So many decisions to be made as a business leader. Do we use this
vendor? Do we buy some product? We buy some new
technology? Do we terminate a relationship, terminate an employee?
Who do we hire? This back and forth that goes on in our minds
can cause tremendous anxiety. We can do some
things to get out of this drama.
And in fact, not making a decision causes drama in our lives as
well. So the process both can cause a lot of drama, a
struggle, a common struggle. We're going to address this today.
Some current decisions that I am struggling with and
that I've had recently for me is just
something simple like when do I schedule my workouts?
Should I join this club or should I not?
Do I go on a date with this person or do I not? Do
I hire this company? Do I work with this client? Do I
hire this specific employee? Those are big,
weighty decisions. Even the structure of the organization, do we hire an
administrative assistant or somebody in sales? They have a lot
of weight to them. So. Welcome to the Decide youe Legacy
podcast. Today's episode is called Decide With Clarity.
Three Steps to Better Faster Decisions so you're
not stuck. And by the end of this episode, you're going to
see that, well, not making a decision is often more costly than making
one, even if it's a mistake. And you're going to get excited
about how you can improve your decision making process.
I have recently made some decisions that have
taken some pressure off. You can do the same thing and you can see
that even if you make the wrong decision, you're gonna learn from it. And
recently one of those decisions was to hire
somebody and then realize that for them it probably wasn't the
best fit. For me, it may have not been the best decision.
I think it was a win, though, because the win was
that we learned and we grew and we're growing each day.
Kind of cool. So you're gonna learn a simplified process
to making decisions and then you're going to see how you
can do this in a way that is going to be productive. I'm your host
of the Decide youe Legacy podcast. I am a legacy coach and
family therapist over 25 years. And the purpose
of Decide youe Legacy is helping businesses and individuals live
courageously. That's our purpose. That's our focus.
I faced a fear recently. It was a decision. It was a
tough decision. And I went on a vacation for 10 days with my
extended family and my daughter and we went to
California and the beach. I went to Yosemite. Great
time. But during that trip, I Decided to go and see
my cousin Stan. And because I was leaving family for
a period of time, I got a lot of pushback from people in my family
about going on this trip. It was a four hour drive and I was going
to be gone for the majority of a day. I left early in the morning.
But I'm glad I made the decision. I'm going to walk you through how I
made it and I and share with you the outcome of that as well. So
as I go along in this content, there is a blog post that I wrote
years ago and I've refined and republished called it's on 17 Tools
for Making Decisions. This content you're gonna wanna check out,
hit the link to check it out or go to the website decidedyourlegacy.com, you
can read through that content and access it as well. So
these are three steps to better faster decisions. And the first step
is to list out all the facts. So two activities
I like to take clients through that help them to see the facts rather than
the fear. One is called five, five and five. And I
learned this from a version of this from a book called Decisive by Chip and
Dan Heath. So you decide, you make a, you make
a pseudo decision. So you decide I'm going to do go down
this path. You're not actually doing that, but you're deciding in your mind to go
and make a decision. And then let's say you just a
simple decision could be you decide to go eat at a certain
restaurant versus another restaurant. Or even a bigger decision could be, you know, you
decide to join a golf course, country club
and it's expensive, or you decide to purchase plane tickets to go visit
a friend or people in your family. And then you can analyze that decision
and say, how am I going? How do I think I'm going to feel about
it five minutes after I make the decision, five days after
I make the decision, and five years after I make the decision, or five months
after I make the decision. So it can be 5, 5, 5 and 5. But
then you write down some of the feelings you would have. And those feelings are
not facts, but they're gonna help you identify some facts about the
situation. One could be that it's not gonna ruin your business
or it's not gonna make you go bankrupt. You're gonna learn from it
could be a fact, because that can be a fact that you're gonna learn even
from the bad decisions. You're not gonna make a horrible decision though, if you go
through processes to make the decision so you wanna.
Another tool that I like clients to go through is to just list out what
you believe will happen if the worst result occurs. And
so let's say that you decide to hire somebody. Well, the worst result
that could occur is that they steal from you and
your business has to shut down. And then the fact is, you could write down
is that you will go on. You have a family that loves you. That can
be a fact. You have kids that you cherish. That's a fact. You're healthy.
That's a fact. You're still. You're not going to prison. Well, that's a fact. I
mean, hopefully not going to prison. I mean, I guess it could be a really
bad situation that ended you up in prison with a bad employee. But the
facts are that you're. You're going to survive, you know, you're going to get through
it. The worst possible outcome, you're going to actually be able to handle.
I decided spontaneously to go out and visit some
college fraternity, Pratt Brothers, a weekend
ago. And it was a spontaneous decision
because I was invited to this birthday party, and I don't think his
wife thought a bunch of us were going to actually fly in from out of
town to go celebrate with him. And we all turned 50 about the same time
there. A year younger than me, many of the guys. But Anyway, we celebrated 50th
and 51st birthdays. So I listed out the facts of the
situation. When I made the decision to buy the tickets to go out. One of
the facts was that my daughter's 18, I don't have to be around
every weekend. It wasn't a weekend that I had plans with her. One
of the other facts was that I had the money to go on the trip.
I had the time to go on the trip. So another fact was
that, well, that. That
flying on a plane was fine. You know, I could get plane tickets. It was
fact. So I could use those facts also to
justify my position, which is not what I'm advocating here. I'm saying
that just look and analyze the facts. It's one aspect, one step of making good
decisions, you know, Shortly after I got the invitation, my buddy Jeremy
called and said, are you going? You know, so that emotionally impacted me, but it
was a fact that some of my other friends were going to go as well.
And it was an opportunity that I could actually attend this party and
make some connections. People I hadn't seen in 10 years. Pretty cool. So another
way you can get facts is listen to experts. So you read content on
that topic for which you're making a decision. You talk to your friends who have
more expertise in an area than you. It'll probably build the friendship.
Because people love to help when they feel valuable in that situation,
especially if they have expertise. I mean, that's why they got the
expertise to help. So. And they're your friend. I mean, it's not the stranger asking
you for advice. You're wanting to get advice from people that have more
expertise than you do. So kind of a cool thing. I
listed out the facts when I went down to see my cousin Stan. I mean,
one of the facts is that he's 95 and his wife is 78.
And one of the facts is that I had the time, I
could make it work. It wasn't going to interfere with any other major commitments with
my family, except tick them off that I was going to be leaving them and
trigger their abandonment fear, which I wasn't abandoning them at
all. It was just a situation where I wanted to see this guy. He's been
a business mentor and a personal mentor in my life. And it was an opportunity
to go see somebody I care about a lot. I was only four hours away
from Balboa island and it worked out
well. So I listed the facts. I saw it, I could get. I've rented a
car. It was going to work out. So the second step to making a
really good decision, fast decision. And some decisions you don't want to make
quickly. Some decisions you have to take time to gather the facts. It's going
to be spread out. But the second step is to filter that
specific decision. You filter it through your core
values. You filter it through whether it adds balance to your life or takes
away balance. You filter it through your life purpose. You filter it
through your even, even your vision.
You know, does it lead you towards that vision? Your vision? This
ideal is a way to establish the right goals, a way to
establish making good decisions. Because they're, they're leading you towards
that vision, that big picture vision, which is super critical as a
business leader to be casting vision, to be focusing on it yourself, to
be talking about it, to be getting feedback on it, to keeping it at the
forefront. Or else you'll forget it, you'll leak. So you create filters.
I mean, a filter works when you decide that you make a pseudo decision, like
again, you're deciding to hire somebody and then you're filtering it through your core
values. Do they align? I mean, the core values of decide your legacy
Intentionality crucial. Are they intentional with their lives and their
Disciplines, courage. Are they a courageous person? Are they willing to make
courageous steps in their life? That's a core value. I want that to ooze out
of every thing we do at Decide youe Legacy Crucial. Another one is hope.
Do they have a sense of hope? Then we have these aspirational values that we
filter things through as well. And that's connection and fun. And there's
a couple other ones that I'm forgetting right now because they're not core values or
aspirational values. I'm just kidding. I could pull them up, but they're important
as well. You want to filter your decisions through your
values. And now I'm going to drive myself crazy by not being able to remember
those other two. But they are crucial as well. And we've
done, as an organization, some clarification of values recently, and that's why
they're not fresh in my mind. The core values, intentionality, courage, and hope are pretty
crystal clear. So I decided to
go to Portland, filtering it through my values. I mean, intentionality is one of
them. Courage is one of them. Intentional with my relationships, great
having hope. Even though I
could have focused on things that could go wrong, seeing friends I hadn't seen in
a while, I still had hope. It was going to be fun, gonna make great
connections. And it really was fun. It was adventurous. There were some crazy,
crappy, not crappy. There are crazy things that happened. Great memories
that happened. So I filtered it through my core values. And
recently I turned down a business opportunity working,
doing a couple projects for a big company. And I
turned it down because there was a misalignment in our. In our
target market, in our niche. And there was also.
It was a valuable opportunity, but I didn't feel
like it aligned with my core value of intentionality. I've decided that we're going
to focus on an organization and say no to the things that
can be good, but say yes to the best opportunities. So I knew if
I took on this engagement, it would have taken
a significant amount of time and energy. It would have taken away a lot of
focus from growing from hiring and building up new parts of the
business. And I would have been excited initially. So
thinking of that 5, 5, 5 and 5. I would have been initially excited because
I said yes and didn't have to let somebody down, which I don't want to
do. Five minutes after I made the decision, I would have felt that way. Five
days after I made the decision, I might have still felt that way. But five
months after I made the decision I would have potentially looked back and said
I could have invested my time and energy into something that was moving the needle
where we want the needle to move. Not that that was a bad opportunity, but
it was a decision that as I look back even now having made it,
it was a good decision, it was the right decision. And I hope I don't
change my mind on that. I could, you know, because I'm all over the place
sometimes, but that's how I made that specific decision. Does it align
with who you want to be in the future? That's alignment with your values. So
you have this, this assessment that it's actually adding
opportunity to your life for more balance. It's not taking
away and detracting from balance in your life. That's how I encourage clients to make
decisions. That's how I want to make decisions myself.
Step in Making faster, better decisions is
the most important step in the entire process.
And it's your intuition, it's learning to trust your intuition. Now
if you have been burned in your life, you may second guess
that inner gut level voice
that's saying, go here or don't go there. It's different than your
emotions. It's something that rises up with inside of you. It's
something that you get and you can develop in your life. And I find that
I develop it when I have solitude, when I go on a walk, when I
read, when I engage in the hobby. Not
thinking about making that decision. I find that's very helpful. And that's one of the
things that can connect you with a good, with this good decision
making process is just step away from it. Maybe step away from it, clear your
head, go play golf, go on a walk, go on a run, do something different.
And then just trust, trust that your
intuition is going to guide you, that something's going to come up inside of you.
And it's not based on what other people think, it's not based on what you
think you should do. It's based on what you want and it's based on
your intuition. And then go in that direction. That's why it's the third
step and the most important step. You can make decisions that are great
looking back and know in the moment that you did not have much support
because people that you trust in, your friends and your family, they may not have
been in support of that decision, but you knew intuitively that it was the right
decision to make. Only you can make that decision. So everyone might think you
should, you should date this specific guy in your
family and you and your gut think he's a great guy, he's quality,
he's solid. But intuitively you're just not at that
place. Maybe you get there in the future, but that lack of
desire to make that decision to go date and to be all
in is there. And you want to trust that. Now, as you talk to friends
and family, you may reassess and maybe something rises up inside of
you that changes your mind. And that is fine. It is fine to change your
mind. I think you're changing
your gut reaction. You're getting somewhere deeper. And maybe you don't have enough
information. That's why I start with the facts. And then
we go from getting the facts to actually filtering
it through your core values and your vision and your balance so you're not
compromising. Crucial. And I did that. I did that with my
friends going into Portland, this party, and I did it with Stan because it
aligned with the intentionality and the courage, the courage to not do what my family
wanted me to do in that situation. Interestingly enough, when I came
back, they were happy I made that decision. I mean, they were excited that I
connected with my cousin Stan, my dad's first cousin, and his wife. They were
excited to learn more. So it ended up being a very good thing.
But in the moment, it was tough. Now, the day before I left
for Portland, I got a call from my buddy Jeremy, and he shared with me
that his dog had just recently passed and we had made plans to split a
hotel, go on this trip together. He was part of what inspired me to
make sure I went on this 50th birthday party trip. Now,
when I talked to him, I could
have tried to talk him out of it because he was saying that he wasn't
gonna go. I took the call and, and in my gut I felt
like, just listen, you know, he's grieving. Just ask him questions, man. Just
be there for him. You've had loss in your life, Adam. That was my gut
reaction, to want to just be there for him, help him talk it
through, because I mean, he loves his dog. I lost a 16 year old dog.
His dog was 13, 12 or 13. I knew Theo, I mean, he was great
dog. And so I knew that my buddy was grieving and call
was silly. I don't care. My dog has helped a lot of my clients
and help me in challenging situations. It's a great thing
to have to focus on at times. But just listening to him, that was
an intuitive response. And through that it helped me. I
wasn't going to cancel. But I was going to be disappointed because he was kind
of a safety person that I that was going on this trip. I mean, I
knew all the other guys and stuff, but I'd stayed in better touch with him.
So I felt more comfortable with Jeremy going. But I trusted my gut.
I didn't try to control him. What we don't trust, we control.
Not good. And I just went with it, listened to him, and then he changed
his mind and he went on the trip. So you want to try it out
with this intuition thing, you just go. And what I have
tried to do recently is if I make, if
I realize that my initial thought about something,
that initial, I call it the inner roommate. It's loud,
it's fear based, it's your ego. You know, I want to write those
thoughts down that I have about the decision initially. And then I make. So
make three columns and then in the middle column, these are like my
neutral thoughts that I don't know based on that initial thought. So
my initial thought would be, you know, if you go without Jeremy to Portland, Oregon,
you're going to be miserable and you don't have that safety blanket there. Then my
neutral thought was like something that is in between.
It's. It's okay, you know, you'll still have fun.
You'll get to connect with other people and you'll have time in the hotel alone
to do work. I don't know, something. And then you have a
truthful thought. So that neutral thought and the truthful thought, the
neutral thought is often more intuitive and something that's not fear based,
but it's something you can explore and you can get more information on to get
a more truthful, accurate, hopeful perspective on the situation. So you can try that
as well. It's an intuitive activity. And you can also say, what
should I. You can make a list of things you think you should do and
what you want. Often what I find that what I want is
it's from inside, it's inspiring. I mean even the word in spirit
versus an intuition in spirit. It's inspiring.
It's inspirational rather than informational in
form. Information is inform. It's very concrete. It
could be something that someone says to you. Read this. You know, it's just
information. It's not necessarily true, just information.
Inspiration is going to have much more connection to your intuition.
So you want to try this out. You know, if you can think of right
now a big decision that you want to make and I know you have them,
I know you making big decisions, I Mean, you guys are leaders listening to this
podcast. You're making decisions with your personally and professionally.
What do I do in my marriage? How do I take care of my aging
parents? How do I deal with the difficult employee? How do I address
conflict in a healthy way? Do I become.
Do I want to become the president of my company? Do I want to sell
my company? Do I want to buy this company? There's so many
ways we can get distracted, and then we can get
bothered by all the stuff in our heads in
that specific situation. So being
bothered does not mean you have legitimate bothers. It does not mean you have
legitimate things to focus on that are really disturbing. It just simply means that
you're letting yourself go in a path, on a way, in
a. In a direction that is distracting you from facing the core
issue. So we can make things so bothersome. I mean,
perfectionism can be a bother. And if you step back from the situation,
you connect with your intuition, you look at the facts, you filter
that situation, and then you can do one more thing. You can ask yourself, what
would I do here if I wasn't bothered? And then do that.
How? Simple as that. What would I do if I wasn't disturbed in this situation?
And then do that. Because the reality is, much of what you're focusing on
really isn't the real issue. The real issue is something different. You're just afraid,
and you're afraid to do that next thing. I asked that to a client today.
