WEBVTT 1 00:00:03.001 --> 00:00:03.521 What's up, guys? 2 00:00:03.541 --> 00:00:04.402 Welcome back to Build. 3 00:00:04.482 --> 00:00:10.165 And today I want to talk about one of the most underrated skills in business, which is decision making. 4 00:00:10.805 --> 00:00:15.188 And I think it's underrated because I don't really think you get a lot of views if you talk about it. 5 00:00:16.689 --> 00:00:17.549 This video probably won't. 6 00:00:17.949 --> 00:00:20.631 But it is absolutely one of the most underrated skills in business right now. 7 00:00:20.651 --> 00:00:27.775 It was top of mind for me this week because I had a bunch of different business leaders come to me and they're like, hey, like, what are you doing about AI? 8 00:00:27.815 --> 00:00:28.895 Like, how are you using it? 9 00:00:29.015 --> 00:00:31.116 Tell me how much time you're investing in it. 10 00:00:31.337 --> 00:00:31.477 And 11 00:00:32.807 --> 00:00:33.848 I know how to use AI. 12 00:00:33.868 --> 00:00:35.429 I have tons of people on the team using AI. 13 00:00:35.449 --> 00:00:37.170 We're AI first company. 14 00:00:37.611 --> 00:00:39.372 We just did an entire initiative this quarter. 15 00:00:40.273 --> 00:00:44.976 But do I think me learning how to vibe code is like the best use of my time? 16 00:00:45.617 --> 00:00:46.597 The answer is actually no. 17 00:00:47.218 --> 00:00:53.362 And the reason for that is I believe that me making good decisions is the best use of my time. 18 00:00:53.402 --> 00:00:55.584 Now, can AI help me make better decisions? 19 00:00:56.064 --> 00:00:56.605 I would say yes. 20 00:00:56.625 --> 00:00:58.106 There's a lot of instances where AI, 21 00:00:58.526 --> 00:01:08.995 you know, I need to research things, I need to get facts, I need to look at averages of companies, I need to do all sorts of stuff that, using AI, can help me get ahead on making a better decision. 22 00:01:09.775 --> 00:01:24.247 Now, I want to make the argument for why this is an underrated skill in business, because time and time again, I will be on here, on this podcast, preaching to you all of these skills that I don't think anyone gives a fuck about, but are definitely the most important things for growing a company. 23 00:01:24.647 --> 00:01:27.470 So the reason why decision-making is... 24 00:01:29.038 --> 00:01:35.183 so important in a company is that the power of a decision comes from the four multipliers that kind of contribute to it. 25 00:01:35.223 --> 00:01:38.685 And I wrote this down because I think it's important and I want you guys to understand. 26 00:01:38.746 --> 00:01:38.986 Okay. 27 00:01:39.026 --> 00:01:47.712 So the first one is that when you make a decision, right, why do you have so much leverage from a decision as a leader is because of the reach. 28 00:01:48.353 --> 00:01:48.613 Okay. 29 00:01:49.033 --> 00:01:53.617 So reach is how many people can execute this decision without you. 30 00:01:54.618 --> 00:01:54.858 So, 31 00:01:56.194 --> 00:02:01.055 your own effort, doing something for yourself, working for yourself, coding something for yourself, reaches you. 32 00:02:02.315 --> 00:02:12.077 If you make a really good decision, how much reach does that get in your organization through your client base, through your community, through the people who follow you? 33 00:02:13.518 --> 00:02:24.340 So by making a specific hiring decision or a pricing decision or a marketplace position or a product decision, you essentially, 34 00:02:25.500 --> 00:02:30.504 get to see that that decision affects and reaches all these people beyond you. 35 00:02:31.465 --> 00:02:32.926 Now, Kenny, I help you do that for sure. 36 00:02:33.586 --> 00:02:34.887 But that's kind of not the point in this video. 37 00:02:34.908 --> 00:02:39.972 The point is that that is one reason why decisions get you so much leverage is the reach that decision has. 38 00:02:40.492 --> 00:02:42.474 Now, here's the next one, repetitions. 39 00:02:43.374 --> 00:02:44.555 Okay, so repetition. 40 00:02:46.036 --> 00:02:46.717 You make a decision. 41 00:02:47.388 --> 00:02:58.675 How many people now can repeat that framework, know that you made that decision now, they can repeat that decision on your behalf in your organization, your client base, and your following after you? 42 00:02:59.876 --> 00:03:04.259 So essentially, you do all this work to make the decision one time. 43 00:03:05.520 --> 00:03:14.205 Now, every time someone faces a situation that's similar to that, they can apply that decision-making process and make good decisions on your behalf. 