The Scribbles That Sparked a Strategy: Embracing Messy Action

This morning, I was replying to a message from one of my team members about an old project tied to my husband’s business — and it suddenly hit me:

I never took a picture of the scribbles on the Montana’s table from our business dinner Sunday night.

You see, in this house, we’re not just running one business… we’re running multiple, and we’ve got massive goals about the kind of impact we want to make in the world. So naturally, BBQ and brainstorming are a typical Sunday combo.

And Montana’s? Honestly, it might just be the best place to have a business dinner — hearty food, relaxed vibes, and the added bonus of a giant brown paper table cover that doubles as a blank canvas for ideas. If you’ve never mapped out your business strategy in crayon between bites of ribs… I highly recommend it.

When I mentioned to my team member that I forgot to snap a pic, she replied:

“Scribbles at the Montana’s table is literally how I picture the both of you perfectly. Power couple.”

And that just stuck with me.

Because the truth is, a few years ago, this would’ve looked completely different. I was the ultra-type-A person — the kind who needed all the details dialed in before moving forward. Everything had to look polished, perfect, and thoroughly planned.

And while that approach looked amazing, the reality? Not much actually got done.

When you wait for everything to be perfect, you delay launching. You delay learning. You delay growing.

That night at Montana’s, we didn’t have a five-page business plan or a detailed financial forecast. We didn’t obsess over metrics or outline a pitch deck.

Instead, we ate BBQ. We talked. We laughed. We connected. We took messy action.

With BBQ sauce on our fingers and crayons in our hands, we mapped out what we offer, who we serve, and how we’re going to share that message more clearly. And we left with clarity, aligned goals, and most importantly — momentum.

Because here’s the thing: the action might have been messy… but the impact was incredibly clear.

That’s the beauty of where we’re at right now — we’ve grown enough to know that not everything has to be polished before it’s powerful. That done is better than perfect. That we can take action, refine as we go, and trust that we’ll figure out the rest.

And if you're in your first few years of business, let me tell you something I’ve learned from both personal experience and working behind the scenes of businesses making $50K all the way up to $100M+: The businesses that last aren’t the ones that do it perfectly — they’re the ones that keep moving.

They adapt. They pivot. They try things that don’t work. They make a mess, then clean it up and keep going.

For every flawlessly executed offer, there are a dozen “learning moments” behind the scenes. But they’re still here — still thriving — because they didn’t wait for perfection.

So if you’re stuck in planning, prepping, or overthinking right now…

💡 Grab some crayons. 

🍖 Order some BBQ.

 🧠 Brainstorm like no one’s watching.

And remember: the clarity comes from the doing.