FOCO - Fear Of Complexity Overload
How I got stuck in the "I can’t learn anything new until I’ve learned everything I should already know" spiral
Exactly one year ago, I found the courage to hit “send” on the very first issue of this newsletter. I pushed past the fear of being judged, hoping that sharing my mistakes and reflections might help someone else along the way.
Today, Lead Through Mistakes turns one.
Happy birthday, and here’s to many more. 🎉
Have you ever tried to dive deeper into a topic, maybe read an article or start a book, only to realize you first need to understand a whole other concept beforehand? And then that concept leads to something else you’re not too familiar with… and then another one after that?
Eventually, you just close everything, open up whatever social app is closest, and with a mix of frustration and resignation, tell yourself, «Now’s not the time».
That’s what I’ve come to call FOCO: Fear Of Complexity Overload.
(And no, don’t bother Googling it - it’s not some official disorder. It’s just a term I came up with to describe that specific kind of mental block, and frustration)
This article isn’t strictly about leadership, but since FOCO can definitely show up there too, I figured some of these thoughts might resonate, and maybe even help, someone else.
It’s not just FOMO - it’s a spiral
It isn’t about missing out. It’s about getting sucked into a spiral of complexity, where each new concept leads to another, and then another, until it all feels too overwhelming to even start. It’s the fear of not being ready to begin.
It’s a mental loop where you keep putting things off because:
you feel like you don’t know enough yet
you want to make sure you’ve got the full context
you’re convinced there’s a “right” order to learn everything
Spoiler: that order doesn’t exist. And meanwhile, you’re stuck.
What if you’re in a leadership role?
FOCO might be even more dangerous when you’re in a leadership role. Because as a leader, you don’t need to know everything - you need to make decisions even when you don’t have all the answers.
I’ve already touched on decision paralysis in a previous issue:
But FOCO is a close cousin - quieter, maybe, but just as sneaky.
If you wait until you’ve read every doc, checked every repo, talked to every stakeholder, two things may happen:
Your team waits
Your team notices that you’re waiting
And you know what happens when a team feels that their leader isn’t sure? They don’t follow. They lose trust. They fall apart.
I don’t even have to dig too far back to find an example of when FOCO nearly got in the way of someone on my team. I actually started writing this post a few weeks ago. At first, I’d called it FOM∞ – Fear of Missing Infinity. But just two days before publishing it, during a 1:1 with one of my teammates, I realized I was falling into the same trap again. This time, though, it wasn’t about me - it was about someone else.
We were talking about personal growth, and about books she was planning to read to dig deeper into a challenge she’s currently facing. She told me she had just ordered a book that she felt could really help.
My first instinct? I told her that before reading that one, she should probably study another, more foundational topic first. Which, of course, would’ve delayed everything.
I paused. And that’s when it hit me: I was doing it again. Not to myself this time, but to someone else. That same behavior - trying to optimize the order, waiting to be “fully ready” - wasn’t just holding me back. It was starting to hold others back too.
How to get out of it (or at least not stay stuck in it)
FOCO is rooted in a myth: the myth of the person who knows everything. But you don’t need to know everything. You need to know what matters right now, and have the courage to start anyway. Even when you’re missing a piece. Even when you feel small in the face of all that complexity.
It’s kind of funny that I’m here telling you how to get out of it, or at least avoid staying stuck, considering the story I just told you. The truth is, over time I’ve tried a bunch of different tricks: building mind maps, finding short-form content to quickly fill in the gaps, and so on.
But honestly? None of that has been as effective as one thing. One thing that sounds simple, but rarely feels that way:
Start anyway.
Start right at the point where you feel the urge to shut it all down.
Pushing through that resistance, that moment of overwhelm, usually leads to one surprising realization: it’s not as hard as you thought. And no, learning doesn’t always have to follow the most logical order.
TL;DR
FOCO is a quiet trap. You slip into it without noticing, and it convinces you that you’re stuck because you’re missing something. But most of the time, the only thing you’re really missing is permission to start from where you are.
I still fall into it sometimes. But every time I choose to begin anyway, despite it all, I realize the world doesn’t explode.
Credits: Illustration 1