And all I can think to say is “Hell naw dog”.

Several years ago I was recruited to join a coaching firm.

I had been doing some ad-hoc coaching and mentoring for a few people I knew - friends and a few business owners who were referred to me. Nothing all that structured.

So when this company reached out based on some things I was writing about, it looked like a golden opportunity.

I interviewed with the principal of the firm. Didn’t love him (but they wanted ME! said the ego).

The upside for me to grow my practice was all there: assessment tools, coaching tools, other coaches to learn from and a firm who had a growing reputation.

I went all in.

I was absorbing for the first few weeks - meeting with the other coaches, training on their tools and setting up calls. But then the weekly check-in calls with the team turned into a sales meeting. It wasn’t about impact - it was about volume. And I started to think this was a mistake.

I kept grinding, but I am not a cold call guy.

The process of selling coaching is one where the ultimate goal is to get the prospect crying. Emotional about their hopes and dreams, and sold on the idea that I’m the one to help them live it.

It felt gross.

So I fell further behind in the weekly sales calls.

And then four months in we had a retreat at the founder’s lake house. Everyone went - eating meals together, attending workshops in the living room and staying over on mattresses on the floor.

On night two there I was in the woods. With the line of people ready to “dispel any limiting beliefs they have”.

I watched the others and politely passed.

The following Monday I got a call from the team lead who started off with “We’re not sure….” and I cut him off and said “we are definitely not a match” and quit right there.

I felt like it wasn’t right from the jump.

And yet, being recruited felt like validation, and validation is a hell of a drug when you’re not sure what you’re building yet.

Leaving took eleven words on a Monday morning. It could have taken eleven words in month one. The cost wasn’t the bad decision - it was the four months of not making the next one.

I was at dinner with my business co-founder at the time, recapping our day of meetings with potential partners. We had orders from vendors. All our hard work was finally paying off.

This was a nice spot. Twenty dollar cocktails, big steaks and great service. The waiter cleared our plates and returned to take our dessert order.

Him: “Ummmm…I don’t know,” looking at the menu for the third time and back to me. “What are you going to get?”

Me: “Bread pudding.”

Him: “Ok…yeah. I’ll do that too then.”

My partner who had spent the afternoon negotiating deals couldn’t pick a dessert.

You may shake your head and say you’d never be like that, but let me ask you - when was the last time you had a conversation where you went back and forth on where to eat?

Most people are bad at decision making. Mainly because they’re afraid. Afraid to make someone uncomfortable with a lunch pick, and - with bigger choices - about being wrong.

So they hedge. They try to get someone else to make the call (NOT MY FAULT!). Or they ask their favorite AI (STILL NOT MY FAULT!).

Choosing not to decide is a choice. Why not just choose what you want?

And how do you choose what you want? With big decisions - like a new house or job or hire - the key is to know what you ultimately want. What’s the outcome you desire? When you know your destination, you make choices based on what route seems likely to get you there.

When you make a decision that doesn’t work you can always make another decision and get on a different track.

Being a better decision maker starts just like you going to the gym for the first time. You’re not picking up the heavy dumbbells day one. Go light. Five pounds today. Fifty in six months.

Start with your next dinner conversation. When someone asks, tell them you’re in the mood for ____.

Own it.

I’ve written a book called Dump the Drawer, about why capable people hand off choices they’re qualified to make. Out October 2026.

His name is Bill.

And he’s an asshole.

I started my career as a good, solid W2 employee. Jumping on projects. Staying late. Going above and beyond to impress my bosses.

You ever climb a tree when you were a kid? You’d stay close to the trunk as you went up. The branches were thicker to hold your weight better. You could hug the trunk if things got a little windy.

Now, if you ventured too far out from the safety of the trunk, the limb would bend and you’d feel unstable. A kid’s unnatural belief in their bulletproofness would most times be plenty to survive the climb.

Staying close to the trunk is what W2 work is like. It feels safe. But if you decide you want to slliiiiiddeee out on one of the branches a bit to test a business idea - it feels a bit dicey.

And that’s when Bill shows up.

The voice who tells you to get back to safety. The one who reminds you of the mortgage payment or that one time when you launched an app and Google kicked your ass or that you’re a bit too old to be learning something new.