What would you do here if you weren't bothered? You know, very different kind of
perspective. And I can see them in those situations like
that. And I learned this tool. I actually listened to a book, and I learned
this from an inspiring coach. Business coach Dan
Sullivan was talking about in his book not being Bothered, which we can link to
as well. Very good content. But I noticed in that situation,
just asking that question, there was a shift, I mean, away from all the
emotion and everything, to where I can take action, to
the prefrontal cortex, away from the amygdala to the prefrontal cortex, and
then you can actually do something about it. So if you want
to apply this information, just start with something. I mean,
start with something simple like where am I going to eat tonight? Or if you
and your spouse are arguing or your friend about where you're going to eat, just
start with something like that. How do you make it? List the facts. Fact is,
you're interested in eating Mexican food right now. Fact is, they want
Mexican food more than you want Mexican food today. Those could be Feelings as
well. But you can list the facts, you can apply the filters. How does it
align with your core values? You got to get those core values articulated
to be able to do that. You align, you filter it through your vision, you
filter it through whether it adds balance to your life and your life purpose statement,
your purpose in your life. And then you make the decision, you make the call,
you let go, you go with your gut, then you live with the results, knowing.
And I love this quote right here as well. If I can find it,
oh boy, I don't know if I can find it now, but I think I
can. But it's by, it's from Theodore Roosevelt and
it's in any moment, in any moment of decision, the best thing you can do
is the right thing. The next best thing is the wrong thing. And the worst
thing you can do is nothing. Doing nothing is a decision. Doing nothing can be
a destructive decision. You're not getting any feedback, you're not getting any
information on making a mistake. You, you learn so much from making
mistakes. So you want to make decisions. I'd encourage you, all of you leaders, you're
probably going to need to make more decisions, trust your gut intuitively more.
Just go with it more than less, because that's why.
And that's how you're going to learn. And then over time, you'll realize that you
can trust yourself more and more. If you've been burned, if you've made mistakes, you
have to pick it back up and say, hey, I trusted here, I shouldn't have
trusted there. But it doesn't mean that I can't trust anybody. It doesn't mean
that it won't work in this situation. That's not what that means. It just means
you got to learn from it. What's the meaning in that situation? So you want
to list out the facts, you want to filter the situation, and then you want
to go with your gut. So if you found this content helpful, you're going to
love the content and Shatterproof yourself. Light. 7 Small Steps to a
giant leap. And the giant leap we're going to talk about here is going to
give you clarity on your filters. It's going to give you clarity on your perspective.
It's going to help you start establishing balance and it's going to help you start
establishing healthy relationships so you can get more facts by connecting with
people. It's going to be helpful to you in many ways. And It's a brief
20, 25 minute video on a worksheet. You fill out, check it out. Download the
worksheet, go through it. It's totally free. You will not want to miss that. Share
it with your friends and as well. If you like this episode,
give it us a rating and review on Apple or Spotify. Wherever you get
podcast content, give us a review. Share it. We will
love you forever for that. And I want to close the way that I always
do. Remember that nothing will make my day better
than knowing you have taken action. What is something from today that you
are going to take action on? Do it right away, like in an hour, within
an hour, even. Write it down. I'm going to apply this decision making tool.
I'm going to make this decision based on this content.
I don't have it all figured out. Like I wrote this episode because I'm struggling
with making decisions. I that's why I was thinking about this content. I mean, I
don't have it all figured out. I'm a fellow traveler. That's not what I'm talking.
I'm not saying I'm a guru here. I'm not that at all. I'm
a fellow struggler. I do know one thing though. There's no positive change
unless you decide to do something new and take some kind of an action. Because
your legacy, which is. Which is the way people will remember you. The
impact your life has on others, it depends on you making
decisions to live that legacy. To decide means you're
eliminating other options. Great word. Your legacy is your
impact on other people's lives. Live the life today that you want to be
remembered for 10 years after you're gone. So if you
died today, how would they remember you in a year, in two years? Live that
life today. You decide your legacy. Nobody else. I appreciate you
greatly and I'll see you next time.