The Fires No One Sees You Fighting*

A new conversation on the Story Warrior Podcast with Gideon Fukuay — and why I'd love you to listen.

Every entrepreneur fights two kinds of fires.

The visible ones are loud. Payroll. Logistics. Getting the product out the door. Finding the next client.

The invisible ones are quiet. And they're often the ones doing the real damage.

Self-doubt. Procrastination. Distraction. The pull of an old habit. The slow loss of your why. And the one almost no one says out loud: how lonely it gets at the top.

Gideon Fukuay — the Story Warrior — spent his early career fighting actual, physical fires before he moved into helping people fight the invisible ones. So this conversation went straight to the fires that never show up on a balance sheet.

Here's the mechanism I kept coming back to.

It always starts with a thought. A quiet story you tell yourself — I'm not good enough. I'm too different to connect. That thought becomes an emotion. The emotion drives your actions. And your actions, repeated day after day, become your life.

Change the story at the root, and everything downstream begins to move.

I know the loneliness one from the inside. For a long time, my life was my work.

And when I was still climbing, a good friend kept telling me: you should start your own business. I kept saying no. I loved my security too much.

One December, he made me a deal. He'd pay for the whole setup — the lawyer, the accountant, all of it — if I said yes by January 1st. So I said yes. The company sat dormant for a couple of years… until the day I lost my job. And there it was, already built, waiting for me.

His name is Eric.

Everyone needs an Eric.

On the Story Warrior Podcast, Gideon and I got into all of it:

• visible fires versus the invisible ones — and why the invisible ones are just as decimating

• the sequence that quietly runs your life: a thought → an emotion → an action → your life

• the loneliness at the top that founders can't say out loud, and what to do with it

• losing your why — especially when you were the one "elected" by the family to carry the business

• procrastination, distraction, and addiction as invisible fires — and why I always go to what feeds them, never the label

• using self-hypnosis for fear — yes, even a real fear of flying

• and why you need to find your Eric before the fire, not after

Here's what I most want you to take from it.

You don't cultivate real support in the middle of a crisis. By then, everyone is busy with their own fires.

You build those relationships now — quietly, genuinely, one true connection at a time — so that when your fire comes, someone picks up.

And when you feel strapped, pulled in ten directions, unable to move? Go back to your why. Start there. One step at a time.

🎙️ Listen to the full conversation with Gideon Fukuay on the Story Warrior Podcast → https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CEej_-jELi0

And when you've listened, come tell me: who's the Eric in your life? Faites-moi un petit coucou. I'd love to hear.

Hypnotiquement vôtre, Janylène xo

Janylène xo