44 00:03:15.717 --> 00:03:18.059 So essentially you're modeling it for other people in the organization. 45 00:03:18.659 --> 00:03:22.462 So reach, it's like you make this one decision, it affects all these people. 46 00:03:22.502 --> 00:03:27.205 If you think about somebody that has the most reach in this entire world, you would look at world leaders, right? 47 00:03:27.305 --> 00:03:32.789 They make a decision and it affects the whole country, countries, the world, right? 48 00:03:33.629 --> 00:03:37.853 If you look at a leader of a company, a large organization, they make one decision. 49 00:03:37.914 --> 00:03:44.180 It can either positively or negatively affect all the people on that team or that follow that company, that buy products from that company. 50 00:03:44.400 --> 00:03:45.521 And we've seen some good decisions. 51 00:03:45.541 --> 00:03:47.143 We've seen some bad decisions, right? 52 00:03:47.183 --> 00:03:50.707 Like I would say, for example, like I used to love Lululemon. 53 00:03:51.167 --> 00:03:55.709 Whoever bought that company, they made the decision to downgrade the quality of the clothing. 54 00:03:56.129 --> 00:03:57.049 I haven't bought it since. 55 00:03:57.109 --> 00:03:58.430 It affected me, right? 56 00:03:58.470 --> 00:03:59.110 That's reach. 57 00:03:59.811 --> 00:04:01.911 So think about the reach you have from decision. 58 00:04:02.252 --> 00:04:03.552 Second, the repetition. 59 00:04:03.992 --> 00:04:12.076 Now, when you make your decision, how many people can now make that same, take that framework and make the same similar decision in a similar situation on your behalf? 60 00:04:12.776 --> 00:04:19.859 All of your employee base, all of your leaders, clients that watch you and want to see the demonstration of excellence, your audience. 61 00:04:21.420 --> 00:04:31.383 So a good example of this is about two and a half years ago, we had, we'd hired like 10 new leaders in like six months because we were growing really, really fast. 62 00:04:31.423 --> 00:04:39.686 I think this is when we were going from like 30 to 75 people and we needed to like get the leaders and managers and departments, build out another layer of leadership. 63 00:04:39.786 --> 00:04:40.967 And there was two people who, 64 00:04:42.072 --> 00:04:45.633 Like, clearly when I met with them and talked to them, I was like, these people, I don't want them on my team. 65 00:04:45.713 --> 00:04:46.973 Like, they're not nice. 66 00:04:47.033 --> 00:04:48.013 They don't treat people nice. 67 00:04:48.133 --> 00:04:49.934 Like, I can tell that they have ulterior motives. 68 00:04:49.974 --> 00:04:51.714 Like, I could say whatever I want. 69 00:04:51.734 --> 00:04:52.674 I didn't want them on my fucking team. 70 00:04:53.074 --> 00:04:54.395 So I didn't want them on my team. 71 00:04:54.615 --> 00:04:56.235 I tell the team, I'm like, they do not fit our culture. 72 00:04:56.335 --> 00:04:56.815 Here's why. 73 00:04:56.855 --> 00:04:58.096 They clearly don't want what's best for their team. 74 00:04:58.116 --> 00:04:58.616 All these reasons. 75 00:04:59.876 --> 00:05:00.976 So I fired them. 76 00:05:01.296 --> 00:05:03.917 And then I made the post and told my team why I did that. 77 00:05:04.752 --> 00:05:06.453 I said, I'm upholding the culture. 78 00:05:06.673 --> 00:05:07.513 Nothing is more important. 79 00:05:07.613 --> 00:05:10.954 I don't care what results you've got, what resume you've got, what fucking company you came from. 80 00:05:11.374 --> 00:05:13.515 If you don't uphold our culture, then you don't have a job here. 81 00:05:13.895 --> 00:05:15.236 You certainly don't have a job as a leader. 82 00:05:16.856 --> 00:05:22.098 I can't tell you how many times I watched that decision get repeated in my company. 83 00:05:22.896 --> 00:05:30.700 It was like singularly one of the best decisions I've made because I got to watch all these other leaders who were less experienced repeat that. 84 00:05:30.740 --> 00:05:32.701 And when I'd say, well, why shouldn't that person be on this team? 85 00:05:33.241 --> 00:05:34.261 Look, they're not a culture fit. 86 00:05:34.281 --> 00:05:35.322 Look what they did to this person. 