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Hello Reader,

I looked up in surprise at the sudden commotion. People were running and yelling, staring off into the distance and pointing.

It's usually really peaceful at this particular place. It's a tiny little spot of green grass, some picnic tables and a kids play area, all next to a parking lot. Not far away is a popular hot springs that is heavily visited by tourists during the dry season here in the Northern Territory of Australia.

What was going on!

I didn't have to wait long to find out.

As I walked up to the edge of the parking lot, I could hear a young woman on her phone to the police, reporting an attempted car jacking.

Turns out that one of the tourists had left her car keys and phone in plain sight on top of her towel, while she went for a swim.

Not a smart idea, unfortunately.

Three young teenage boys had swiped the keys and phone, raced up the stairs to the parking lot and piled into this person's vehicle.

Of course the tourist noticed. And raced up the hill after them, yelling, "stop them. Stop them!" in heavily accented English.

One of the other tourists who had just arrived, heard her yelling. And promptly ... I suspect without much conscious thought ... took action.

She yanked open the door of said vehicle and yelled at the boys.

She must have sounded pretty scary, because they promptly took fright, scrambled out of the car and ran away.

And that might have been the end of it, except that the boyfriend of the woman who'd nearly had their car hijacked got really, really mad. He raced after the boys and managed (despite not speaking much English) to get several other people in the vicinity to help him try to catch them

Which wasn't ever going to happen.

The boys promptly hid in the grounds of the primary school opposite the springs. And they would have been out the back and over the fence and gone in an eyeblink.

It was a hornet's nest of activity for awhile.

While we waited for the police to arrive, I chatted with the young lady who'd saved the day and her boyfriend.

Turns out they'd only just got into town an hour ago. And they'd really been looking forward to a swim in the springs.

And now this.

Not only did they have to make a statement to police, but their sense of safety had been violated. And now they were wondering how to look after their things (without getting them wet) and still enjoy their swim.

When the police arrived, I left them to tell their story and went home. I came back a few minutes later with some Snaplock sandwich bags. This was so they could store their phones and keys and keep them dry on the off chance they actually got a chance to swim.

By now, all four of the young tourists were looking very stressed and tense.

The adrenalin had clearly worn off, especially for the brave young lady who had chased the would-be carjackers away. She was almost visibly quivering from nerves and the delayed reaction to what happened.

I think that the risk she had taken was starting to sink in.

Yet despite the realisation that things could have gone differently (aka very badly) and that their swim had been rudely disrupted, I doubt she would have changed anything about what she did.

She didn't stop to weigh it up. She didn't wonder if it was her place to get involved. She just acted on instinct, because she trusted her gut and knew that something wasn't right.

That's a muscle worth building in your business too.

The moment you notice something's off … a price that's wrong, a message that doesn't sound like you, a decision you've been sitting on … definitely make space to investigate more deeply.

Because it’s far too easy to second-guess that gut feeling into silence.

So this week, pick the one thing you've been overthinking and just act on it. You'll probably be right.

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Back to Basics Reminder

Check your website stats.

When did you last actually look at what's converting and what isn't? Not just visitor numbers, the actual path people take before they buy, book or bounce.

Log into your analytics this week and spend ten minutes looking at your top pages and where people drop off. You might be surprised by what you find.

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Time-Saving + AI Tip

Get a second pair of eyes on your content before you hit send.

Next time you're about to send a tricky email (a price increase, a boundary, a no), paste it into Claude or ChatGPT (or your AI tool of choice) first and ask, "what am I about to get wrong here?"

Don’t let it write (or rewrite) the email for you, because it’s really important to keep on exercising your writing muscles. But it is a fast way to highlight things that could land badly with your customers or audience.

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Highlight of the Week

If you've ever felt like your business is doing good work that nobody's actually seeing, this week's episode is for you. In Ep. 253: Why Being Invisible Online Is Costing You More Than You Think, we dig into why staying quiet online is costing you more than you think, and what to do about it.

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And that's it for this week. Hope you have a lovely weekend.

Trudy

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P.S. If you've ever dreamed about starting your own business, then this might be exactly what you need to get you started.

Circle is running a free 2 day event called the Build Summit on August 25 and 26, for anyone sitting on a digital business idea they haven't launched yet.

I've worked with enough people to know that most people don't fail because they're short on ideas. They fail because they never get to the "doing" stage. Or to put it another way, they never get past the planning stage.

Day one has six sessions from people who've actually built what they're teaching, including Chris Donnelly on running a program that keeps people engaged instead of dropping off, and Melyssa Griffin on building something that's true to you, not just something that sells.

Day two is the Circle AI Hackathon, where you take what you've learned and build it live, with Circle's team on hand to help.

Whatever you've been dreaming about building, whether it's a course, a membership, or a business around what you already know, this is your two day opportunity to actually make it real.

Both days are free. Save your seat on Circle (affiliate link).