How To Make Better Decisions (with way less uncertainty) - Joe Hudson

I want to talk about decision-making. There's a line from Alex Hormozy that says, the life that you want is on the other side of a few hard decisions, and the reason that you're unhappy is because you're not making them. In your experience, how important is the skill of decision-making in guiding someone's life? It's everything. One of the things I talk about when I'm working with leaders who are growing billion-dollar companies is that your business is only two things. It's the relationships that are held in the business and the decisions that you make. Everything else goes to those two things. There's some capital. There's potentially some IP, but those came from decisions that people made. For a business, it's the critical thing. If you look at, I think it was the founder of Amazon, Jeff Bezos, who said, for my next company, I want it to be the best decision-making company in the world. After somebody grew the biggest company in the world, he then said, my next company is going to be just really great at making decisions. That's how important it is for a company. But if you look at your life, well, what doesn't happen from a decision? If you're smoking cigarettes, if you are building a company, if you are getting married, who you're getting married to, how you stay married, how you fight, all these things are decisions that we make. I think for the framework purposes, I think it's really important to separate. This is the way I think about it. There's choices and there's decisions. Choices are just the things that you don't think about. Right now, you're sitting like this. You never thought about it. The first question, maybe you thought, this is a great first question. Maybe you're like, is that the right first question? If you are just making choices, it means that you're not sitting there really spending time on it. I call that a choice. Decisions is where you're really spending time on it. Knowing how to make great choices and great decisions is all of life. When you're at your grave, it's going to be a series of decisions that you made. So I'd say super hypercritical. If you can learn how to make great decisions, then you're going to make decisions that are going to make a great life. Can you train decisiveness or is it largely a personality trait? You can absolutely train decisiveness. I don't think it's a training, but it's a recognition. There's some recognitions that can happen that allow for decisiveness. Once you really understand what's happening behind decision-making, then decisiveness starts to flow from that. Why is it hard for people to make decisions? Why are some decisions hard to make? Why are some choices like, I'm going to go to the grocery store, I took a left here, I'm calling my friend, why we don't even think about those and why some are really difficult to make? When you get that, when you understand that, then decisiveness becomes – there'd be less and less decisions, more and more choices, and the result is better and better. It feels to me like system one, system two, thinking a bit from Daniel Kahneman, thinking fast and slow. The system two is very deliberate, and you have to pay a lot of cognitive attention to it. Then over time, you train system two into system one, and the carefully thought decision becomes the default. What types of people tend to struggle with decisions the most? What's the avatar of the sorts of people who tend to be the most indecisive that have the toughest time when it comes to –? Well, I'll give you what most people in society would call them, and then I'll tell you the thing that's underneath. It's going to be people who are perfectionists, people who have been criticized a lot as children, people who were told that their value wasn't getting it right, and it's really important for them to get it right, and people who have a tendency to be scared of consequences. Those are the people that are going to have a hard time making decisions. They're going to be long, prolonged, SWOT analysis, thinking, thinking, thinking, still thinking about it six months later. Should I marry them? Should I not marry them? That's going to be what's behind it for them. How much is decision-making an emotional problem, and how much is it an informational problem? 100% an emotional problem. That's not me. That is neurology. If you read a book called Descartes' Error, 2012, he wrote that the emotional center of the brain is what makes decisions. There are people who have had the emotional center of their brain damaged, and they cease to be able to make decisions. Their IQ stays the same, but their whole life falls apart because, well, what color pen should I use? Fifteen minutes later, they're still trying to figure out what color pen or where am I going to have lunch? There is just to be – because there's some neuroscientist in the audience who's going to quibble with me. There is a place where the emotional center of the brain doesn't make the decision. If a snake comes at you and you jump away, then it bypasses that. If you're trying to decide who to hire, if you're trying to decide what investment to make, no matter what your spreadsheet says, you're making a decision to feel a certain way. If you think about your life and you say, how many decisions did I make to feel loved, to feel liked, to feel valuable? How many decisions did I make to not feel like a failure, to not feel like a loser, to not feel dismissed, to not feel rejected? Right there is guaranteed 90% of your life. That is actually how we make decisions. Neurologically speaking, that's how. The idea that you're going to make a logical decision is absolute crap. It's a great idea and it's a great way to justify emotional repression, but it's not true neurologically. That's why I say it's 100% an emotional decision. Where logic comes in is logic says, I'm going to logically try to figure out how I'm going to feel if I make this decision or how I'm going to feel if I make this other decision. A SWOT analysis of where you should take your business, where you should invest a million dollars. Let's say your number one modus operandi was happiness, and I said, hey, I guarantee, and you believe me, you'd be happier if you did this. You had that knowledge, the SWOT analysis goes away. It doesn't matter. Maybe your thing is a meaning, like this will give you the most meaning. Okay, I'm going to do that thing. Whatever that thing is, you're going to do it. All the logic is doing is trying to figure out how you're going to get to the emotional state. That's just the neurological reality of it. It gives us the biggest clue on how to make great decisions. If you are scared to feel a certain thing, then a certain solution set in your decision-making is not available to you. Why? If I'm scared to be a loser, I'm not going to be able to take the same kind of risk. You and I know the guy at the bar who doesn't mind getting rejected, doesn't mind that feeling of rejection. They'll go and hit on 10 women, and they will have options that the person who's scared of rejection, I don't want to feel that, and then I make a choice because I don't want to get rejected to not hit on those women. I have no choice. It's that in everything. I'm scared that my boss will yell at me, and I will have to feel like a dweeb. I don't want to feel like a dweeb, so I'm not going to say the thing to my boss. Therefore, that option is off the table. That's really what's going on behind decision-making. If you can get to, oh, I love, and this is going to sound weird to everybody, but I don't mind feeling rejected. That guy, I'm good with that. Even I look forward to feeling rejected. I know that I'm winning if I have tried enough times. Just like a hurdler who's like, I know if I practice enough, if I do enough reps, it doesn't matter how many times I fail, I'm winning. Or if I say, oh, I'm okay feeling like a dweeb. I'm okay embarrassing myself. I'm okay not looking good for a moment. Then I can make really clear decisions because then I'm making decisions based on my principles, based on what's most important to me, not based on a fear of a consequence. Yeah, your option set gets constrained a lot if you're not prepared to face a ton of emotions. James, business partner in Nutonic, used to work door-to-door selling gas for NPower, which is like a utility company in the UK. He needed, I think, two more sales before the end of the week in order to hit his target and not lose his job. He was getting all stressed about it. He spoke to the team leader and the team leader said, what's your sales rate? How many doors do you need to knock on to get a sale? He said, at the moment, it's one in 50. He says, okay, so if you do a hundred doors, you've hit your target. You just need to be rejected 98 times. If you're rejected 98 times, you've hit your target. I always think about that frame. Yeah. I have it even better. I had a barber. He still is my barber, but he doesn't give haircuts to very many people anymore. The reason is because we were sitting and I was looking at his paintings and I'm like, wow, man, you've got some amazing paintings. He's like, yeah. I'm like, well, are you in any galleries? He's like, no. I was talking to him and I saw that fear of rejection. I said, hey, I'll tell you what I'll do. I'll give you, I think it was one or $2,000. I'll give you $2,000 if you can get 50 rejections in the next 60 days. $2,000 if you can get 50 rejections? In the next 60 days. He couldn't get 60 rejections. He got two acceptances and so now he's making a living selling his art. The reframe was you're not failing, you're winning. That's a hack, but the deeper truth. So manipulative. It was. It totally was. For his own good and his art deserves to be out there. But that's the thing. He wasn't scared of making $2,000. He was scared of the feeling of failure. It's a great frame. How do you come to think about decision making then? What are the component skills? So the other thing to understand is, before I can go into that, back to decisions and choices. Choices are often done because we have subconscious emotions that we don't want to feel and never gets into consciousness. So I'm going to smoke the cigarette so I don't have to feel the thing, or I'm going to scroll so I don't have to feel the thing, or I'm going to tell my wife I love her because that lets me feel the thing. So that's one set of how do you make good choices? How do you make great decisions? The thing to understand, I noticed, the thing that unlocked this for me around making decisions was that every time I was making a decision, I was in fear. So if you are in fear, your brain does certain things. One of the things your brain does is it goes black and white thinking. You become very binary. Should I take the job? Should I not take the job? Should I break up with the girl? Should I not break up with the girl? It doesn't say, oh, I could talk to the girl and say, this is what I need if we're going to stay together. It doesn't say, I could buy the car, or I could lease the car, or I could buy the car that's a different color, or whatever. So it doesn't see all the possibilities. It narrows things down into black and white thinking. The other thing that fear does in the brain is that it creates a false end. Okay, so you make a bad decision. So what? You get to make another one tomorrow, and you get to make another one after that. Amazon is another great example of Amazon. Make decisions fast if you can pull them back. If you can't, then okay, take a minute, make your decision. Reversible decision. Yeah, exactly. So that's another one that fear does to the brain. So that false end is like, you don't see through the end what's happening afterwards. So that's why most people think of decisions as like, what do I do about this decision? They don't think about decisions as a portfolio the