How to Preserve Your Sanity During Chaos

Jun 12
7 min read

When life gets hectic, capable captains don’t panic — they correct course.

There’s a phrase I keep coming back to — one that captures everything I’ve learned about running a business through turbulent seasons:

"Capable Captains Make Constant Course Corrections."

It’s not about having perfect conditions. It’s not about calm seas or a clear horizon. Real captains (the ones who actually get their ships to port) make micro-adjustments constantly. The destination stays fixed; the route has to adjust based on current conditions, like a sailboat tacking back and forth.

Something we learned from our experience running our business is that, especially when things are the most hectic and chaotic, you need to pay attention to the machine, to the systems and processes. Intuitively, most owners feel they don't have the time when it's super busy to slow down enough to do the assessments, to check in on their systems. But that is when any chink in the process is most likely to show up. Don't skip this opportunity to give your operation a close look.

Have you been treating your course corrections as optional — something you’ll get back to once things calm down?

That instinct is understandable. It’s also how a small wobble becomes a full collapse.

The Board That Kept Us Honest

At Hawaiian Vacations, we knew that the day-to-day had a way of swallowing everything. We were building something real: an actual company with actual moving parts. But the gravity of the urgent was relentless.

So we built in a counterweight.

We put together a Board of Directors: three business leaders from completely different industries. Not competitors. Not vendors. People who had no stake in our decisions and no reason to tell us what we wanted to hear. We met with them as a group at least twice a year, sometimes three times.

And here’s what that enforced: preparation. Before every meeting, our department heads had to show up with their work done. Core KPI reviews. Department reports. Financial analyses. Strategic plans. That external accountability created a discipline that the chaos of the day-to-day simply could not override.

There were moments when their perspective helped us steer in a direction we never would have chosen on our own. That outside viewpoint, that was calm, detached, and seasoned, was worth its weight in gold.

The wisdom of people who aren’t in your chaos is one of the most underused assets in business.

Who in your life has that kind of perspective on your business — and are you giving them the chance to use it?

The Stool That Can’t Afford a Short Leg

I like to think of my six principles— Systems, Measurement, Leverage, Culture, Teams, and Customer Service — as the six legs of a stool.

A stool with six legs is remarkably stable. But only if all six legs are roughly the same length.

When the pace picks up, one leg may get neglected. It might be the team culture conversations that stop happening. Or the KPI reviews that get pushed to "next month." Or the customer service check-ins that fall off the calendar. Nobody intends for this to happen. The chaos just wins, and the stool starts to wobble.

The periodic assessment (quarterly, semi-annual, whatever cadence fits your business) is how you catch the short leg before the stool tips over.

A well-oiled machine works only as well as its weakest link.

Which leg of your stool do you tend to ignore when the pace picks up?

Who Will Nudge You?

This is the question I ask every owner I work with, and it’s the one most people can’t answer cleanly:

Who will nudge you to make sure you stay on track?

Not who will cheerlead you, nor who will sympathize when things get hard. Who will actually hold you accountable to doing the work — the assessments, the planning sessions, the honest look in the mirror?

The options aren’t complicated. Get an accountability partner. Set benchmarks that you actually review. Have a coach or a mastermind group where you can’t hide. Any of these can keep the commitment alive when the grind tries to bury it.

And if none of those feel accessible right now, at the very minimum, calendar the reminders to do the assessments. Put them in the calendar like a board meeting, a commitment that is non-negotiable. Because that’s exactly what they are.

The Inputs That Keep Your Thinking Sharp

When things get hectic, most people default to whoever and whatever is loudest around them. That’s a recipe for staying stuck.

"You are the average of the five people you spend the most time with." — Jim Rohn

"The key is not spending time, but investing it." — Stephen R. Covey

When the business is pulling at you from every direction, the temptation is to stop reading, stop listening to the podcasts that stretch your thinking, stop seeking out conversations that challenge your assumptions. But those inputs (your network, what you read, who you spend your time with) are precisely what keep your judgment sharp when the pressure is highest.

I’ve learned that the people who navigate chaos well aren’t the ones working the hardest. They’re the ones whose thinking is clearest. And clarity is a function of what you feed your mind.

Clarity is not a personality trait. It’s a practice.

What inputs are you protecting even when you’re busy — and which ones have quietly disappeared?

The Someday That Almost Stayed Someday

Let me tell you where this all started, because it didn’t start with a framework. It started with a feeling.

John started Hawaiian Vacations in 1982. I was his consultant from the beginning, and a few years after we married (in 1983), I closed my own business to join him in running the company. For years, we were owner-operators in the fullest sense: personally financing the company, making every hiring decision, guiding the marketing, running the operations. John signed every check. He swept the sidewalk in front of the office.

We were buried. And buried is a kind word.

We had dreams. Real ones. Long vacations. Time on the boat. Room to be present with our family and take better care of our health. But every single one of those dreams had been tagged with the same dangerous word: Someday.

The one thing we refused to let become “Someday” was investing in ourselves. Even when there wasn’t time, we found mentors, took courses, and studied. We worked on the business instead of just being in it. Even when we were working long hours day after day, that habit, that single non-negotiable commitment, is what eventually gave us the path forward.

Our determination and commitment to learning how to build a company that did not demand our presence in the daily operations was what made the sale to Alaska Airlines possible.

Someday is not a destination. Course corrections are.

EXERCISE Your Commitment to Continual Improvement

Before you move on, take 10 minutes with these questions:

What is your assessment cadence? Quarterly? Semi-annual? What date does the next one go on the calendar — today?
Who is in your inner circle for these assessments? A business partner, your department heads, an outside board?
What accountability tool will you use? A partner, a coach, a mastermind group, and benchmarks you review on a schedule?
Looking at your six-legged stool — Systems, Measurement, Leverage, Culture, Teams, Customer Service — which leg is currently the shortest in your business?

PODCAST SPOTLIGHT

Passion Millionaire Podcast with Robert Roth

Robert Roth and I had a wide-ranging conversation about the full story behind Hawaiian Vacations — from survival mode to carrying over 35,000 passengers a year between Alaska and Hawaii, and ultimately being acquired by Alaska Airlines. We talked about the bold decisions that changed everything: chartering entire planes during a crisis, building one of the first online booking systems in the travel industry, and using open-book management to create a team so aligned they could run the business without us.

If you want real, practical insights on scaling, systems, and building a business that gives you freedom instead of trapping you, this one delivers.

🎧 Ral West: From Hawaiian Vacations to Cruise Ships and Building an 8-Figure Tourism Empire

Final Thoughts

Chaos is not the enemy of a well-run business. It is the test of one.

The owners who come out the other side aren’t the ones who waited for things to calm down before taking care of their business. They’re the ones who built systems for course-correcting in the chaos. They committed to periodic assessments, external accountability, intentional inputs, and the discipline of working on the business even when the business wouldn’t stop pulling them in.

You don’t have to be perfect. You just have to be a capable captain, making course corrections, one degree at a time.

Want to learn more about how to do this for your business? Reach out and talk to me - I have been there and done that.

Keep course-correcting, keep livin’ the dream.

Ral West

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