All true. All useless.

He does his best work at 2am. When the house is quiet, the day's noise is gone, and there's nothing left in the room to drown him out.

No one who’s built anything is being honest if they don’t acknowledge their own Bill.

The key is understanding that the voice never goes away. I found that naming him and then acknowledging him was the way to sap his power. To quiet the voice. To acknowledge that you hear him but you’re going to do what you want anyway.

You don’t know how to write for Substack.

“Yes Bill, I know that. No one does the first time.”

No one cares what you have to say.

“That’s ok. I’m writing for me”

You’re going to look foolish.

“Possibly. To people I’ve never met. I’m going to try anyway.”

Name yours. And go do the thing.

I love AI and use it daily (not to write this however). But after spending time in multiple European countries, I’m not convinced retailers are ‘missing’ on AI. I think structurally they don’t need it.

They may end up using it unintentionally - a POS system or marketing firm that deploys it to improve results. But direct usage? I have a hard time wrapping my head around that.

Most of the retailers with a physical presence are owned and run by individuals. They like to interact with their customers. They also like to take their time away from work to enjoy life.

Does AI add to that? Or complicate that?

Sure, once you learn a platform and integrate it in for smaller tasks, it can save time. But how do you get committed to doing that? Does a 1-2% EBITA increase warrant it when you work to live (vs US live to work)?

Small businesses are using it now for marketing pieces and the graphic outputs are all very similar and easily recognized at being AI generated. When you’re a power user of Claude (guilty) you begin to recognize the patterns of AI written copy. What’s the next low-hanging fruit small businesses will lean into AI to do? And if it just does ‘ok’ level work, does it make those who avoid it stand out a bit more? Is it used as a time saver to get better work or as a way to check off a box so that task is done?

Your Ikeas and Carrefours may use it for financials and modeling. But local shops in Lucca or Cannes? I think that’s years off, if at all.

Seriously. The secret sauce. The recipe.

How to improve your decision making in your business or on your team.

I’ve sat across from a lot of founders who can tell me everything about their business - their revenue, their team, their product roadmap, their competitor landscape. But when I ask “what decision have you been avoiding?” they pause. Then laugh. Then usually say something like “which one?”

I’ve written before about your junk drawer. Now it’s time to dig in and see what’s in yours.

Step 1: Dump it out.

Get all your decisions you’ve been hesitating to make out on the table. Make a list with you and your team on a whiteboard.

When I do this exercise with clients, we usually end up with 12-20 items on the board. And about half of them have been sitting in that drawer for 6+ months. Some for years.

Step 2: Sort by category

What ones are for growth? Which ones are operational? Strategy? Make as many categories as you need - but make sure none are in two categories. We need them all dumped out but organized. (For those of you reading this who work at McKinsey - yes, I’m talking about MECE: Mutually Exclusive, Collectively Exhaustive.)

Here’s what’s interesting - most teams want to put decisions in multiple categories. “This is BOTH growth AND operational!” Sure. But which fire are you actually trying to put out?

Step 3: Pick the ONE thing you need to do right now

We are looking for the thing that is most on fire. Where you need to aim the extinguisher first. Let’s start by putting a price on these decisions. Is there one costing you revenue? How much? How about one that is preventing you from scaling? Or is it a staffing issue that prevents you from meeting goals?

I worked with a CEO who had 15 decisions in his drawer. When we put a dollar figure on each one, he realized his staffing indecision was costing him $40K/month in missed contracts. Not the sexy strategic pivot he wanted to work on. But the one bleeding cash right now.

Don’t worry, you will go back and work on the smoldering ones soon enough. But let’s get a problem under control and fixed.

Three steps. That’s all it takes to go from “I’ll deal with that later” to actually making progress.

But here’s the thing about junk drawers - everyone can open theirs and see the mess. Not everyone can actually clean it out. Because once it’s all on the table, you still have to decide what stays, what goes, and what you’re going to do about it TODAY.

And that’s usually where the drawer gets closed again.

Nothing?

Wait until the little voice inside your head says ‘do that’?

Perhaps a TikTok inspiration?

I’m an action guy, so I lean into doing SOMETHING. But over the past few weeks, I’ve been working through a harder question...

How do I know that the ‘something’ I choose is actually productive?

There are things that need to be done - but the list isn’t always clear.

It just feels like I should be doing something.

Or maybe I know I should be doing something, but I’m not sure what that is exactly.

When I feel that, I know it’s time to shake the trees and see what falls out.

I work with founders who end up in this same spot. They push pencils around their desk (not literally - but the result is the same).

Empty work.

Things that fill the day but don’t move the needle.

That feels different than shaking a tree.

When you shake a tree, you’ve used some discernment. You know a tree in this forest needs attention. You want outcome X. The first tree might give you a pine cone. The next might release a monkey. Neither is X - but both tell you something about which tree to shake next.

That’s different than just being busy and calling it productive at day’s end.

The real work isn’t in filling your calendar. It’s in actually trying things that help you find your next path.

Would love to chat through this if you’re looking to make some decisions. I can help you find the tree.

andrew@ninefivepartners.com

The crazy shoppers who venture out early into the cold dark of Black Friday.

This year I was struck by the wealth of items geared around Elf on the Shelf.

Which led me to think about Carfax.

Wait - the mischievous elf doesn’t make you think of Carfax?

Their tie together is really a marketing marvel.

The founders created demand at the ground level that forced the marketplace to buy them.

Brilliant but difficult and underused.

Carfax didn’t target dealerships with their car history product. They targeted consumers. And once they showed that having a true history of a car was a necessity, they changed their message to be…

‘Ask your dealer for the Carfax history report’

Now dealers HAD to sign up for the service. Because consumers were coming in and asking.

Same with the Elf. We didn’t have these when I was young. But my kids? Heck yeah we had one. Because kids were talking about them at school. And then they asked why didn’t Santa send us an Elf to visit? And of course we had the inevitable social media posts from other parents trying to outdo each other with how naughty/fun their elf was.

And parents who like to keep up with others couldn’t take that challenge lying down.

Both were successes by what I call ‘bubbling up’ marketing.

Driven by the people who aren’t expected to spend the money to purchase. Car buyers who want the dealers to pay. Kids who tell mom and dad ‘we need Snoopy!’ (that’s the name of our elf).

I’ve written extensively about EV adoption (and even hosted a multi episode podcast) about them.

What if brands like Tesla, or even legacy brands like Ford, had marketed benefits consumers resonated with?

• Your house is your fuel station.

• Your elderly parents can be mobile longer with self driving capabilities.

• Perfect for the daily school-sports-grocery routine

Instead, EV manufacturers made what felt like the obvious decision: lean into the environmental benefits.

It probably made perfect sense at the boardroom table - climate change concerns, less gas consumption is better - let’s lead with our values.

And for early adopters? It worked. People who already prioritized environmental impact showed up ready to buy.

But then... who’s next?

How do you convince a midwestern family who doesn’t wake up thinking about carbon footprints that they need to spend $50,000+ on an electric vehicle?

You don’t. Not with that message.

The environmental angle was a top-down decision - what the manufacturers believed was important.

A bubbling up approach would have started with what those families actually care about - the ‘tank’ is filled while you sleep, mom can get herself to her doctor appointments safely and I can get to everything I need around town without having to stop for a gas.

Make soccer moms talk about it at pickup. Make neighbors ask about it over the fence. Make it inevitable that mainstream buyers walk into dealerships asking for them.

The decision EV makers faced was real: “How do we position these vehicles for mass market adoption?”

They chose the message that felt right to them. But the right decision isn’t always the one that aligns with your values - it’s the one that creates the market conditions where buying becomes inevitable.

What complex decision are you solving for the wrong audience?

The pantry is revamped. The coat closet is neat and usable. If she went into our closet she’d find room on the shelves. And the dreaded junk drawer in the kitchen?

Not crowded with random charging cables, scotch tape and nearly dry highlighters. It’s an actual usable storage spot!

What changed?

Maybe a bit of empty nest syndrome - but in reality we finally made the intentional decision to clean things out to make things easier.

Now we can find spices and not keep rebuying things we don’t remember we have.

We audited our clothes to weed out things that didn’t fit or were out of style (like that double breasted suit I still had).

And now we have a small toolkit in the junk drawer that we can find and use when we need a quick repair.

The ease of daily operations in our home applies even more in a company setting.

