This week, oil crossed $100 a barrel. The national economy lost 92,000 jobs.

Somewhere in Delaware this morning, a CEO is going to sit down at their desk and wonder: What does this mean for my business?

Not the macro analysis. Not the cable news take. The real question: Do I delay that hire? Do I renegotiate that supplier contract? Do I accelerate the capital project before costs climb, or pump the brakes?

Here’s what I’ve learned through my 13 years as a Vistage member, growing my own company, and now as a Vistage Chair: The hardest part isn’t the decision. It’s having no one to think it through with.

Your board wants confidence. Your team wants direction. Your investors want returns. None of them is built to sit with you in the uncertainty.

That’s the real cost of leadership — not the long hours, but the structural isolation that comes with being the one person who can’t think out loud.

The CEOs I work with have solved that problem. They have a room full of peers who’ve seen their own version of this before. No agenda except helping each other get sharper.

Global events will keep coming. The question is whether you’ll face the next one alone.

If that lands, I’m always happy to talk.