Someone who was a mentor to me early in my career is in Federal prison right now for taking funds from client accounts and using them to operate his business. Certainly wrong, and you would never do anything like that, right?

It is not likely that he woke up one day and said, “Gee, the sun is shining, it’s a beautiful day, I think I’ll grab a few million bucks from my clients.” Getting to that point was a gradual process. He was in a tough, perhaps desperate situation, so he justified moving some money. He may have believed he would pay the money back when things got better. But things never got better, and he ended up stealing $5 million. He may have thought of it as “borrowing.” He may even have believed he was doing the right thing because he was keeping his company going and paying his employees.

We hear all the time about someone who was a trusted bookkeeper for a small business for 30 years, until one day it is discovered that they embezzled $500,000. In most cases, they did not set out to steal hundreds of thousands of dollars from their employer. Often it starts because they are a little short of cash, so they borrow $50 from petty cash until payday. Maybe they even pay it back the first few times. Then one day they need $300 to get their car repaired. Pretty soon they are writing checks for hundreds or thousands of dollars.

You may think of yourself as an honest person, but do you know what you would do if you were faced with a choice to do either the right thing or the expedient thing? This is not just about money. Ethical “shortcuts” take many different forms. It might mean doing something underhanded to a colleague or competitor, or lying to a client.

Once someone takes that first step to do something that is unethical, immoral or illegal, the next step becomes easier. Each step is a decision, and each step takes them away from the right path.

Decide right now that you will always do the right thing. Making the commitment when the choice is not staring you in the face will make it easier to do what you need to do when you encounter what could be a tough choice.

Doing the right thing may be painful at the time, but there is a reason it is called the “right” thing.

Life is like that, too. When an opportunity is presented and you say no, a door closes. Saying yes creates the possibility of great (or at least new!) things happening for you.

Does this mean you should say yes to everything?

Well, no. Some things are just bad ideas. Saying no to bad ideas is smart.

What you should avoid, though, is the automatic no. This is the no that comes without thinking when you are confronted with a new possibility. Whether it is an offer to speak to your professional association, taking a yoga class, or going on a trip to a new city, saying no only because something will take you out of your comfort zone is always a bad idea.

The next time you are presented with an opportunity, before the “no” springs from your lips, ask yourself a few questions:

What part of you is saying no: your instincts or your fear? Probe a little deeper for the origin of the no. As you dig, you will find your true reasons. If they have to do with real dangers or problems with the offer, go with the no. But if it is just fear, consider saying yes instead.

What is the worst thing that could happen if you say yes? If the worst thing is that you go broke, destroy an important relationship or go to prison, “no” might be a good answer. If the possible consequences are less dire, maybe a yes answer is warranted.

How does this new opportunity fit in with your overall goals and objectives? If it is consistent with your goals, say yes. Would it interfere with doing what you need to do? That might mean a no.

What good things could come from saying yes? Even if it doesn’t appear to be a perfect match with your goals, are there other benefits you might get: financial, personal growth, resume enhancement?

Be open to saying yes, and see what great things you can make happen!

We have amazing abilities to rationalize and justify what we believe we should be doing, while ignoring signs that point us to what we should do.

Trust your intuition, and let it lead you to new opportunities, while steering you away from time wasters and scams.

The next time that little voice in your head tries to get your attention, listen to it. That might mean trying something new (even if it takes you out of your comfort zone) or staying away from a too-good-to-be-true opportunity (that really is too good to be true).

If you aren’t sure that your little voice is giving you good advice, ask yourself a few questions. Why is this particular piece of information pushing its way to the front of your mind? What other bits of data have you picked up recently that relate to this one? Then, do not rush to a decision. Let your mind resolve the question. (And remember that if someone is trying to rush you into doing something, it is probably not a good thing for you to do.)

Chances are, if you spend just a little time analyzing it, you’ll discover why your intuition thinks something is a great idea.

Where there is indecision, there are doubts. Where there are doubts, you have conflict. Where you have conflict, you have symptoms. The longer your indecisiveness lasts, the more difficult the problem seems to become. If you vacillate long enough, your state of anxiety can become chronic.

There is no recipe for infallibility. The trouble with most of us is that we want some sure-fire recipe for being right 100 per cent of the time. There is no such recipe.

A successful business executive once said that the difference between success and failure lay in being right 52 per cent of the time, instead of 48 per cent of the time.

In nearly every business decision someone must have the courage to take positive action without having in hand all the facts and data to make that decision risk-free. To wait for all the necessary information may mean missing an opportunity, may mean a more aggressive competitor will take the important initiative, may mean a timing failure. Timing in business affairs is vital. So usually someone, a manager with courage, must stick his neck out and decide to do something—now!

