I was in the deep end of the pool at the YMCA.
Swim aerobics. Me and my mother in law, twice a week, because her knees were giving her trouble and this was easy on them. I love water. I am a self proclaimed mermaid. So I was in.
I was the youngest one in that class by a lot, which made me feel like I had an advantage. Sometimes I would move to the deep end just to make it harder on myself.
We were about twenty minutes into class when the idea hit me.
It was like a light bulb went off right there in the water.
Now I have to tell you something a little embarrassing. I cannot remember what the idea was.
I am serious. It is gone. All these years later and the actual idea has completely left my brain.
But I remember exactly what I did next.
I did not finish the class. I did not think about it in the car. I did not sleep on it or make a list of pros and cons or ask three people what they thought.
I got out of the pool.
I went home to my computer. And by the end of that afternoon, I had made over $1,100.
I have told that story a lot of times. People usually hear it as a story about having a good idea.
It is not. Good ideas are cheap. I have a hundred of them a week and most of them are terrible. Apparently they are also forgettable.
That story is about the decision between the idea and the ladder.
The Part I Do Not Brag About
Now let me tell you the other side of me, because it is just as true.
Bobby and I went to Zion National Park to celebrate 26 years of marriage. There is a hike there called Angels Landing. It is famous. It is also one of the most dangerous hikes in the world.
I hiked it. Four hours. Made it to the top. I have bragging rights for life.
But here is the part I do not lead with.
I had chickened out two years earlier.
Two years. Same rock. Same me. Bobby had already done it while I stood at the bottom and decided not to.
Nothing changed about that hike in two years. The chains were the same. The drop was the same. The only thing that changed was that I finally went.
So I am not writing this to you from up on some mountain of good decisions. I am writing it as a woman who has done both. I have jumped out of the pool. I have also stood at the bottom of a rock for two years.
The difference between those two versions of me was never information. It was speed.
Why We Freeze Up
Let me say the kind thing first, because it is also the true thing.
You are not slow because you are lazy. You are not slow because you are bad at business. You are slow because you CARE.
Most of the women I work with came from jobs where somebody else signed off. You had a boss. You had a review once a year. Somebody above you got to say whether your choice was a good one. You learned to check your work twice, and that habit made you good at your job.
Then you started something of your own.
And suddenly there is nobody above you.
Nobody tells you if the price is right. Nobody approves the flyer. Nobody says “yes, go.” It is just you and a blank screen and a hundred little choices a week.
So the old habit kicks in. Check it twice. Then check it again. Then ask three friends. Then sleep on it.
Here is what nobody warns you about. When there is no boss to approve the decision, checking twice turns into never deciding. Because there is no finish line anymore. You can always research more. There is always one more video.
That is not being careful. That is a loop.
I am not saying that to make you feel bad. I am saying it because the day I saw the loop for what it was, I could step out of it. And so can you.
What A Slow Decision Really Costs
We treat an unmade decision like it is free. Like it just sits in a drawer costing nothing.
It is not free. Here is the real bill.
It costs you the practice. Every decision you make hands you information. You pick, you watch what happens, and now you know more than you did. If you never pick, you never learn. You just sit in the same spot with the same knowledge you had six months ago.
It costs you your energy. An open decision does not sit quietly. It follows you around. It wakes you up. You think about it while you fold laundry. Ten open decisions is like having ten tabs open in your head all day. No wonder you are tired.
It costs you momentum. Decide, do, decide, do. That is a rhythm. When you stall, the rhythm dies, and starting again is harder than continuing.
It costs you the calendar. This is the big one. A party you do not book in July is not a party you can book later. That weekend comes and goes. The money that could have been there is not there. Not because you failed. Because you waited.
Read that and please do not feel behind. That is the last thing I want.
Feel FREE instead.
Because if slowness is the problem, then speed is the fix. And speed is something you can practice starting today. That is much better news than “you need more talent” or “you need more money.”
Ask One Question First: Can I Fix This Later?
This is the single change that helped me most, so I am putting it near the top.
Before you agonize, ask yourself one question.
Can I fix this later?
Most business decisions can be fixed later. You just forget that they can.
Wrong color background on a canvas? You will teach a different design next month. Fixable.
Caption flopped? It will be buried under new posts by Friday. Fixable.
Picked a date and only four people signed up? You run it with four, you learn something, you pick better next time. Fixable.
Now compare that to the small handful of choices that really are hard to reverse. A year long lease. A big loan. A promise to a customer you cannot keep. Hiring someone.
Those deserve your slow careful brain. Those deserve a week and a real conversation.
But those are maybe two out of every hundred choices you face.
The other ninety eight are fixable. And you have been treating them all like they are carved in stone.
So here is your new rule. If you can fix it later, decide in five minutes or less. If you truly cannot, give it real time.
That one sorting question will hand you back hours every single week.