way somebody who's running a hedge fund or in your stock account, if you have one, you're saying, I don't need to get everything right. I just need to be principled about what I buy because a majority of them will work out. And so people are thinking, this decision right now is really important instead of the portfolio of decisions that I'm going to make this year. Final decision I will ever make. Right, exactly. And so that's how we know that we're in fear. Now there's the rare occasion where someone's like, oh, I'm just going to really think through this and I'm, okay, I've thought about it. I've collected data. This is what I'm going to do, right? That's pretty rare. So most of the people are like, oh my God, I got to make a decision. What am I going to do? It means there's just a tremendous amount of fear that's going on under the surface. And so one of the things to learn is that the fear is of a consequence and if you go and you feel that consequence, you're going to make a better decision. So I'll give you an example of this. My wife and I have been married now 27 years. We've been married a long time, but I've been married to three or four different women, all with her name, right? She's been very, she's very different at 27 than she was at 37 than she was at 47. And so there's been these moments in our life where the marriage is rough. What are we doing? And I'm scared to lose her. So I'm trying to make decisions to keep her. but I'm abandoning myself by doing that. I'm abandoning my principles. So both of us have come up with this method where we basically just mourn the marriage. Because what I'm scared of is that I'm gonna lose her. So I'm just gonna assume I've lost her. I'm gonna feel all that stuff. And then in feeling all that stuff, I'm not scared of it anymore. And then my response is, okay, this is who I am, and I'm gonna show up like that. And she shows up as who she is, and then we work out like, how are we gonna be together? Do we wanna be together? What's gonna actually go on? But that fear isn't there. And this is like an age-old process. So whether you are a Stoic or a Samurai or Tibetan Book of Living or Dying, the way to overcome the fear of death is to actually visualize and feel the experience of death over and over in slow motion again and again. And then that's- They include watching your own body decay away and stuff. It's like even after you're dead, you're thinking about it. Because you're going past the false end. Oh, right. That's why it's critical. Interesting. Right. It's the same thing. If you're gonna mourn your marriage, you don't go to the moment of divorce. You go to, and then I'm lonely after, and I can't find a woman. And then you do the whole thing. And then, and then, and then. And then, and then, and then, and then I have a marriage again. Or then I'm, you know, whatever it is. So, overcoming your fear that way is a really critical thing because if you're having a hard time making a decision, it's not because you don't know what to do typically. It's because you're scared of a consequence. And the consequence you're scared of is an emotional consequence. That is the episode. Like that's the, that's really lovely. That's a great, a great summary. Why is it fear? Why is that the emotion? I understand that there's this sort of absolutist thinking. I understand that creates a type of constraint which will cause panic. I also understand that if there's a kind of finality to things, because you don't think that the life is gonna continue beyond this decision. And if you choose, especially if you choose the wrong one or not. But why fear? Like why is that the case? Why is that the emotion default? Yeah, this is a great question because the fear is because the identity is gonna get messed with, right? So like, who do I think I am? I think that I am a very successful person. It's important for me to be a successful person. So taking this job is really important. The things that are really important to us are the things that define us and our identity. And so that's gonna be a, that's gonna be where we're really important. And in some way, every time we're making a decision and we are in that fear-based decision-making process, it teaches us exactly where we're not principled in being ourselves. And so that's actually the antidote. So for instance, I have a set of principles that I make 80% of my decisions by. And I make them that way, the same way that like Berkshire Hathaway says, this is what we invest in. It's not guesswork. It's like, these things have to be true for us to invest. And I think right now they're sitting on like $230 billion because nothing is true enough to invest in. They're like, it doesn't hit what we invest in. So we're just holding cash, right? And that was the case maybe like three months ago. I don't know where they are today. And so it's the same thing. If I'll make a decision based on a set of principles of who I wanna be in the world. And if I'm thinking about those principles, the way I think about the principles are if I have five, seven principles, do they get me where I wanna go 80% of the time? Do they almost guarantee success over time? Not a single success, but over time. And do they solve 80% of my problems? Like- Can you give me an example of a principle? It doesn't necessarily need to be one of yours. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I'll give you a decision-making principle we have our business, which is whenever we're building something new, we go to the thing we know the least amount about and we build it first. Give me an example. So if I'm gonna build a car and I know how to build a car, but I don't know how to build a catalytic converter, most people will build the car, then build the catalytic converter, and then go, oh shit, the catalytic converter doesn't work inside this car. I'm gonna have to rebuild part of the car. I'll say, let's build the catalytic converter first and now build the car around it because it's gonna be a more efficient process. Why? Why is it a more efficient process? Why do the hard thing first? Because then I don't have to redo the car because I don't have to- How does that help with the decision? Like I suppose that's a principle, but in what way does that make the decision more likely to be successful? Right, so if we're, yeah, so the decision that, if we're in the decision of we're gonna build out a podcast for the first time, we're gonna be more successful because we went to the thing we don't know and we've solved that first rather than do all the things we know and solve that later. Okay, can you give an example that's something from a personal life, not a business life? Oh yeah, yeah, so I have a personal, this is actually the perfect one, I have a personal principle so that everything is an iteration. So what that means is the same thing that I was teaching to the barber, which is failure isn't a thing. There's just, I run experiments and I learn and then I keep on running experiments and I keep on learning and I keep on running experiments and then I learn. If I do that instead of thinking I fail or I succeed, I'm just like constantly learning, then I ultimately always succeed because I'm just running iterations until I figure the thing out. And there's a lot of neurology on this. There's something called the habenula and it basically prevents us from failing inside of our brain. And it's basically the part of our brain that's in all invertebrates, I'm loosely speaking here, that if a bear goes and fights for mating rights and they lose, it stops them from going, I'm gonna go fight for mating rights again right now. Like it's the same thing in our brain that it's like when you're on a diet and you're like, I'm gonna be on this specific diet for a while and you're like great for like two weeks and then you eat that one piece of chocolate cake or whatever and then you're like fuck the diet and you're completely off but you just ate one chocolate cake, so what? You just get back on the diet. But we don't because that part of our brain is like we can't fail again. In my world, everything is an iteration. So what's the experiment I'm gonna try? What's the next experiment I'm gonna try? What's the next experiment I'm gonna try? And they did this study with people who were, I think it was like at the poverty line who lost weight successfully. And all of them, or not all of them, but a grand percentage of them, all were doing iterative mindset. They were all saying, I'm just running a series of experiments until I find something that works. So for me, everything is an iteration. Everything is, I'm trying. So we do this in our business but I do this in life. So I do something, it goes horribly wrong, I'm like great, that was an iteration. What's the next iteration? Or I'm like, I have a big decision to make. I'm like oh, well just what's the simple iteration? I'm gonna do that. Yeah, you've been, at least in your business, impressively prepared to put stock in shit that I've told you to do. Oh yeah. And I'm like, huh, you listen to me. I mean, not just listen to me, no, just give me lip service. Or do the thing, say that you want to do the thing and genuinely want to do the thing and then encounter some practical fear or some emotional barrier. Like I've said, hey, I think you should do this. I think we might have even talked about it last time on the podcast. You doing, I wanted you to do basically the master coach critiques, breakdowns emotionally of these things. And these videos are ripping. And you guys are doing like, you fucked it on a few of the early ones and had a couple of winners on the early ones and then changed it and changed it. And now it's like, it's fucking awesome. It's really good. Yeah, and so that's exactly it. And so that's the way it is with everybody in the company. Anybody wants to try and experiment, as long as it's like within brand, go. As a matter of fact, we actually have a criteria. Everybody who works for us has to run, depending on where they are, three to five experiments on how to do their job differently every quarter. Wow. So that's how deeply we take everything as an iteration. And it allows you to make mistakes. It allows you to learn. It allows you not to care so much. It allows you to have pace over getting it right. Most people will lose in life because they are trying to get it right rather than trying to keep a pace. Forward progress is more important than getting things right. I think that as you're explaining it, I'm noticing what's coming up in me is a reduction in the sense of grandeur about and pressure around decisions. Like, well, I'm just moving forward. You've removed the finality of this decision and also kind of baked into it that an experiment that doesn't prove the hypothesis isn't a failure. You did still learn something, which is that hypothesis was wrong. And we continue and continue. I'm sure you've heard. And I'm never done. I'm just gonna keep on learning. And that's just one principle. Tell me if this sounds familiar. You train regularly, you eat reasonably well, you feel fine, but you're just kind of going off vibes. Most people have absolutely no idea what's going on inside their body. And that is why I partnered with Function. Function gives you access to more than 160 advanced lab tests, spanning hormones, heart health, kidney function, and even detects early signals linked to more than 50 types of cancer. 