A public company kills a product line that’s two quarters from working.

The decision was fine. Nobody let it finish.

Here’s what I’m realizing about decisions. Once people finally start making them, they expect the result to show up right behind. The decision is the start of movement. It’s not the outcome.

When my partner Craig and I decided to give DryFins a shot, that was just the first of many decisions. We’re going to make these - but there was 18 months of work in those five words.

After we figured out how to make a prototype, we learned we needed a designer. Then it was slow sampling back and forth with her firm. Fit adjustments. Fabric selection. Color choices.

Do pockets need velcro?

That took months.

Once we had a formal tech pack, we had to shop for a manufacturer. Want to find a cut-and-sew shop in America? Few and far between. And most weren’t keen on working with a startup brand.

So now we shop overseas. FedEx and DHL packages arriving several times a week with samples of what they already make. Emails back and forth offset by a 12-hour time difference. We learn what minimum order quantity is, and have to decide how many pairs we want stored in our garages.

Even more months.

Now we select a factory. They get the tech pack. First we have to choose the right blue - dip samples of swatches of fabric. Multiple rounds. Then they sew a custom sample of shorts in that color. $100 a pair. Every pair that comes to me gets forwarded to our designer to review. Fit needs to be adjusted. Tolerances tightened. We needed to add an additional gusset.

Round after round.

More months.

Meanwhile, we’ve told friends and family what we’re building, and we’re getting the questions.

“Whatever happened to that swimwear thing you talked about?”

Finally, 14 months after we decided to make DryFins, we placed the order.

It took 90 days to make them.

Another 45 to get on a boat to Los Angeles and trucked to us in the southeast.

Nobody saw any of that. They saw swim trunks show up for sale.

If anyone had been grading us quarterly, DryFins dies at month four. Nothing to show but a FedEx bill and a stack of blue swatches.

The question isn’t whether it’s working yet. It’s whether the work is happening.

Those look identical from the outside. They are not the same thing.

You decide to make the cake. Then you gather the ingredients, mix them, preheat the oven, and wait.

There is no microwave. No EZ Bake oven.

You can’t frost it while it’s in batter form.

Silence.

I tried to make it easier.

I picked a guy in the front row wearing a golf shirt. I pointed at the shirt and said “I want to sell shirts that look like this. Where do we start?”

Quiet mumbles. A cough. A few looks at their professor.

“This is not a graded test. There is no wrong answer, I’m not trying to trick you into anything. Tell me what we should do first.”

These are not first year students who haven’t worked beyond an hourly ice cream job. This is a group made up of the top business students, part of an organization that works with regional businesses on paid projects.

Maybe talk to a store to see where they buy shirts?

Me at the front of the classroom trying to will an answer into someone’s head. “If I asked you a question via email and you didn’t know the answer, what would you do first?”

Ask ChatGPT.

FINALLY.

It’s not which tool you use. It’s that you start looking for something to keep moving.

When I founded an apparel brand, I had no background in apparel and clearly no fashion sense. But I did have Google. Which told me I needed a clothing designer. So I searched for those. Emailed the first ten. Got two responses, one of which was our design lead for the entire time we ran the company.

I reached a lot of dead ends learning how to make apparel. But every time I hit one, I hit a search engine or made a phone call to keep some momentum.

“I don’t know” can’t be the period. It has to be followed by a comma and your next step.

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Grown adults play the same game. We just use calendars instead of fingers.

“Let’s revisit this after the holidays.”

“We need to post numbers for this quarter first.”

Most of us would spell bureaucracy D-M-V. But bureaucracy isn’t a thing so much as it’s a behavior.

Not choosing is a choice. And there’s a long-term cost most people never account for: you never find out whether you’d have been right. So your judgment never improves.

Over time, the designated decision maker becomes the indecision maker. And that leaks out across the organization, because your team sees deferral as the default.

You held off letting someone go and they eventually (finally!) left. The opportunity to enter a market passed. The work got absorbed into an already stretched team.

The decision got resolved. Nobody chose it.

Well, it all worked out!

Ehhh…kinda.

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I spent one three year term on a non-profit board. The idea was to limit time to keep ideas fresh and people from burning out.

