The Cost of Comfort (2 Min Read) | Vol. 201

May 1, 2026

“Tension is not conflict, and discomfort is not harm.”  – Charlie Gilkey

The Cost of Comfort

The biggest tax on your business may be the conversations you’re avoiding. Addressing underperformance, chasing a late payment, delivering bad news, renegotiating a deal, or parting ways. These are tough conversations.

It’s the moments where money, relationships, and identity collide. The first two are obvious. The last, identity, tends to be the most overlooked and the most damaging. Did all this happen because I’m a bad leader? You cycle through all the woulda, coulda, shouldas, and beat up your self-confidence like a piñata at a homerun hitter’s birthday party. 

It feels personal. 

That’s why they get delayed. We tell ourselves it’ll resolve on its own. It rarely does. And the longer we wait, the more expensive the conversation becomes financially and emotionally.

I’ve lived this. And I’ve heard it on repeat in my coaching. It goes something like this… You notice a team member underperforming in January. You tell yourself to give them more time to work it out. By March, their teammates (or you) are picking up the slack and resenting it. By May, your top performer quits because she’s tired of carrying the extra load. The conversation you needed to have in January would have taken 15 uncomfortable minutes. The one you’re having in May is a resignation you can’t undo. And you still have an underperformer. 

On our friendship walk in Japan, Charlie said, “Tension is not conflict, and discomfort is not harm.” This is how kind leaders fail. 

Tension is what happens when a conversation matters. Conflict is what happens when tension goes unaddressed. Discomfort is the price of growth. Harm is what happens when silence does the talking. 

These aren’t hard conversations. They’re necessary ones. It’s not about surviving them. It’s about practicing them. The discomfort you feel walking into them isn’t a sign you’re doing something wrong. It’s a sign you care about the outcome. That’s tension, not conflict. That’s discomfort, not harm.

One question to ponder in your thinking time: What conversation have I been avoiding and what is the delay costing me?

Make an Impact!
Jay Papasan
Author I CEO I Coach