WEBVTT 1 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:05.200 In the past nine months, I've had to make a number of decisions that had a nine-figure 2 00:00:05.200 --> 00:00:09.200 ramification on my personal net worth. Welcome to the game where we talk about how to get more 3 00:00:09.200 --> 00:00:12.640 customers, how to make more customers, how to keep them longer, and the many failures and 4 00:00:12.640 --> 00:00:15.360 lessons we have learned along the way. I hope you enjoy and subscribe. 5 00:00:21.120 --> 00:00:26.320 In the past nine months, I've had to make a number of decisions that had a nine-figure 6 00:00:26.400 --> 00:00:31.920 ramification on my personal net worth. What I want to walk you through is the actual decision-making 7 00:00:31.920 --> 00:00:36.080 framework or process that I use to create those. If you're new to the channel, my name is 8 00:00:36.080 --> 00:00:39.840 oxymozia, I'm an acquisition.com. It's a portfolio of companies that is about $85 million a year. 9 00:00:39.840 --> 00:00:42.880 I make these videos because a lot of people broke and I don't want you to go to them. 10 00:00:42.880 --> 00:00:47.840 The most important things that we have in our lives are our decisions. One of the things that 11 00:00:47.840 --> 00:00:51.440 I live by is that we're one decision away from changing our life forever. You're one decision away from 12 00:00:51.440 --> 00:00:56.160 drinking and getting killed in the carcass. You're one decision away from cheating under spouse 13 00:00:56.160 --> 00:01:00.560 and destroying your marriage. You're one terrible comment away from destroying your child. 14 00:01:00.560 --> 00:01:05.920 You're also one decision away from destroying your business if you so chose. Decisions are the 15 00:01:05.920 --> 00:01:12.480 wellspring of life or at least the train track splits of where we're going to end up. 16 00:01:13.280 --> 00:01:18.640 And so learning to make the decisions is an important concept. Believe it or not, for this video, 17 00:01:18.640 --> 00:01:22.400 what I want to focus on is actually the environment under which to make the decision. 18 00:01:22.400 --> 00:01:26.880 All right. And so during this process, one of the things that was very frustrating for me and 19 00:01:26.880 --> 00:01:32.800 this decision took me about 12 months to make. And I'll explain what the decision wasn't in another 20 00:01:32.800 --> 00:01:38.560 video in the future, but it's safe to say it was a hugely impactful decision in my life financially 21 00:01:38.560 --> 00:01:45.760 and otherwise. And one of the difficulties that I was having is that the information that I had 22 00:01:45.760 --> 00:01:51.360 was not changing and yet my decision of which way to go continue to falter. All right. So I kept 23 00:01:51.360 --> 00:01:55.680 ping pong you back and forth and back and forth and back and forth. And so I was like, 24 00:01:56.240 --> 00:02:02.720 it's not my decision making process, right? And the data that I have to make this decision is 25 00:02:02.720 --> 00:02:10.000 unchanging and yet at different days, I would have different outcomes, which to me is big red flag 26 00:02:10.000 --> 00:02:16.560 danger alert in terms of like the the a leading indicator of a bad decision, right? And so 27 00:02:16.560 --> 00:02:21.120 mind you, as a quick caveat to this, this is not how you need to make all the decisions in your life. 28 00:02:21.120 --> 00:02:25.680 I would say that you should find and use this process for the most important decisions you make in 29 00:02:25.680 --> 00:02:30.000 your life. All right. Who are you going to marry? Where are you going to live? What are you going to 30 00:02:30.000 --> 00:02:34.320 work on? Right. What are you going to like those are the decisions are we going to make this big 31 00:02:34.320 --> 00:02:40.240 strategic change with our business. Those are big irreversible decisions. And that's the key 32 00:02:40.240 --> 00:02:46.720 for me is that if a decision is irreversible, comma, and has downstream consequences, 33 00:02:46.720 --> 00:02:52.240 then those are the ones that it take more time to analyze. All right. Now here's the here's the 34 00:02:52.240 --> 00:02:57.120 the piece that I was missing in my equation for making this decision so I want to share with you. All 35 00:02:57.600 --> 00:03:04.560 right. One of the key pieces of how we decide is the brain chemistry that is going on. So 36 00:03:04.560 --> 00:03:08.560 whether you have lots of dopamine, lots of serotonin that are circling around in your brain, 37 00:03:08.560 --> 00:03:12.880 we'll ultimately find how you make decisions. Believe it or not, we are 100% emotional decision 38 00:03:12.880 --> 00:03:17.840 makers. The thing is is what we want to do is control the extent to which the emotions control 39 00:03:17.840 --> 00:03:21.840 our decisions. All right. That's the key point here. If you don't acknowledge that emotions 40 00:03:21.920 --> 00:03:28.000 weigh into all of your decisions, even your quote rational ones, you are lost. All right. So what you 41 00:03:28.000 --> 00:03:33.120 can do is first identify when you are feeling emotional. And a lot of guys feel like that's this is 42 00:03:33.120 --> 00:03:37.680 like a a food food turn. If you're angry, it's emotional. If you're insecure, that's emotional. 