Episode 6: Worst, Better, Best

A practical way to dissolve fear, stop spiraling, and get your mind back

Most of us don’t suffer because something happened.

We suffer because we instantly decide what it means.

A situation occurs. The universe stays neutral. Then our mind shows up like a disaster director and starts screening the worst possible film.

That is the moment the spiral begins.

In this episode of The Executive and the Mystic, Fred LaFranc and Kristina Wiltsee unpack a deceptively simple practice Fred has used for years with CEOs, operators, and leaders under pressure. It’s called Worst, Better, Best. It’s a way to confront fear directly, strip it of its hypnosis, and redirect your energy toward outcomes you can actually live with.

It’s also a way to stop being dragged around by your own imagination.

The premise: the universe is neutral. Your meaning-making is not.

Fred starts with an axiom he returns to constantly.

The universe is neutral. Something happens. It just happens.

There’s no good or bad in the event itself until we assign meaning.

But humans don’t like neutrality. Neutrality gives the mind no railing. So it manufactures one.

Usually the darkest one.

We imagine catastrophe. We run scenarios. We build a whole inner courtroom where we prosecute our own future. Then we act as if that movie is real, and our nervous system reacts accordingly.

This is how people wake up at 3 a.m. staring at the ceiling, rehearsing doom.

So Fred’s move is straightforward.

If the mind wants to go dark, fine. We go dark on purpose. We go all the way. We turn on the flashlight, look under the bed, and prove whether the boogeyman is real.

The practice: Worst, Better, Best

1) Worst

Fred asks people to describe the worst possible outcome in detail.

Not vaguely. Not abstractly. Viscerally.

Lose the job. Lose the business. Lose the marriage. Go bankrupt. Get sick. Get exposed. Get rejected. Whatever the brain is circling, we name it.

Then he asks the question that breaks the trance:

Can you survive it?

Almost everyone answers the same way.

“I’d rather not, but yes.”

That answer matters more than people realize, because it collapses the core engine of fear. Fear survives on the belief that you won’t make it. Once you prove you can make it, the fear loses its leverage.

Fred’s line is blunt and accurate:

Sometimes you crawl through gravel before you stand up.

Life does knock people down. The work is learning you’re not annihilated by it.

Once you’ve faced the worst and acknowledged survival, Fred says: good. Get rid of that fear. Don’t keep rehearsing it. Whatever you fixate on, emotionally and mentally, you tend to create.

So stop feeding it.

2) Better

Now we move up the scale.

Maybe you don’t lose the job, but you take a hit.

Maybe you don’t lose the relationship, but it gets strained.

Maybe the outcome stings, but it doesn’t destroy you.

Fred names the distinction that changes everything:

Pain is inevitable. Suffering is optional.

Better still includes pain. Better does not include obsession.

Then he asks again:

Can you survive it?

Compared to worst, the answer becomes easy.

“Yes, of course.”

Now the fear dissolves further. The nervous system starts to relax because it has evidence. It has a plan. It has range.

3) Best

Then we go where most people secretly struggle to go.

Best.

The best possible outcome within the context of what you’re facing. The clean resolution. The unexpected win. The birds singing version of reality.

And Fred asks the same question again:

Can you survive that?

People laugh at first, because it sounds ridiculous.

But it’s not.

A lot of people sabotage themselves right before the best becomes real. Some people are more comfortable in fear than in peace. Some people are loyal to struggle. Some people don’t trust good things. Some people feel safer when they’re bracing.

So “Can you survive best?” is a diagnostic.

Do you have self-sabotage wired into your system?

Because if you do, it may be part of why you’re in the circumstance you’re in.

Fred adds an important leadership truth that many people resist:

You are responsible for your condition. You are not innocent of it.

That isn’t shame. That’s power.

Victimhood says, “This happened to me, I’m powerless.”

Ownership says, “I’m in this, therefore I can change it.”

Why this works: fear dissolves when you stop circling it

Kristina expands the practice into something even more specific.

Fear isn’t just a thought. It’s often a felt space in the body.

Some people experience it kinesthetically. Tight chest. racing heart. nausea. buzzing. dread. heat. bracing.

Her move is the opposite of avoidance:

Don’t go around the fear. Go into it.

Not with the goal of making it disappear. With the goal of actually finding it.

And when you approach fear with curiosity instead of resistance, something weird happens. It loses its shape. The charge drops. The fog thins.

Kristina describes it like loosening slack on a rope. Fear pulls you toward a reality like a sail catching wind. When you go into the feeling consciously, you detach the hook. The fear no longer has to stay on the menu as your future.

A real-life example: what happens when you don’t do the work

Kristina tells a story from her client work.

A CEO. High pressure. Always a lot going on. Strong patterns. Fear rising in the background.

She assigns a practice: go look at your worst fears. Meditate. Face them.

He doesn’t do it.

Then he shows up the next week and admits he blew up a relationship. Suddenly he’s paranoid. Suddenly he’s hiding. Suddenly everything feels justified.

Kristina’s read is sharp:

Instead of addressing fear, he traveled straight into the heart of it.

This is how fear operates when it isn’t faced. It doesn’t stay an abstraction. It becomes a room you live inside. It becomes the water you don’t recognize as water.

And then you start making “reasonable” decisions from within a distorted state.

That’s the trap. Fear always feels justified when you’re inside it.

The bigger point: you’re not reacting to reality. You’re reacting to a story.

Fred brings it home.

Many of the circumstances we fear are our imagination brought to life. Not because we’re magical. Because attention and emotion shape behavior. Behavior shapes outcomes.

If you are addicted to worst-case thinking, you will make decisions that create worst-case conditions.

But the moment you admit you helped create your reality, you regain agency.

And with agency, you can reroute.

This is where Worst, Better, Best becomes a gateway practice. It takes you out of helplessness and puts you back into choice.

It also does something quietly profound.

It removes the emotional roller coaster.

You stop cycling through anguish, dread, and compulsive rehearsal. You get steadier. You become responsive instead of reactive. You regain equanimity.

Not because life gets perfect, but because you stop being governed by your fear.

A simple way to try this today

Pick one thing you’re currently avoiding. One fear you keep steering around.

Then do this, on paper:

1. Worst: What is the worst outcome you’re imagining? Be specific.

2. Survival: If that happened, could you survive it? What would you do first?

3. Better: What’s a more likely, still uncomfortable outcome?

4. Survival: Could you survive that?

5. Best: What is the best outcome that could realistically happen?

6. Survival: If it went well, could you allow it? Or would you sabotage it?

Then ask one final question.

Where is my energy going right now?

Worst, better, or best?

Because whatever you’re feeding is the one you’re rehearsing into existence.

Closing thought: fear is a boulder. Life will keep highlighting it until it moves.

Kristina names something many people sense but don’t articulate.

If the universe is love, or even if it’s simply neutral, it has a strange way of pointing at what’s blocking your flow.

Fear is one of the biggest boulders in the field.

So the invitation isn’t to become fearless.

It’s to become honest. Curious. willing.

To face the fear you keep orbiting, so it stops ruling your decisions.

Worst, Better, Best is one of the simplest ways to start.

And if you do it consistently, life tends to shift toward better, often the high end of better. Sometimes, yes, the best.

But either way, you’re not trapped in the dark anymore.