How to Do the Right Thing

From time to time, I write about the general subject of thinking for yourself—also known as why you don’t need to take anyone’s advice about much of anything.

Whenever I do, I always receive lots of concerned emails from people who make their living by telling other people what to do, explaining why “surely” I don’t mean to imply that their clients should stop giving them money to help them make their decisions.

“But we know better, even though we’ve never been in their shoes” is a common theme to these concerns, which is a lot like saying “This is just how it works.”

Perhaps they’re right. But as I consider these concerns, I tend to think about something that Tom said to me recently, when I asked him about good days and bad days in his business:

“All the bad days have two things in common: you know the right thing to do, but you let someone talk you out of it.”

Think about that for a while.

Sometimes the right thing doesn’t make sense to other people, which is why there’s no need to ask them about it. You know—you just KNOW—what it is. The next step is to do it, not take out a survey.

Lesson: never let anyone talk you out of (or into) anything. Chances are, you already know how to do the right thing.

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Image: Engin