Josh's Weekly Insights - Oct. 29, 2025

“In any moment of decision, the best thing you can do is the right thing, the next best thing is the wrong thing, and the worst thing you can do is nothing.”

-Theodore Roosevelt

I was working with leaders this week and we were talking about service. An attendee asked, “What do we do if a customer comes in with a request that will take time, but we have a team member who has to leave?” Now this is a great question because it is a real question. I have lived in those moments where I have stayed to help a customer (and they took advantage of my generosity) and in other moments where I didn’t help the customer and they didn’t come back to do business with me.

The thing about many choices in life is that they are ugly and messy with no “right” answer. Often, we are just trying to make the best decision we can with the information we have at hand. In other words, “which decision is more right” but without the luxury of being able to look back and know the decision was correct. After the fact, we can second guess the decision and sometimes even beat ourselves up for it.

So,

I want to encourage you today and let you know that it is okay to make messy decisions. It is okay to make a choice and learn from it because you didn’t select the right option. No one is perfect which means we will all miss when we make choices. However, as the quote above says, the worst thing you can do is freeze and make no decision. When that happens, you lose all ownership of the situation. You will miss opportunities out of fear and hesitation.

Sometimes we need to have a hard coaching session with a team member, sometimes we need to have a tough discussion with a family member or friend, and sometimes we need to have a hard discussion with a customer. Understand that not having the conversation won’t fix the issue. Holding it in will usually only make the issue worse or allow it to fester until we explode at the other person.

The world isn’t perfect, so don’t wait for the situation to be perfect. Don’t sit around too long waiting for more information to make the perfectly right decision. If you do that, you may realize that you missed a chance to make a decision.

What decisions do you need to make today? Are you facing one where you don’t want to make it because you are holding on hoping that the right decision will reveal itself?

Don’t wait too long. Go ahead and make that messy, ugly decision with the best information you have and then hold your head high. Whether your decision was right or wrong is less important than the fact that you moved it forward.

Now get out there and crush your week!