Hey Reader,
Every day, you’re making dozens of decisions.
And in almost every single one, there’s a moment between the question and the answer.
It could be a split second, a minute, an hour, a week, or even a month of silence before the answer.
Most people aren’t proud of some of the choices they’ve made because they failed to exercise this silence.
In today’s issue, we’ll explore the silence between decisions as the most underused tool for better outcomes.
💭 The letters Lincoln never sent
Abraham Lincoln was one of the most pressured decision makers in history.
Think of a divided nation, war, generals making calls that cost thousands of lives, and Lincoln had opinions about all of it.
When General Meade failed to pursue Confederate forces after Gettysburg, potentially extending the war by years, Lincoln was furious.
He sat down and wrote Meade a scathing and direct letter.
He poured all his frustration onto the page.
Then he folded it, slid it into an envelope, and put it in his desk.
He never sent it.
When historians found the letter among his papers after his death, written across the envelope were the words: “To Gen. Meade, never sent, never signed.”
And it wasn’t the only one.
Lincoln had a habit of writing what he called hot letters. Letters he’d compose in the heat of emotion, and then sit in the silence before deciding what to do with them.
There’s something I find more interesting about Lincoln’s habit.
This wasn’t a man with the luxury of time. He was carrying the weight of a nation at war.
Yet he still chose the pause.
The silence between the feeling and the response is where the greatest, most aligned and profitable decisions come to you.
And he was too intentional a leader to skip it.
🧠 What if your greatest strength has a blind spot?
There’s something that happens when you’ve been excellent for a long time.
Decisions can start to feel like reflex, and reflex starts to feel like instinct.
You’ve always been able to outthink, outwork, or outmanoeuvre whatever showed up.
That’s a good thing.
But if you’re not careful, you become attached to making decisions now and fast.
Like if you don’t act now, you’ll lose something.
So when a decision, an opportunity, or a commitment shows up, the move is to respond now.
Maybe a little too fast, before you even realize.
And fast can start to look a lot like confidence.
You catch yourself saying yes or no without even thinking it through, only to regret it later.
Over time, this pattern can quietly pull you away from your own depth.
You’re probably not making wrong decisions.
But you recognize a few things you could have said or done better if only you had taken a few minutes to reflect.
And it may have cost you great relationships, opportunities, or a sense of being reliable to people.
❤️ Silence is a conversation worth having
Hearing yourself decide to do something before you actually agree to do it helps you make the best decisions.
It sets aside all external opinions and opens you up to a still atmosphere to hear your own opinion.
You clearly see what the decision means to you, or what the opportunity will give and cost you now and in the years to come.
You become more open to things you may have missed, which helps you form a more informed opinion.
You’re able to make complete peace with the outcome of your choice.
You’re not carrying a quiet tension between what you decided and what you actually meant.
Your yes is your yes.
Your no is your no.
You’re able to remain calm even if things get hard or complicated.
You’re not second-guessing or regretting anything.
You trust yourself even more.
Not just in the quality of your decisions, but in how you feel carrying them.
You become so deeply connected to who you are, what you want, and where you’re going.
You’re never pressured into making any decision.
Because you understand that leaning into pressure can cost you much more than a few minutes of reflection.
🤲 Honor the silence
Not every decision needs a big pause.
It’s okay to be able to make good choices on the spot.
But if you feel even the slightest urge to pause.
Take it.
These simple habits will help you put that silence to good use:
- Get comfortable with an open loop. You can hold a decision open without boxing yourself into it. Say something like: I want to give this the thinking it deserves. Let me come back to you by (a specific time). This may sound cliché, but it works well and doesn’t put you under pressure.
- Don’t make a decision on top of a decision. Step away from everything about that context and go do something completely unrelated. Maybe take a walk, do your workout, or have a meal without your phone. Anything to calm the rush of different thoughts. Come back to it later. Maybe 5 minutes, an hour, 24 hours, a week, or even more, depending on the urgency. You’ll process it more clearly.
- Listen to the decision behind the decision. Ask yourself questions about your direction, values, or the person you’re becoming with that decision. The answer might surprise you.
- Flip it. Ask yourself what you’d advise your most trusted person if this were their decision to make. It’s best to practice this with someone who shares similar values. If you still feel comfortable saying yes or no, by all means, go ahead.
🎯 What would you decide if you weren’t in a rush?
Think about the last time you said yes and wished you hadn’t.
Or said no and felt it closed something worth keeping open.
Take more pauses.
Let your mind sit in silence.
Your truth will come to you.
As Viktor Frankl wrote, “Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our growth and our freedom.”
Exercise that silence.
It’s worth it.
With appreciation,
Huw
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Huw Edwards
Founder & CEO, h3.xyz
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