Leaders and teams will have meetings to make some decisions, open up the junk drawer, see the mess and just close it.

“Lets just buy that software that the vendor keeps trying to sell us. That will fix the current issue”

Do you need that ‘solution”? Is it even a problem? Who or what do you have in house already?

No one knows because no one wants to lead the process of going through the junk drawer. IT’s just easier to buy something new, that will also end up in the junk drawer at some point.

The answer is always to dump out the drawer first.

At home, we didn’t buy new shelving systems or hire a professional organizer. We just pulled everything out, looked at what we actually had, and got rid of what we didn’t need. The solutions were already there - they were just buried.

The same is true in business.

Before you sign that software contract, before you hire that consultant, before you greenlight that “solution” the vendor keeps pitching - dump out your decision drawer.

What problems are you actually trying to solve? What resources do you already have? What decisions have you been avoiding that are creating this mess in the first place?

Here’s what I’ve found working with founders: most companies have 3-5 real decisions buried in that drawer. The rest is just accumulated clutter.

Once you can see what’s actually in there, the decision becomes obvious. You either have the tool you need (you just couldn’t find it), or you know exactly what’s missing and can go get it.

But you can’t make that call with the drawer shut.

We got to talking about decision making and why so many people struggle with it. (Don’t believe me? Think about the last time you tried to make lunch plans with someone)

We talked through why this happens - fatigue, fear of being wrong, avoiding responsibility. Then he asked me how to fix it.

Decisions are like your junk drawer. It’s full of things you don’t need and one or two you do. But finding the exact right thing takes time. It’s probably hidden under something. Is it even the right thing? Will it actually fit? What if I pull it out and it doesn’t work? Better to just let whatever’s dripping keep dripping. It’s a small leak. More annoying than serious.

So you softly close the drawer. Until the leak gets worse. Now you’re desperately digging through the drawer looking for that thing. But it’s buried under even more stuff.

The decision you put off has become dire. And making decisions in dire straits is not the best way to make them.

I’ve watched this play out countless times. A founder knows they need to scale operations, but they keep opening that decision drawer, seeing the complexity - hire more people? Outsource? Build systems first? - and shutting it. Six months later, they’ve lost the market window because a competitor made the call in three weeks.

The decision didn’t get easier with time. It got harder. And way more expensive.

Here’s what I’ve learned building businesses across automotive, apparel, media, and franchising: most junk drawers have 3-5 real decisions buried in them. The rest is just noise.

The fix isn’t better decision-making skills. It’s getting everything out of the drawer and visible.

Here’s the three-step process I use with founders:

Step 1: Dump out the drawer. List every decision you’ve been avoiding. Don’t edit, don’t prioritize - just get it all visible.

Step 2: Sort by category. Growth decisions. Operational decisions. Market decisions. You’ll see most decisions fall into 3-4 buckets.

Step 3: Pick the ONE thing you need right now. You don’t have to solve everything at once. What’s the decision that, if you made it today, would unblock everything else?

Visibility breeds confidence. Once you can see what’s actually in there, the decision becomes obvious. It was always obvious - you just couldn’t see it clearly.

Will you make the perfect decision every time? No. But you’ll make it from a position of clarity instead of fear. And that changes everything.

If you’re stuck on a decision that keeps getting shoved back in the drawer, let’s dump it out together. The clarity you’re looking for is already there - you just can’t see it yet.

Pick a city. Hire a local guide to take you on a small group tour.

No huge buses to get on to follow someone with a big flag as you walk around a city.

Our group of five people with a local person showing us around their city and sharing their culture.

Chefs kiss.

We did a food your with Sara in the city of Lucca. Now, she’s from Pisa and was raised to think that Pisa was better than Lucca - and she made plenty of pithy comments to that fact.

But that made it even more fun. We felt like an insider for three hours.

Amazing food and history. We met local proprietors and tried local fare. Walked small alleyways and found off beat hidden areas no regular tour would show you.

You actually get a feel for the culture vs floating on top of it.

That’s the hidden beauty of travel. Sure it’s a getaway from the day to day. But if you really want to unlock something special, dig in a bit. You’ll learn all kinds of interesting things...

