Decisions, Decisions, Decisions

Well, look at that. We are now into episode two. Well, we saw number two. I'm so excited about this. Now we were like, obviously one of the challenges regards to doing podcasting and anything in our life is really about deciding what we're going to talk about. So you had this great idea. I love maybe you should share the audience of how we came up with this decision.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, well, it's funny because we're really focused on the decisions as such. Like we, I think there's a very intuitive sense in terms of how we're going about this. We've got a rough idea of things we want to talk about, but we're also open to the possibility that, hey, we need to go that way because whether it's the feedback from our clients, whether it's experiences that we're specifically having, and this week was really quite surreal decisions and so did you in the same day and I looked at that I went Lawrence this is something there's kind of like an outside force telling us that this is the decision that we didn't talk about for one reason or another so we changed our plans and went right we're going with decisions so this is we've made the decision to talk about decisions today

Yeah. Yeah, no, I think it's so important to kind of go through these periods of times. Because I mean, reality is that you got all these changes that are going on with our lives and awesome times, it's a struggle sometimes to, to navigate and recognize how far you actually come. And so when you start thinking about, and that's my reflection on my video was just that, you know, I, we were just celebrating our 21st wedding anniversary. And I know a year ago, you know, we were celebrating our 20th.

That's awesome, congratulations.

And I, you know, not that I had massive plans on what the 20th, but I had this vision of us being in Venice, you know, in Europe and like, you know, taking a holiday with the kids and celebrating our 20th and the winning industry. Yeah, that didn't happen because we were in six months of lockdown in Sydney and, um, you know, and we didn't do anything. I don't even know if we actually went out and did takeaway at all. So, you know, but we were celebrating the 21st here in Portugal and, uh, you know, go into a beautiful restaurant. And then I was thinking back, I'm like, man, can you imagine like a year ago, we were in lockdown,

Yeah.

single thing for our 20th. And look at that one year later, we are literally in a different country. We don't live in the same house anymore. And our lives are completely flipped. You're like, what, what, like, that's an amazing thing to think about how far or how much change, you know, better for worse, or that can happen in one year's time. And that came to the conclusion about little decisions, right? Little things. It wasn't the big like, yeah, sure. Of course, last week, we talked about last time we talked about, like, you know, big decisions and big big things that kind of got us to certain places. But there are also, we never really think about or talk about is all the little decisions that you make or one makes to kind of get up to that point. And so I think that's, yeah.

Yeah. Yeah, exactly. This was the thing where I went, we want to expand on this again, because this is something that's quite big. And obviously this week, I've been talking about this with a lot of the people I've worked with. It's like, there's this preconceived idea that you make a big decision and then everything falls into place after that, or it's great. The hardest part was the decision. And for some people it is. What I've come to understand, Provided that you know you could be on purpose you can be on track you can be doing exactly the right things but there's a process of still executing and continuing on and re-deciding that that's the right thing for you and Sometimes that you sit on a path and it's a tough one and it doesn't mean it's wrong It's just that there are challenges that come along that will test you and that to me I think that was the sense of what I spoke about it's a process, it's a continuing evolution of steps you have to keep taking if you want to progress their path.

Yeah, how I remind like a lot of my clients is just general statement. I think we just need to remember I need to remind myself of this as well is that, you know, whoever you are today, like right now, like just, you know, anybody who just like think about this moment of who you are, no matter what age you are in, you are a sum collection, an accumulation of all the decisions you have made up to this point in life. Like I'm talking about all the decisions, the right ones, the wrong ones, the ones that are not so inborn. Yeah, exactly. And also the ones you said, you know,

ones you don't make, ones you don't want to make. Yeah.

that you didn't make, right? All those decisions, you're, the person you are today is accumulation of all those decisions. Now, the thing is, we know, unless someone invents a time machine, we cannot go back and change any of that, right? We can go back and change it. However, right, the future you, let's just project three years out, right? The 2025 version of Jim or Lawrence or whoever, is gonna be, again, one accumulation the decisions you ever made up to this point, plus all the decisions you're going to make from here on in. And so we can't change the past decisions, but we can definitely influence and make better decisions moving forward. And I think this is why it's so important for us to kind of look at our lives at any given moment to go, all right, how are we doing? Like, are you happy with your life right now? Are you happy with where you are at? And if the answer is like, not so much, or I'm not happy, okay, that's okay. That's

Yeah.

