It’s Easier to Ask Forgiveness Than Permission

“Indecision is the thief of opportunity.”

Do I trust my instincts? Yes. A thousand times yes. At this stage of my life, trusting my instincts isn’t just a habit—it’s the engine that’s driven everything I’ve built, survived, learned, and become. “The more decisions you make, the better you become at making them.”

I didn’t get here by waiting for someone else to give me permission. I didn’t build a career, raise a family, run businesses, buy and flip properties, survive the messes of life, or chase my passions by ignoring that little inner voice. Every major turning point in my life—every good decision, every narrow escape, every moment that set my future on a better track—started with that instinctive tug that said, Rich, pay attention. Something’s happening here.

My instincts have never been perfect. Nobody’s are. But time after time, they’ve proven themselves reliable enough that I learned to stop second-guessing and start listening. And the older I get, the sharper they feel. You live long enough, go through a few storms, pick yourself up a few dozen times, and your instincts stop being a guess—they become a lifetime of pattern recognition whispering in your ear.

That’s why, when people ask me how I’m “so lucky,” I usually laugh and give them the truth the way I see it: I don’t know if I’m right because I’m smart or clever—it’s because I’m old. Age sands the edges off your doubts. It teaches you the difference between noise and signal. It trains that instinct so well you eventually stop fighting it and start trusting it.

I’ve trusted my instincts with business deals, tenant decisions, antiques, buying and selling real estate, hiring and firing, and even knowing when to walk away from something that looked good on paper but didn’t feel right in my gut. Every time I ignored that feeling, I paid for it. Every time I honored it, things worked out exactly the way they were supposed to.

Instinct is the reward for paying attention to life. For caring enough to watch people’s eyes, hear their tone, feel the energy in a room, notice the details nobody else sees. It’s not magic. It’s experience. It’s wisdom earned the hard way. And it’s the one thing you can trust even when the world around you is shouting in a dozen directions.

So yes, I trust my instincts. I rely on them. I respect them. They’ve never steered me wrong when I had the courage to follow them. And at this point, after nearly seven decades on this spinning rock, my instincts are one of the few things I count on without hesitation.