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The 2 a.m. tell

Weighing a major career opportunity, I skipped the pros and cons list and watched what woke me up at night.

In July 2026 I was weighing a significant career opportunity, and I needed a way to tell real conviction from talking myself into something that only looked good on paper. I skipped the pros and cons list and used a named tell instead: what wakes me up at night. The answer is either alarm bells, or waking up picturing ways to add value to the cause.

A spreadsheet can be argued into whatever answer you want. A body kept awake by dread, against a mind that keeps waking you excited to build, gives a signal you cannot talk yourself out of, since it does not come from the part of the brain that justifies decisions.

Two nights in a row I woke up envisioning how to add value, with no alarm bells. That was my full conviction signal. I named it as such: the tell I would follow.

When a decision is truly hard, skip the pros and cons and ask which mode your nights are in. I went with my gut over an argument that sounded rational, because the gut signal was the one that could not be rationalized in either direction.

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