43 00:03:37.680 --> 00:03:43.520 Like there are other emotions besides being a pansy, right. If you have emotions, I have emotions 44 00:03:43.520 --> 00:03:49.280 right now, right, which for whatever reason. Anyway, back to the point is if you have emotions, 45 00:03:50.240 --> 00:03:56.240 it decreases the speed with which you make decisions. And mistakes love a rush decision. You 46 00:03:56.240 --> 00:04:02.480 can say mistakes love a rush decision. It's one of the credos that Layla and I live by. All right. 47 00:04:02.480 --> 00:04:07.120 So the environment under which we make this decision is important. Now, we have to 48 00:04:07.120 --> 00:04:12.480 acknowledge the biases that we have. Here's where emotions get even worse. You have two biases 49 00:04:12.480 --> 00:04:18.080 that you have to fight against. One is confirmation bias, which is your emotional soup in your brain is 50 00:04:18.160 --> 00:04:23.360 going to say, this is what I want because this is how I feel safe. Then your logical brain will search 51 00:04:23.360 --> 00:04:28.880 out reasons or data to support that thing, right. It's like making an argument to yourself. 52 00:04:28.880 --> 00:04:33.360 The problem is you may change your argument, but it's not going to change reality, which means 53 00:04:33.360 --> 00:04:39.040 that the decision can be good or bad based on the soup that we started as the predisposition 54 00:04:39.040 --> 00:04:45.520 towards how we're going to gather data. The second is conviction bias, which is how convicted 55 00:04:45.600 --> 00:04:50.080 in mind in this thing or this decision, the more you believe in it or the more you want the positive 56 00:04:50.080 --> 00:04:55.280 outcome to occur, the more you will purposefully blind yourself because you want to save your ego 57 00:04:55.280 --> 00:05:00.880 and how you feel about yourself, because it makes you feel good to think about this positive 58 00:05:00.880 --> 00:05:05.680 outcome. But it does not affect the percentage likely that it actually occurs in the real world. 59 00:05:05.680 --> 00:05:10.640 Just why you see other people, because you can be rational about others, right. You see other 60 00:05:10.640 --> 00:05:14.080 people make these terrible decisions. You think just why on God's earth would they make those 61 00:05:14.080 --> 00:05:17.760 decisions? When in reality, that person is you and it's other people who are looking at you. 62 00:05:20.800 --> 00:05:25.360 Real quick guys, you guys already know that I don't run any ads on this and I don't sell anything, 63 00:05:25.360 --> 00:05:28.640 and so the only ask that I can ever have are you guys that you help me spread the word so we 64 00:05:28.640 --> 00:05:33.120 can have more entrepreneurs, make more money, feed their families, make better products, and have 65 00:05:33.120 --> 00:05:38.000 better experiences for their employees and customers. The only way we do that is if you can rate 66 00:05:38.000 --> 00:05:42.160 and review and share this podcast. So the single thing that I have to do is you can just leave 67 00:05:42.160 --> 00:05:46.880 review, take 10 seconds or one type of the thumb to the absolute world to me and more importantly, 68 00:05:46.880 --> 00:05:56.080 it may change the world to someone else. Right? Real talk. So this is how I have learned 69 00:05:56.080 --> 00:06:02.720 to help mitigate or decrease the emotional impact or the impact that my emotions have on my 70 00:06:02.720 --> 00:06:07.840 decision making process so that I can at least be as rational as I can possibly be and operate 71 00:06:07.840 --> 00:06:13.360 from the stance that will benefit myself in the highest degree in a long run. All right? 72 00:06:13.360 --> 00:06:19.440 So here's what it is. Number one is that I make sure that I am well rested when I make the decision. 73 00:06:19.440 --> 00:06:23.120 So if I didn't have like a really good night's sleep, like everybody knows like there's like 74 00:06:23.120 --> 00:06:28.080 normal sleep, there's bad sleep, there's like decent sleep, but I'm talking like you wake up like a 75 00:06:28.080 --> 00:06:33.360 newborn child. I recognize those days and I joke with Laila about it because I'm like man, 76 00:06:33.440 --> 00:06:37.920 I slept like a like a cheraglass night. Like if you've got so many big decisions, I'm like, 77 00:06:37.920 --> 00:06:44.000 let's let's make them now because I feel completely clear. All right? So number one is very, 78 00:06:44.000 --> 00:06:49.200 very good sleep. Number two, and this may sound fucking obvious, but people don't do this. All right? 