The Day I Decided: What ‘Decide’ Really Means and Why It’s the Only Business Strategy That Works

I wanna tell you guys about a night in a grocery store parking lot that changed everything for me.

And I almost didn't share this, but I'm preparing for a workshop that I'm doing at Mom 2.0 and I was like, I need to share this on the podcast.

I think I've shared a little bit of it, but not all of it.

So here I am.

I had just finished an 18 hour shift as a labor and delivery nurse.

12 hours was my scheduled shift.

They were short staffed and I needed the money.

So I. Stayed six more.

I was newly separated, exhausted in a way that goes past, tired, sad, in a way that goes past sad.

It was down in my bones.

So the girls had texted me that they needed cereal, so I decided to stop on the way home because they didn't have any.

And I'm standing there and my card was declined.

I had just spent 18 hours caring for other women, advocating for them, supporting them through their most powerful moments of their entire life.

I'd held their hands.

I had coached through contractions.

I had showed up fully for every single person into every single room I walked into, and I could not buy cereal for my own children.

This is honestly making me a little bit emotional, so I walked back to my car.

It was actually freezing if you're ever worked as a nurse or worn scrubs, I had on scrubs on, but no tights.

And I sit down in my car, in my leather seats and I'm freezing.

Shut the door and snotty crying like snotty, snotty, crying.

But in that moment, in that car, in that parking lot, I made a decision that I've never unmade, and that is what this episode is all about.

Welcome to Sold Out Sales School.

I'm Trish Ware, former high risk labor and delivery nurse, mom of seven homeschooling mama and the founder of two seven Figure businesses.

One of them built from the ground up while my life was actively falling apart.

So this is episode four of a little series of episodes that I'm doing.

I'll be honest with you, this is one I almost didn't record because this story is.

So real and it's so raw and it's embarrassing and some parts of it still live in my chest in a way that's hard to put into words, but I'm telling it because I know that someone listening needs to hear it and not the polished version, the parking lot version.

So let's go.

I need to take you back to a specific season in my life.

I was in the process of leaving a really difficult 25 year marriage, and when I say leaving, I just don't mean like walking away, packing boxes, splitting a lease.

I mean, extricating myself from a relationship where my worth had been quietly, systematically, methodically taken apart from most of my adult life.

I have been with him since I was 20, had seven children.

We adopted a child, which is one of those.

I was a homeschooling mom.

I was a good Christian girl.

Listening to the church, listening to my authority.

Here I am.

I'm still working as a labor and delivery nurse, which is.

The main career that I've known, I've always been a semi hustler, just so you'll know.

And my soon to be ex was still controlling the finances.

I had never really had my own money and he was controlling it, not because there was a legal reason to, but he did.

Control was the only language he knew and money was the tool.

So here I had this baby brand new business lie, her nurse mom, and I've been building it on the side, late nights, early mornings, moments between everything else.

But it was like a hobby because it wasn't real and it wasn't helping.

It wasn't supporting, and it was like, you know, something I kept telling myself once my life got easier, once things settled down, things were not settling down, and here's what nobody tells you about leaving a controlling relationship.

The financial war, the emotional and the mind war does not end when you walk out the door, when they walk out.

And in some ways it intensified.

I feel like my voice is shaking a little bit here.

Y'all like, bear with me because this is raw.

The moment you assert your freedom, the control gets worse and the control finds new forms when they don't have the old forms that they always worked with and.

I was working part-time ish, PRN, because I was a PRN nurse and of course, you know, if I got low census called off.

That was that.

But I showed up to every shift that I could, doing what I could, and still the money that should have been accessible to me to take care of my children was being withheld.

Not because it wasn't there.

'cause he made really good money at the time.

Now I make more than him y'all anyway, because someone decided it was a way to keep me scared because he was scared.

He wanted to close up all gates for me to leave.

And he just wanted me to not leave and he wanted to show me that I needed him to survive.

So I wanna be careful how I say this to you guys, because I don't want this to be a story about bitterness.

I want it to be a story of redemption.

'cause I've done the work, I've forgiven.

I'm not angry anymore.

But I want you to understand what that season felt like for me, because some of you listening right now are in a similar situation, have been in similar situations.

You've been made to feel small and dependent and cornered, and I want you to know that I see you and I was you.

So send me a DM if that's you right now.

So the night.

Just come off an 18 hour shift, which I love my job, so don't get me wrong.

12 was what I was supposed to do.

Six hours past that, they still needed me, so I stayed because that is what I do.

That is who I am.

I show up.

I was running on nothing.

My body was done.

My heart was aching, my feet were swollen in and outta delivery rooms, monitoring, coaching, advocating, pouring out everything I had for women when I really didn't have much to give.

On the way home, I stopped at the grocery store.

My kids needed cereal.

That was it, just cereal.

I put it on the belt, the cashier ran my card.

It was like three bucks, y'all, and it was declined.

And I remember the feeling, you know that noise.

