The Cost of Being “Fine”: How Leaders Suppress Emotions (and Why It Backfires) 

The Cost of Being “Fine”: How Leaders Suppress Emotions (and Why It Backfires) May 23, 2026 There was a period in my CEO life when someone would ask how I was doing and I had one answer.  “Fine.”  Didn’t matter what was actually happening. Missed a major acquisition target. Fine. Board meeting went sideways. Fine. Woke up at 3 a.m. for the fourth night […]

The Dangerous Cost of Saying Fine: The Deep Dive

The Dangerous Cost of Saying Fine May 23, 2026 This week Alex and Emily are discussing one of the most normalized and least examined habits in executive culture: the reflexive use of “fine” as a substitute for honest emotional awareness. They explore how emotional suppression develops as a survival mechanism in high-stakes leadership environments, why […]