79 00:06:49.200 --> 00:06:55.200 Number two is to be well fed. All right? When we are well fed, our serotonous levels, our 80 00:06:55.200 --> 00:07:00.640 dopamine levels, et cetera, all get elevated in our body. All right? Like you feel better after you 81 00:07:00.640 --> 00:07:07.120 eat and here's a fun one for you. Your body interprets stress both physical and emotional the same 82 00:07:07.120 --> 00:07:13.760 way. It's a cortisol response. And so you in a very real way, when you eat more are more stress 83 00:07:13.760 --> 00:07:19.520 tolerant. It's why people do it. It's why people stressing because you do cope and make yourself more 84 00:07:19.520 --> 00:07:24.720 resilient to stress when you eat more. So I'm not saying you do this all the time, but if you're going 85 00:07:24.720 --> 00:07:30.080 to make a big decision, you want to make sure that you are well fed and well rested. All right? And what 86 00:07:30.080 --> 00:07:36.240 we're doing here is we're trying to decrease the anxieties and the stressors and the noise 87 00:07:36.240 --> 00:07:41.120 that normally will confound the decision making process because they'll start triggering emotions 88 00:07:41.120 --> 00:07:45.680 that will then force you to start finding and nitpicking different data points to then make a 89 00:07:45.680 --> 00:07:50.400 supposedly rational decision that is wrong, right? And that it's there to protect your ego 90 00:07:50.400 --> 00:07:55.440 rather than what is going to serve you best in the long run. And the third piece of the environment 91 00:07:55.600 --> 00:08:01.520 that I try and create is if I can, I try and get space away from the day-to-day activities that I have. 92 00:08:01.520 --> 00:08:07.440 So be that a vacation or literally just removing yourself from the normal space where you operate. 93 00:08:07.440 --> 00:08:12.560 And because those spaces have anchors in your mind that you have made decisions in the past, 94 00:08:12.560 --> 00:08:16.080 you have you have emotional occurrences that have happened in the room or at the desk that you work 95 00:08:16.080 --> 00:08:20.640 at, right? And so you have these anchorings that are around you and you want to remove yourself from 96 00:08:20.640 --> 00:08:26.960 those things so that you can have as few outside influences on the decisions you possibly can, 97 00:08:26.960 --> 00:08:34.480 right? Now here's the trip. Is that once you, once you create this environment, right? You want to 98 00:08:34.480 --> 00:08:41.840 make the decision from a place of needing nothing. And so the definition of abundance is having 99 00:08:41.840 --> 00:08:46.480 everything you need, which the corollary or the reverse of that is to need nothing else is to 100 00:08:46.560 --> 00:08:54.640 have enough. And so when you have enough, you will not need this decision to get you anything at 101 00:08:54.640 --> 00:09:00.400 all. And so the key to make as rational of a decision as you possibly can is to not care about 102 00:09:00.400 --> 00:09:06.160 the outcome either way and to realize that you already have everything you need or want, 103 00:09:07.200 --> 00:09:12.160 key point. And so if you have everything you want and you're well-rested and you're well-fed 104 00:09:12.160 --> 00:09:15.760 and you're surrounded by the people that you love and you realize the things that are important 105 00:09:15.760 --> 00:09:22.320 in life, right? All of a sudden it will help you appropriately weigh the decision that you were 106 00:09:22.320 --> 00:09:26.320 trying to make. And so I don't know if anyone here who's listening to this has an important 107 00:09:26.320 --> 00:09:33.920 decision that they must make. But these are the four steps. Number one, rest. Number two, eat. 108 00:09:34.560 --> 00:09:41.120 Number three, separate. Number four, operate from a place of needing nothing. And when you have 109 00:09:41.200 --> 00:09:47.600 those four frames that are stacked on top of each other, they can disenhibit to a great degree, 110 00:09:47.600 --> 00:09:50.400 the extent to which your emotions will influence your decisions. They still will. 111 00:09:51.280 --> 00:09:58.720 But ideally, secondarily so, or at a lower percentage of influence. And so it gives us just 112 00:09:58.720 --> 00:10:03.840 enough room to peak our heads and get above our emotional cloud and make a decision that's truly 113 00:10:03.840 --> 00:10:09.920 rational. And when we make more rational decisions, we live a much easier life. All right, and I'll say 114 00:10:09.920 --> 00:10:14.000 that first hand. A lot of the decisions I made in my past, they were based on emotions, 115 00:10:14.000 --> 00:10:18.800 ended up really biting me ass, especially when I had lots of emotions and I actually really quickly 116 00:10:18.800 --> 00:10:24.640 in large ways against irreversible decisions, great recipe for a terrible life. And so the opposite 117 00:10:24.640 --> 00:10:29.200 of that, if we're trying to use Charlie Munger's inversion process, is how would I make a terrible 118 00:10:29.200 --> 00:10:35.920 decision? I wouldn't be well-rested, I'd be hungry, I would be rushed, right? I'd be I'd be I'd be 119 00:10:35.920 --> 00:10:40.400 anchored around all the things that stress me out. And I'd make sure that I was operating from 120 00:10:40.400 --> 00:10:45.600 place of having to have the thing. And so we look at those things and we reverse them all 121 00:10:46.960 --> 00:10:51.440 to stack in our favor so that we can have the best possible decision. And so, most of the nation, 122 00:10:52.160 --> 00:11:00.080 I love you all, keep being awesome and I'll see you guys in the next video. Bye!