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GPS brain. Yeah. Which is cool. Yeah, so cool. So there's this guy who was a, I love this story. This guy, he was a surgeon and he was a dog trainer. And so in dog training, you have this little click that tells the dog you did it right. And you go click, click, click. And that just, it's like a GPS brain. Click, click, click, click. So he's working with this dog, his dog. He's pretty successful, but he loses his shit one day and just fucking yells at the dog. Doesn't do the clicker, just yells at the dog. And the dog like goes back, like regresses horribly. And so he's like, oh crap, like that's what happens when there's any kind of emotional content. And his assumption is either good or bad. It's just like, you did it right or you didn't do right, GPS brain. So he goes to his surgeon students and he's teaching them like how to tie tendons and stuff. And there's like a six thing problem. And he starts bringing a clicker. Instead of saying, good job, you got it right, don't do that, what are you doing here? And he just clicks when they get it right. And he improved the rate of their learning dramatically. No way. By having GPS brain. So that's another like, okay, if everything is an iteration is a principle that gives me GPS brain, which is what it does, then it helps me be more successful. So now when I'm confronting a problem, what do I do about this? One of the principles I look at is everything's an iteration. If everything's an iteration, what would that tell me to do? And this is in service of trying to improve the quality and accuracy of decisions, but also rid that fear, get rid of that fear. Not just feeling it, not just going to the, like reductio ad absurdum of the kind of mental projection. It's mostly, this is who I wanna be in the world. Do I wanna be neurotically freaking out about each one of my decisions? Nah, I don't really want to be that. Does this work as to make me successful? Yes, it does. Is this like more comfortable and awesome? Yes, it is. Cool, that's a principle. Like I have another principle that is connection. It's, you know, we have the connection course, but it's a principle. It means that if we build somebody, how do we build them with connection? If I'm sitting here talking to you, how do we actually build connection? And over the years, we've actually built connection. If I run a course, how do I make sure everybody feels like we're deeply connected with them and we really care about them because we do, and how do we help them find connection? And I have this video with Ali Abdaal where I'm coaching him and we're having this moment where I was like, oh, I'm not sure if I mentioned it's one of my things. I was just like, okay, let's go through all your business problem and look at it through the lens of connection. What would make you feel more connected to yourself and others as a solution? And you could see him come up with like multiple solutions to the problem because he's just looking through the lens of that principle. Right. And so it's the same thing. So now I have a decision to make. Let's say like, do I go on the Chris Williamson podcast? And I'm like, everything's an iteration. Okay, I don't give a shit if I blow this. Like, why would I care? Okay, that's a one, that's a, and connection. Well, I love being with Chris. This is something that makes me feel connected. And I get to connect with a lot of people. Yeah, okay. And so I'll just go through my principles if I have a decision to make, and I will. It feels like, I mean, we haven't even got into the, like the structure, but this seems really interesting to me. And the idea of engineering bravery or courage in a way that this is like improving your bravery to some degree. It's increasing your preparedness to face scary things. When people think about bravery and courage, a lot of the time, that's what it is. So is bravery or courage are those words that factor into this at all? It's so interesting, because as you say it, I'm like, yeah, that's true. true, but it's, it's, but it's not, wasn't the thought process, right? So, so the thought process was, what are the thing, how. I can't control the outcome of a decision, but I can control how I want to be in that decision-making process. Am I proud of how I made that decision? That's the thing I can control. So it came from that. It came from like, I think over a portfolio of decisions, these principles are going to work and I'm going to be proud of them, even if they don't work and if they don't work, I'll iterate on the principles themselves. Right. You know that from the outside, somebody looking at you, choosing to make decisions that are big or scary or difficult or whatever in that way would go, wow, that is brave, very courageous that you've chosen to do that. Right. So, so then, then, then what happens? So this is the cool thing. So then you start making decisions that way. And most of them are easy. You're like, okay, I'll make it. Yeah, that makes sense. Okay. That makes sense. And then there's one where it's like, I don't want to fucking do that. There's nothing in me that wants to do that. But if I look at my principles, it's very clear. That's what I'm supposed to do. And you look and you say, well, shit. All I can say is that my principles work most of the fucking time and I can't come up with a better solution. So I'm going to do it, even though I don't want to do it and you do it. And maybe it works. Most of the time it works. Occasionally it doesn't work, but every time you act on the principles, act on the principle, the courage there, there's less and less courage required. Because you are positively reinforced that the principles work, which means you trust them more in future. That's one. And the other one is because you are being who you want to be. So there is an implicit reward, whether, no matter how it works out. Yes. Yes. I'm showing up in the way that I want to. And if the choice was between showing up in the way that I want to and the decision going wrong and showing up in the way that I don't want to, and the decision going right, a lot of the time people would actually prefer the former to the latter. I think I, Margaret Cho, if I have her name, right, she had an early standup, like I'm saying how old I am, but she had an early, I think it was our first standup and she was a comedian who had like an Asian sitcom. And it failed and her whole sitcom thing. Basically this one woman show is it failed, but that's not what hurt. What hurt was I abandoned myself and then it failed. I would rather have been true to myself and fail than been fake and succeed. Have I taught you about audience capture before? Do you know this term? No, no. You, I detest how afflicted you are with not being on the internet. Rick, I require you to be more terminally online, fucking infuriated. Uh, okay. So, um, audience capture is when a creator typically on the internet, but I'm sure it's happened with newscasters and, and, and people in late night shows and more traditional media as well, uh, begins to not create what they want to, but they create what they think that audience wants. So it's referred to as throwing red meat to the audience. Very common and may have even been born out of the politics wing. If you're a political commentator, you know, you have your takes and your audience comes to you. Wow. That's an interesting take for the person that's on the left or the right or the whatever. And then after a while you realize, because you're looking at the popularity, maybe the play counts, the positive reinforcement that you get, who, when I talk in this way about this kind of subject from this lens, people seem to give me more positive reinforcement. And over time you like Pavlovian Lee can condition yourself into this type of behavior. What's interesting about this is it's almost like a looking glass creator. Wow. Here. Yeah. Yeah. It's fucking cool. Like, yeah, I have a lot of thoughts here. Um, um, what you, the thing that's one interesting wrinkle is it's not what the creator knows the audience wants. It's what the creator thinks that the audience wants. Right. And people don't always know what they want. Right. Which is interesting. Like what's that Henry Ford line. If I asked the customer what he wanted, he would say a faster horse. Yeah. Yeah. Um, so that, that, that's, that's one interesting thing. And then you roll the clock forward a little bit, you know, roll the clock forward six months, one year, a couple of years, this creator is now out of touch with that taste, uh, because they haven't created something from themselves for a very long time. They are kind of marionetted or puppeted by the audience, but their projection of the audience, which means they don't actually know what they want. They're just kind of trying to do something that they think that they want. And this is the kind of pernicious thing. If the audience stops loving the work that you do, when you compromise yourself in order to serve them, you will resent them so quickly because you say, how can you not love me? How can you not appreciate what I'm doing? Look at what I did for you. I even pushed myself to the side, right? I shunted myself to the side of my own work just to serve you. And I'm sure you've got lots of things, but the one final bit on top. Yeah. Uh, Ethan Strauss wrote this fucking outstanding article and it's called criticism capture is more dangerous than audience capture, and he wrote it about three or four years ago. He's a sports reporter, but he thinks about audience dynamics and like, like creative dynamics too. What he basically said is he thinks that it's the criticisms, not the compliments that are more deranging to people, and when you see this, you actually realize that many people are criticism captured, not just audience captured, so there's two things going on. They protect themselves from the potential negative. They do it by being more inflammatory, by being more aggressive, by sort of like the guy outside that flares his lights outside of the nightclub, or they do it by, uh, neutering themselves by sort of staying small and milk toast and always sitting on the fence and never actually staking a claim in the ground. Maybe they do it by always caveating by always having some sort of equivocation before they speak so that every single potential in negative permutation of what they were going to say is already being put out there. Uh, there was a lot of ways that they can do this, but, um, you see some people that are more, um, positive reinforcement, uh, compelled. Yeah. Uh, and then you see some people that are more negative reinforcement compelled and the perfect example. And I think that this is true. And it's the canonical example that's used by Ethan in his article about criticism capture. Jordan Peterson is very criticism captured and you see how warping and that man maybe had a part from perhaps like Trump and Tate, but whilst not being a Tatey and Trumpy and kind of individual, uh, a volume of criticism that almost no one in history has had to deal with right outside of like fucking leaders of countries and shit like that. And, um, who would be able to deal with that? Almost nobody. But I do think it's a fair comment to say that criticism did some fucking warping, so audience capture, criticism capture, some new ideas for you. Yeah. I love there's so much stuff. The first tangential thought I have is like. It, it, it also creates the creation of porn like entertainment. Oh, this is George Mac's idea. You run enough split tests and you end up with a porn website. Yeah. This is George's idea. Okay. Yeah. Yes. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. It's brilliant. It's fucking wonderful. It's like, I'm going to, if you're red meeting your audience, I'm going to give them more and more emotional, like this is happening on our news and everything like that. I'm going to give them more and more emotional hotness and, but I'm going to desensitize them so much as I'm doing it that the, the only thing that's left is like hate. And yeah, so most base inflammatory. Yeah. Uh, so, so it's an interesting thing. It's like audience capture leading to. The destruction of your audience, the pornification of everything and the destruction of your audience, which is like fascinating. Um, the second thought process that I had there is like, this isn't just creators, this is life. This is how people operate in a, in a, in a business with their boss. Did I make them happy? Did I make the people around me? Yeah, exactly. And that's doesn't make good decisions. Like if they, at the end of the day, if you look at somebody who's been doing that, they, either their business or their audience or their personhood has dropped off of a cliff somewhere along the line, whether that is. In Jordan's case, uh, anxiety, like deep anxiety, or, um, you know, you become the person that you hate or you have the resentment, it doesn't actually lead to a successful life. But if you're principled, if you're saying these are the principles, and this is true for companies to somebody who's principled about what they're doing, it doesn't mean that they're not listening and they're not reacting, but if they're principled about what they're doing, if they're like, this is our brand and we don't stray from the brand, or this is what we're here to do. This is our mission. We're not strained from the mission. We might find 20 ways to get it done, but we're not straining. These are our principles. Those people have a much longer lasting success without the burnout too. And it's the same with a human in life. Like if you look at the people who are 70 year old, 70 years old, have done something significant and are happy, they're almost always have lived a pretty principled life. You might not agree with their principles, but they've lived a pretty principled life. Does this mean that we need to canonize our principles before we can start making good decisions? I don't think before, but it's super fricking useful. Okay. So we have a, we have a, we have a course called the great decisions course. And that is what everyone needs to get ready to sign up for. Cause it's in January, January, January. It sells out usually in a day. Fuck. Yeah. Yeah. Well, okay. Get ready. Yeah. Um, yeah. Yeah. Does this mean, okay. Process component skills. That's one of it. Yeah. Decision-making. Does that mean that, is that one of the first things to do? I mean, you're not going to stop making decisions. You'll be like, I'm going to put all decisions in a holding pattern. Right. No, no, no. Including what pants I'm going to wear today up until the point at which I've done my principles. Yeah. So one of the things you can do is just start looking at the decisions you made in the last year and say, what are the principles I've actually lived by? Or am I, am I proud of those? Yeah. For a lot of people it is, but yeah. So two main components of great decision-making and great make making great choices is can I become comfortable with all sorts of emotions so that I have my, my set of solutions available to me and the other one. Right. And the other one is what are the principles that I want to live by that are going to lead me to success that are going to solve most of my problems for me, if I just live by my principles. And those two things are going to be incredibly like, that's a huge portion of the work. Yeah. That that's really. I imagine that's going to be hugely disappointing to a lot of people that they were expecting to have some lovely framework for how to bypass having to feel things or having to face things. It's saying, no, no, no, no, no, no. No. What's the flow chart that I follow in order to make sure that my decision doesn't require me to encounter any negative emotions. Yeah. Yeah. So here's, here's, here's the coolest thing. This is one of the things I get to see in my work so much this, and I, and they're going to hate this even more. I'll give you the example that just happened recently. My daughter is applying for colleges and she's like, I don't know what to write the essay on the essay. So important. This is a big thing. Fear. Black and white thinking. I can't do this. I can't do that. I'm just watching her say, and I was like, Hey babe, fuck them. Fuck what the colleges say. Fuck what everybody says. Fuck. Like, what the fuck? Like who the fuck are them? Like be you, what the fuck do you want? And she's like, what are you like, what's going on? Why are you sweating? And I'm like, I see how angry you are at this whole thing that you have to prove yourself to people. Like, this is bullshit. Go get angry for me. And we have a thing in our house where anger is like, so she gets out the tennis racket. She gets the thing. And I'm, I'm like in Nepal at this moment. Right. And she's at home and. Oh, you're doing this virtually. I'm doing this virtually. Yeah. Wonderful. So you're cursing, you're the half to, you're subjecting her to like the hearing the bang, bang, bang. Fuck it. She doesn't do it in front of me. Okay. And so she, she's like, okay, yeah, I got it. I'm going to go get angry. And she calls me the next day. She's like, I've already written three essays. I have all these ideas. They're, they're not quite good enough. They're not what I want to be at, but I'm still writing. This is great. I have to get angry again. And a dozen times during the decisions course, easily in a week, you'll see somebody do that. You'll see somebody who had a massive decision they couldn't make, and it was just an emotion that they needed to feel. And the whole thing unlocks for them. Momentous just made one of my favorite products, significantly better and $50 cheaper. They have reformulated their sleep packs with a better and more research back form of magnesium, making the new formula even stronger than before. I have taken these things every single night, whether I'm at home or on the road, and it does make a genuine difference. The formula helps you to wind down, fall asleep more quickly and stay asleep throughout the night with no melatonin. So no sleep paralysis demons sitting at the foot of your bed. Plus it's NSF certified for sport, meaning that it is third party tested for dosage accuracy screen for heavy metals and banned substances with every result published on the momentous website. 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So with my daughter, there's like, she had to let go of this identity of being the smart one of the straight A student of the one who can get anything she wants done, done. She had to say, I'm going to be myself and people can accept me or not accept me. And that was her anger. Her anger was fuck you. I don't care if you judge me, if it's, if you're, if your school can't see me go fuck yourself. This keeps on sounding like bravery and courage. Like that's the word. And maybe my conception of bravery is, is tied up. been in decisions more closely than it should be, but like you hear that and you say, Hey, this place is going to take me, or it's not going to take me. And I'm a 17, 18 year old girl. And you know, it's a big deal. And all of my friends are going to have things to say if I don't get into college or whatever. And I don't care. I'm just going to do the me thing. Like that level of it from the outside, it seems like self-assuredness, self-esteem, self-worth, confidence, resilience, bravery, courage, like all of these things wrapped up. It doesn't feel like it in the moment I'm with you. Cause I'm like, yeah, yeah, that's true. I can't, I can't deny it, but in the moment when you're doing it, it feels like I'm being honest, so it doesn't feel like shit. There is that moment of like, Oh my gosh, because there is like the, I'm stepping into a bigger room. There's like, Oh my God, I'm getting on stage and I'm doing this thing. There's that excitement that comes along with it. So you feel the excitement, but mostly you feel like honesty, right? Because we, we know what it feels like when we compromise ourselves. It doesn't feel good. Like it, like there's a way to say it takes a lot of courage and bravery to feel like you're compromising yourself. That feels like far worse than feeling like you've done the right thing and been rejected. Alex has a line where he says fear is an inch deep in a mile wide. That's so good. Hold on. That's so good. That's so good. That is so fricking good. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. They're looking out over this massive lake and you, Oh my God, how am I ever going to be able to, it's so terrifying. You go like, Oh, it's a little splash. That's right. Yeah. Oh fuck. Right. It wasn't that bad. And I mean, he, he, so I don't know how much you know about Alex. I should, it would be wonderful to introduce you to at some point. Um, he, I am, I'm, I have enough internet to know who he is. Oh, impressive. Wow. He's broke it. He's really reached escape velocity. Holy fuck. I, I, I mean, I geek out on business content, so there's that. And, and, uh, I've actually really appreciate, I appreciate how straightforward he is. Very much so. So the straightforwardness I think, um, is one of the things that I appreciate about him. And we were talking about, maybe over dinner or maybe it was on the pod about, um, the first time he had to make a really difficult decision and he'd done the classic college. I will be son of a middle Eastern father success, right? And then he realized that he wanted to start a gym and the. Middle East. Was he from Iran? Yes. You know, I lived there. Why? Because my dad. Cause you were in Iran for a while. When the revolution happened. Yeah. And then that was when you left. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Holy shit. Yeah. Does that feel strange now watching so much of the world center around Iran, a place that, you know, you knew quite well. Yeah. There's a grief in it for sure. Because like the people of Iran are beautiful people, like they were like an incredibly beautiful people. So there's a lot of grief around that. Yeah. So Iranian father and, and, and with all of the accoutrements that come along, uh, culturally. Yeah. Um, and yeah, Alex sort of tells this story. I was on track to do this thing and then I move, I start, I start gyms and I have to tell my father and my father, you know, all I've wanted to do is kind of impress my father at some point. Um, and he says from the outside, that looks like an incredibly brave decision. But the way that Alex made that first decision was he drove across the country before he rang his dad. He literally essentially went from coast to coast to put himself a few thousand kilometers away before he was prepared to pick up the phone. And one of the things that I'm sure you'll resonate with is beautiful. When you're faced with a difficult conversation, a difficult decision or whatever, especially conversation, uh, and you're worried about it and you're thinking about it and ruminating and thought looping about it. And then you do it. Fear is an inch deep in a mile wide and you step in, you realize it's not soon as you do that first one, you go, all right, fucking who else is on the chopping block? Like, what else can I do? And you like, you go from having, I don't know, uh, being a bow hunter who's taking forever, very carefully to wait, to release the thing. And as soon as you release it, the bow sort of turns into a belt fed M one 40 machine gun. And you're like, um, it's just interesting the way that the momentum thing works with that. And I think that you mentioned this before that this kind of a breakthrough moment and then it kind of tumbles downhill without. Spiraling off into that. And also there's, just to say this, there's like also a longterm short-term effect on bravery because the fear is got that false end. The other thing that's occurring is like, if you're doing the thing that is true to you over time, every time you will have a life that's true to you. Because the things that aren't true to you are going to be failures. The things that are true for you are going to be successes. Like you're going to create a life that's organized around who you are instead of who you're pretending to be or who you're trying to be or who you want people to think