Why Waiting for the Right Time Kills Your Growth

The risky bet you need to make in your business is sometimes the safest move that you can actually make. And I’m gonna tell you why, because I think this explains why so many businesses plateau. And it doesn’t have anything to do with the market, the team, or... or the product. I had a decision to make this week. And it was whether to bring somebody on full-time. And to date, this would be the biggest hire that I’ve made in my business. Both in terms of impact on the business — like the role that they would play — and in terms of money, right? Like the the amount that they’ll they’ll be making. And so it was a it was a real bet, um, by my my business standards today. Here’s the thing, if I looked at this decision in a vacuum — like through a lens of just today’s revenue — and took a snapshot, it wouldn’t necessarily justify making this call. And and making that hire. Like I I would say no. Like I would say, or I’d say not yet. I’d say, "Hey, we’re growing, you know, organically. We’re doing well. Let’s just let’s just keep growing and once we get to a point where it makes obvious sense, we’ll make the move." Right? Like so it’s like it’s like the Dave Ramsey version of the business building, right? It’s slow, it’s steady, when we can afford it on like a a quote unquote cash basis, you know, we’ll make that hire when it feels safe and secure. And I didn’t.

I... like and I didn’t wait. Made the call, mapped out a timeline. And and the reason actually has nothing to do with with confidence or gut instinct. It has everything to do with what I know happens after that decision gets made. Because that decision as a big bet is a forcing function. And the moment I committed to that hire — the moment I said, "Yep, like we’re moving forward," and and I put that timeline together and and made that bet — every activity on my calendar suddenly had to justify its existence. Like if I if it was content, "Alright, is it driving pipeline? Is it, you know, generating demand? Like what is it doing in terms of driving the business forward?" Uh... Meetings that I’ve got on my calendar, like, look at it, "Alright, are these things moving something forward?" Or if I’ve got, you know, looking at random projects and where I’m allocating time, those things kind of vanish once you’ve made a really big bet because one bold decision triggers this like chain reaction for every other decision. And it made all of them fall into line because when you make a commitment that requires growth, you no longer have the luxury of f***ing around. Right? Like you don’t get to chase shiny objects. You don’t get to to take the slow, comfortable path and like tell yourself you’re being being strategic or being smart with it. Like you’ve got to execute because you’ve made that decision. Like you’ve you’ve got to pull that future that requires justifying the decision today forward. And because of that, you do.

Now if you if you contrast that with waiting, when you wait until you can do the thing more safely... so like in this case like wait until I can afford the hire, um, like un- until like wait until the timing feels perfect and and it feels safe. Until the like the numbers are comfortable and stuff. Then what happens is you give yourself room. And and that room, it feels safe, but what it actually does is it gives you permission to drift. Like permission to start filling your calendar with low leverage sht, permission to like to allow distractions to kind of creep into the calendar and, you know, creep into your your attention, um... to stay busy without without moving forward. Like it it creates a luxury to not have to perform, to not have to execute. In my mind, like waiting doesn’t create discipline, it creates plateaus. And and this is where it gets really interesting because I think this explains something that I see a lot with businesses that hit a wall and can’t really figure out why. Early on, every entrepreneur is making these really big bets, right? And like early in the journey you you quit your job or you got fired or whatever, and you're you're staring at asymmetric upside. Right? It's either go back to a nine-to-five that you that you probably hate that probably doesn't pay you enough, or build a million dollar business. So you hire that first person, you sign that lease, you invest money you don't have into something that doesn't even exist yet, like maybe you throw some sht on a credit card... and you do it because the math is simple. You have very little to lose and you have this huge upside to gain. And so you make those bets and those bets create focus, and then that focus drives the results that that you attain to to make those bets pan out.

And then something kind of sneaky happens is the bet starts paying off, right? Like you actually... revenue starts coming in, you start building a team, you've got some clients, you've got a reputation, you got a little bit of momentum as a business. And somewhere along the way without actually... without consciously deciding it, the the internal math flips. And you go from what do I have to gain to what do I have to lose. And you don't... you don't announce it, in fact you probably don't even notice it. Right? Like you still say you want to grow. You still talk about scaling to the next level or hitting eight figures or hitting nine figures or whatever it is, but the decisions that you're making start telling a different story. Right? Like you're you're waiting for the safe window. You start like making more quote "responsible" bets. Like you're being methodical, being strategic. And and you've got caution kind of creeping in that feels... feels like maturity. Like we we don't have to make those bets anymore. We're past that stage. But because you stopped making the bold bets, you lost the forcing function. Right? And without the forcing function, you lose the focus. And without the focus, you end up plateaued. And Andy Grove has a has a quote that any... any team that I've ever worked with, especially sales teams, can quote it for you, and it was: "Success leads to complacency. Complacency leads to failure. Only the paranoid survive." And he was talking about Intel, but the principle scales down perfectly. Like the moment you start protecting what you've built instead of betting on what you're building, you've started to stall out. I... you just you just don't see it yet, you don't feel it yet because the revenue hasn't caught up to the decision making.

And what I've come to believe — and this is like the the bet that I made, you know, this week is kind of reinforces this — is that the risky bet is sometimes the safest move that you can make. Like not not because risk is just good for the sake of risk and not because you should go, you know, light money on fire to prove a point or anything, but because like a calculated commitment... one where one where you have control over over the outcome, right? Like where the where the lever is in in your hands... where the actions that you need to take to make that bet pan out are things that you control and that you influence... that commitment doesn't just accelerate the timeline of pulling that future state forward, it increases the probability of the future state actually happening. And and waiting for for the perfect moment reduces that probability because you you never create the conditions that demand that you get there. Like you never create the environment that says, "Listen, we've made this bet. We have to make this f***ing work." And and when you do that, you make it work. Right? And if you don't, you don't. So if you're stuck at a revenue number or or you're like you've been sitting at for a while, like one question I would ask myself is like, when's the last time that I made a commitment or a bet in this business that scared me? Right? Like what's... one that actually required the business to grow into it as a as a result of making that decision. And if you can't remember, might be your answer. Um... You know sometimes the best thing we can do is eliminate the option of standing still. Obviously not a a universal rule... requires context, requires a little bit of nuance, but in many, many cases we the bets that we make uh enable us to increase the probability of success of making that future state happen and accelerate the path to get there. And this week I made one of those. So I hope this helps. Adios.