(probably something more useful than La Pupporona being the fountain that celebrates busty women in Lucca)

With Locals have guides all over the world - check it out next time you’re planning a trip.

I watch travel videos everyday on YT.

I see a few travel advice related blog posts in my future, but today it’s thoughts that came from travel.

I’ve (finally) realized that off-time helps me be better in on-time.

Not that I didn’t enjoy vacations before. But the trip we took to Europe over the summer adjusted my thinking further and added clarity - in particular when a photographer in Barcelona threw a friendly barb my way when I asked him how many of the 10 euro pictures he did a day...

“You Americans...I appreciate you but you have life wrong”

Oh.

He works three hours a day taking pictures of tourists at the Arc de Triumph with a vintage camera. Develops the black and white print while you wait.

And then he goes home and spends time with his 6 year old daughter.

I am not going to adopt that sort of life (free time is a struggle for me) BUT it did give me a new perspective on how I was solely work focused with an occasional break.

What if I made the breaks more important and the work became the support for those?

What would that life look like?

What would yours look like?

You either feel the pressure or apply the pressure.

It’s a mindset thing he taught his teams.

You start thinking about the moment. How big the thing you’re working on is. How you might not be up to it. Hear chatter from outsiders and start to feel pressure. Doubt leads to you playing not to lose. Bad situation.

Or you apply the pressure. You are ready for your moment. You work to quiet your doubts because you believe in yourself. You are executing as best as you know how. Not allowing the pressure of the moment or situation to cave in on you. Applying outward pressure on whatever/whoever the opponent is.

I always told my kids when I coached them in sports. Prepare and execute. Sometimes your best isn’t as good as someone else’s. But let that happen as the game unfolds, not in your head beforehand.

Apply pressure this week.

We all say this one. It works for our kids, our money, our jobs, the speed limit and whether or not we should bring a gift in the car just in case everyone else brings a hostess gift.

But is it better to be safe than sorry?

Checking your parachute before you skydive? Yes.

But if we play everything by this mantra, we never try anything new.

It’s safer to stay in that job. Safer to not ask that person to lunch. Safer to keep your kids indoors and under your watchful eye at all times.

But what gets missed?

What opportunities don’t you pursue or lessons go unlearned if we shelter ourselves from what might not be ‘safe’?

What exactly is ‘safe’ really? A place for our monkey brain bent on survival to feel comfortable with the familiar.

So check the parachute, but otherwise - play with the possibility of being sorry rather than always being safe.

Prepped and ready to go.

Until the meeting went too long and they pushed off his portion until the following week.

This is a scenario that lots of us have been in. And the natural instinct for many is to spend time over the ‘extra’ week you were given to tweak and try to improve it.

I call that overcooking the chicken.

It was good enough to go today. It will be good enough next week.

Sure, you can review it to make sure it’s clear - even find takeaways from the meeting this week from the personalities involved to make an adjustment in tone for next week.

But roll with your first choice.

No one’s gonna like the overcooked chicken.

Probably (definitely) because I watch a lot of different stuff.

But I realized that my top three current favs...

Vice Grip Garage - pulling abandoned cars out of fields and driving them home

Rick Beato - interviewing musicians and music industry people

Drummeo - watching drummers create parts for songs they’ve never heard before

...have a common thread.

It’s about listening to the story, learning people’s processes and how the build happens.

With VGG and Drummeo I watch the solve in real time. Talented pros who are given a problem and then get the work done.

With Rick, I get the insight into the mindset that went into creating songs I’ve listened to a million times. It reminds me that great things can blossom out of simple ideas. You just have to use the ability given to you and put in effort.

The stories. The process. The solve.

My work life ends up being my watch life.

The issue for most people is not cost but charging.

So here’s my start to solving the problem. If I am playing the role of a government bureaucrat (heaven forbid) this is what I’m doing:

1. Get Congress to allocate funds. Wouldn’t need to be a ton. More like a rounding error in terms of some of the crazy spending that happens in DC.

2. Gather together heads of Exxon, Chevron and ConocoPhillips. They’re investing in this. Because we will continue to need petroleum (plastics) and they employ a lot of Americans. This will long term help their bottom line.

3. Bring in a good convenience store operator. I’m partial to Sheetz. Privately held. Stores are fantastic. They get the business of how people use gas stations. We need their knowledge and investment.