you are. And so short-term making a decision that compromises might work to get your immediate need met, but it's not going to work for creating a life that actually is suited for who you are essentially. And like, I think Alex is a great example of this. Like he is like, I am going to be me period as well, as much as my consciousness knows who I am, that's who I'm dedicated to and he's created a life that is for him, that works for him. Well, regardless of whether or not you like him or don't like him, or I think even maybe, might be wrong. You might tell me I'm wrong. Maybe a better example than Alex is Donald Trump because it's somebody who has an obvious lot, maybe an even more obvious number of reasons to not be the person that he's being. Uh, if that makes sense. Yeah, I see what you're saying. Right. Yeah. The, like the price of being Donald Trump is quite high. Somebody else that's actually probably less triggering, although maybe similarly triggering, Sam Harris. So I think a lot about Sam Harris when I think about this. Um, people regularly accuse Sam of flip-flopping on his beliefs of not being, uh, logically consistent in some way that they see that they think that he doesn't see whatever. Um, but the reason that I've always had a good bit of faith that he is doing what he believes is that he pays an incredibly high price for the positions that he takes. How many people do you know that are anti-Trump, but also anti-woke that are like anti-Islam, but also prone, uh, like nationalized healthcare that are from the left, but are concerned about people coming across the board. Like it's a very non fungible, like unique construction, right? It's very idiosyncratic. And I go, okay. And for each of those, every time he goes on one side of the fence and then back over to the other, he pisses off both sides in order to arrive at that kind of outcome. To me, if you were just doing it in order to feed red meat or to like placate yourself for the world in some sort of a way, you wouldn't choose that those wouldn't be the decisions that you go for because it's like deranging to your, everybody else is confused about what it is. So if that makes sense, the more, the higher the price that someone pays for the positions that they hold and the less that you can predict what their next opinion is going to be. Basically, if I, if I know one of your opinions and can accurately predict everything else that you believe, you're probably not a serious thinker. And, uh, I find that that's not necessarily the case with those guys. I think that those are some extreme examples. I also see that there are people who are living, you know, regular lives that are saying, I'm going to be true to myself and they end up with a life that's actually true to them. And it doesn't, it doesn't mean that they have to be like committed to something that pisses people off, but the bravery show up in mundane and very boring, normal ways, every single exactly, but there are going to be moments for those people where they are going to go, I don't want to do it, but it's the right thing to do. Okay. What else, what else is there to say about breaking down those component skills that we haven't covered so far? Yeah. This is the, on the choice side of things, that's really important is to slow down the, this is where you get into the world of habits. The underlying principle is that your identity is still at stake, right? So you still have to work through the identity piece, but, but the other pieces to really be able to slow down the emotional process that's happening there and be present with it in one way or another. So if you are, trying to quit coffee as an example, cause your coffee, somehow you decided is bad for you, what you should do instead is reach for a new tonic. Yes. Sound like a true investor. You have like a series of habits that are going to trigger that desire for the coffee. It's going to be an unconscious reach for the coffee when you drink it. Can you actually be totally present? What's the emotion that's happening before you drink the coffee that makes you want to drink the coffee that you get after the coffee to slowly unpack that experience and start noticing what you're avoiding or trying to run into. So this is kind of unwinding current choices to become decisions. Yeah. Way. Yeah. Yeah. I would say making, turning choices into conscious, conscious choices. Yeah. And, and so that's a really important skill set. If you want to change the kind of the habitual choices that you're making, which is, there's lots of tricks and, and James Clear is amazing at what he writes for all the ticks, tips and tricks, but one of the key ones on the emotional level, because the decisions are being made emotionally is can I slow down, unpack and feel the stuff that I don't want to feel that drives me into some bad habits. It comes back to awareness again. Yes. Interestingly. Yeah. I mean, I can give you an example from my own life that because I've been fighting with health stuff for the last couple of years, a lot of the time that's disrupted my sleep. When I wake up on a morning, if my body decides that it wants to rip me awake at 3am or 4am or something, and there is this story that I tell myself of, Oh, well, fuck, like today's already going to be ruined. And this is really, really painful. And I'm going to lie awake and I'm going to start at the ceiling and this is super annoying and it's not going to suck. And I'm not going to perform as well on the podcast. And then maybe people are going to laugh or they're going to like me and my whole life's going to fall apart. And I get gluten intolerance and live under a bridge and he's all going to go wrong. And reaching to my phone and being, distracting myself from that emotion is now after a while your sleep has improved, which has meant the fear has gone away, but you're left with the fucking residue of the habit. This is very strange situation where you're puppeted by the coping mechanism of a emotion that you're no longer feeling. Right. And that sticks about a lot of the time. And as now there'll be something else I'm doing, I'm sure that is, is the case. And I'm like, well, I got to unwind this thing that I don't even need anymore. That kind of maybe served a purpose to some degree or whatever. And now I'm like, well, fuck, like I've got to, have you going to get rid of that? And I'm sure there's some other shit that I'm doing right now that I probably should be pointing out too. So like you end up, if you're not careful, I think, and this is why people, the sort of Pareto principle of to those who have everything more will be given into those who have nothing more will be taken on Matthew principle. Um, the reason that it seems to suck so much for many people. And the reason that spirals go down and spirals come up is that if you don't step in and consciously design your life, if you're living it by default, you will begin to like sedimentary rock, accumulate these things over time. And you're like, where the fuck, like, why have you got that habit? And he's like, oh, I don't know, like 15 years ago, this thing was happening and I did it. And now I'm still puppeted by it, even though that's gone. Does that make sense? Oh yeah, totally. Yeah. I think about this in a company structure all the time, which is bureaucracy does not. Destroy itself. You have to actively go in and destroy bureaucracy. And what you're describing is the kind of an emotional bureaucracy. Oh, that's so good. It just like, well, I mean, Conor's line, one of my favorites that he's given to me a gazillion times, but he dropped yesterday. One of my favorites is we try to control that, which we cannot trust. Yeah. Yeah. I, I love that one. Yeah. It's like shit. The first time he told me that I was like, Oh, stop. I was like, just close the call. I don't need to hear from you anymore. I'm going to go and like, think about that. I'm going to think about that for the next couple of days. Uh, yeah, we tried to control that, which we cannot trust. Yeah. And that's the bigger bureaucracy thing, but to some degree, that's also the emotions thing. Well, so yeah. So let's take your, let's unpack your situation for a second. You're sitting in bed, waking up in your brain is doing da, da, da, da, da, what's the emotions underneath are probably sadness and helplessness. Probably some shame as well. Yeah. Yeah. And probably some shame. The shame is most likely the thing blocking you from feeling the sadness and the, so, and so. Uh, uh, bureaucratic free mentality is I'm going to cry. I'm going to be scared. I'm going to go back to sleep, but nope, before you can do that, you have to fill out this paperwork, it's called a phone and you need to like scroll on the phone for this bureaucracy. And then, okay, now you have to, well, you've been scrolling on your phone. You kind of feel like shit. So you need to, and you didn't get enough sleep, so now you need some caffeine. And now, but that caffeine, it kind of makes you anxious. And so you've got this bureaucratic thing that you have to go through just to get back to some level of normal. Yeah. You've accumulated, you've sort of piled this bunch on top. Okay. So yeah. Uh, choices, choices, making the, the, um, unconscious choices, more conscious. That's one step. Yeah. Yeah. If, and feeling the emotions that are happening around, bringing your awareness to the emotional experience around the choices and in all of them. So it's feeling the stuff that you don't want to feel, learning how to embrace, love the stuff that you don't want to feel so that that's, this is, I think the hardest part for people to really grok. So my story is emotional abandonment was like, I had an alcoholic father. had an al-anon mom, my needs were not taken care of for a large part. Some were, and they did the best that they could, but a lot of them were not taken care of. And so when I was growing up, when I was like in my 20s, I was like, I'm going to be emotionally abandoned by everybody, fuck you all. Like, anytime I felt emotional abandonment, I would do one of two things. I would be like, fuck you, I don't need you anyhow, which created more people emotionally abandoned me. Or I'd get needy, which would create more people getting like emotionally abandoned me. So I was recreating this situation. Once I learned that I could embrace emotional abandonment, right? So that feeling would come up and instead of trying to get rid of it by going, fuck you, or please come closer. And I was just like, oh, I can actually experience this. I can allow for this. I can allow this in my life. I don't need to run from it. Then I stopped doing this and I stopped doing this and people abandoned me, emotionally abandoned me a lot less. And when they do, I don't really mind because I get to have that experience again and learn more deeply from that experience and realize that, oh, their emotional abandonment doesn't hurt even half as much as me emotionally abandoning myself. And so then all of a sudden I'm like, oh, I can't wait to be emotionally abandoned again because I get that experience. I get to learn again, which is weird, but you have that moment. And when you have that moment with one of these emotions that you're like, this is ridiculous, what starts happening is you're like, oh, let's see where else, what other emotions I can love. And all of a sudden, these patterns that have been ruling your life, like emotional abandonment, start collapsing because all you're trying to do is feel the thing that you couldn't feel as a kid, which was like, this fucking sucks. No one's here for me. That was the feeling I couldn't feel as a kid because if I did, my whole life would collapse. So I couldn't feel it then, but somewhere in my twenties, I learned to feel it and then the pattern starts dissipating in my life. And so what you start seeing happening is when people start accepting