The Good Entrepreneur Newsletter is written by Nick Kennedy and is an extension of his executive coaching program, which guides leaders in building principled businesses and powerful personal legacies. If you were forwarded this email and liked it, get the next issue delivered to your inbox.

Let me tell you about three people I know well.

One is a senior executive at a well-funded company. She's sharp, magnetic, the kind of person who can walk into a room and shift the energy before she opens her mouth. She's also been ordering drinks alone at the hotel bar at midnight — not celebrating, just filling a silence that shows up whenever there's nothing left to close.

One is a COO in the middle of a company's most chaotic growth phase. He's the one who holds it together when everything falls apart — steady, loyal, the person who makes sure the wheels stay on. He's also quietly absorbing problems that should have been delegated three levels down, burning through his reserves for a fire that never quite goes out.

One is an attorney who keeps declining the obvious next steps — the partnerships, the titles, the roles that would look right on paper. He knows every framework for the decision. He's been reworking the same analysis for months. Something in him knows he's supposed to build something, not just advise on it.

Three different people. Three different industries. Three different problems. One pattern. They're all addicts.

I did my 12-step work. Not for alcohol. Not for substances. For pride.

I was the guy who couldn't let go of control. The guy who had to be the smartest person in the room. The guy who made things happen through sheer force of will.

My addiction wasn't a bottle or a pill. It was the need to be right, to win, to prove something.

The first three steps of the 12-step program are brutal in their simplicity: I can't. He can. I think I'll let Him.

So simple and yet impossible by yourself.

The problem isn't the intensity. High performers are intense. That's not a bug — it's a feature. The problem is what that intensity latches onto when it doesn't have a worthy target. The high performer’s nervous system craves stimulation. When there's no deal to close, no meeting to run, no problem to solve — the bottle fills that gap.

The executive needs stimulation to operate. When she’s bored she turns to her alcohol to mute the silence. The COO's identity is built around being the fixer. When things are going well, he creates problems to fix. The attorney's brain is hardwired for discovery. When he's working on a boring matter, he manufactures complexity to feed that hunger.

None of them has an addiction problem. They have a channeling problem.

Here's what I've learned coaching people for the better part of a decade: you can't beat an addictive nervous system with willpower. The energy doesn't disappear. It just finds a new target. The wrong question is: “How do I stop”? The right question is: “Where do I point this energy?”

The executive may need to drink less. She also needs to run more. The same restless energy that drives her into hotel bars at midnight, if channeled into five miles at dawn, becomes a competitive advantage.

The COO doesn't need to care less. He needs to redirect that care toward developing people rather than rescuing them.

The attorney doesn't need to slow down. He needs a harder problem to wrestle with. A problem bigger than himself.

The gap between what your head knows and what your body is doing.

Your head knows the bar is a bad idea. Your nervous system is screaming for stimulation. Your head knows you should delegate. Your identity won't let you. Your head knows you're ready to build. Your fear keeps you rescuing.

Closing that gap isn't about discipline. It's about design. Build a better addiction.

Create structures, commitments, and targets that your nervous system can sink its teeth into — so it stops looking for the wrong thing.

You probably know someone like this. You might be someone like this. The intensity that makes you hard to live with is the same intensity that makes you extraordinary. The question isn't whether to turn it down. The question is where to point it.

When my addiction to pride made my life unmanageable, I thought I was alone.

After my first 12-step meeting, I thought I was one of a few.

Once I completed step 12, I realized that all of us are addicted. Just some of us choose healthier addictions than others.

Talk soon,