October 20, 2026
You have been going round in circles for months. You have changed the wording, adjusted the approach, tried a different angle, and started again. The decision you needed to make has been sitting at the corner of your mind like an uninvited guest who keeps refusing to leave. Then one morning you wake up, and it is gone, not because the problem is solved, but because you finally made a choice.
I have spent several months doing outreach by email. I have changed the phrasing, the length, the offerings, the attachments, the subject lines, the timings, even the email signatures. I tried warmer openings and more direct ones. I tried shorter messages and more considered ones. I tried everything except the one thing that would have ended the uncertainty sooner, which was admitting that the approach itself might be the problem rather than any individual element.
I didn’t make that admission sooner because I didn’t lack evidence — it was fairly clear. It is that making the admission required me to make a decision, and decisions carry risk, and risk activates a part of the brain that is considerably older than email outreach and much less rational about the distinction between a mammoth and a marketing problem.
The caveman brain was built to hesitate before committing. It evolved in an environment where committing to a mammoth hunt could leave the tribe with or without food for days, where choosing the wrong shelter before a storm could be catastrophic, where the cost of a bad decision was measured in effort and survival. That ancient hesitation kept our ancestors alive. In a B2B email strategy, this reaction should hurt less, yet it can produce the same outcomes, paralysis, a reluctance to close down options, and the need to try again and again before admitting the current approach is the issue.
Doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results isn’t a caveman’s best option.
What I eventually decided was less dramatic than finding a mammoth. I moved my email to a Microsoft 365 managed service, believing my old IMAP email ended up in people’s junk folders. That was it, the decision. Not a bold strategic pivot, not a fundamental rethinking of how I go at the market, not a courageous leap into the unknown. An IMAP migration.
I woke up this morning full of joy. Not because the decision will definitely work. I don’t yet know whether it will work. I woke up full of joy because the decision has been made, because the question that had been sitting in the corner of my mind for months has been answered, and because the brain (the ancient, mammal brain that was designed to hold threats in active consideration until they were resolved) has been given permission to put the problem down.
This is what almost nobody talks about in decisions: the relief of making one is not proportional to its quality. The brain does not reward you for being right. It rewards you for being certain. The moment you commit to a course of action, even an imperfect one, even one you are already planning to modify, the cognitive load that had been accumulating around that open question is released, and what you feel in the hours and days that follow is not the satisfaction of having solved the problem, it is the physical relief of having stopped carrying it.
The worry was never really about the decision itself. The worry was about everything that might happen after the decision. The people who might question it. The outcomes that might not materialise. The possibility of being wrong in front of others who had been watching you try. The caveman brain confuses those anticipated threats with the original problem, so the problem feels heavier than it really is, the decision feels riskier than it is, and the paralysis deepens the longer you let the question hang there, with no answer.
What I have learned over nineteen years in the police, several more running complex projects, and now running my own business, is that decisions rarely turn out as significant as the time wasted by not making them. The wrong decision, made and then modified, almost always produces a better outcome than the right decision you never quite commit to. You can adjust a course you have set. You cannot adjust a course you are still deliberating over.
The tribe that survived was not the one with the best analysis of the terrain. It was the one whose chief could look at what was known, accept what was not, and say, with enough conviction to move the group, “We go this way.” Not because this way was perfect. Because staying where they were was worse.
If you are carrying a decision right now, sitting with something that’s taken up space in your mind longer than it needs to, the question isn’t whether you have enough information to be certain, because you don’t and never will. The question is whether you have enough information to move. Movement releases the weight, and the weight, as it turns out, is considerably heavier than whatever waits on the other side of a choice.
I can tell you this with confidence. I switched email providers this morning, and I haven’t felt this good about my inbox in months.
Caveman Thought
The tribe that waited for the perfect moment to hunt did not eat. The tribe that moved when it knew enough, and adjusted when it learned more, is the one whose descendants are reading this.
Parting Question
What decision have you been holding open longer than it deserves, and what would the morning after making it actually feel like?
As always, be the tribal member you are meant to be. It makes for a much easier and simpler life.
Your friend,
Carl – The Caveman.
P.S. When you are ready, here are a few things that might help you;
- You can book me to attend your next event as a Keynote Speaker.
- Want to take a FREE personality test? Check out The Caveman Principles Tribal Sorter.
- Check out my theories – The Caveman Principles and The SLAP Technique
- Grab a copy of my book The Caveman Principles, directly from my printing agent.
- You might want to book a spot on one of my eLearning courses to help you master a new skill.
- Or, if you have time and want to schedule a Caveman chat (with virtual coffee) for a discovery call, do it here.