these emotions, learning how to love and accept and say, oh, I can't wait to feel, I welcome this emotional experience. And you got to experience this in Groundbreakers. You got to see what happened. All of a sudden, these patterns that are in their lives for decades just start falling apart. It's fucking terrifying. It's really destabilizing. Because their choices change because their decision-making changes. A quick aside, you probably heard me talk about Element before, and that's because I've started every single morning the same way for the last five years now, which is a cold glass of water with Element in it. Element is an electrolyte drink mix with everything that you need and nothing that you don't. It's a science-backed electrolyte ratio of sodium, potassium, and magnesium. No sugar, no coloring, no artificial ingredients. It reduces muscle cramps and fatigue, supports brain function, and helps to regulate your appetite throughout the day. I genuinely notice the difference when I take it versus when I don't, which is why I don't shut up about it and also why it's used by everyone, from Dr. Andrew Huberman to Olympic athletes and FBI sniper teams, the good sniper teams, not the bad ones. Also, they have a no questions asked refund policy. So if you don't like it for any reason, they'll just give you your money back. Plus, they offer free shipping in the US. Right now, you can get a free sample pack of Element's most popular flavors with your first purchase by going to the link in the description below or heading to drinklmnt.com slash modernwisdom. That's drinklmnt.com slash. Is there a category of decision that is markedly different? Some people may have problems with like, what am I even going to wear today? Or how am I going to have a conversation with this barista at the coffee shop? But for the most part, I think it's going to be bigger things. And when it comes to bigger things, am I going to stay in this relationship or not? Am I going to marry this person or not? Am I going to leave this job or not? Am I going to move to a new city or country or not? Is there anything different when it comes to that? Because it's less routine, right? This is less of a reversible door, not necessarily a reversible door, but significant. Like, fuck, if you're going to move back from a country, you picked up all of your possessions and you've gone over there, and maybe there's financial implications and stuff, things happening. And also, how many times have you moved countries previously? Like, show me the CV of how this has gone for you in the past. I don't know. I've never done it. I'm thinking about when people are facing the biggest decisions of their life, what they feel are the most impactful, the most momentous, the scariest, the grandest, how do you advise them to go through that? Well, there's a couple of things that I think are really important to see first, and then we can talk about the advice. So, you started with the guy who was like, how do I talk to the barista? It doesn't matter if it's how do I talk to the barista. If the decision is as hard as it is to where do I move, it's because the identity is at stake. So, that person probably has social anxiety, some sort of version of that, and they're like, oh my God, am I going to be liked? Their whole identity of I am a person who's not good with other people is at stake if they talk to the barista. The person who's moving, their whole identity is at stake for more obvious reasons. Like, I'm a British guy in England who's a party boy. I am a guy in Austin. What the fuck is Austin? Who's going to like me? So, the identity starts. In either case, that's a really important piece to understand. The other thing to understand is that we have no idea what their big decisions are. We have no fucking idea what the big decisions are. So, you could say my big decision was to marry my wife Tara. Well, how about the decision to meet my wife? I didn't make it. How about the first date? I wouldn't even gotten to getting married if I didn't have the first date decision. So, there's a whole bunch of little choices that I made along the way that allowed for me to even be considering whether I am going to marry my wife. I think that's interesting. It's certainly true that there are some choices or decisions that we face that we don't realize what the future impact of them will be. But I would say that there is a certain category of decision or choice that we are going to make where we realize the likelihood of this being small isn't that great. This is probably going to be a big decision. So, you have like type one decision errors that sneak up on you, but then the other kind probably don't evaporate quite as readily in the other. It's unlikely that moving countries is not going to be a big decision, let's say. Right. The reason to think about the fact that there's a whole bunch of decisions that led to this that you had no thought over and maybe no control over is to get you, get the identity of you out of the way and make it the big decision. So, the identity is that if you're having a big decision, the identity is like, oh my gosh, who am I going to be in this situation? You talked the other day about the Love Island thing, right? You couldn't see yourself the same way after the Love Island thing. You didn't choose for that to happen, but it had a massive stake in your identity. If you knew that that was a potential for joining Love Island, you would've... Existential crisis island. You would've been like, I have to make a choice. What am I going to do? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I thought I was just going to get to wear swim shorts for a few weeks. Exactly. So, the reason that is to start separating the personalness, start separating the identity, and that's the biggest thing about making a really big decision, whether it's the barista decision or the thing, is to really start looking at who is it that I want to be. Or who, even more profound, is what am I exactly? To really question that identity. So, if I move to England and I have no friends, what does that mean about me? What is it that I'm scared of? How could I be proud of myself, even if I have no friends in England? What essentially am I? And that question, I remember when that question hit me. That was a question I asked myself 10 times a day for years. What am I essentially? Hearing you say the words, what am I essentially, gives me fucking PTSD. A reason that we're not going to bring up. Beautiful, beautiful, very grand PTSD. And so, in those moments, the added piece, I would say, is this is a great moment to really wrestle with what you are essentially or what you want to be. And it's an opportunity. Instead of seeing it as like, how do I make a great decision? A crack in the veneer of what you think you are, which means a crack in the veneer of the limitations you put on yourself, gets to get opened up and you get to see yourself for who you are. Do you think about fear of change? Is that playing in? Because most decisions will result in some kind of change. I suppose, interestingly, inaction is also a decision. The decision to continue doing what's happening now. We have a status quo anchoring bias, inertia, momentum thing that carries us through. Well, that's also kind of a decision. It's just a decision to not change as opposed to a decision to change. But I think about fear of change, difference, different, things being different. Does this got a role to play? I just think it's like a higher order or lower order. So fear of change, what's actually behind the fear of change? The fear of change is the unknown and what's behind the unknown, I'm not going to be okay. And I'm not going to be okay as identity. So I'm scared that the job situation is going to change. Okay, cool. I guarantee you the job situation is going to change, but I also guarantee you that you are going to be better off because of it. Okay, cool. I'm not scared of the change anymore. I'm only scared of the change because of the potential negative repercussions on me. It's an unknown thing that might be bad for me. And it's the me that's the essential part of it. So yeah, obviously, there's a fear of change. It's just a higher order. It's not the core of what you're dealing with. Understood. Is there anything else to say on the difficult decision, big grand decision? No, not much. Just that it's a great opportunity. I mean, I've had some amazing... If I have a client come to me and they're like, I'm in a big transformation moment in my life, like shit is changing. I'm like, yay. Because that's where the most growth is going to happen for a person. And if you look at your own life and you say, when did I grow the most as a human or decline the most because I didn't pay attention? It's going to be those moments of transformation. And so I get excited for them. They're a huge opportunity. I'm aware you get excited because you are the cross-leggy emotional equivalent of a Navy SEAL drill sergeant or a particularly rough PT. Anyone that's ever worked with a trainer or been on a sports team or whatever, and they've seen the strength and conditioning coach, and the strength and conditioning coach has got this unnerving grin on their face on the morning of one practice. And they're like, oh, we're going to have fun today. That's the face you pull. That's the face you pull more than you should. As you're staring, it is because you're a bastard. I take pleasure in somebody else's discomfort. If they're working hard or doing the thing and you, you're like, you're going to face it. Like you're going to face it. It's a drill sergeant. It's the freedom on the other side that I am excited about. And also, yeah, it's kind of fun to watch. Mental torture, emotional torture. Okay. Are there any big indicators that somebody is about to make a terrible decision that you could see that somebody could sense inside of themselves where they're about to like, I'm pointing in the wrong. I'm really pointing in the wrong direction. The reason I ask this is, I think expediting success is great and what we want, but avoiding failure. Warren Buffett's two pieces of a trading advice. Number one is never lose money. And number two is please read number one. That if you can go through life avoiding pitfalls, that's a pretty fucking good start. And expediting success can come after rule number one, avoiding pitfalls. So somebody is about to make a terrible decision. What's going on? So I think there needs to be a definition of like, what does it mean to make a terrible decision? Right? So most people think a terrible decision is a decision where they don't get what they want. That's what they think a terrible decision is. Meaning like they're sitting there saying to themselves, I want a girl. No, I want a can of cigarettes. That's not a terrible decision. Use something else. I want a cigarette. I want a cigarette. I want a cigarette. And if they get the cigarette, then they have made a successful decision. That's what they're thinking, right? I want the girl. Did I get the girl? I made a good decision. I want the money. Did I get the money? I made a good decision. I want the job. Did I get the job? I made a good decision. That is not what makes a good decision. Because the question is, if I got the cigarette, did the cigarette actually give me what I want over the next year, month, week, decade? If I got the girl, did I get the thing? Yesterday we talked about people be successful so that they can get the mate of their choice, but then the mate of their choice is the only mates of their choice are the transactional ones who only want them for their success. Yeah, so So the the question is if you're thinking about it that way No, I don't have a way to tell you if you're making a great choice or a bad choice. I can tell you that the More fear that's in the choice makes it less likely that you're gonna