In 2003, I made a trip to Wilmington North Carolina, from my home in Nebraska, to visit my brother who had recently moved to the area. I arrived on a Thursday and left mid-day Sunday. But not before buying a house that I spent ten minutes in before flying home. Twenty years later, I still live in that home and love it more every day. It was a great decision.

In 2008 I had lost a job I truly enjoyed due to the recession. I then put down a down-payment to lease a building that was at rock bottom price, due to the recession, to go full time with my martial arts and fitness studio. This is still my full-time job and I still love teaching and training students and clients. This was a great decision.

In 2013, I went looking for a new car. I stopped by one car lot, saw the coolest car on the lot, and decided to buy it. I didn’t have enough money, so I sat in the dealer’s office making phone calls to find ways to get enough money into my account to buy it. Ten years later, it’s still the coolest car I’ve ever owned and still get excited every time I sit behind the wheel. Despite the Wilmington drivers that are clearly out to kill me. It was a great decision.

I could go on and on about the seemingly quick decisions I’ve made in my lifetime, but I think these will suffice to get my point across. On surface level, it may look like I make great decisions instinctively. But I’ll let you in on a secret in a moment. But first, I’d like to tell you about Timmy.

Timmy’s an idiot. Sorry to be so blunt, but everything I’ve read about Timmy suggests that he’s definitely an idiot. During the revolutionary war, each of the 13 colonies printed their own currency known as “continentals”. These were disastrous. They weren’t backed by any governing body nor any physical assets, such as gold. The only real backing of the notes was based on the ability to issue bonds and collect taxes. However, during the war, the colonies struggled to issue bonds or collect taxes. To make matters worse, they were extremely easy to counterfeit. This resulted in the notes being all but useless.

What did Timmy do? He began buying them up in mass, spending nearly everything he had on them. Like an idiot. He went broke, right? Never to be heard of again? Nope. Thanks to Alexander Hamilton and his debt plan to buy up all the notes for one percent of their value, Timmy was about to look like a genius. Considering Timmy purchased them at about one third of that one percent value, he made a fortune. Not to mention that Massachusetts decided to reissue their notes at the FULL PRICE! His fortune grew bigger.

With his newfound fortune, Timmy decided to create a shipping business to make more money. It’s important to note that the people around Timmy did not like him. He was heavily uneducated and barely literate. And yet, the richest man in the area due to sheer luck. Hence why they told him it would be a good idea to ship bed warmers to the West Indies. This was their attempt to make him lose his fortune. Living in the cold north, it made sense to him. He purchased and shipped off bed warmers the tropical West Indies.

The people of the West Indies said, “no!” and he lost his fortune…is what you’d expect. However, the people of the West Indies had a great molasses industry and those bed warmers made perfect ladles for stirring. Timmy’s ship captain sold every last one of the bed warmers for a nice profit. What’s an idiot to do upon selling all of those bed warmers to the good people of the West Indies? Ship down wool mittens this time.

The people of West Indies had no use for the wool mittens. By chance, however, a large expedition from Portugal just happened to be in port at the time and were headed to Siberia. What were they in need of? You guessed, wool mittens. Every last mitten was sold. That idiot Timmy just got richer.

In yet another attempt to make Timmy go broke, a “friend” suggested that he send coal to Newcastle England. The coal capital of the world at the time. Timmy, being the idiot he was, did so. What did the ships captain learn once he begrudgingly arrived in Newcastle? The coal miners were on strike. Newcastle bought up all of Timmy’s coal. And the rich get richer.

These shipping stories continued. Sending Bibles to the East Indies, where missionaries just happen to be there and in need of them. Stray cats were sent to the Caribbean…where a rat infestation had unkowingly just begun, so on and so forth. Timmy just kept getting richer and finding ways to sell things that most would have thrown away or never thought to ship in the first place.

Was Timmy, more commonly known as Lord Timothy Dextor, not an idiot? Maybe a genius? Again, no. He was an idiot. Feel free to read his book, A Pickle for the Knowing Ones. I’ll give you an excerpt.

To mankind at Large the time is Com at Last the grat day of Regoising what is that why I will tell you thous three kings is Rased Rased you meane should know Rased on the first Royal Arch in the world olmost Not quite but very hiw up upon so thay are good mark to be scene so the womans Lik to see the front and all people…

I’m not sure if I stopped at the end of a sentence there or not, as there are zero punctuation marks in the book and random words capitalized. When questioned about the lack of punctuation, he responded by adding a new page with 11 lines of punctuation marks with instructions “they may peper and solt it as they plese”. Genius does not describe Timmy.

And if you’re cheering that such a dumb man could succeed in life, I find it important to add that he was well known for being a massive jerk and all but evil. He once faked his death just to see how people would react. He looked over at his wife, who he regularly told people was dead, and noticed she wasn’t crying. He proceeded to have her caned for not being sad enough over his fake death. Let’s add the word “Evil” to his “Idiot” title.

Evil Idiot Lord Timothy Dextor, while lucky, did have something that most don’t have. Action. The ability to make a decision and stick with it. Think about it. How many times has the average person stated that they had a great idea that could make them millions or improve themselves in some fashion, only to not follow through? Most people go through life like this. Having ideas that they do nothing about.

No matter how dumb Timmy was, you can’t say he didn’t have action and follow through. It was his greatest asset. Chances are, he made a lot of bad decisions we don’t know about that cost him money. But we don’t remember those as the crazy successes overshadow those failures.

I mentioned above that there was a secret to my decision making. And I believe it’s the same secret Timmy held. It’s not about making the right choice but making your choice the right one. Our indecision leads to more problems than the wrong decision in many scenarios. Enter the point of this entire blog, self-defense.

One of the worst decisions you can make in a self-defense situation is the lack of action. Set aside the sympathetic nervous system reaction (fight, flight or freeze) that can lead you to freeze up, the lack of knowing what to do in a situation can be paralyzing. I can’t stress enough how common this is in self-defense.

Accept the fact that your attempt at fighting back will be ugly, terribly bad technique, and could possibly even mildly injure yourself (breaking your knuckles punching someone in the rock they call a skull). But in most cases, that’s all that’s needed to send someone running. Most attackers choose their victims based on whether or not they will fight back or not. Essentially looking for the easy victim. When you fight back, you’re no longer an easy victim.

Mind you I’m speaking of actual self-defense here, not a fight between two drunken bar flies over who has fewer brain cells. That’s not self-defense, that’s an ego fight. Literally walking away ends most of those fights.

One thing I see often as a martial arts/self-defense instructor, is watching a student attempting a technique and then stopping to reset when they think they’ve done it incorrectly. Don’t teach yourself to stop in the middle of a technique! As I stated above, accept that it’s going to be ugly and terrible technique, but as long as you keep moving, you can adjust and still make it work. The one time I tell students to stop, is when potential for injury is about to happen to you or your training partner. Aside from that, always follow through.

I tell students this early and often, accepting that it will happen on occasion when at the lower ranks. But at the higher ranks, it’s unacceptable and will lead to failing a rank testing. It seems harsh to fail someone at their rank testing off simply stopping one time, but it’s that important. If you stop or hesitate in self-defense, you may be seriously injured, or worse, dead. It’s that important.

Mistakes and failures are going to happen. But they only stay that way if you stop and accept them. Every bad situation has an exit. Just ask Lord Timothy Dextor. The man who sold bed warmers and wool mittens to people in a tropical area and made a fortune.