The Wet Surfboard Rule
Years ago I was teaching art to 850 students a week and painting little wooden surfboards on my lunch break just to escape my own life. About ten inches long. I was not selling them. They were for me.
Then the kids started asking. “Mrs. Easley, can you paint me one? Can you put my name on it?”
I said no about a hundred and fifty times.
Somewhere around the 150th ask, I thought, maybe I could sell these.
I called my mother in law. And before I knew what was happening, we were sitting in a meeting with the head of Pier Park in Panama City Beach.
I want you to picture what I brought to that meeting.
The surfboards were still WET. I had sprayed polyurethane on them that same morning. I walked into a meeting with the head of a major shopping center holding a product that was not dry yet.
He looked at it and said, “I think you could make a lot of money with these.”
We walked out with a deal for a ten foot by ten foot space in front of the Starbucks, for $1,200 a month.
If I had waited until the boards were dry, until I had a real display, until I had a business card and a logo and a name I loved, that meeting happens three months later. Maybe never.
So here is the rule I pulled out of that. You do not need to be ready. You need to be about seventy percent sure and moving.
Seventy percent means you thought about it. You know the basics. You have a reason you could say out loud. You still have doubt, and that is fine, because you would have doubt at ninety percent too.
The gap between seventy and one hundred is where whole seasons go to die. And most of that last thirty percent only shows up AFTER you act. You learn it by doing. Sitting still will not hand it to you.
Give Every Decision A Deadline
Decisions expand to fill whatever time you give them. Give a choice two weeks and it takes two weeks. Give it ten minutes and it usually takes ten minutes, and the answer comes out about the same.
So put a real deadline on every open decision. Write it down.
“I will choose the fall schedule by Thursday at noon.”
Not soon. Not this week. Thursday at noon.
Then when Thursday at noon comes, you decide with what you have. Even if you do not feel ready. Especially then.
I will tell you how far this can go.
We once lived in a trailer house on a river in Texas. Beautiful land. Also snakes. So many snakes. One in the bathtub. One that struck at me out of the cabinet above the washing machine. A baby copperhead under the kitchen sink.
I finally told Bobby, “Let’s move.”
He asked where. I said, “Anywhere but here.”
In one month we sold everything, talked my sister and her husband into coming too, and started over in Panama City Beach, Florida.
One month. That was not a small choice, and it was not one we could fix later. That was a whole life.
I am not telling you to sell your house this week. I am telling you that even the big permanent stuff does not require a year of thinking. It requires a deadline and the guts to meet it.
Decide Once Instead Of Every Week
Some decisions are not one decision. They are the same decision showing up over and over in a different outfit.
What should I post today? What time should I run the party? What do I charge for a private booking? Where do I order supplies?
If you answer those fresh every time, you pay full price for that decision every week for the rest of your life.
So answer them ONCE. Write the answer down. Then stop asking.
Here is what that looks like in real life.
Instead of deciding what to post each morning, decide the pattern for the month. Mondays are behind the scenes. Wednesdays are a finished piece. Fridays are an invite. Now the question shrinks from “what should I post” to “what goes in the Wednesday slot.”
Instead of deciding your price every time someone emails, set it and put it in writing. Mine is settled. Thirty five dollars per painter, and it goes up for bigger canvases or different materials. I do not rethink it when an email comes in. It is DECIDED. That alone saves me more energy than I can explain.
Instead of picking a supply store every time, pick your main one and your backup. Done.
Every question you answer permanently is a question you never carry again.
Practice On Small Things
You would not run a marathon without training. This works the same way.
So practice on stuff that does not matter. Pick the restaurant. Pick the movie. Pick which sample canvas to bring without laying all nine of them out on the table first.
That sounds like it has nothing to do with business. It has everything to do with business. You are teaching your brain that you can choose and the world does not end. That is a muscle, and small reps build it.
Remember Angels Landing? Here is what surprised me most about that hike.
The way down was so much easier than the way up.
Same trail. Same chains. Same drop on both sides. It only felt easier because by then I had already done it once.
That is every scary thing in business. New is terrifying. Second time is just Tuesday.
Start Here Today
You do not need to overhaul anything. Pick ONE thing you have been sitting on.
Ask if you can fix it later. If yes, decide in the next five minutes.
That is the whole assignment. Then do it again tomorrow.
Here is what I figured out, and it took me a lot longer than the four hours it takes to climb a rock.
I used to think the women who moved fast in business had something I did not have. More confidence. More money. Some certainty gene I got skipped on.
They do not.
They just decided sooner, more often, and were willing to be wrong in public. That is it. That is the whole difference.
I did not become a business owner and then start deciding like one. I started deciding like one, and that is HOW I became one.
You are magically made, overly optimistic, and perfectly placed. But nobody is going to climb the rock for you, and nobody is going to jump out of the pool on your behalf.
You have to get out of the water yourself.