87 00:05:35.342 --> 00:05:36.382 Look how they treated this person. 88 00:05:36.402 --> 00:05:37.583 Look how they treated this guest. 89 00:05:38.964 --> 00:05:44.106 So you think about the decisions you make, you are setting the tone for the organization. 90 00:05:44.146 --> 00:05:45.927 You're modeling behavior for everybody else. 91 00:05:46.287 --> 00:05:52.070 So that's, again, the second reason why decision-making is so powerful in an organization. 92 00:05:53.197 --> 00:05:55.318 Now, the next one is duration. 93 00:05:55.879 --> 00:06:05.105 When you do work every day, like I'm making a podcast right now, maybe I write an email, maybe I respond to people, maybe I, I don't know, do something, have a conversation. 94 00:06:06.366 --> 00:06:07.767 How long does that last? 95 00:06:08.067 --> 00:06:11.890 Like, what's the duration of the impact that I'm having in the organization? 96 00:06:12.050 --> 00:06:12.610 It's low. 97 00:06:13.651 --> 00:06:14.852 When you make a decision... 98 00:06:15.633 --> 00:06:38.599 The duration of impact, a decision on the positioning of your business in the marketplace, if you're taking on investors or not, if you're doing an investment or not, if you're doing a deal or not, if you're partnering with this person or not, if you're hiring this person or not, that decision, right, the duration of it, stays in force far beyond what you do today. 99 00:06:39.839 --> 00:06:42.280 So again, you have reach, 100 00:06:42.911 --> 00:06:53.052 you have repetition, and then you have duration, which is I do one thing today, I make a decision today, and I get to see that continue to play out for how long? 101 00:06:54.780 --> 00:06:56.180 it continues to get executed. 102 00:06:56.200 --> 00:07:00.041 The decision gets executed on time and time and time again. 103 00:07:00.081 --> 00:07:08.103 And the bigger the decisions that are that you make, the more work that gets executed on your behalf without you being there for a longer period of time. 104 00:07:09.343 --> 00:07:20.605 So like a good example of this would be, you know, when I make a decision about a partnership or an investment in our company, like we wanna invest in this company, we wanna buy a company, we wanna partner with the company. 105 00:07:21.882 --> 00:07:30.025 That decision is insanely important because that is going to last for a very long time, right? 106 00:07:30.065 --> 00:07:32.766 And so we have some that have been great in terms of duration. 107 00:07:32.806 --> 00:07:37.008 Like it's been years of an amazing partnership and amazing acquisition that we've made. 108 00:07:38.148 --> 00:07:40.429 And then we have some where I've said, oh my gosh, that was terrible. 109 00:07:40.449 --> 00:07:41.750 And I've actually lost time on that. 110 00:07:42.503 --> 00:07:43.905 So it can work in both directions. 111 00:07:44.066 --> 00:07:50.255 But you have to think about, like, how much that compounds over time because you don't have to revisit it. 112 00:07:50.275 --> 00:07:53.480 It's a decision you make one time that continues to make dividends for you. 113 00:07:53.941 --> 00:07:57.606 Which, like, literally, if you're making investments, like, it actually makes dividends for you, right? 114 00:07:58.307 --> 00:08:02.670 And so for us, we have acquisition.com, acquisition RE, which is a real estate arm. 115 00:08:03.290 --> 00:08:10.215 And we make decisions, essentially myself with two others, about what properties we're going to invest in. 116 00:08:10.755 --> 00:08:16.960 You make that decision one time, and it literally pays you money for years and years to come. 117 00:08:17.860 --> 00:08:20.722 That's a good place to spend my time. 118 00:08:22.383 --> 00:08:26.466 So those are the three positives of making a decision. 119 00:08:26.486 --> 00:08:27.707 You get all these things. 120 00:08:28.886 --> 00:08:41.593 Now, I would say the one piece you have to think about is reversibility, which is essentially like the tax on decision making, which is things that are easy to reverse rarely ever need much thought put into them. 121 00:08:41.633 --> 00:08:46.196 In fact, I don't think like you should spend a ton of time thinking about something that's easily reversible. 122 00:08:46.376 --> 00:08:51.699 I'm much more of the mind of you should test it, you should try it, you should dip your toe in it, whatever. 