A partner company representative is on a video call with your team. He is brash, cutting, dismissive with nearly every remark. Then he crosses a line. He targets one of your team members, a woman everyone respects, with a comment so disrespectful the entire call goes silent. You feel it immediately. The heat floods your chest. Your face burns. Your jaw clenches. Every molecule in your body is screaming at you to explode, to cut him down in front of everyone, to protect your team with rage. This is the moment. Not the moment you respond. The moment you recognize what is happening inside your own body before you let it become action.

We have spent this week building a framework for ARREST. We talked about momentum, about becoming the Sheriff, about the first thirty seconds, about physical disruption. Today we need to talk about the earliest warning system you have: the physical sensation of the heat rising. Because if you wait until you are already typing the email or already saying the words, you have waited too long. The time to arrest a thought is not when it reaches your mouth or your fingertips. The time to arrest it is when you first feel it approaching the gate. And your body will tell you. Your body always tells you. The question is whether you have trained yourself to listen.

The heat is not metaphorical. It is a real physiological response. Your heart rate spikes. Blood rushes to your face. Your breathing gets shallow. Your muscles tense. Adrenaline floods your system preparing you for fight or flight. This is your body doing exactly what it was designed to do when it perceives a threat. The problem is that most modern threats are not saber-toothed tigers; they are disrespectful emails and condescending colleagues and clients who question your competence. Your body does not know the difference. It just knows a threat has been detected, and it is preparing you to respond with force. If you do not recognize what is happening, if you do not feel the heat rising and name it for what it is, you will respond with that force. And you will regret it.

Here is what I have learned: the heat rising is not the problem. The heat is the alarm system. The problem is ignoring the alarm and walking into the fire anyway. In that video call, I felt every ounce of rage telling me to destroy that man with words. I felt my team watching, waiting to see if I would defend them. I felt the momentum building. And then I felt the heat. That sensation, that flooding of my chest and face, was not my enemy. It was my deputized alarm system telling me that if I opened my mouth in the next three seconds, I would say something that sounded like leadership but was actually just flesh dressed in righteous language. So I paused. I let the heat peak. And then, when I could feel my prefrontal cortex coming back online, I spoke. Calmly. Firmly. Not with the rage I felt but with the authority I carry. I interrupted him and said, “Please treat my staff with respect and refrain from these remarks. If you cannot do that, we will reschedule this call.” He apologized. The call continued. My team saw leadership, not a tantrum.

The work for today is simple but not easy: start paying attention to the heat. When your chest tightens, when your face flushes, when your breathing changes, do not ignore it. Do not tell yourself you are fine. Do not push through it to make your point. Stop. Name it. Say to yourself, “I feel the heat rising. My body is preparing me to fight. This is the alarm.” Then decide whether the fight is worth having and whether now is the time to have it. Most of the time, the answer is no. The heat is not wisdom calling. It is adrenaline disguised as conviction. Tomorrow we close this week by talking about the pause that saves everything, the space between stimulus and response where freedom lives. But today, learn to feel the heat rising. Because if you can feel it early, you can stop it early. And if you can stop it early, you can lead like the person you decided to be instead of reacting like the animal your body thinks you need to be.

I write about leadership at the intersection of timeless principles and modern workplaces. Follow for weekly insights on building teams that actually work. For more articles like this consider subscribing to my Substack at: https://christianleadership.now