Rule #2: Don’t Make a Problem out of a Problem

I’m driving. It’s mid-October now, and Dubai’s heat finally gives way to something gentler. I am with my wife, Aylin, cruising through a city that feels both foreign and familiar. I flip through podcasts to find something to listen to on our 30 minutes commute. A lick a button a voice fills the car—calm, measured, thoughtful. It’s Greg McKeown. He’s promoting his new book, but that's not why I'm interested. For me, McKeown isn't just another author. His first book, Essentialism, kickstarted my reading journey years ago. It pulled me away from the chaos of ambition without clarity, toward simplicity and meaning. Listening to him feels like meeting an old friend who once guided me down a road I desperately needed to travel.

Then McKeown drops a phrase that hits me in the chest:

"Don’t make a problem out of a problem."

I glance at Aylin. She doesn’t seem to notice the impact those words have on me—but inside my head, the gears are turning. I know immediately: this is the next rule.

Seeing Clearly Through the Fog

There’s an old Zen proverb that captures this idea perfectly:

"If you can solve your problem, then what is the need of worrying? If you cannot solve it, then what is the use of worrying?"

Yet, how often do we do precisely the opposite? How often do we create additional problems by overreacting, panicking, and layering stress on top of stress?

Imagine spilling coffee on your shirt before an important meeting. You’re frustrated, anxious—furious even. You tell yourself it's going to ruin your day, your confidence, your image. Your irritation mounts. You snap at your spouse, get annoyed with the traffic, lose your temper with a colleague. Suddenly, what was originally just a coffee stain is now a chain reaction of negativity.

You've made a problem out of a problem.

The stain itself was minor. Your reaction—the anger, the frustration—was unnecessary and self-inflicted. Most of life's daily stresses work exactly this way.

The Trap of Amplification

We do this as managers all the time. An employee misses a deadline, a key client leaves, or revenue takes a slight dip. Instantly, we catastrophize. We escalate minor setbacks into career-defining failures. Our anxieties paint scenarios far worse than reality, and soon, we’re dealing with multiple layers of problems—most of which we created ourselves.

In psychology, this is called amplification. It’s our tendency to exaggerate problems simply by overthinking them. The reality is rarely as dramatic as our imaginations suggest.

Marcus Aurelius warned of this very thing two thousand years ago. In Meditations, he wrote:

“We suffer more often in imagination than in reality.”

Yet despite knowing this wisdom, we continually trap ourselves in spirals of worry. We make problems bigger, more complicated, more difficult to solve. But life doesn’t have to work this way.

Managers, Calmness, and the Art of De-escalation

As a manager, your role isn’t just to solve problems—it's to frame them. How you react shapes your team's perspective. Panic breeds panic; calm creates calm.

Circling back to Bezos who knows this better than most. At Amazon, he emphasizes something called "high-velocity decision-making." He pushes his teams to distinguish clearly between real crises and everyday noise. Bezos argues that good leaders recognize quickly when a problem is simply a "bump in the road" versus a genuine existential threat. Acting decisively means not treating every small crisis as though the sky is falling. In fact, Bezos famously encourages his teams to resist overreacting: if the decision can be reversed easily and isn’t life-altering, just make it and move forward. Don't agonize. Don't escalate unnecessarily. Don't let something trivial consume your energy and paralyze your progress.

Because here's the uncomfortable truth: the decision to treat a minor problem as major is itself a decision—and it’s rarely the right one.

General Eisenhower understood this clearly during World War II. When problems arose, some urgent and some trivial, he quickly assessed their real significance. He never allowed minor setbacks—delays, logistics issues, small tactical errors—to overshadow the ultimate mission. Eisenhower had a phrase he often repeated to his generals: “Let’s not lose our heads.” In other words, let's not make a bigger problem out of something manageable.

The Freedom of Perspective

Marcus Aurelius, the Stoic emperor, said it best in his personal notes, collected in the Meditations:

“Choose not to be harmed—and you won’t feel harmed. Don’t feel harmed, and you haven’t been.”

It's a powerful concept. What he means is this: problems aren't simply what happen to you. Problems are defined by how you respond to them. You can't control everything—but you can control your perception and your response. This is where true power lies.

Imagine how much mental clarity you could achieve if every time something went wrong, instead of panicking, you simply paused and asked, “Is this really a crisis, or am I turning a minor inconvenience into one?”

The Decision of Indecision

Every day, we face crossroads where we must choose how seriously to take the problems we encounter. Sometimes the most powerful decision you make is choosing not to create drama around minor setbacks. Recognize that when you panic and exaggerate the stakes, your team will follow your lead.

But calmness is contagious, too.

Remember, not making a conscious decision is still a decision.
- Allowing yourself to be overwhelmed by trivial problems is choosing chaos.
- Allowing your anxiety to take over is a choice.
- Allowing distractions to steal your focus is, in itself, a decision.

As Greg McKeown reminded me again in that podcast: most setbacks are smaller than you think. You’re allowed to see a situation and say:

"I refuse to escalate this."

In doing so, you retain clarity, focus, and energy for solving the real problems—those truly worthy of your attention.

So, as managers and leaders, we must resist the urge to amplify every challenge. Resist the temptation to turn setbacks into catastrophes. Don’t make a problem out of a problem.

Pause. Evaluate clearly. Act calmly.

Don’t make a problem out of a problem.