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The Unseen Cost of Being “Always On”
Why high performers confuse urgency with importance - and how to reset your nervous system without losing your edge.
Regina Gerbeaux
February 15, 2026 • Reading Time: 9 minutes
Hi! Welcome to another issue of Force Multipliers, your weekly briefing from Regina Gerbeaux, where Silicon Valley's behind-the-scenes operators get battle-tested frameworks for their toughest challenges, from putting out chaotic fires to managing strong personalities.
We live in an age of constant connection. Slack pings. Email notifications. Text messages. Breaking news. Market updates. Your brain takes in more information before 9am than your grandparents processed in a week.
And here's what nobody tells you: your brain wasn't designed for this.
The operators I coach are some of the smartest, most capable people I know. Yet, most of them are walking around in a state of low-grade panic, convincing themselves that staying "always on" is what makes them effective.
It's not.
Here's what actually happens: when you feel fear or anxiety, you grasp for more information. It feels like control. It feels productive. You're researching, analyzing, gathering data, preparing for every possible scenario.
But you're not solving problems. You're actually feeding your anxiety. 😬
This is especially true for people with obsessive-compulsive tendencies. More research becomes a compulsion, a way to manage the fear. And the cycle continues.
The Wake-Up Call
In my coaching sessions, there's a moment when everything shifts. I ask a simple question:
"Why do you really want this problem solved? Is it really about this problem?"
We peel back the layers. We ask "why does this matter?" again and again.
That's when they realize they're not being productive. They're spinning in circles. They jumped straight to information-gathering mode without stopping to think whether that's what they should actually be doing.
The awareness hits: they're feeding their anxiety, not solving their problems.
And they're way more prone to falling into these anxious spirals when their brains are constantly on.
The Inertia Problem
Here's the biggest resistance I see when I work with high-performing operators:
They've built up so much inertia by letting anxiety drive their decision-making that they can't imagine stopping.
Their day-to-day is packed with tasks that make them feel in control. And once you're on that bandwagon, it's really hard to jump off.
Slowing down feels like being lazy. It feels like being a bad operator.
But here's what I tell every single one of my coachees:
You can't pivot bad momentum into good momentum. That's not how it works. You have to stop the bad stuff before you have room to start the good stuff.
The Playbook: Resetting Your Nervous System Without Losing Your Edge
Step 1: Answer the simplest question first 🤔
Right now, today, what is the one problem you need to solve?
If you could only solve one problem, what would it be? What's the simplest solution you can find?
Everything else can wait.
It doesn't make sense to pull on multiple parts of a complex problem when you don't have clarity on one question first. This is your pattern interrupt. This is how you break the anxious spiral.
Step 2: Build your support system 🏗️
I'm going to be honest with you: there is no easy lone-wolf solution here.
You can't think your way out of an anxious pattern on your own. You need other people.
This is a big reason why working with a coach is so helpful. A coach pulls you back when you start spiraling again. Even coaches work with therapists or other coaches to stay focused on the single problem.
Think about competitive sports. You're focused on a single thing, and your coach helps you figure out what that thing is.
The best way to avoid going down the anxious spiral is by surrounding yourself with people who will tell you when you're spiraling. Whether that's your cofounders, a coach, a trusted advisor, or your leadership team, you need people in your corner.
Step 3: Know the warning signs ⚠️
Tell your trusted people what to watch for. Here's what it looks like when someone is sliding back into the "always on" anxious pattern:
Snappiness and irritability
Giving up routines (skipping the gym, dropping meditation, ignoring sleep)
Being so exhausted by end of day that you can only veg in front of the TV or scroll social media
Anger toward your team
Impatience while driving
General signs of irritability
If you're seeing these signs in yourself or someone you care about, that's the signal that they're going down an anxious spiral.
Step 4: Actually slow down 🛑
"But Regina, I'm in the middle of scaling a company. I can't just stop."
I hear you. And I'm not telling you to abandon your responsibilities.
I wrote extensively about what slowing down actually looks like for high-performing operators in Force Multipliers Issue #48: "The Executive Detox" (published January 18th). That's your tactical playbook for resetting without derailing your company.
The short version: slowing down doesn't mean doing nothing. It means doing the right things with intention instead of doing everything out of anxiety.
Step 5: Recognize what changes when you get this right 🪞
When someone successfully resets their nervous system and breaks the "always on" pattern, here's what I see:
They sleep better
Their team is happier
They themselves are happier
They realize there's a lot more to life than whatever company they're building
They're not neglecting time with family and friends
They're not in bed at 3am staring at the ceiling, ruminating on the past or catastrophizing about the future
They don't need Xanax to sleep
And here's the part that matters for your business: you make better decisions.
You're more pleasant to be around. People like working with you more. They want to spend time in conference rooms with you. They want to build the company with you.
Don't forget that people like spending time with people who are enjoyable.
Your company ends up performing better, in large part because you're more enjoyable to be around.
The unseen cost of being "always on" isn't just your mental health (though that matters). It's the quality of your decisions, the loyalty of your team, and the long-term sustainability of what you're building.
You can't outrun your nervous system. And you can't research your way out of anxiety.
But you can choose to stop the bad momentum. You can choose to focus on one problem. You can choose to build the support system that keeps you grounded.
The choice is yours.
Until next time,
📌 Resources mentioned:
The Executive Detox | Force Multipliers Issue #48
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About Regina Gerbeaux
 | Regina Gerbeaux was the first Chief of Staff to an executive coach who worked with Silicon Valley’s most successful entrepreneurs, including Brian Armstrong (Coinbase), Naval Ravikant (AngelList), Sam Altman (OpenAI / Y Combinator), and Alexandr Wang (Scale). |
Shortly after her role as Chief of Staff, then COO, she opened her own coaching practice, Coaching Founder, and has worked with outrageously talented operators on teams like Delphi AI, dYdX, Astronomer, Fanatics Live, and many more companies backed by funds like Sequoia and Andreessen Horowitz.
Her open-sourced write-ups on Operational Excellence and how to run a scaling company can be found here and her templates can be found here.
She lives in the Pacific Northwest with her partner, daughter, and dog, and can be found frequenting 6:00AM Orangetheory classes or hiking trails nearby.
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