Last night I watched a movie after my wife went to bed early – “The Reef” – a shark movie made a decade ago based loosely on true events.
In the movie, two couples and their boat captain get stranded in the middle of the ocean when their boat capsizes.
The prior day, the group went snorkeling near a small island, which is now 10 or 12 miles away and can no longer be seen with the naked eye.
Nonetheless, the two couples decide to make a swim for the island rather than take their chances on top of the overturned boat, which is now slowly sinking.
The boat captain, however, opts for staying with the ship, because he “knows what’s in those waters.”
(Sharks.)
And it’s hard not to see how analogous their little predicament is to good ol’ business life.
Indecision strikes when we are forced to choose between two equally unappealing options.
In The Reef, it was the choice between facing a very long swim through a wild ocean full of shark-infested waters, or waiting and dehydrating atop a sinking boat hoping to get rescued before becoming shark bait.
In business, it might be choosing whether to joint venture with a particular partner vs. risk going it alone, whether to spend money on marketing that may eventually prove unfruitful vs. saving the money but getting less exposure, stuff like that.
And the only way to get through these types of situations is to focus on the known and predictable factors, those things you can actually control.
Some of the unknowns can be solved by consulting a mentor or by a little of your own research into the matter at hand.
But nothing is going to make the potential dangers or scary what-ifs – all of the legitimately unknown factors – disappear.
So what to do?
The tried and true advice from the business greats who have come before and passed down their righteous wisdom:
Take action.
Don’t be paralyzed by indecision.
Sometimes action means waiting with the boat, and sometimes taking action means you need to go for a little swim.
But make a firm decision based on that which is known.
You can’t change the unknowns anyway.
In The Reef, three out of the four who tried to swim back to the island were eaten by a shark (only one of them survived), and the boat captain was never found (aka, eaten by a shark).
The cruel and harsh but painfully true reality is that sometimes you’re gonna die anyway, so you might as well go out with zeal and purpose and firm decision.
Which reminds me: before you die, if you like saving money on unnecessary expenses, you should take advantage of my low-cost living trust, which I offer as an “unbundled legal service” as the industry has been known to call it.
I do this so you can take care of business without paying unnecessary legal expenses or exorbitant fees.
Keep in mind that without a living trust, a probate court imposes a fee of 5-8% on your estate, just because you had a will rather than a living trust, or no will or trust, as the case may be.
That’s $5,000 – $8,000 you’ll save on an estate worth $100,000.
The money you’ll save by being proactive and taking action while you have the chance to act on something that is predictable and known and which you have control over, is incredible.
If you’re inclined to jump on this opportunity while you have the chance, just email me at paul@denni.biz, or shoot me a text: 949-973-6478.
Paul Denni
paul@denni.biz
P.S. The Reef was based on the story of Ray Boundy, which happened back in 1983. Google it for the true facts of the story, which are pretty incredible.
P.P.S. More details on my low-cost living trust here: