In the fall of 1987, I had a decision to make. Tickets for the 1988 Winter Olympics in Calgary were available, but so were a dozen perfectly reasonable excuses not to buy them. Life had its usual demands. The timing wasn’t ideal. It was easy to talk myself out of it.
I bought the tickets anyway.

That winter, I stood among thousands of people witnessing performances I still remember clearly. More than that, I met people who are still in my life today. Friendships that have stretched across decades, all because I made a small, deliberate decision months before I stepped onto that ice.

That’s the thing about buying the ticket. You don’t just secure a seat. You create a future.

I think of a client of mine, a sharp, accomplished woman who was invited to a conference in 2007. She wrestled with it. The timing wasn’t ideal. The cost, the travel, the disruption to her schedule all gave her reason to decline. She almost didn’t go.
She went.

On the flight there, a man noticed her struggling with her overhead luggage and helped her. They talked. They exchanged details. They fell in love. They married in 2010, and this year they celebrated their 16th anniversary.
She didn’t buy a plane ticket. She bought her life.

The Principle
Most of us don’t fail to reach our goals because we lack ambition or ability. We fail because we leave the door open. We “plan to go” instead of committing to go. We “think about” making the call, having the conversation, enrolling in the program, and thinking about it costs us nothing, which is exactly why it often produces nothing.

“Always Buy the Ticket” is a discipline of pre-commitment. The moment you make a real investment, of money, time, your word, or your reputation, something shifts. The decision is made. What’s left is simply showing up.

The Professional Application: Leaders Who Buy the Ticket
In my work with business leaders and executives, I see the same pattern again and again. Talented, experienced people who are extraordinarily good at making decisions, until the decision involves themselves.

They know the strategic conversation that needs to happen. They know the team member who needs direct feedback. They know their organization needs a new direction. But they keep the door open. They monitor. They wait for more data, better timing, perfect conditions.
Conditions are never perfect. The ticket window closes.

The leaders who consistently outperform their peers share one trait: they commit before they’re comfortable. They announce the initiative before the plan is finished. They have the hard conversation before they’ve rehearsed it perfectly. They hire the executive coach before they’ve convinced themselves they need one.
They buy the ticket.

And here’s what happens when you do: the universe around you reorganizes. Your team senses direction. Conversations shift. Resources appear. You stop managing a possibility and start leading an outcome.

The Coaching Dimension: The Ticket Is the Transformation
I’ve noticed something telling over years of coaching high-performing leaders. The clients who get the most out of the process are never the ones who “try it and see.” They’re the ones who decide, fully, completely, that this is the year they grow.

The investment itself is part of the transformation. When you commit real resources, money, time, your ego, your willingness to be seen in the process of becoming, you create the conditions for change. You’ve bought the ticket. Now you have to show up.

This is why coaching engagements that begin with half-hearted commitments often produce half-hearted results. It’s not the coach’s methodology that’s lacking. It’s that the client never truly bought their ticket.

The most powerful question I ask a new client isn’t about their goals or their challenges. It’s simpler than that:
“Have you fully committed to this?”

The Question That Changes Everything
Let me bring this back to Calgary, 1988.
Standing in that arena, watching the world’s best athletes perform at the absolute peak of their ability, I wasn’t thinking about the reasons I almost didn’t come.

I wasn’t tallying the inconveniences, the cost, the logistics I had to navigate. I was fully present in a moment that has stayed with me for nearly four decades.
But here’s what I’ve thought about many times since: Who didn’t come?

Who had the same opportunity, weighed the same considerations, and quietly let the moment pass? Who told themselves “maybe next time”, and never found a next time quite like that one? Who missed the friendships, the memories, the invisible but undeniable expansion that comes from saying yes to your life?

We rarely mourn the tickets we bought. We mourn the ones we didn’t.

So Here Is My Challenge to You
Right now, today, there is a ticket you haven’t bought.

Maybe it’s the leadership program you’ve been meaning to enroll in. The conversation with your board you’ve been postponing. The succession plan you know you need but keep deferring. The coach you’ve been thinking about hiring for six months. The business you’ve been designing in your head for years.

You have reasons. Good ones, probably. Timing, budget, uncertainty, competing priorities. These aren’t trivial, but they are familiar. They’re the same reasons that have kept that ticket in the window instead of in your hand.

Full Spectrum Leadership isn’t about being fearless. It’s about acting before the fear resolves. It’s about understanding that the commitment itself is the catalyst, that buying the ticket is how the future gets built, deliberately and by design, rather than inherited by default.
The event is coming. The question is whether you’ll be there.

Always buy the ticket.

Let’s Keep Talking!
Peter Comrie
Co-Founder and Human Capital Specialist at Full Spectrum Leadership Inc.
Reach out to me at peter@fullspectrumleadership.com

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