Have you ever heard the noise, the beep that it does when it's declined?

The cashier looks at me with an expression that was trying to be neutral, but wasn't quite neutral at all.

And I remember putting the box back and being like, oh my gosh.

I, I think I came up with some, like my card was compromised.

I thought they fixed it.

I'm so sorry.

Let me go to the car, grab something else.

I'll be back knowing I was not coming back, but I walk out and I sat in my car.

Gotta take a little breath here, y'all.

I sat in the car.

I cried.

Not a quiet, pretty like Instagram worthy crying, but the kind that comes from two things colliding at the exact same time.

I was humiliated, but I also had clarity in that moment.

I just worked 18 hours caring for other women, advocating for them, holding space for them in the most vulnerable moments of their life.

And I had given everything I had and I had come home to a declined card for a stinking box of cereal.

Not even a brand.

It was like store brand cereal.

Something in me cracked wide open in that parking lot.

Not broke, but cracked open, like you know, a seed that has to split before it grows.

Want you to picture that I was a seed in the hard ground.

Being tormented.

Being pressured, and I cracked open and what was inside was a now allowed to grow.

Sitting in that car though, in that parking lot, I di I was not that advanced at that point.

I had no idea I was freaking out.

But in the quiet after the tears, I made a decision, not someday, not when it's safer, not when it's easier, not when someone else tells me, yes, this is viable.

Not when someone else gives me permission, not when the kids are older, not when my life settles down, and I'm not going through a divorce, not when I feel ready, not when I have the money.

Never, ever again.

I decided that night that I was done being cornered.

I was done being dependent on anyone else's willingness to let me live freely.

I was done treating my business like a side thing I'd get serious about.

Later.

That was my fault.

That was not his fault.

I was treating labor nurse mama like a freaking hobby.

And I went home and I cut off all other options.

I stopped treating labor nurse Mama like a hobby, and I started building it like my future depended on it.

Which it did, and I'm not a social media person.

I was very tech challenged.

I did not grow up dreaming about being a social content creator or what have you.

I didn't have a burning desire to be an influencer.

That was never the point.

But I understood something very clearly in that parking lot.

If I wanted freedom, real freedom, the kind that doesn't depend on anyone else's generosity or goodwill, or me working an hour to get paid for an hour or a calendar.

I had to become known.

I had to build something that was mine.

So I started showing up.

I went live on IGTV before it was trendy.

For those of you who remember IGTV, we had a little app and all the things.

I answered questions in real time.

I had conversations with real moms, and I walked into my social media the exact same way I walk into a patient's room grounded.

Knowing that I am the expert, direct and present, connecting with them and fully me, I didn't wait to be fully polished.

I didn't wait to feel confident.

I didn't wait for the perfect setup.

I didn't worry about what my voice sounded like or how I looked on camera.

I didn't have any lighting.

I didn't have good, you know, we didn't have the little microphones.

We didn't have those little guys.

I just showed up with raw sound, raw lighting, and I did it.

Every single day from a decision, not from a feeling.

'cause if I went on my feeling, I was feeling lousy, I felt worthless.

I even had a sign on my bed, y'all that said, you are worthy to be loved.

I was coming from a place of extreme brokenness, but I made a decision that I was not gonna build labor nurse mama from that brokenness, but from my dream and my vision, I was not looking at income as how much money I can make, I was looking at impact.

How many lives can I affect, including my own?

And when I launched my first offer, I made more in seven days than I had made in six months as a nurse.

In six months, you guys, that was not luck.

That was not a viral moment.

That was not some magic formula.

That was leverage because I had taken the time to build connection, to build trust in real time, and I showed up and that was what happens when a person who has truly decided shows up with nothing to prove and everything to give.

So today I'm the founder of two seven Figure Brands.

Pinch Me.

I have a community of over 750,000 women, give or take.

I have coached in it, educated hundreds of women, and all of it, every single bit of it traces back to that parking lot and a moment where I said, no more a decline card, a box of cereal that my kids did not get.

A woman who finally stopped waiting for permission to become who she already was.

Here's what I want you to take from that story.

The word decide comes from the Latin desir, and hopefully I'm saying that right.

My daughter did Latin, her whole homeschool career, she probably knows, but it literally means to cut off, cut off every other option to make a choice.

So complete that going back is not a direction anymore.

Decide means to cut off.

And most people think they've decided to build their business, but what they've actually done is added their business to a long list of things.

They're kind of trying, like kind of they're posting when they feel inspired or they don't feel crappy or they feel good about it.

They're showing up when it's convenient, they're building it in the margins and then wondering why it keeps staying in the margins.

That is not a decision that is a wish.

There is a version of you that is waiting for the right moment.

Waiting until the kids are a little older.

Waiting until you feel more confident.

Waiting until the algorithm makes sense to you.

Waiting until you feel good to go on camera.

Waiting until someone validates your idea enough that it feels safe to go all in.