Realize that, not ignore it, and then decide to go, okay, figure out what direction do I want to be in? Like, what would an ideal situation be like? And then make the decisions accordingly towards that. It's not gonna be instant. Most of the time, it's not an instant thing that would change you there. Most of the time, it's gonna be hundreds of decisions from here that will get you further down the path.

Yeah, and I understand, I think it's a really important thing to remember that you'll have a thought and basically what takes a thought into an action is the courage to lean into it and basically get momentum going. And in a lot of decision making psychology, they talk about, it's not the first decision that's caught off on a problem, it's subsequent ones.

Yeah.

you may make what is considered a poor decision and a choice in a moment. Now, that happens. It's what you then do subsequent to that, whether you can cause correct, whether you can get things back on track. So for example, you may, you know, I've got a lot of friends who are police officers, for example, and they quite often say it's not the, sometimes the first decision that's the bad, the first bad decision is probably the subsequent one. So you take a step and you don't have the

Thanks for watching! Hmm.

and say, this is going off course, this is setting me off track. If you make the decision to keep going rather than getting back on track, that's when it seems spirals out of control. So I think there's a couple of really important things, I guess, to bring into the discussion. Lawrence says that, okay, sometimes you make a decision and it won't go the right way you want, but it's like, what do you do in the moment? How do you course correct to ensure that you're getting back on track?

Yeah, that's, that's actually pretty powerful. Like the subsequent discretion decisions are really important because they are the ones that usually create more problems and that's how you spiral. And that's what happens to a lot of kids, right? You know, like if you, you know, take any child kid and especially when they're young, they don't necessarily have the. The brain development yet to look at their consequences and the subsequent consequences, you know, a situation happened at our, um, in our school this past week, actually, where, you know, uh, a particular person, you know,

Yeah. Yeah.

in a group chat about it, you know, it doesn't really matter what they actually wrote, but they wrote something that kind of started this, this crazy, like, I'm sure she thought it was totally innocent, but then it created like this ripple effect amongst everybody in that group who then subsequently my daughter, you know, then, um, like say, Hey, look, look at this. Right. And then now we are involved. Right. So then now, then we're talking to other parents from other people in that group.

Yeah. Yeah.

post, right? There's one little thing on a group had this ripple effect of affecting, let's just say there was 15 people in that group and then 15 people have two parents, you know, that's like involving like now 15 kids, 30 parents, you know, added that 45 people impacted on just because one person who never thought the consequences of one silly, simple post. And I think that's the trouble, right? That's the, that's that sometimes we don't really think about. I think so this is why the real one, why I bring that up is because

Yeah.

make a decision, I think it's really important not to look at it from like the primary or the first ring of impact. It's about looking at the secondary and tertiary and you know, impact that it can have a ripple effect. And you got to be able to see, is this going to not just see like, Oh, if I make this decision, if I go left, this is what's going to happen. If I go right, no, no, it's like, if you go left, what does that put you in? Does that put you in a better position? You know, in the future to make better decisions or does it not? If you have that ability, not I know, sometimes

Yeah. Yeah.

have the foresight because you just can't see that far. But if you do have that ability, I think it's important to have that thought and train the thought to really project that out as best as you can, of course, because we don't really know what the future is going to hold. But I think it's important part of the decision making. I don't know about you, Jim.

