On the drive home from Ohio this week, I kept thinking about something I’ve believed for a long time:

When you have the chance, take the chance and go.

This particular trip wasn’t the easiest one to take.

My dad is 80, and traveling with him these days requires some planning.

A wheelchair. A walker. Supplies. Making sure wherever we’re going is accessible.

Then, a few days before we were supposed to leave, the coolant light came on in my car.

Then we thought my dad might have a UTI.

There were plenty of moments when we could have said:

Maybe we shouldn’t go.

But there was also a reason I really wanted to make the trip happen.

My dad grew up in Ohio, and we had an opportunity to get him together with some of his oldest friends.

And I mean longest friendships.

We were able to get my dad, three of his best friends from high school, and the person who originally introduced my mom to my dad together in the same room.

They’ve known each other for more than 60 years.

And I wanted to honor their friendship.

They’re all around 80 now. They’re all dealing with different stages of life and different health challenges.

And the reality is, there probably aren’t an endless number of opportunities left to get everyone together like that.

So we went.

They sat around.

They told stories.

They laughed.

They remembered things.

And for an afternoon, these people who have known one another since they were teenagers got to be together again.

I’m really glad we went.

What happened afterward makes that statement a little more complicated.

On the way home Tuesday, my dad fell.

We ended up spending part of the day in an ER in Bloomsburg, Pennsylvania, where we learned that he had fractured his T12 vertebra.

Not exactly how we planned to end the trip.

And it would be easy to look backward and think:

Maybe we shouldn't have gone.

Except I don't believe that.

On the drive, I had been listening to Annie Duke’s Thinking in Bets, and she talks about something called resulting.

It’s our tendency to judge whether a decision was good or bad based on how things turned out.

Good result = good decision.

Bad result = bad decision.

But life doesn't actually work that way.

Sometimes you make the best decision you can with the information you have, and something still goes wrong.

And sometimes you make a terrible decision and get lucky.

The outcome doesn't necessarily tell you whether the original decision was the right decision strategically.

That really landed for me this week.

Because my dad falling doesn't erase what happened before it.

He still got that afternoon with his friends.

They still got to laugh together.

They still got to tell the stories they’ve probably told one another a hundred times.

And none of us knows how many more opportunities like that we get.

So yes.

Knowing what I know now, I would still go.

Maybe that's what I'm taking away from this week.

We spend a lot of time waiting for certainty.

The right time.

The perfect plan.

The guarantee that things are going to work out.

But certainty isn't usually available to us.

We make the best decision we can.

We take the chance.

And then we "yes, and" what happens next.

So maybe there's something you've been considering lately.

A conversation you need to have.

Something you want to create.

A change you've been thinking about.

An opportunity that keeps tugging at you.

I’m not saying jump blindly.

But maybe ask yourself:

If I have the chance now, what am I waiting for?

And maybe the chance you're trying to take isn't quite that clear.

Maybe you're at one of those points where you know something needs to change, but you're not sure what comes next.

I've been there!

It's also why I'm opening up a few 90-minute one-on-one sessions in September for people who could use another person in the room to help sort through what's next.

No big program. Just 90 minutes together to talk it through, look at what's possible, and figure out where you want to go from here.

If that sounds useful, just reply. We can talk about it.

Until next time,