John Paul Strong

Acting Fast Matters

Sometimes, I am baffled at what an instant response or a decisive action can do in a situation.

Having never been a person who likes to procrastinate and thrives on making quick decisions, it has seemed to pay off in my favor more times than it has failed me. With decisions in business and life, the longer I wait around on something to happen or scour my mind back and forth on a matter, the outcome generally doesn’t happen the way I want it to. Making fast decisions and never looking back has cost me some things in the past but has paid dividends many times over because of my nature.

To me, the faster you can make a decision means the sooner that you can get something off your plate and off your mind and move on to something else. I think this is why my capacity for tasks, projects, virtually anything has always been great because I just cannot stand to sit still. That is not in everyone’s nature to want to take risks and be willing to not take a lot of time to methodically think through every situation, but sometimes you just need to trust your instincts and go in the direction you originally think is the right way to go.

Just last week, I was served up an opportunity for growth. A way to grow my business, which meant making a split decision to hop on a plane and fly across the country with nothing more than a day’s notice. It was a prime example of thinking fast and not hesitating. The opportunity seemed right, made sense, and would only cost me a little bit of time and a few thousand miles. So, as another example, I made a split-second decision and made a commitment to go and throw caution to the wind. I traveled to a state that I had only been to once before to meet someone I had only had one phone conversation, with but was willing to trust the instinct of acting fast and trying to capitalize.

As I write this note, I am now flying back home from across the country and a very successful trip is coming back with me. If I had waited a couple of weeks to do a little more research on the project, you never know what might have or have not happened. All I know is that you strike when the iron is hot and be as aggressive as you can to make things happen.

This isn’t an “I told everybody so” type of note – rather, a motivator for whoever may read it to quit waiting on things to happen. Go out and make them happen. If you see something that you want or have a goal you want to conquer – go do it. It is all up to you, and things can happen as fast or as slow as you want them to.