Good in practice. But when the day to day leadership didn’t like a board idea, all they had to do was wait.

I brought the idea of a 5K fundraiser. I’ve run a number of 5Ks so I knew the participant side, and I’ve led several events for a workout group I’m part of, so I felt like I had both ends covered on what we’d need.

The first time I brought it up, they needed time to think about it.

The next month they needed to talk to their insurance provider.

The next it was talk to the people at the location we proposed.

The next it was me answering some questions those people had.

The next it was “we’ll put it to a vote when we look at next year’s agenda.”

The next was a Christmas party.

And then I rolled off.

No 5K ever occurred.

The term limit was meant to keep the board fresh. It also meant anyone who disagreed with me had a published expiration date.

Dragging your feet on a decision is still a decision.

Not a no. Not a yes.

Nobody gets blamed for an outcome nobody chose.

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A friend wanted to hear how the talks went, so I sent him this:

Good afternoon overall. Ended up talking a fair amount of book material so I got that first one out of the way. Got good feedback, met some nice people and saw my kid. Solid day.

I read it back before I hit send and thought: that isn’t enough for the day.

Good feedback. Nice people. Saw my kid. And some part of me was still scanning it for a result.

He wrote back:

Love this text message

He didn’t think it needed to be more than it was.

Not everything has to be life changing.

We’ve gotten to a point where people review everyday meals like they should be moved to tears by a bacon cheeseburger.

Sometimes meals are just sustenance. Sometimes vacations are merely a few days where you sleep in a hotel and don’t have to go to the office.

And sometimes a day speaking to students is giving to them, and fun, and engaging, and produces nothing concrete at all.

That’s fine.

Grading every day is its own kind of hedge. If a day has to justify itself before you’re allowed to enjoy it, you’ll start optimizing days instead of having them.

I do not have this sort of patience.

I also don’t catch little things that may be off - like a $2.00 administration charge that has never shown up before.

Mom however, is all over it.

To the tune of two different calls with 30 minutes on hold each. And a form. And since she doesn’t have a scanner, that form needs to either be mailed or dropped off at the local branch.

For her, it’s “all about the principle.”

Two dollars. About three hours and a stamp.

When I ran an apparel brand, we hired an overseas inspector to spot check as shorts came off the line. The pricing was based on our order invoice.

One time there was an additional fee because the inspector had to go back a second time.

I pulled up the contract. I called corporate. I got mad. It was the principle of the matter.

I won.

What I didn’t account for was the woman on the ground who’d been doing extra for us. Or the inspection company I’d just soured a relationship with. You need trust when you’re working overseas - that’s the only thing making sure what shows up is what you ordered. There’s not much recourse after 90 days on a ship.

I felt it at renewal when I a got cool email and a take-it-or-leave it contract sent to me.

Principle is the word we use when we’ve decided not to do the math.

My mom’s math worked. She spent time she was going to spend anyway, on a company she’ll never need a favor from.

Mine didn’t. I spent a relationship I needed intact, over a fee I could have paid and forgotten.

Same fight. Different ammunition.

Sometimes you have to ask if the hill was worth what it took to win it.

• You never have to apologize for overdressing (thanks Dad)

• Always order the lobster (thanks to my buddy Rick)

• If you’re going to blow the budget, skip the honey bun.

There are times when I am in the mood for something sweet. But there are zero times when I’d choose the easy to buy jumbo honey bun.

It’s not the calorie number that scares me away (720 btw), it’s wasting those calories on something so mid.

Convenience is a trade-off we all make. I need something, and I want it now. Click the one that gets here first.

There is a time for speed. Not overthinking. Launching at 80%.

But when resources are limited (a 2000 calorie diet say), I want to make spending over a third of my daily intake worth it.

When I developed DryFins, I splurged on several things that made for a more complex build. Custom drawstrings. Embroidered logo. Longer wearing fabric.

It used more of our initial resources. And it added an extra few back and forth sampling tests from overseas.

But the product was far better because of it - over 60% of our customers came back and bought multiple pairs.

Speed works when you can change it later. When you can’t, that’s when you break out the checkbook.

You’ve got one dessert in the budget. Don’t waste it on something aging in the vending machine.

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.