You're asking all these people everywhere, is this good?

Is this good?

Instead of fricking deciding, and I wanna say this with absolute love.

That version of you is going to wait forever, because the right moment does not come before the decision.

The right moment is created by the decision.

I did not decide to go all in when things were safe and perfect.

I decided when things were as hard as they could ever be.

When I was exhausted, I was scared.

I was financially cornered and I was completely alone in a parking lot at night.

The circumstances did not change.

And then I decided, I decided, and then the circumstances began to change.

That is how it works.

The circumstance change after the decision every fricking time.

So let me give you something concrete.

I call it a decision check.

Three questions that will tell you whether you have truly decided or whether you are still waiting.

So grab a pen and paper and write these down.

Question one, what are you still treating as the backup plan?

Every person who is half in has a backup.

It might be the job they could go back to.

It might be the spouses income that's always been there.

It might be another offer there quietly developing on the side.

Shame.

Shame.

Don't do it.

The backup plan is not a safety net, it's a ceiling.

it's a ceiling that's keeping you down.

And as long as you're building with one eye on the exit,

you'll never fully build.

The energy you spend protecting your backup is energy.

You are stealing from this business.

So what are you holding onto?

Just in case, name it.

And then ask yourself, honestly, is this serving me or is it giving me permission to stay comfortable?

Question number two, are you showing up from a decision or from a feeling?

When you show up from a feeling you post.

When you're inspired, you go live.

When you feel confident, you pitch.

When you're in a good head space and when the feeling isn't there, when you're tired or overwhelmed, or life is loud, you don't show up.

When you show up from a decision, none of that matters.

The feeling is irrelevant.

You decided.

So you show up, exhausted or energized, confident or scared, polished or imperfect because you decided to not because you feel like it today.

Show up and do it Scared.

I did not feel like going live the morning after that parking lot.

I was running on no sleep.

I was still carrying the weight of everything that happened the night before and what was happening in this season, but I went live anyway because I had decided.

And decisions don't take days off.

Question number three, what would you do today if there was no backup plan?

The job was gone, the spouse's income wasn't there.

If this business was the only thing between you.

Your family and a decline card at a grocery store, what would you do differently?

Would you post with more urgency?

Would you pitch with more confidence?

Would you stop waiting on the perfect caption and just publish the damn thing?

Whatever you just answered, that is what a decided woman does every day, not just when her back is against the wall.

You don't have to wait for a parking lot moment to make your decision, girl.

You can decide right now while you still choose it freely.

So I know this episode was a little bit heavy, and I know some of you're sitting in your own version of the parking lot right now.

Maybe not literally, but in a season that feels really, really hard and too uncertain and too much.

I wanna say something directly to you.

You're not behind, you're not broken, you're not too late.

You're in the parking lot, and the parking lot is not the end of the story.

For me, the parking lot was the beginning of everything.

The road after that night was still freaking hard.

I'm not the coach for you.

If you want me to bluff you up and tell you crap that it's easy and grow passive income and you can do it quick, that's not true.

There were hard days for me and things I had to fight for that should not have required fighting.

But the decision I made that night meant I was no longer fighting alone.

I was fighting from a place of commitment, and there is an enormous difference between fighting with a backup plan and fighting without one, one will keep you safe and the other will free you.

Here's what I need you to take from today.

Decide means to cut off, not to try not to experiment, not to see how it goes.

To cut off every other option and commit fully to the one you've chosen.

Half in is not the same as in you need your three decision check questions this week.

What am I still treating as my backup plan?

Am I showing up from a decision or a feeling?

And what would I do today if there was no backup plan?

I want you to answer those honestly.

Shoot me a DM on Instagram.

I am Trish Ware, and tell me what the answers are.

Let's chat about it.

Today we talked about deciding.

Next week we're gonna talk about one offer, one platform, one year.

And why the women who are scaling aren't doing more.

They're doing less on purpose with full commitment.

That episode is gonna give you permission to stop the Chaos Girl, so don't miss it.

So thank you for sitting with me in this one.

I know is a little heavy, but thank you for giving me the space to be able to share my story.

I believe with everything inside me that the right story at the right time can change the entire direction of your life.

And what looks really hard and heavy right now might be the catalyst for you.

So if this episode moved, you subscribe so you don't miss what's coming next in the series.

And if you know someone who is sitting in their own parking lot right now wondering if this is really possible.

It is so possible.

Send them this episode.

It might be exactly what they need to hear.

Leave a review if you're finding this valuable.

Takes two minutes.

Two minutes, and it helps me and it helps so many other women Find the show.

Come find me on Instagram.

I am at.

I am Trish Ware.

DM me and tell me what you decided today.

I wanna know, I read all of my dms on my coaching labor Nurse, mama, not so much.

We have a team that does that.

But today, girl, this is your cosmic slap on the booty for the week.

You have everything you need.

You are the magic.

Now go decide and sell your offer.

I'll see you again next week.

Bye for now.