Humans are funny creatures. We crave the binary. We want everything to be “on” or “off,” “black” or “white.” We want to ignore the middle state or the third option (my apologies to quantum physics).

For me, that black-and-white state is the Holy Grail. If a decision is binary, it can be made, executed, and put behind me. It frees up precious brain power for something more interesting. It allows me to look forward rather than constantly glancing back and reassessing paths over and over again.

The Power of the Binary

I’ve seen how this works in investing. Pick an equity allocation, pick an index fund and you are done. It eliminates the “generated for no reason” stress of picking individual stocks and constantly reevaluating.

I see it in physical fitness, too. For fit people there are no decisions because the decision was already made in the past. There is no “when I feel like it.”

I have a friend who runs at least 5km every single day, 365 days a year.

• At the beach with a beer in hand? He ran before.
• A long day of skiing? He ran before we left for the hill.
• Sick as a dog? He’ll gut out a slow 5km, but he does it.

There are no off days. For him, running is etched in stone; it is a given. Because he removed the “Grey” from the equation, he lost 50 pounds that he had carried for 25 years. It worked, and it still does. He does not have to decide on if he exercises

on or off – no in between

The “But” and the Grey Zone

Retiring when I hit my goal dollars? Decision made—do it. Go to the gym? Yep, do it. Make new friends? Yep, do it. I used to tell my kids as they got on the school bus to “have fun and make a new friend today.” Now, it’s my turn.

But…

How come there is always a “but”?

I think the human psyche likes to stay in the Grey Zone because the Grey Zone is safe. It’s what we know. It gives us an “out”. We perceive ourselves as making progress without actually committing. When I sign up for a gym membership, nothing says I have to go. I just have the ability to go. I’m “closer” to going.

Someday. When I want to. That is the Grey.

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The Corporate Training of a “Grey” Mind

My career hasn’t helped my “greyness.” When I was younger, I was data-centric and process-oriented. But then I was taught through politics to be less committal—to avoid absolutes and always leave myself an out. To never except the black and white

To meet my goals, I found it was often easier to bend the rules or navigate around them. If I had done everything the “proper” black-and-white way, I would have failed more often than not. I always tried to understand why a process was written the way it was. So I could use the frame of reference to follow the “spirit” of the rules so I could succeed in the Grey Zone.

The Million-Dollar Training to ask Why

Early in my career, my company would throw out printed circuit boards anytime any copper (pad or traces) were broken. It was easy to accidentally knock a board into something and cause this damage.

The rule was: Damaged? Throw it out, end of story.

This meant hundreds of thousands of dollars were trashed yearly at my location alone—millions corporate-wide.

In my non-accepting way, I asked “Why?”

No one knew.

“The process says so” wasn’t good enough for me. I repaired a board, and it worked perfectly.

I went to the senior design engineers to find the truth. It turned out that you couldn’t repair very high-speed signals with standard round wire because the length and shape had to be exact to avoid an “antenna effect” that ruined computer performance.

Now we knew the “Why.” How many boards actually had those high-speed signals? Almost none. Millions of dollars were being thrown away due to a “corner case” rule written years prior by someone at Corporate .

So, I rewrote the process to address 98% of the scrap. Then, I spent a year implementing a new repair process for the high-speed signals so we could fix 100%.

Because I dealt in Grey, I found a better way. I was rewarded with a “nice job” and likely a $1,000 raise for saving them millions.

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The Conflict: High Performance vs. Personal Progress

As I get older, it would be easier to just go with Black and White. To just follow the tried-and-true rules without questioning. But I was rewarded so many times for thinking outside the box that it’s tough to stop. Investing is always up and to the right? Let me keep thinking about that

Conversely, I’ve been punished for following the “Black and White” rules when my team failed to deliver at work. I was trained to adapt to the Grey for the sake of success. There is always a way.

But there is a cost. When you’re trained to find the exception to every rule, you eventually start applying that same logic to your own life goals.

In a professional setting, the Grey Zone is a competitive advantage. In personal growth—fitness, habits, investing, and long-term planning—the Grey Zone is often just a sophisticated hiding place. The “Out” that the Grey Zone provides is me procrastinating with a “maybe” or a “soon.” Or a “why?”

It is the comfort of the gym membership without the sweat of the treadmill.

The Resolution

It takes a lot of faith to stop questioning, especially when questioning has been my superpower for decades. I need to stop spending my energy on “reassessing” rather than “doing.”

I need to segregate my career training from my life changes. I need to set my own life rules and follow them. Don’t question. Make a Black and White decision. Move forward. Let the alternatives go. Change that decision only if the data coming in proves the original premise wrong.

Stay out of the grey which is just a way to not move forward.

No decision is still a decision. I can’t escape it. I have to have faith in my abilities to make the right call.

What’s the worst that can happen? Just a little Pain. Maybe I need a safe word.

Grey no longer looks good on him