123 00:08:52.980 --> 00:08:56.222 But I would say that a lot of leadership decisions are – 124 00:08:56.942 --> 00:08:57.522 load-bearing. 125 00:08:57.742 --> 00:08:59.843 There's a lot that is riding on them. 126 00:08:59.883 --> 00:09:03.083 There's a lot that could happen that's good or bad based on you making them. 127 00:09:03.363 --> 00:09:24.448 So the harder a decision is to unwind, the more the initial multipliers matter because the cost of being wrong is all of those things in the wrong direction, which is you now are enduring a long period of time that you are 128 00:09:27.105 --> 00:09:34.407 you are having people repeat in the organization or that follow you or that are your customers a decision that you made that is incorrect and it actually just compounds it. 129 00:09:36.108 --> 00:09:42.490 And you essentially reach in many ways people negatively. 130 00:09:42.790 --> 00:09:43.830 So you have a negative impact. 131 00:09:44.050 --> 00:09:52.173 So if you think about making one wrong decision in an organization, over the last year and a half, you've seen a ton of layoffs in huge companies, you've seen a ton of product pivots, 132 00:09:52.650 --> 00:09:55.072 You see a ton of people try to go AI first that have failed. 133 00:09:55.572 --> 00:10:00.977 Those are all decisions that were hard to reverse and arguably bad decisions. 134 00:10:01.678 --> 00:10:07.082 So that's why I think decision-making is like one of the most underrated skills in a company. 135 00:10:07.482 --> 00:10:09.564 I will also tell you, like, this is one of my favorite things to do. 136 00:10:09.584 --> 00:10:12.206 Like, making big decisions is where I feel very comfortable. 137 00:10:12.306 --> 00:10:20.313 It's because I spent a lot of time thinking through the impact of the decisions, what it means to make a decision, and how important they are for the company. 138 00:10:21.631 --> 00:10:29.773 Now, if we're thinking about making a decision, I think the difficulty is like, once you know this, and you're like, okay, I understand how much leverage comes from making decisions. 139 00:10:30.253 --> 00:10:31.514 Then you start to get in your head about it. 140 00:10:31.534 --> 00:10:33.314 You're like, oh, fuck, I don't want to do this. 141 00:10:33.414 --> 00:10:36.935 Because you're like, wow, there's a lot that could go wrong. 142 00:10:36.995 --> 00:10:42.197 And so a lot of people just end up not making decisions and living their life or running their business in a way that is passive. 143 00:10:42.237 --> 00:10:46.398 They think, okay, well, I just don't want to make those decisions because it makes me uncomfortable to some degree. 144 00:10:46.870 --> 00:10:51.133 And if you look at like the best founders, the best CEOs, the best leaders, like they attack these things head on. 145 00:10:51.853 --> 00:10:55.595 I am constantly, like I will tell you this, like constantly looking for what's wrong. 146 00:10:55.916 --> 00:11:01.839 I am looking for decisions I need to make because I understand that an unmade decision is a huge area of risk in my company. 147 00:11:02.480 --> 00:11:10.204 And a lot of times people don't surface them unless you're kind of looking and digging and poking around because they themselves don't really want to make them. 148 00:11:10.304 --> 00:11:12.025 And they're trying to avoid the fact that you do. 149 00:11:12.686 --> 00:11:15.588 And they also kind of don't know what it means for them in many of the situations. 150 00:11:15.808 --> 00:11:16.048 So yeah. 151 00:11:18.452 --> 00:11:23.496 Some ways to kind of deescalate this for yourself, because I think like talking about this, it can put a lot of pressure on somebody. 152 00:11:23.516 --> 00:11:23.956 I understand. 153 00:11:23.976 --> 00:11:25.477 It's like, fuck, I don't want to make the wrong decision. 154 00:11:26.258 --> 00:11:31.862 The first one is that you don't want to have a absolute mentality about this. 155 00:11:32.463 --> 00:11:33.404 It is not all or nothing. 156 00:11:33.984 --> 00:11:37.146 And I think that, you know, in going through the formula, obviously it feels that way. 157 00:11:37.166 --> 00:11:39.008 But like seldom is anything black or white in life. 158 00:11:39.528 --> 00:11:41.029 It's not like an either or mentality. 