The Critical Importance of Being Able to Make Good Decisions

“We’ll never have a position in Amazon. I can say with almost certainty that they will come to a bad ending.” – Buffett, chairman and CEO of Berkshire to CNBC’s Squawk Box, 2018

The Founder as Decision Maker

In the early days of Circuit City, the founding Wurtzel family built something rare.

They treated employees like partners. There was no suffocating hierarchy. The structure was lean. People close to the customer were empowered to decide. Decisions were made quickly, often on instinct informed by experience rather than buried under endless analysis.

That kind of culture requires trust.

Trust that people on the ground understand what they’re seeing.
Trust that speed matters.
Trust that not every decision needs a committee.

And it worked — for a while.

But as the company grew, layers accumulated. Management tiers expanded. Communication became filtered. The voices closest to the sales floor — where real-time data about customers and trends lives — grew fainter.

Distance replaced proximity.

Then came a new CEO.

And with that shift, decision-making moved even further from the front lines.

The lesson is simple and timeless:

Growth does not kill companies.
Poor decisions made far from reality do.

For a founder — especially in the early years — decision-making is not a secondary skill.

It is the job.

‍

The new CEO had no interest in the instincts or accumulated wisdom of his people. To him, experienced employees were simply a line item — an expense to be reduced.

He dismissed nearly 3,500 seasoned staff members and replaced them with inexperienced, minimum-wage workers.

On paper, it improved short-term margins.

In reality, it amputated the company’s intelligence.

It was a decision from which the company never recovered.

Experience is not overhead.
It is signal detection.
It is pattern recognition.
It is proximity to reality.

Remove it, and leadership operates blind.

I witnessed a similar dynamic on a smaller scale.

A start-up I encountered had only weeks of cash remaining. Most employees were gone. Four senior managers sat in a vast, nearly empty office building — waiting for a miracle.

The company owned a piece of technology it no longer used — technology that perfectly complemented one of my own projects. Knowing their precarious position, I made a fair offer. Immediate cash. A lifeline. Perhaps enough runway to secure further funding.

It was, in my mind, obvious.

The deal could have been completed in 24 hours.

Instead, it took two weeks just to schedule a meeting — despite my living only a few miles away and being available any day.

After we finally met, they convened privately to “consider” the proposal. Two more weeks passed before I received a response.

I sent over a standard contract — one I had successfully used with far larger organizations. They hired lawyers to rework minor clauses. Weeks drifted by.

Eventually, I walked away.

The company filed for bankruptcy a month later.

Under the terms of its intellectual property agreements, the unused technology reverted to its original inventor — a solo entrepreneur.

I contacted him the next day.

Within 24 hours, we had agreed to terms and executed a contract.

Two organizations.
Two decision-making styles.
Two radically different outcomes.

We have already discussed adaptability in the information age. Traditional structures slow it. Committees dilute it. Excessive analysis suffocates it.

But equally important is the founder’s mentality.

Many start-up entrepreneurs are unknowingly indoctrinated in corporate thinking — where every decision must be validated by data, vetted by committees, and insulated against criticism.

In early-stage ventures, that mindset can be fatal.

Quick decisions often must be made without complete information.

If you wait for certainty, the opportunity disappears.

Intuition or Analysis?

Mentality is your habitual response to uncertainty.

In traditional corporate life, most of us were trained to respond to unexpected issues by calling a meeting. Gather stakeholders. Circulate memos. Seek consensus. Document risk.

Hierarchy reinforces that behavior.

Rare is the organization that truly empowers individuals to decide in the moment. They exist — and they are studied precisely because they are uncommon.

Wegmans.
The Apple Store.
The Ritz-Carlton.

These companies are famous for customer loyalty not because of better policies, but because frontline employees are trusted to make on-the-spot decisions. A guest has a problem? Solve it. A customer is unhappy? Fix it — immediately.

No escalation ladder.
No permission slip.

Speed signals respect.

For founders, decision-making often requires blending logic with intuition. For those trained in committee-based environments, this can feel uncomfortable — even reckless.

But intuition is not guesswork.

It is compressed experience.
It is subconscious pattern recognition.
It is accumulated exposure operating below the surface.

In my own ventures, I never hired executive teams. In fact, I did not hire employees at all. I relied on networks, vendors, and my own connectivity to the business ecosystem.

Some might call it instinct.
Some might call it intuition.
I jokingly call it my “Higgs sonar.”

When something felt off, it usually was.
When an opportunity vibrated with potential, I leaned in.

My process was simple: when faced with a complex decision, I would step away. Close the office door. Go for a walk. Let the noise settle.

Insight rarely arrives in a meeting room.

It arrives in stillness.

We are trained to analyze, calculate, model, and debate until consensus forms. But in fast-moving environments, consensus is often too slow.

A founder’s advantage is not perfect data.

It is decisive clarity.

You will not always be right.

But you must be willing to decide.

Because in startups, hesitation is more expensive than imperfection.

‍

No one in business school ever says:

“Stuck on a problem? Go hug a tree.”
“Overwhelmed? Step outside and stare at the night sky.”
“Need a breakthrough? Sit quietly and do absolutely nothing for twenty minutes.”

Try putting that in a board report.

Yet some of the most powerful decisions I have ever made did not come from spreadsheets, meetings, or heated debate.

They came on walks.
They came in stillness.
They came when I stopped trying so hard.

School conditions us to believe solutions are linear. Step one. Step two. Step three. Discuss. Debate. Vote. Document.

