One of my favorite Bible verses is Matthew 6:34: "Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own."
I've come back to that verse more times than I can count in the moments where life handed me something I didn't see coming and couldn't do much about.
We all have those moments. A phone call with bad news. A job that disappears without warning. A health scare that changes how you think about everything. A decision that feels too big to get wrong. These aren't market events or economic cycles. They're just life, arriving on its own schedule with no regard for your plans.
A few years ago, I was facing one of those moments. After years of working in corporate financial services, I had reached a point where I knew the model I was operating within wasn't allowing me to serve clients the way they deserved. The question wasn't whether to leave. It was whether I dared to do it. Starting over as an independent advisor meant giving up the security of an established firm, rebuilding from scratch, and betting on myself in a way that felt uncertain at the time.
There were plenty of things I couldn't control about that decision. I couldn't control how clients would respond, the timing of the market or what the industry would look like a few years later. What I could control was the quality of my work, the way I treated people, and whether the decision was rooted in sound reasoning. It was a risk, but a calculated one. And looking back, it was one of the best decisions I ever made, not because everything went perfectly, but because I stopped letting fear of the unknown decide for me.
That experience shaped how I think about uncertainty in every part of life, including how I talk with clients about their finances.
What We Spend Our Energy On
Think about how much mental energy goes toward things we have no real power over. Politics, interest rates, what the Federal Reserve might do, what some analysts on television says will happen next quarter. In investing, worry doesn't only show up when markets fall. Sometimes it's louder when they're rising. A client reads something online, hears a tip at the golf course, sees a segment about the next big opportunity, and suddenly the fear isn't about losing money, but rather the fear of missing out.
What I've noticed over the years is that the people who navigate uncertainty best, in their finances and in their lives, aren't the ones who predicted correctly. They're the ones who got clear on what they could influence and let go of the rest. They made decisions based on what they knew, accepted what they didn’t, and kept moving.
That's harder than it sounds. Our instincts push us toward action, toward doing something when uncertainty arrives. Sitting with it feels uncomfortable. But in most cases, the best response to uncertainty isn't a quick decision; it's a clear head and confidence in your planning.
What We Can Actually Control
In a financial plan, that means focusing on the variables that are actually within reach. Costs. Risk. Diversification. How we respond when emotions start driving. Whether we let a scary headline override a plan that was built for these kinds of moments.
In life, it means the same thing. You can't control whether a difficult season shows up. You can control how prepared you are for it, how clearly you think when it does, and whether the decisions you make in the middle of it are ones you'll be comfortable with on the other side.
I went through that process when I left the corporate world. Clients go through it when they lose a job, face a health diagnosis, or make a major financial decision that feels uncertain. The specifics are always different. The principle is the same.
Figure out what you can control. Put your energy there. And give yourself permission to release the rest.
"Tomorrow will worry about itself."
It's a simple idea. It doesn't make the uncertainty disappear. But it does make it a lot easier to think clearly when it shows up.