159 00:11:41.870 --> 00:11:45.492 When somebody, for example, brings me an option like, should we keep them or should we fire them? 160 00:11:46.092 --> 00:11:49.554 There are so many other doors that we could enter. 161 00:11:49.594 --> 00:11:50.414 Do we coach them? 162 00:11:50.434 --> 00:11:51.474 Do we put them in a different role? 163 00:11:51.815 --> 00:11:53.335 Do we change their boss? 164 00:11:53.355 --> 00:11:54.396 Do we give them a mentor? 165 00:11:54.416 --> 00:11:57.017 Do we, like, there are so many other options. 166 00:11:57.477 --> 00:12:02.159 But oftentimes what you'll see is that, especially when you're running a company, is people come to you with these either-or decisions. 167 00:12:02.899 --> 00:12:10.623 And I think the first job and skill in decision-making is to realize that most of the time, the first thing that you want to do is create more options. 168 00:12:11.420 --> 00:12:14.243 So when I'm presented with a decision, it's like, should we do this for the product or this? 169 00:12:14.263 --> 00:12:16.485 And I'm like, why not this over here? 170 00:12:16.965 --> 00:12:18.287 Why is this not an option? 171 00:12:19.368 --> 00:12:26.354 So I think that one of the main things a leader can do that adds value to the company is create options. 172 00:12:27.215 --> 00:12:28.737 The more options you have, 173 00:12:30.234 --> 00:12:37.043 the more likely it is that you're going to make a decision that is best for the company, best for the team, best for the clients, best for the community. 174 00:12:37.423 --> 00:12:38.665 It's a win-win-win for everybody. 175 00:12:39.045 --> 00:12:41.488 And you're going to avoid a lot of the downside of decision making. 176 00:12:42.610 --> 00:12:46.154 But I think it comes down to like you have to be able to actually do that. 177 00:12:46.695 --> 00:12:48.918 So that's the first one is like you need to be able to create decisions. 178 00:12:50.289 --> 00:12:50.649 options. 179 00:12:51.129 --> 00:12:55.312 And I think part of that comes down to like, there's very logical decision making. 180 00:12:55.332 --> 00:13:01.495 I think people think like, I know we're making decisions like this, but like, you need to think creatively, you need to get creative, you need to think of all the different ways you could solve this problem. 181 00:13:01.935 --> 00:13:08.878 Like, in an ideal world, if this could be perfect for you, if this could go perfectly, what would the outcome be? 182 00:13:09.219 --> 00:13:09.859 What would you do? 183 00:13:09.939 --> 00:13:10.699 What would it look like? 184 00:13:11.560 --> 00:13:17.383 And a lot of times when you think that way, and you're a little bit more like having fun with it, you actually come up with like way better things, way better ideas. 185 00:13:18.346 --> 00:13:22.310 Another way I ask myself this is, I'm like, okay, if I were starting over with this situation, what would I do? 186 00:13:23.070 --> 00:13:30.958 I think that unlocks because oftentimes we have the sunk cost of, okay, well, if I have to do this, I'm gonna have to change all this stuff. 187 00:13:31.759 --> 00:13:35.362 Oh my God, that's so much stuff to undo or to go back on or whatever it might be. 188 00:13:35.582 --> 00:13:36.783 And people are really scared of that. 189 00:13:36.803 --> 00:13:40.907 And so because of that, they don't even entertain some of the options that exist. 190 00:13:41.468 --> 00:13:43.630 So for me, if you ask yourself, hey, 191 00:13:45.107 --> 00:13:47.130 If I was starting from scratch, would I do this thing? 192 00:13:47.410 --> 00:13:48.492 Would I go this direction? 193 00:13:48.672 --> 00:13:49.533 Would I hire this person? 194 00:13:50.494 --> 00:13:54.139 That's a great question to ask because I think it gets a really honest answer. 195 00:13:54.480 --> 00:13:59.967 Now, the second thing that I would say is like a skill of decision making is deadlines. 196 00:14:00.508 --> 00:14:00.728 Ha ha. 197 00:14:01.273 --> 00:14:01.693 deadlines. 198 00:14:01.974 --> 00:14:04.075 Decisions do not get easier with time. 199 00:14:04.135 --> 00:14:05.336 They don't get better with time. 200 00:14:05.676 --> 00:14:11.420 Like, there's this fallacy that the more time you spend thinking about it, the better of a decision it will be. 201 00:14:11.781 --> 00:14:15.503 I've noticed that a lot of people that claim they need more time to think about things are overthinkers. 