what cost? These questions are at the heart of the Integrated Resilience Framework my team at All Aces is finalizing. This framework helps organizations understand what it really means to be resilient and how to improve their resilience. When we look at “USA, Inc.” through the Integrated Resilience Framework lens, the weaknesses are hard to ignore.

What Does “Resilience” Really Mean?

When business leaders talk about resilience, they usually mean something simple. Can we take a hit and keep going? Can we bounce back from a crisis and get back to normal as quickly as possible? This kind of resilience protects the status quo and keeps the machine running.

But here is the problem. If “normal” is fragile, unfair, or broken, then bouncing back to normal is not success. It is failure dressed up as stability, providing short-term comfort at the expense of the future...theirs and everyone else's.

We need more than basic resilience. We need to learn from hardship and come out of them better than before. This is what is called transformational resilience. It means asking, “What did this crisis reveal? How do we change so it does not break us again?”

Beyond that, we need regenerative resilience, which is the highest level. This means responding to challenges in ways that make the whole system healthier, so that not just the company, but workers, communities, and the environment all benefit. Traditional resilience is bouncing back. Transformational resilience is bouncing forward. Regenerative resilience is making sure each fall and recovery makes the ground we stand on stronger.

Building a House of Cards

Right now, we see a huge gap between the rich and everyone else, an AI revolution that threatens many jobs, and rising costs for health, housing, and education. If we treat the country like a business where the only goal is “growth” and “efficiency,” we are building a house of cards. It might look strong from the outside, with momentarily higher GDP, record corporate profits, and a soaring stock market. But underneath, if most people cannot afford basic needs, feel unsafe or disrespected, or believe the system is rigged against them, then we are not resilient. We are sitting on a powder keg.

True resilience requires the ability to adapt, the courage to change unfair systems, and a commitment to making sure more people, not fewer, can thrive. No short-term economic win can measure up to long-term social damage.

When Words and Actions Do Not Match

The Fortune article talks about a “murky overlap” between what is good for business, what is good for America, and what is good for the President personally. In our Integrated Resilience Framework, we call this strategic misalignment. This happens when an organization’s mission and values say one thing, but its real strategy, decisions, and actions say something else.

This kind of misalignment is dangerous because it creates vulnerabilities from within. When people inside an organization see that leaders say “People are our greatest asset” but underpay and overwork staff, or say “We value diversity” but silence or punish people who speak up about racism or sexism, or claim to care about community but harm that very community for profit, they lose trust and motivation. People stop believing in the mission. This is not just an emotional problem, it is practical. It weakens performance, increases turnover, and makes the organization more vulnerable during crises.

The same is true for a country. If “USA, Inc.” is being run with fast deals, secret decisions, and policies that help the wealthy while leaving everyone else exposed, then we are not “making America great.” We are hollowing it out. A strong strategy must answer clearly, Why do we exist? For whom do we create value? If the honest answer is only “for shareholders” or “for the top one percent,” then the social fabric starts to fall apart. People stop feeling like they belong. They stop trusting institutions. They look for someone, anyone, who promises to blow it all up.

Justice and Trust Are the Real Engine of Resilience

The best leaders, what I call Steward-level leaders, understand a simple truth. Resilience is not just about systems and structures. It is about people. You can have all the policies, plans, and technology in the world, but if people do not trust you, your system will break when pressure is applied.

That is why organizational justice is so important. There are three main parts to this. First, procedural justice means decisions are made fairly, the rules are clear, and people understand how and why choices are made. If major policy changes are made in secret, people will assume corruption, even if some decisions are legitimate. Trust disappears.

Second, distributive justice means resources, opportunities, and rewards are distributed fairly, and there is a believable link between effort, contribution, and reward. When we see a growing national debt, record profits at the top, and a widening gap between the very rich and everyone else, we are seeing a breakdown in distributive justice. People feel the game is rigged.

Third, interactional justice is about how people are treated day to day. Is communication respectful, honest, and dignified? When leaders use divisive, hateful, or mocking language, they damage this form of justice. People no longer feel respected by the institution that is supposed to represent them. When these forms of justice fail, something powerful happens. We experience institutional betrayal.

Institutional Betrayal and Institutional Courage

Institutional betrayal is when an organization or a government harms the very people who rely on it for safety and fairness. That harm can be active, like doing something harmful, or passive, like failing to act when harm is happening. Examples include ignoring reports of harassment or discrimination, looking the other way when workers are abused or underpaid, or prioritizing profits over human lives in a disaster or public health crisis.

