Is it good to have all the answers?

The Hebrew word terutz translates as “answer.” The same word in Yiddish translates as “excuse.”

There are a plethora of questions we could, and should be asking ourselves: Are we working hard enough, or too hard? Are we taking too few risks, or too many? Are we breaking new ground, challenging old assumptions, laying foundations for our future?

But after asking the questions, beware of answers that are really nothing more than excuses.

We convince ourselves that we aren’t ready, or that others aren’t ready for us, that the time isn’t right, that the time hasn’t come, that we’ll have more success if we wait for the opportune moment which, somehow, never arrives.

What if we asked ourselves…

“What if?”

“What’s the worst that could happen?”

“What’s the payoff waiting behind the door I’m afraid to open?”

For every excuse, find a counter-excuse, an excuse for what could go wrong if you fail to take action. And when all the excuses for and against cancel out, what’s next?

That’s when the real work begins: confronting what we’re afraid of with logic, reason, and reliable intuition. That’s how we silence the ghosts of irrational fear that haunt the dark corners of our minds.