202 00:14:15.543 --> 00:14:18.165 So overthinking just creates more of the problem that you already have. 203 00:14:18.645 --> 00:14:20.106 It is not what you need to do to solve it. 204 00:14:20.207 --> 00:14:21.367 Oftentimes you need to execute. 205 00:14:21.708 --> 00:14:21.988 So I'm 206 00:14:23.348 --> 00:14:27.590 Oftentimes, I think it's just a form of procrastination because people don't want to make the hard calls. 207 00:14:27.910 --> 00:14:28.450 I would say that. 208 00:14:28.750 --> 00:14:31.191 But having a deadline for yourself is really important. 209 00:14:31.271 --> 00:14:39.335 So, for example, for me, I noticed that for decisions, I don't want to be making decisions at the same time as I'm like executing on something. 210 00:14:40.155 --> 00:14:44.797 Like if throughout the week, I'm taking meetings and talking to people and they're coming to me with all these decisions. 211 00:14:45.955 --> 00:14:47.576 I'm not trying to make all the decisions at once. 212 00:14:47.596 --> 00:14:50.518 Now, I know there's certain ones that I can totally make on the spot, low risk, whatever. 213 00:14:50.538 --> 00:14:52.599 I have enough pattern recognition and experience. 214 00:14:53.060 --> 00:14:54.481 But there's a lot that I don't want to make. 215 00:14:55.361 --> 00:14:58.283 And so what I do is I have a running list of decisions. 216 00:14:58.503 --> 00:15:01.766 It's just like decisions to make, things to think about, whatever it might be. 217 00:15:02.486 --> 00:15:08.130 And typically, it's on the weekend or a morning one day in the week that I'm going to be like, okay, now I'm going to think about this thing. 218 00:15:09.135 --> 00:15:15.857 And I do it all at once because I really do prefer to have time where I'm like, I'm just in decision-making mode versus execution mode. 219 00:15:16.577 --> 00:15:19.497 And I do that very frequently. 220 00:15:19.558 --> 00:15:23.178 So this isn't like something where it's like I take a quarterly break. 221 00:15:23.758 --> 00:15:26.779 I do this monthly, like this is on an ongoing basis. 222 00:15:27.599 --> 00:15:35.381 And if I have decisions that I think would benefit from me making them faster, then I'm going to make time in my day to make those decisions rather than be executing. 223 00:15:40.722 --> 00:15:48.604 Slow decision-making equates to better decision-making, but I have never seen a fast-growing, high-velocity organization with slow decision-makers. 224 00:15:48.624 --> 00:15:49.805 I've just literally never seen it. 225 00:15:50.305 --> 00:15:57.887 And part of this is because there are no high-return decisions or high-reward decisions that you will make that don't come with risk. 226 00:15:58.692 --> 00:16:02.774 And so part of this is that there's a lot of people who don't feel comfortable making a decision that comes with risk. 227 00:16:03.194 --> 00:16:08.596 Well, then you probably shouldn't own the business because there is always going to be an immense amount of risk in the decisions you make. 228 00:16:09.316 --> 00:16:14.798 I made multiple decisions over the last quarter that could risk an entire product line of our business, could risk a huge investment. 229 00:16:15.758 --> 00:16:17.019 I'm totally comfortable with that. 230 00:16:17.899 --> 00:16:27.823 And I think that has to come down to part of the reason I think this is an underrated skill and not talked about is because people do not find themselves trustworthy enough to make decisions. 231 00:16:28.885 --> 00:16:31.968 So like if you don't trust yourself, none of this will work. 232 00:16:32.328 --> 00:16:40.335 You have to trust yourself to say, even if this doesn't work out, even if this fails, even if the worst thing happens, I will figure it the fuck out and I'm going to be okay. 233 00:16:40.395 --> 00:16:43.777 I'm going to figure out what I need to do to turn it around, to reverse it. 234 00:16:45.079 --> 00:16:48.101 A great thing you can ask yourself is like, what's the worst that can happen? 235 00:16:49.222 --> 00:16:50.403 And could I live with that? 236 00:16:51.204 --> 00:16:52.665 And what would I do if it happened? 237 00:16:53.873 --> 00:16:54.954 Like really walk through it. 238 00:16:54.994 --> 00:16:56.914 I do this in a lot of different situations in life. 239 00:16:57.235 --> 00:16:58.815 Um, like what is the worst that could happen? 