The opposite of this is institutional courage. Institutional courage means telling the truth, even when it is uncomfortable, owning mistakes and making things right, protecting people who are vulnerable or targeted, and building systems that prevent harm, not just react to it. Real resilience requires institutional courage. Without it, “resilience” programs are just window dressing.

What the “Most Admired” Companies Actually Do

Fortune also publishes a list of the “World’s Most Admired Companies.” These are the brands many people look up to. It is interesting that the companies at the top of the list are not the ones who say, “Ignore the critics and just enjoy the profits.” Instead, they listen to employees, customers, and communities, invest in long-term trust, not just quarterly numbers, and admit when they are wrong and try to improve.

In our work, we see that the most resilient organizations follow a Resilience Maturity Journey. They start as Explorers, reacting to problems only after they explode and focusing on short-term survival. Then they become Designers, building basic policies and plans, with some attention to risk and equity. Next, as Builders, they implement systems and measure outcomes, with leadership paying attention to data. As Integrators, stakeholder voices become part of decision-making, and transparency and accountability start to become normal. Finally, as Stewards, organizations become regenerative, adapting quickly while still upholding their values and investing in the health of their entire ecosystem.

A “CEO-President” who constantly pushes legal and ethical boundaries, treats the public sector as a personal playground, and experiments with “new revenue streams” that benefit only a few at the top is stuck in the Explorer phase, no matter how rich or powerful he seems. There may be short-term wins, but the long-term costs are high. Deep mistrust, weakened institutions, and more vulnerability to future crises are the result.

Efficiency Is Not a Substitute for Integrity

In business culture, we often hear phrases like “move fast and break things,” “disrupt or be disrupted,” and “results matter more than feelings.” There is a grain of truth here. Speed can be valuable. Innovation is necessary. Results matter. But there is also a dangerous lie. The idea that efficiency and speed are more important than integrity and justice.

You can “optimize” an organization right into disaster if you ignore human beings along the way. At the national level, a “move-fast, make-or-break” approach might bring a quick bump in the stock market. But if it breaks public trust, deepens racial, economic, or regional divides, or punishes and silences those who speak up, then it is failing the ultimate test of resilience.

Real leadership does not just ask, “How fast can we grow?” It also asks, “Who might be harmed by this?” “What will this mean five, ten, or twenty years from now?” and “Are we still living our values when no one is watching?”

What Courageous Leadership Looks Like

So what kind of leaders do we need, whether they are running a Fortune 500 company, a local nonprofit, or a country? We need leaders with institutional courage. Leaders who are willing to align words and actions, making sure daily practices match stated values, and treating mission statements as promises, not just marketing. We need leaders who invest in the whole ecosystem, caring about workers, suppliers, communities, and the environment, and who understand that long-term success depends on the health of the entire system, not just the top tier. And we need leaders who embed justice into the design, building fairness into policies, processes, and practices, and measuring justice and resilience the way they measure revenue and growth.

These leaders do not see criticism as a threat. They see it as information. They do not fear accountability. They welcome it, because they know that power without accountability leads to disaster.

Choosing the Path of the Steward

The political and economic moment we are living through is more than an experiment. It is a stress test for our values. If we accept a model where wealth outweighs democracy, silence is preferred over speaking up, and personal gain outranks the common good, then we are choosing fragility, no matter how strong the numbers look today.

But we have another option. We can choose the way of the Steward, as leaders, as organizations, and as a country. When I say Steward-level leaders, I mean someone who takes responsibility for more than just their own success, who protects people who will never sit in their boardroom, and who makes decisions that their grandchildren, and other people’s grandchildren, will not have to apologize for or suffer from.

For All Aces, Inc., that means working only with mission-driven partners who are serious about justice and resilience. It means helping organizations move up the resilience journey from Explorer to Steward, and refusing to treat people’s lives and futures as silent background noise to someone else’s profit.

We are not here to pretend it is a silent film. We are here to bear witness to the institutional betrayal. We are here to act, to build systems that are just, courageous, and regenerative.

The question in front of all of us, leaders, voters, workers, neighbors, is this. Will we keep celebrating other people's short-term gains while the foundation cracks beneath our feet? Or will we find the courage to demand, build, and become Stewards of a future where resilience is shared, justice is real, and no one has to be left out?

I am looking forward to joining you to take intentional action...those people and organizations who choose to be Stewards.

What Was Actually Written

In Today's Email

When First Hired in 2021