The Necklace That Taught Me a Lesson About Follow-Up, Time, and Settling
This morning, I reached for a necklace I love.
A simple white gold chain, elegant, understated, exactly right for what I was wearing.
And it was tangled.
My first thought was the familiar one: “I don’t have time for this.” I almost put it back.
But then I paused. Because if I didn’t untangle it now, I wouldn’t wear it today. And it would still be tangled the next time I reached for it.
And in that tiny, quiet moment, I realized something profound: this is exactly what happens to high-achieving entrepreneurs, authors, and thought leaders when it comes to follow-up.
The Untangling Process
Think about it:
- We avoid the tangle. We don’t want to take the time to fix what isn’t working.
- We postpone it until “later”, imagining we’ll have more energy, more clarity, more time.
- We forget that untangling anything requires patience, attention, and order, noticing what comes first, second, and third, and moving gently rather than pulling harder.
Follow-up is the same.
It’s not about doing more.
It’s about doing the right thing in the right order.
When we skip follow-up, it’s rarely because we’re lazy. It’s because we haven’t slowed down enough to untangle what’s already in our hands.
And the cost?
We settle.
We accept crumbs, smaller opportunities, partial wins, missed connections, instead of the thing that actually completes the picture.
The Follow-Up Factor
That’s why I created The Follow-Up Factor.
Not as a hustle strategy.
Not as a pressure tactic.
It’s a way to help people gently and intentionally untangle the opportunities they already have, so they can move forward with clarity and confidence, instead of settling for what’s left.
Sometimes the breakthrough isn’t out there.
It’s right in your hands, waiting for attention.
And yes, the necklace? Once I untangled it, it was perfect.
So often, what we want most is already ours; it just needs our focus.