240 00:16:59.195 --> 00:16:59.816 Let's go there. 241 00:17:00.336 --> 00:17:01.977 And then like, how would I react to that? 242 00:17:02.037 --> 00:17:03.337 What would I do in that situation? 243 00:17:03.377 --> 00:17:06.039 Sometimes you gotta write it down because it's just like, you gotta get it out of your head. 244 00:17:06.539 --> 00:17:19.305 Now, the third skill that I believe is necessary in decision, decision making is the ability to remove yourself, become objective about a very subjective situation. 245 00:17:20.400 --> 00:17:25.963 Most decisions that are hard to make are hard to make mostly because we're really close to the decision. 246 00:17:26.403 --> 00:17:27.263 It affects us a lot. 247 00:17:27.343 --> 00:17:28.424 It's going to affect us a lot. 248 00:17:28.764 --> 00:17:32.706 It could affect our health, our livelihood, our family, our income, all these things. 249 00:17:33.086 --> 00:17:43.831 And so because of that, one of the best, I would say, like the most important skills to being a good decision maker is the ability to put yourself in a state where you're objective rather than subjective about the decision. 250 00:17:44.738 --> 00:17:46.699 So there's different ways that you could do this. 251 00:17:46.919 --> 00:17:49.320 Some people just need to be able to ask themselves the right questions. 252 00:17:50.040 --> 00:17:51.500 Some people need to get out of their environment. 253 00:17:51.540 --> 00:17:52.681 I've seen either one work. 254 00:17:53.241 --> 00:17:55.922 It used to be for me that I need to get out of my environment. 255 00:17:55.942 --> 00:18:01.664 I need to go somewhere, go in nature, just get out of my business mode, right? 256 00:18:01.764 --> 00:18:04.465 And get out of this mode where I felt like the stakes were very high. 257 00:18:06.525 --> 00:18:10.687 And so sometimes it would even be as much as a weekend trip or a staycation or something. 258 00:18:10.707 --> 00:18:14.328 I just needed to get out of my environment to be able to see things objectively. 259 00:18:15.397 --> 00:18:17.638 Now, I think I've had enough practice with it. 260 00:18:18.598 --> 00:18:24.061 And I, I don't think I like subconsciously hide the pain from myself because I'm, I know I can handle it. 261 00:18:24.621 --> 00:18:30.023 I will ask myself a question like, Hey, if a friend came to me with this situation, what would I tell them to do? 262 00:18:30.623 --> 00:18:35.025 If in 20 years, I was looking back and asking myself, you know, what was the right call? 263 00:18:35.746 --> 00:18:36.306 What would I say? 264 00:18:37.026 --> 00:18:41.588 If in a year from now, I'm saying I'm really proud of myself, which what decision did I make that made me proud? 265 00:18:42.981 --> 00:18:47.464 Those are like the type of questions I like to ask myself to get more objective about the situation. 266 00:18:48.504 --> 00:18:51.826 Because oftentimes, like, I think we like to think like humans are logical. 267 00:18:52.027 --> 00:18:53.808 I really believe we do things based on emotion. 268 00:18:54.628 --> 00:18:56.429 Like I make this podcast because I like doing it. 269 00:18:56.449 --> 00:18:57.530 It makes me feel good. 270 00:18:57.870 --> 00:19:00.852 Like logically, it grows my business and does X, Y, and Z and does this for my brand. 271 00:19:00.872 --> 00:19:05.235 But like emotionally, it's a good outlet for me and a place to process my thoughts. 272 00:19:05.255 --> 00:19:07.476 I probably wouldn't continue doing it if it wasn't that. 273 00:19:07.956 --> 00:19:10.358 And if it ever doesn't become that, then that would be very difficult for me. 274 00:19:11.917 --> 00:19:14.848 So that being said, being able to be 275 00:19:16.673 --> 00:19:20.935 objective is probably one of the most, it's probably the most important of those skills. 276 00:19:21.215 --> 00:19:22.576 Those are the skills that go into decisions. 277 00:19:22.676 --> 00:19:25.618 Obviously decisions are important because it provides you with more leverage than anything. 278 00:19:25.658 --> 00:19:29.379 If you're a leader, I can't think of anything that's a better skill for you. 279 00:19:29.700 --> 00:19:37.464 To be able to make good decisions and like see things that other people don't see and be proactive and get ahead on decisions, not just wait for decisions to become a problem. 