The seven arenas
Seven kinds of weather
An arena is a kind of condition, not a kind of problem. The same person can be steady in one and lost in another. Each arena has one core question, and that question is the same whether you are running a state agency, raising a kid who cannot read yet, or trying out for a team.
Scale
Is this truly dangerous, or just unfamiliar?
Volatility
What is signal, and what is noise?
Slow build
Can I keep going when nothing is paying off yet?
Opposition
Can I hold my position without losing the person?
Depletion
What is this costing, and who is paying?
Visibility
Am I responding to reality, or to how it looks?
Repair
What can be restored, and what must be released?
Every arena page below follows the same shape: what the weather does, what it looks like in three lives, the two directions people drift, the stories they tell themselves, and the work. The repetition is deliberate. Once you know the shape, you can read a new situation in about a minute.