The amount of time you take to make a decision should be based on its importance. “Will my decision make any difference in my life a year from now?” is a hackneyed question. Still, the amount of time and thought you should devote to the decision will be affected by the answer.

Don’t waste too much time on trifling decisions. Probably it will make no difference a year from now whether you wear your blue suit or your gray one. If you’re wasting time over that decision, you may be running away from a more important one.

Write down advantages and disadvantages of important decisions. If you have a fairly important decision to make, get all the facts you can that have a bearing on it. Then get a sheet of paper and draw a line down the center. On the left side, write the reasons in favor of the step you are thinking of taking. On the right side, list the reasons against it.

You might even assign a figure from one to ten for each reason, giving your estimate of the importance of that factor. If you find your reasons for taking a particular step add up to 80, and the reasons against it to 110, you have a clear mathematical picture of what you ought to do.

Then “sleep on it.” The unconscious mind is able to evaluate factors that the conscious mind sometimes skips. So sleep on your decision. Let the unconscious mind pass along its answer to your conscious mind.

At times the decisions of the unconscious mind represent clearer and sounder thinking than you can produce with your everyday conscious mind. Accept the guidance of your unconscious mind for cues to your best course of action.

Most importantly, make a decision. Not only will failing to make a decision cause anxiety, failing to make a decision is itself a decision. If you do not decide to start a blog, or join Toastmasters, or take some other action, you are deciding not to do those things.

Take stock, list the pros and cons, tap into your subconscious, then make a decision and act on it.

Of course, there are a few things that will work for almost anyone, or that should generally be avoided. However, for everything a guru says is a waste of time and money and never works, there is someone, somewhere who is doing it successfully. Whether you are thinking about blogging, advertising, sending press releases, publishing a book, or other promotions, you will want to consider whether it is a good idea for you, not just what the gurus say.

So how to do you know which ideas will work for you and which will not? A bit of analysis and planning can help you decide. When you follow that with testing, you will know if you have a winner or a dud.

Start by considering if the action is a good fit with your market. Are your customers at home moms, techies, quilters, lawyers, grandparents, travelers, photographers, Porsche owners or some other group? Is your market primarily local, or spread across the country or around the world? Do they spend a lot of time online? Do they read books? Each characteristic of your market will help you to determine the best ways to reach them.

What is the risk? Taking an action has risk. You will have to invest some time and money, and you may not get the result you hoped for. What most people do not realize, though, is that NOT taking action also carries a risk. Will taking the action you are considering involve more risk that you can comfortably accept? What is the risk of not doing it?

Test, test, test. Before committing to a large expenditure, try a small one first and see what the response is. Use the feedback to fine tune the campaign before a major launch.

And if the risk is small, just go for it. Do not spend more time and money thinking and testing than it would take to just do it.

When things work for you, do them again. Continue to test and tweak to see if you can improve results.

Basing actions on a survey can be a good idea, but I would not have made the assumptions that this company did. This post is not about convincing you to have a blog (although you probably should). Instead, it is a warning about letting your biases cloud your interpretation of data and your decision making.

First of all, in my opinion the results of the survey were skewed by the fact that many of the people responding probably had no idea (or the wrong idea) what a blog is. Many of the 85% who said they never read blogs may read them all the time, but they do not recognize them as blogs.

Lesson #1: Do not assume that everyone else uses the same language as you, and understands the same jargon, even if they act as though they do.

Blogs do not necessarily have the word “blog” anywhere on them. Blogs are web sites. They may display information a little differently from traditional web sites, but to most readers they are simply web sites.

The company might have gotten better results from a focus group where they could have defined what a blog is, shown examples and discussed their customers’ perceptions of and reactions to blogs.

Even if we assume that the survey was correct, and 85% of their current clients do not read blogs, there was another error in their logic. They failed to consider that they might attract additional customers by having a blog.

Lesson #2: If you want only the level of business you have today, keep doing what you are already doing. If you want to attract new customers, do new things.

Having a blog, and engaging with other bloggers, would have given this company much more exposure. They could have reached customers that will never hear of them otherwise. And, they could do this at a very low cost.

Lesson #3: Do not spend more time and energy deciding whether or not to do something than it would take to do it.

Instead of holding meetings, conducting surveys, and debating whether they should start a blog, they could have simply started a blog. Maybe this is too much to expect from a big corporation, but it would seem that they could have given someone in the marketing department a $10 monthly budget for a TypePad account, and made it a part of their job to spend an hour or two a day, or a few hours a week, posting to the blog, interacting with people who posted comments, and forming relationships with other bloggers. Then, they could track the results.

When you are considering trying something new, do not let your assumptions color your research. Be open to trying new things to reach new customers.