get the thing you want, right? Because if I'm coming to you with something that I want and I'm scared I'm not gonna get it You're less likely to give it to me. Mm-hmm. I Was wondering if you could donate to my cause yeah, right isn't gonna be as good as like hey, I've got this great cost So the more fear that I have I'm probably gonna not get the thing that I want the more fear that I'm running When I'm doing it not that fear is a bad thing. It just means your fear is unprocessed Yeah, but but if you're looking at what's a good decision like a good decision is I want the cigarette, but I'm I don't get it That is it's easy like if a person is Compromising themselves to do the thing Then they're making a horrible fucking decision, right? And how will you know if you're compromising yourself? That is a hard question there is something in us that knows oh I just don't like how I am right now Like it's it's and it is something that you become more and more sensitive to exactly what I was about to say yeah, it's exactly where I was that there is a category of person maybe even a large majority of people who have Suppressed that voice for so long that it's an entirely detrained muscle, right? They've atrophied that and even the lightest even, you know The bicep curl of a cigarette is a weight that's too heavy for them to lift. Yeah, they're not attenuated enough to that So let's say there's somebody who hasn't Used that muscle for a long time very atrophied. They can't hear the voice particularly. Well, yeah, how would you start? How would you begin to retrain the muscle? Yeah, what I would say is look at the last week month two months and What's the one way in that time frame that you? Heard that you you felt this isn't the right thing to do and you did it anyway What's the thing or what's the thing that's creating resentment in your life? Why resentment because resentment means you've abandoned yourself right, like if You asked me to do something. I don't want to do it and then I do it Enough times. I'm gonna resent you period Right. So if you look at a marriage and somebody resents the other marriage, it means the other person in the marriage It means that they're doing shit that they don't they're not holding their boundary They're abandoned they've abandoned themselves because they're trying to make the other person happy or trying to make them not angry or trying to They're walking on eggshells or they're accepting some sort of criticism because it's just keeping the peace So resentment is a great way to look at it or just look back and go Where's the ways that I don't feel like I was the person I wanted to be in the last week Right and take your time with it because I think most people if they look at that fully it's it's it's quite a Ego collapse. I can imagine there's a certain category of person who constantly needs reassurance from others that their decisions are Okay, every single one of those moments of needing reassurance from others is a self-abandonment Why? How do you explain this It's Saying I don't know what's right for me, which is a lie, but you do Which means I am literally giving my power over to you. I'm I'm saying and I'm giving my happiness The responsibility for my happiness is yours now not mine Which is an a self abandonment and I'm saying, you know The answer for me when the truth is that I know the answer for myself All of that is some level of self-abandonment in other news Have you ever noticed how some websites make it ridiculously easy to buy while some feel infinitely harder back in my day? I had to walk 10 miles to the local store. Are you younger than me? 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How do you split the difference between that and Genuinely having a friend that is a good confidant that has a degree of expertise that knows you that is able to see things That you don't see you know that this would make a Wonderful case for never listening to anybody ever about anything in your life. No, I I'm not ever saying don't listen to people I think listening to people is like Where a tremendous amount of wisdom comes from I'm saying that if you're looking for their approval And there's this okay big difference. Is this okay for me to do? Yeah Yeah, yeah, like somehow or another it's like if you're saying if you can't say I feel good about doing this Without like looking over to you and say is it? All right that we do this then, you know, you're you're abandoning yourself how much of decisiveness do you think is learning to cope with increasing amounts of uncertainty Yeah, so without a doubt If you're if you are confident in your identity decisiveness increases dramatically People who have a very stable sense of self are far more decisive than people who don't There is also There's in business what you'll notice is that most CEOs start realizing that making decisions is better than getting decisions, right Making decisions is better than getting decisions, right? Yes meaning if I have a choice between making ten decisions a day and Making them right making sure that they're right, which I never perfectly do Which I never perfectly do or making a hundred decisions a day and just getting them made The hundred decisions a day is a better choice. And the reason is is because as soon as you make a decision Then you're testing your thesis against reality If I'm sitting there going, how do we market? Well, let's make sure we market it best What's the thing and do all the data I have I'm not running any experiments. I'm not actually going. Well, what did the audience say? Okay, what did I learn as soon as I make a decision then I run an experiment then I learned something then I can Make another experiment then I can I'm interacting with the world and learning from the world immediately and so making the decision allows the action to happen so that the learning can occur and So it's the same in life Is that be making that decision is really important the thing that stops you from making the decision is again If your identity is in jeopardy, so there's certain identities Like if I have the identity of I'm an action guy, then it's easy for me to be decisive by nature Yeah but if I have the identity of I have to be right because every time I was wrong my parents criticized me for 20 Years and made fun of me and like six years later I'm at dinner table and I'm still being told how I like made a mistake from six years ago Then I'm gonna be like, okay. I gotta I gotta make this thing, right? Because my identity is is engaged. And so as people start to Be really confident like this is who I am and I'm valuable Just because I'm valuable Those people become far far more decisive and and even more than that It's like there's less decisions and more choice because there's less fear because there's less there's less identity at stake like What like what what do I have to worry about George has this line? He says I'd rather be high conviction and wrong than low conviction and right? Oh fucking right Absolutely, cool. I yeah because I will learn I'm wrong a lot quicker I love this thought process that there's this test we use for gauging talent and it's a test that has XY axis is that people think are not They think they're contrary when they're not contrary and it's called paradox axis and so one of them is conviction and one of them is openness and Most people think you can either be convicted and open But this graph is basically saying you can be high and convicted high and openness low in both Right. Why do you place yourself on the graph? I I test as both very open and very convicted, right? and And but I say I say that because that actually makes it Makes really good decisions, but that comes from a confidence in your identity Meaning I am totally happy to be wrong and that doesn't threaten who I am So I love being open and I have high conviction because if I don't have high conviction, I don't take action Does regret play a role here with? lots of people fear Future potential regret so much so that they get stuck and paralyzed in the moment now I must Transpose it from the future and start to feel it down in the present Yeah, yeah Yeah I see that for sure the interesting thing that I noticed with a lot of people and I think this is really useful for folks at home Do you read will you regret What you're imagining will happen more than you regret Being indecisive for three months about whether to marry the woman or not. Yeah What's interesting is that the thing that people fear is Often the thing that they are feeling and stuck in in the moment of trying to make the decision Yeah Like I'm really scared that if I marry her I'm gonna be stuck. You're stuck right now Trying to make this decision for six months. I Am really scared that I'm going to regret that I wasted my time if I do this wrong You're wasting your time right now and making this like decision for like three to six months a low conviction stew Exactly. So so what's amazing is that they oftentimes the thing that people are scared the emotional consequences people are scared of are far Less they're one inch but the shit you're stewing in right now is like 10 inches deep. Yeah. He's Alex's a line from Alain de Botton talking about leaving relationships and he says People are worried about leaving relationships because they're scared of being lonely But what they don't realize is that exiting is the first step towards feeling connected that the loneliness they fear is what they're already enduring exactly, that's exactly that's Oftentimes the the consequence that we're scared of in the decision is the thing that we're actually currently suffering Yeah, and there's less at a velocity or an amplitude that's less than what currently yeah dealing with well There's also the opportunity for it to stop where there isn't no any opportunity to stop unless you take the action Yeah, and Presumably less shame around. Well, I am doing this to myself. Yeah, I'm choosing to I am Like imprisoned inside of this cell and I know that not only am I the prisoner but I'm also the captive that's holding the keys and For some reason I refuse to put the key in the fucking lock and run it and open the gate Yeah The other thing that's really interesting is I think people went in there and they're in there in that deep indecisiveness They really forget that they're being super self-abusive There's a lot of self-abuse in that You have to get it, right? Why? Why can't you get it wrong? What's the problem? Like you you don't know it's like you're literally telling yourself. You have to get it, right? You don't know you don't know what's best for you. You don't like you can't and whatever happens You're not gonna be able to work yourself out of it You know that right like you're not gonna just be able to take it as a lesson and then like grow from it It's gonna destroy you forever. Like that's the that's the subtext of being indecisive Right and so that level of self abuses is Is often unacknowledged or unrecognized and when somebody actually sees it it often can Allow them to see like themselves in a way that allows them to be more decisive Can you go Just for a little bit. Can you go full? Joe Hudson kind of beaten crossover and apply as much pain as possible to people that are being indecisive Like what? What are the costs that people apply pain? Give them the gravitas of the situation like how important is this and what is it that they what is it? That the situation is costing them if that you if they're continuing to if they continue to be indecisive. What does indecisiveness cost you? I Think the thing I would say and that is some version of I'm I'm really sorry You're depressed and That somehow or another you think you need to be perfect to be valuable to be loved to be worthy and You you don't and If you could see yourself clearly for a moment You would see that this decision isn't going to define you for who you are and that you're worthy of love no matter what decision You make here So make the one you're proud of. Hmm. I would say something like that What else is there to say you dweeb you do How does this relate to assertiveness because I imagine maybe not quite the same, but the people pleasing, the standing up for myself, the saying what's true for me, the assertiveness. I imagine people who have clicked on an episode about decision-making to become better with their decisions, you may also like this thing. You may also be interested in being more assertive. How do you come to think about assertiveness? I'm not going to be audience shaped. I'm sorry, what was it called? Audience? Captured. Yeah, I'm not going to be audience captured like that. I don't give a fuck. That's right. Yeah, fuck you. No, no, no, no, no. I'm going to talk about fucking sushi. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Exactly. Assertiveness, I think, can be... So there's a difference between being assertive, I would say, and having agency. I would say that if you do the work to be decisive, you definitely feel like you have more agency. I'm happening to life. Yeah, agency doesn't have to be assertive, and I think those get confused a lot. Can you give me an example of a way that somebody is agentic but not necessarily assertive? Yeah, like a great actor. They say, I'm going to be this kind of an actor, and I'm committed to these kinds of roles, and I'm going to do it, and people accept me, and I'm going to go for auditions, but I'm not going to create my own role and get directed and buy a script and produce the thing so that I can finally have the role that I want. Now, some people would. I would call that more assertive, but this person has agency. They're saying, I'm going to live the life that I want to live. I want to be the person that I want to live. I think there's an assertiveness in some people's definition that goes along with aggression. I'm going to fundamentally – and I think for some people, their nature is not that level of aggressiveness. They don't have that fire. Imposition in that way. Yeah, they don't have that fire, but at the same time, they're not going to compromise. I remember when I was in college, right before I got kicked out of my first college, I was taking a class on Hermann Hesse, and there was a German teacher, and the German teacher lived through the Berlin bombings, and he said, when we were under the tunnels and the bombs were happening and people were yelling up top, it was always the quiet, non-macho man, kind of the non-assertive type who went up and pulled them out of the bombing. It was always the bravado guy who didn't. That, to me, would be the difference. One of them has assertiveness, but they don't have the agency to be themselves. Are they inversely linked, in your opinion? More assertive people, less agentic? No, not at all. I think they're just not correlated. But I do think there's a tremendous amount of people who are – my experience is there's a tremendous amount of – when you get really good at decision-making, it's a very high-agency place. I would imagine it is difficult to be high-agency and indecisive. Correct. So even if decisiveness – it's necessary but not sufficient, perhaps, to be agentic. George is currently trying to get his conception – he's got this fucking tricycle that he sent me a photo of the other day. George Mack, he's writing a book on agency. He's going to be writing the definitive book on high agency, and it'll come out at some point in the next year and a half. And I've watched this guy craft this thing, like watching like David be carved out of a massive block of – do you know the story about David about how a number of other sculptors had tried their hand at that block of marble previously? No, I had no idea. It's really cool. So I've been to see it twice, and I've taken the same tour, and I just – for me – It's Michelangelo? Yes. Okay, because that also is – Yes, true. One of my favourite, by the way, one of my favourite symbols in the world. Oh, it's beautiful. God stretching out, reaching for man, and man's just not worth – he's not – I'm not going to even fucking lift a finger for you, bitch. Yeah, it's so true. I actually got the guys to move that a tiny little bit, because when you look at how close together it is, we looked on the painting, and it was too close. It was closer than it is in the painting, because the whole point is that even the ligament that was – the way that the hand was shaped, because there was a ton of dissections being done right by Michelangelo, and he'd realised the way that the ligament is when it's relaxed and when it is stretched, but it was too fucking close. I was like, I know that we've done all of this time in the studio, and all this stuff, and I was like, can we just move it like about two inches further apart? But no, so Michelangelo's David at this block of – you know, gargantuan block of marble. Have you ever seen it in person? I have not. Dude, because it's on a plinth. It's a motherfucker plinth, so it's already – his foot's pretty much head height, or maybe even higher, and then he's eight feet tall, maybe 10 feet tall, maybe even more. Massive, massive. Maybe even more, maybe like 12 feet tall. He's a huge guy, and with the proportions as well that were used to kind of accentuate that, so much bigger hands by proportion, longer arms, longer legs by proportion than you would have, so it's long and tall and big at the same time. Anyway, this block of marble had been – a number of sculptors had had a crack at it previously, and sort of started, and were like, it's too unwieldy to use. It's a gargantuan thing, and he was the one that went to go and do it, and my favorite thing, which I've said a gazillion times on the show, but not for a while, is the Michelangelo effect. Two people in a relationship, friendship, intimate partnership, see the best in each other, and over time, Michelangelo saw David inside the marble, and he just removed that which was not David, and then David emerged. I love that. And it's the same thing that the best kinds of friendships and relationships are. I see in you the best parts of you, and I'm going to help to bring that out. I'm going to try and cut away all of this other stuff that isn't you. I don't even think all that is necessary. It's just seeing the other person. My experience is when we teach people coaching, that is the core of what we teach. See the wisdom. See them as who they actually are, even if they can't see themselves. Listen to that part. Talk to that part. That's all that's really required is to just see them as they essentially are, and everything else takes care of itself. How do people know the difference between their genuine embodied wisdom-fueled intuition and something masquerading as intuition, impulsivity, fear that I imagine many clever people that are two hours into a podcast about decision-making will be afflicted with? They've managed to cleverly contort and pretzel this thing. Actually, ooh, that is my intuition speaking, but it's not. It's just a clever confabulation of what is actually fear, or maybe it is impulsivity or coping or whatever. Is there a way to discern? Yeah, the way in coaching relationship, it is your capacity to understand yourself. The more clearly you see yourself, the more clearly you can see others. Exactly the way I can't see myself is exactly the way I'm not going to be able to see you. Can you tell me about what your retreat was like that you did recently? I've been real excited to learn about this. Do you mind talking about this? I don't want to talk about this. Okay. Yeah, there's a lot. I mean, I can tell you a broad thing, but I can't, yeah. Ever since I was in my 20s, I really got into the Vedic sciences generally just as one of the avenues in which I've learned. I got into Zen. I got into Hermann Hesse. I got into the Vedic sciences. The Vedic sciences have a part that's all about health. They have something called Ayurvedic health. They have something that they do for longevity called Panchakarma. You could call it longevity. You could call it health. I'll call it health. It's basically like a reset where there's a very particular diet. In this particular place where I went, they give you six hours of treatments a day. They're all sorts of crazy treatments. So I did it. I've done it three years in a row now. This is the most intense one that I've ever done. I found a very intense place to go. It was an amazing emotional roller coaster, which I haven't experienced in years. So that was really cool to watch my emotions do this thing. Yeah. I imagine that sounds a little bit like a Brazilian jiu-jitsu fourth-degree black belt going, I got twisted into a pretzel. That's been a little wild. Yeah. I didn't think that that was going to happen. I remember what that feels like. Yeah. It was all through physical stuff. The part that I enjoyed the most about it is that they really discourage talking. Everywhere there's room silence. There's no phones in the cafeteria. There's no talking in the cafeteria. You're basically alone, quiet. It's in a forest. A little like noble silence adjacent. Yeah. So I got to do a lot of meditation, which made me really happy. So I got to really observe the craziness. Basically, I think the mood was mostly just a nervous system because a huge part of it is a nervous system reset, or in their words, it's like a Vada reset. So there was just this massive for the six-day period of just like, wow, holy crap. I got to do things. Why am I got to do that? I don't need to do anything. Why do I have to do that? It was in this contrast between absolute bliss and peace. So I'm like, oh, this is amazing. And then it just turned off. What? And then it just turned off and then just turned back on because they're just like, what happens when I do this? What happens when I do that? And I got to experience, by the way, I got to experience the doctor having that facial expression. He was a Navy SEAL. I'm going to poke you in the thing and it's going to make this stuff happen to you. Wonderful. That's karmic for me to find that you're on the receiving end for once. I feel incredibly satisfied. I much prefer to be on the receiving end because that's where the freedom's on the other side of it. And there's no shortage of it. You've met my wife, but you haven't met my daughters. There's no shortage of me. Very briefly. I think she come from La Crosse. Oh yeah. Okay. So you met Una. Yeah. We did a podcast with her. Such a good podcast. Was it something titled like what it's like to be Joe Hudson's daughter or some shit like that? I can't, I don't remember. Yeah. Okay. You're not into titles. I am. I am. I am horribly not on the internet again. Dude. I love you. What a pleasure to be with you. I love you a bit. People that are interested in this, what should they go and look at? Where should they go? We have a couple of podcasts on decision-making that go into some depth on all of the things that we talked about and the Great Decisions course. I will say it's only a five-week course, but it is an extremely intense course because you're going right into a lot of these emotions. So just know that that's what you're getting into. And that begins at the start of the year. January. I think we sell it the very beginning of January as a New Year's resolution kind of thing. Does that go live? You got any idea? You can get onto the waiting list, and the waiting list gets a 24-hour early thing, and you can get on the waiting list today. And it usually sells out within the waiting list. Great connection course, all of the other Surf Art of Accomplishment podcasts. You're the best. Thank you. Pleasure. See you next time, my beauties. Dude. That was a good one. I'm responsible for emergency and towing charges not covered by the policy coverage subject to policy terms and conditions.