If you've ever kept moving through a hard season and had someone mistake your momentum for avoidance — this episode is for you.
Triage is active. Avoidance is passive. The problem is that in a heavily therapized culture, any forward motion without visible processing gets read as denial. But movement can be the processing. Clarity doesn't always precede action — sometimes it follows it.
In this episode of Current Mind, Nneka draws on research from psychologists Richard Lazarus and Susan Folkman, Yale's Susan Nolen-Hoeksema, and organizational psychologist Tasha Eurich to make the case that knowing which coping style you're in — and knowing your why internally — is what separates founders and creative practitioners who build through hard seasons from those who stall inside them.
This one is for the managers, the creators, the practitioners who are doing the work to stay in — and watching it look like chaos from the outside. You know what you're doing. Keep moving.
STUDIES & ARTICLES
Lazarus & Folkman — Stress, Appraisal, and Coping (1984) The foundational coping research. No free full text available — it's a book. Best to cite it verbally and link to the publisher page:
https://www.springer.com/gp/book/9780826141910
BOOKS
What is Current Mind?
Welcome to Current Mind! I’m Nneka Mogbo, founder and MD of Úrú Collective, sharing my thoughts on creativity, strategy, and the challenges of building something new. This podcast is a space for honest reflections on business, culture, and personal growth—from the evolving world of speaking and branding to the creative industries shaping Africa and the Middle East. Whether you're a thought leader, storyteller, or just figuring things out, Current Mind is about processing out loud, embracing uncertainty, and building with intention. Let’s figure it out—together.