Startups rarely move in straight lines.

They move in leaps.

And leaps require a different state of mind.

If you want better decisions, you do not just need better data. You need better consciousness. You need to elevate your thinking above the noise of urgency and ego.

Call it raising your vibration if you like. Call it clarity. Call it cognitive reset. The label does not matter.

What matters is this: insight does not emerge from frantic activity.

It emerges from depth.

There is an ancient idea that certain questions, when asked with genuine intensity, demand an answer. Not from logic alone — but from something deeper. Ask the right question, with sincerity and detachment, and the answer begins forming before you consciously see it.

In modern language, we might say this:

When you pose a powerful question to your mind and then create space, your subconscious goes to work.

Meditation is not incense and chanting — unless you want it to be.

At its core, it is simply a deliberate state of focused awareness. A quieting of the frantic surface mind so that deeper processing can occur.

Not intense thinking.

Not forced analysis.

Calm attention.

Think of it as bending your consciousness upward — into a state where intuition operates freely. Where creative connections form without strain.

The mistake most founders make is not that they think too little.

It is that they think too noisily.

You can also meditate on worry. On resentment. On fear. Many do — especially before sleep. They replay arguments. They rehearse disasters. They spiral.

And then they wonder why they wake exhausted.

Instead, try this:

Before sleep, forgive. Release. Choose a single constructive idea to rest your mind on. Let the nervous system settle. Allow the deeper mind to work without interference.

This is not mysticism.

It is mental hygiene.

A founder who cannot quiet their mind will make reactive decisions. A founder who can step back, detach, and access intuition will often see what others miss.

So yes — sometimes the most productive thing you can do is close the laptop.

Walk outside.

Breathe.

Ask the right question.

And then be still long enough to hear the answer.

It may not look like work.

But it may be the most important work you do all day.

‍

There is an old instruction that feels almost radical in today’s world:

Never go to sleep carrying resentment.

Forgive before you rest.

Not because it is sentimental.
Not because it is moral posturing.
But because it is practical.

When you fall asleep, the analytical mind powers down. What remains active is deeper. The emotional tone you carry into sleep becomes the direction your subconscious follows through the night.

If you fall asleep rehearsing anger, your mind continues building cases.

If you fall asleep in fear, your nervous system stays alert.

If you fall asleep in grace, the mind softens — and clarity grows.

So here is a simple discipline.

Before sleep:

Forgive anyone you believe has wronged you.
Forgive yourself for mistakes made.
Release the day.

Then deliberately choose your final thought.

Not just a positive thought — a generous one. A graceful one. A forward-facing one.

Imagine your life as if your most balanced and fulfilling success has already occurred.

See your company thriving.
See the impact it has made.
See the lives improved.
See the financial reward — not as greed, but as proof of value delivered.

And yes, imagine the celebration.

Perhaps you fly your family and closest friends somewhere extraordinary. White sand. Clear water. Laughter at sunset. The air warm. The horizon endless.

Drift to sleep there.

When you wake, do not hand your mind to your inbox.

Claim it.

Begin with deliberate thought.

“I am __________.”
“I am building __________.”
“I create value.”
“My work serves the highest good.”

Fill in the blanks in whatever language inspires you.

Do it whether you feel like it or not.

This is not magical thinking.

It is directional thinking.

No one can fully explain why meditation deepens intuition — but those who practice consistently report the same outcome: better decisions, faster clarity, less emotional turbulence.

The science supports many of the observable effects. Regular meditation improves cognitive flexibility, emotional regulation, and problem-solving accuracy. It quiets reactivity and strengthens executive function.

In other words, it strengthens the founder’s operating system.

There are also practical disciplines that sharpen decision-making:

Experience across functions.
When you understand marketing, operations, finance, and customer dynamics — even at a basic level — your intuition has more data to draw from.

Strong vendor relationships.
In a traditional hierarchy, department heads often protect turf. In a virtual model, your vendors are on the front lines of your markets. Build real relationships. If they care about you, they will alert you to trends before they become headlines.

Empowerment.
Real empowerment — not the corporate buzzword version.

If you work with experienced contractors, allow them to decide within clear boundaries. Micromanagement kills motivation. Studies consistently show that when people feel watched or second-guessed, productivity drops significantly.

In a virtual company, you cannot hover. Nor should you.

Focus on outcomes.
Set benchmarks.
Define timelines.
Then trust.

If you suffocate consultants with control, they will simply choose not to work with you again.

And here is something unfashionable but true:

Balanced leadership matters.

There is substantial evidence that diverse perspectives — including balanced male and female representation — improve decision quality, risk assessment, and long-term performance.

When building your network of contractors, advisors, and partners, think about balance. Not as a quota. As a strength.

Different cognitive styles challenge blind spots.

Better decisions rarely emerge from identical thinkers agreeing with each other.

In the end, being a strong decision-maker is not about being aggressive.

It is about being clear.

Clear enough to act.
Calm enough to trust your intuition.
Disciplined enough to focus.
Balanced enough to listen.

And wise enough to know when the best move is not another meeting —
but a quiet walk, a forgiven heart, and a well-asked question before sleep.

‍

If I could distill and bottle women’s intuition I’d be the richest man on the planet!

As a man I have to work at improving my intuition. Even then I question it… when I know better than to do that. As a non-employer business founder intuition is critical because you don’t have the people or resources to analyze everything. You have to trust your gut. Easy or hard?