280 00:19:38.124 --> 00:19:41.686 Like I prefer to make decisions rather than solve problems. 281 00:19:41.846 --> 00:19:42.366 What does that mean? 282 00:19:42.886 --> 00:19:46.068 I like to see into the future of what's going to become a problem if I don't decide it now. 283 00:19:47.899 --> 00:19:50.942 But you have to be willing to face the pain of that. 284 00:19:51.462 --> 00:19:53.624 And I think that's where a lot of people get tripped up. 285 00:19:53.664 --> 00:19:57.607 It's like, it's just not a lot of people that want to subject themselves to the pain. 286 00:19:58.047 --> 00:20:02.291 The irony of it is that if you don't subject yourself to the pain now, you're gonna have more pain later. 287 00:20:02.411 --> 00:20:05.053 So it's like, it's really a lose-lose. 288 00:20:05.594 --> 00:20:14.822 I will say that in general, I think that the biggest reason that we procrastinate, that we don't make decisions, that we don't invest in the skill is, 289 00:20:15.884 --> 00:20:16.345 sunk cost. 290 00:20:16.765 --> 00:20:18.547 Like, I would say, if anything, it's sunk cost. 291 00:20:20.088 --> 00:20:23.031 You know, I can't tell you how many times people come to me and they're like, oh my god, Layla. 292 00:20:24.153 --> 00:20:27.656 Like, I've been working on this thing for two years, but like, and I'm like, it's the wrong product. 293 00:20:27.936 --> 00:20:29.458 And they're like, but I've been working on it for two years. 294 00:20:29.478 --> 00:20:30.559 I'm like, yeah, it doesn't really matter. 295 00:20:31.020 --> 00:20:32.501 Like, the market doesn't care. 296 00:20:32.641 --> 00:20:33.502 People don't care. 297 00:20:34.443 --> 00:20:37.967 And, you know, I've had to share stories of like, you know, me and Alex, 298 00:20:38.588 --> 00:20:42.090 When we were growing Jumanji and Prestige Labs, we were like, oh, you know what we should do? 299 00:20:42.110 --> 00:20:43.931 We should get into food. 300 00:20:43.971 --> 00:20:44.631 We should sell food. 301 00:20:45.192 --> 00:20:45.952 Let's also do that. 302 00:20:46.092 --> 00:20:46.632 That's a good idea. 303 00:20:47.113 --> 00:20:50.315 And we're like, okay, so we're going to sell food. 304 00:20:50.335 --> 00:20:53.076 We're going to get into like shipping nationwide meals. 305 00:20:53.296 --> 00:20:55.537 When we did that, we were like so excited. 306 00:20:55.557 --> 00:21:02.641 We put a year of work into it and like hundreds and hundreds of thought, probably I think over a million, maybe like 1.1 to $2 million into that. 307 00:21:04.090 --> 00:21:11.956 barely made any money, barely made any money, way more support issues, way harder than our other businesses, not worth the juice for the squeeze. 308 00:21:13.136 --> 00:21:16.499 And so, you know, six months into it, we're like, do we really want to keep doing this? 309 00:21:17.099 --> 00:21:23.964 And like, eventually, we just pulled the plug, or like, it doesn't matter how the fact that we took a year, the market doesn't care that we took a year. 310 00:21:24.724 --> 00:21:25.385 They don't give a fuck. 311 00:21:26.065 --> 00:21:26.706 This is not for us. 312 00:21:27.890 --> 00:21:28.450 It is what it is. 313 00:21:28.970 --> 00:21:37.913 And I think sometimes in business, you just need to hear that you are going to work so hard on things and you're going to put so much time into people and time into initiatives and into products and to companies. 314 00:21:38.233 --> 00:21:39.754 And they're just not it. 315 00:21:39.934 --> 00:21:40.574 They're just wrong. 316 00:21:40.594 --> 00:21:44.635 And you have to cut it and you have to say, I lost millions of dollars, tens of millions of dollars. 317 00:21:44.695 --> 00:21:45.715 I have lost some things like this. 318 00:21:46.376 --> 00:21:49.376 And on people, you'd lose millions of dollars and on initiatives and products. 319 00:21:49.416 --> 00:21:51.917 And then the time you've lost, months, years. 320 00:21:53.158 --> 00:21:54.078 And that is fucking life. 321 00:21:55.480 --> 00:21:56.242 that's just part of the game. 322 00:21:56.824 --> 00:21:58.468 So I hope this is helpful. 323 00:21:58.568 --> 00:22:00.272 I hope that it helps you in making decisions. 324 00:22:00.593 --> 00:22:04.483 Um, I know it's a little off the cuff, but just something that's been top of mind for me.