The United States Marine Corps trains its officers to make life-or-death decisions using something called the 70% Rule. Most men have never heard of it. And it might be the single most useful idea for making decisions you'll ever learn.
The rule is simple. If you have 70% of the information you need and 70% confidence in your decision, you act. You don't wait for more data. You don't run another analysis. You don't call another meeting. You move.
The Marines didn't arrive at this number by accident. Decades of combat experience taught them something that behavioural economists have since confirmed in laboratories. Waiting for more certainty doesn't improve outcomes. It degrades them. Conditions on the ground change while you deliberate. The window closes. The man who waited for 90% certainty is now making his "perfect" decision about a situation that has already changed around him.
This principle reaches far beyond the battlefield. And you're probably violating it every single day.
The Fog That Never Lifts
Military commanders are taught a concept early in their training: the fog of war. It means that perfect intelligence doesn't exist. No matter how many scouts you send, how many reports you gather, how many satellite images you analyse, you will never have a complete picture of the battlefield. There will always be gaps. Always unknowns. Always risk.
Trained officers respond to that knowledge differently from everyone else. They're taught that the fog is not a problem to be solved. It's a permanent condition to be operated within.
Waiting for the fog to clear is itself a decision, and usually the worst one available. Because while you're gathering more intelligence, the enemy is moving. He's digging in. He's adapting. The information you're waiting for is about a situation that no longer exists by the time you receive it. The battlefield at 9am is not the battlefield at noon. The perfect plan for morning conditions is worthless by afternoon.
Your life works the same way. The job market you're analysing today won't be the same in six months. The business opportunity you're researching will have shifted by the time you feel "ready." The salary negotiation you're rehearsing is about a version of the situation that's evolving while you practise your lines in the shower.
The 70% Rule exists because military leaders learned, through blood and failure, that delay almost always costs more than imperfection. A good plan executed now beats a perfect plan executed next week. Not because planning is worthless, but because the world doesn't hold still while you plan.
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