September 1, 2026
The summer is over. The kids are going back to school. The routine is returning, and if you’re honest, the stress didn’t really go anywhere; it just changed its shape. Here’s why, and here’s what to do with that.
This has been one hot summer. Not a bad one, not a good one — just one of those summers that arrived with its own particular set of moving parts (or balls) and it asked you to keep all of them in the air while expecting you to also try to find a holiday that didn’t cost the equivalent of a small mortgage, all whilst working through heat that, in a non-air-conditioned home offices, turned every afternoon into a genuine test of character.
I have spent the last few weeks doing exactly that. Working through 37 degree heat, laptop open, staying as focused and positive as the temperature would allow, while also navigating one of those months that feels significant, in a way that is hard to write. My daughter is starting university this month, studying psychology, and while I am enormously proud of her (and quietly delighted that she has chosen a subject that runs so close to the work I do), getting her to that point involved the kind of logistical complexity that project managers would recognise, and most parents simply call September.
It has been a lot, and I suspect, if you are being honest, yours has too. But here is the thing, and I keep coming back to it. It is the reason I wanted to write about it this week, it is the fact that this summer did not feel the same to everyone. The stress of it, the weight of it, the specific flavour of exhaustion it produced, all of it depended enormously on who you are, how you are wired, and which of the four tribal types you happen to be. Understanding that is not just an interesting observation, it is the difference between beating yourself up for struggling and actually understanding why.
If you are a Hunter
The Hunter’s summer stress is almost entirely about losing structure and momentum. Hunters are driven, direct and goal-oriented, and a summer full of disrupted routines, competing priorities and the logistical noise of kids at home feels like driving with the handbrake on. The frustration builds not because the summer is bad but because the Hunter’s natural operating speed has been reduced without their permission, and that loss of control sits badly with a personality that is most alive when moving toward something with clear purpose.
The good news for Hunters is that September feels like a release. The routine returns, the goals sharpen, and the energy that has been building all summer has somewhere to go. If you are a Hunter reading this, you are probably already three weeks into your planning.
If you are a Protector
The Protector’s summer stress is relational, it comes from watching the people around them struggle and being unable to cleanly fix it. Protectors are loyal, steady, and deeply attuned to their tribe’s emotional state, which means a summer of financial pressure, family tension, and competing needs lands with particular weight because they absorb everyone else’s stress alongside their own, without always having a language for what it costs them.
Protectors also struggle most with the guilt of not doing enough — not the Hunter’s frustration at being slowed down, but the quieter, more personal concern that they should have managed it better, planned more carefully, protected the people around them more effectively. If this sounds familiar, the summer probably felt heavier than it should have, and the return to routine brings relief tinged with the slight anxiety of what comes next.
If you are a Gatherer
The Gatherer’s summer stress is financial and logistical. Gatherers are detail-oriented, process-driven, and deeply uncomfortable with uncertainty, and a summer that involves unpredictable costs, disrupted systems, and decisions made on the fly is the kind of chaos that makes a Gatherer’s brain work overtime. The holiday that costs too much, the budget that stretched further than planned, the lack of a clear schedule. All of it registers as a threat to an order that Gatherers rely on to feel safe and effective.
The return to routine is the Gatherer’s favourite moment of the year, because it means the systems can be restored, the plans can be rebuilt, and the world can be organised into something manageable again. If you spent August with a low-level anxiety that you couldn’t quite name, you are probably a Gatherer, and September is your season.
If you are a Healer
The Healer’s summer stress is the most invisible and the most exhausting, because Healers spend the entire summer making sure everyone else is alright and rarely stop to ask the same question of themselves. Healers are empathetic, people-centred and genuinely fulfilled by the wellbeing of those around them. Which means they are also the most likely to arrive at September completely depleted, having given everything they had to the people they love and left nothing in reserve.
If you are a Healer, the summer probably looked fine from the outside, the kids were looked after, the relationships were maintained, the logistics were managed, and it felt quietly exhausting from the inside. The most important thing you can do this September is give yourself the same level of attention you spent the summer giving to everyone else.
Not one of those descriptions is a problem to be fixed. They are simply four different ways of being human, each with its own particular relationship to manage, change and with the specific chaos of a British summer, that occasionally remembers it is supposed to be hot, there is a lot to contain.
What they all have in common is this: the stress was real, the weight was real, and the fact that it felt the way it did was not a personal failing — it was your tribal wiring doing exactly what it was built to do. Understanding which tribe you belong to, does not make the stress disappear, but it does make it considerably easier to carry, because you stop fighting your own nature and start working with it instead.
If you have not taken the Tribal Sorter yet, this is the week to do it — not because it will solve September, but because knowing which tribe you belong to makes every September after this one a little easier to navigate.
Take the free Tribal Sorter: https://cavemanprinciples.com/#quiz
If you are a business owner or manager who has watched your team navigate this summer and noticed that different people struggled in very different ways, that is not a coincidence, and it is not a management problem. It is four different tribal types trying to operate in the same environment without the language to understand each other.
That is exactly what my speaker training addresses, giving your people the soft skills and self-awareness to understand their own wiring and the wiring of the people around them, which makes for a team that communicates better, performs more consistently and handles the next summer with considerably more grace.
Find out more about speaker training: www.carljones.org
And if you want me in the room at your next event, I would love to bring this conversation to your organisation directly.
Book me as your next keynote speaker: www.carljones.org
Caveman Thought
The tribe did not all feel the heat the same way. The Hunter hunted through it, the Protector worried about everyone else in it, the Gatherer counted what it cost, and the Healer made sure nobody else noticed they were struggling. All four made it through. None of them did it the same way — and that was never the problem.
Parting Question
Now that the summer is over and the temperatures are dropping, take a moment to ask yourself honestly — which tribe do you belong to, and did you spend the last two months fighting your own nature or working with it? And more importantly, did the people around you understand why the summer felt the way it did for you, or did they just see the outcome?
As always, be the tribal member you are meant to be. It makes for a much easier and simpler life.
Your friend,
Carl – The Caveman.
P.S. When you are ready, here are a few things that might help you;
- You can book me to attend your next event as a Keynote Speaker.
- Want to take a FREE personality test? Check out The Caveman Principles Tribal Sorter.
- Check out my theories – The Caveman Principles and The SLAP Technique
- Grab a copy of my book The Caveman Principles, directly from my printing agent.
- You might want to book yourself onto one of my eLearning courses to help you master a new skill.
- Or, if you have time and want to schedule a Caveman chat (with virtual coffee) for a discovery call, do it here.