This group - Inc federal government - are going to be a public/private partnership to figure out best practices with charging stations by actually building them.

The first is an electric only rest area on I95 in northeast corridor. Fast chargers. A lot of them. And we’re going to leverage Sheetz knowledge in what to have for families as they wait for their car to be charged to get back on the road.

Someone capable, smart and non-party affiliated is going to lead the government agency side. This isn’t about politics (I’m a conservative who isn’t big on spending but this market needs to be primed). The agency has to have the resources (read money) and power to eliminate red tape. We’re not going to be answering to congressional hearings about a ditch that someone calls a wetland.

Mistakes will be made. We will probably overbuild some things and under build others. What we will have though is a model that works and shows the path to future profitability.

Someone has to blaze the trail.

Once we get best practices, we build more. The more people see that they can efficiently travel distances In the EV, the more they will consider buying one.

The exit for the group’s investment is once we reach financial benchmarks, company will go public. Government gets out. Gas companies and Sheetz can stay or exit.

That’s the basic blueprint. Let’s get this done.

I advise because I want to help businesses. That’s the motivation. The money comes from doing the work I want to do.

I hand delivered a size exchange for a local buyer of DryFins headed on vacation earlier this week. We sell shorts to allow guys to more fully enjoy their time in the water. That’s why we do what we do - the money comes from doing that work.

My experience working with founders and entrepreneurs is showing me that I’m not alone. While money was certainly a factor in jobs early on (gotta CRUSH it!), many are moving on to solve a problem or scratch an itch they have.

Sure they want to make a living, but it’s the process of doing what they want to do that motivates.

The money is the result of what they are doing, not why they are doing it.

I’ve worked in places with the whole ‘coffee is for closers‘ mentality in Glengarry Glen Ross.

Not my jam.

I lead with what sounds interesting. What makes me excited (and where I see an opportunity). Then I figure out how to monetize.

“Things are gonna change, I can feel it.”

I am assuming it’s because I’ve been focusing on the word ‘intentionality’ with people a lot lately.

Things aren’t going to change unless you make a change. You may feel like things are going to change for you today. Or tomorrow. Or next week.

But if you aren’t doing anything to instigate the change, why would they?

I suppose that change might happen without you seeking it out - lightning could come through the window and strike you.

But that’s happenstance. You are lucky (or unlucky) enough to have something that rare occur to you.

If you need to get somewhere, you don’t just start driving and hope you end up where you wanted to go. You make a plan, pack a bag, fill the tank and put the address in Google Maps, which guides you to your destination.

Same for your career, life and business.

Intentionally choose where you want to go. Is it grow your book of business? Expand your influence? Launch a new project? Work until 50 and retire? Write it down. And then write out a plan to get you there.

“Things are gonna change”....if you’re intentional.

She may have told you that when you asked to stay out late as a teenager. It’s when trouble has a likelier chance of finding you.

It can happen while you’re safe at home in bed too.

When you wake up in the middle of the night and your mind starts to churn with fear and worry, trouble has found you. That internal voice – I named mine Bill – has lots to say and none of it is good.

Bill got louder and more insistent as I set off to try new things. To start a new business. To leave behind my long career.

Bill likes things as they are. It’s ‘safe’. He holds tight to what he has because as bad as things might be, the comfort he feels with the familiar is far more palatable than risking it to make a better life with the unknown. The closer you get to that curtain of fear you have between you and where you want to go, the crazier he gets. And the longer you listen, the deeper down the rabbit hole you go.

Thinking about all that could go wrong. Instead of what could go right.

Telling yourself you are being selfish because you have it better than so many others. When you improving your life doesn’t take away that opportunity from anyone else.

So you need to identify that voice when you hear it in your head. And know that it isn’t telling the truth. Picture instead what your life will look like with the change you are considering. Think of all you have to gain with a pivot. Focus on that. The end game. Or a perk of the end game. (For me, it was having the flexibility to work from a cabin in New England every summer.) And then, work backwards and lay out steps to get there.

Bill never goes away. You just need to attune yourself to the quieter inner voice that is the confident YOU. Set goals, make a plan, find someone to help you be accountable and move through the fear curtain.

And finally get a good night sleep.