Yeah, yeah, totally a cliche and it's actually just a suicide because in their 20s and I distinctly remember the techies used to call it the school ground mafia and they'd always be cautious and careful, you know, that once a parent had, you know, basically a bee in their bonnet, things could escalate really quickly. And so someone would always throw down the gauntlet or throw down the first strike and the decision we all had was, listen, are we going to be part of this? Are we going to be part of the problem, part of the solution? So sometimes from a cultural point of view, we just went, listen, this doesn't cut it, we're not gonna buy into this. And sometimes what happens is that you made a decision to get engaged and then your decision making protocol meets my decision making protocol and then it's an amplification effect then. So it's not like one decision that affects what a solid person, it's got the interaction and the by play of everybody's decision making capacity which is really fascinating and interesting. So a really important thing that I've always deferred to and it was a management principle sent to me by a coach that I had very long. He said, it was an acronym, he said, teacup, which is think correctly under pressure. And a lot of our decision making in moments of high stress is emotive. And so it's a case of how do you get to the point where you're making empowered decisions as opposed to emotive reactive ones that then have consequences and have fallout that you've got to clean up.

Hmm.

process I think of that. I'm thinking about that school and immediately I've got all these scenarios and how they're played out in our school and when our kids will go to school too. So I empathise with you right now and all the improvements you've gone through.

Yeah, and this brings us to the point, like what you mentioned earlier about courage. I think courage is one of the most powerful thing that we need to kind of, you know, find within ourselves to make, you know, big decisions. And I, so I want everybody to think about this. And Jim, I'm going to ask you this question while everybody thinks about this is like, let's think about like the three most important decisions you made in your life. OK, so just have a quick thought, just go through that, you know, quick succession of your life and like, what are some of the most three most powerful decisions

Yeah. Yep.

today, I would guarantee you right without even knowing without even saying exactly what it is, I'd love for you to share one of those in a second. But I guarantee you that it during that moment, if you brought back yourself to that moment in time, just before you made that decision, I guarantee it was hard. I guarantee was like this like, oh, it's a 5050 kind of go. And I guarantee you also to it was like, not only was it hard, but you knew that whatever decision you made left or right one or two, it would have dramatic shift in direction of your entire life, right? And how do I know that for a fact? Well, because you're not, because it was an important decision, right? Because we framed it that way. Because no one worries about, you know, people come to us, and I used to be like this too, by the way, one of my faults was, and actually this was not making decisions quickly. I'm talking about like just simple decisions. I'm not talking about like making quick decisions on big things, it was simple decisions. And it was a product of my good friend, was about 18 years old. And I was about 27 at the time was my first year in practice. And he was like the IT guy. He was a smart dude. I was 18 years old, just probably still in high school. I think he was still in high school. And he was the IT person in this practice I was working in. We became really good buddies and we still are. And he we started a company together. And back in 2002, we started this internet company. And I remember we used to week and to make decisions on branding and all that stuff. And so, but you know, go to this coffee shop and we're trying to make, you know, I would just make a decision like, what am I going to eat today? And after like several weeks of this, he goes, why do you take so long to make a decision what you're going to eat? I'm like, I didn't even know I was doing it first of all. And like, who are you 18 year old kid punk telling me, you know, I'm not making decisions, but he was so right. And he said to me, was so wise. He said, you know, if you can't make this small decision quickly.

Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Yeah.

How are you ever going to be able to handle big decisions? And I was like, oh, you little, and he was so right. He was so right. And from then on, I tried to get into a habit of making insignificant decisions to go by quickly so I can save my energy and bandwidth to make bigger decisions. So going back to big decisions and small decisions, think about small decisions. I go, if I asked you, Jim, I go, what did you eat last Wednesday night? You're not gonna, chances are,

Hmm. Hmm. you We'll have to go check it. Probably lost some of it as well.

won't remember. Why? Because it didn't, yeah, it probably because it didn't matter. It didn't matter to your shape of your life, whether you ate fish or you know, some other tapas that you've you've had there, right. But we're talking about the big decisions. Those decisions are going to matter because they that's why they're difficult. And so the summary of my point is, is this is that we got to embrace those big decisions, because they shape our life not to avoid them, but to have the courage, as you mentioned, to make those decisions,

Yeah. Yeah.

that they're going to shape your life. But if you don't make a decision, it won't shape your life because you felt it was hard. So we have to learn to embrace those hard decisions. It's meant to shape our life just like it has shaped all our lives up to this point in life. So Jim, I'd love to hear what your big decision would be.

Thanks for watching! Hmm. Yeah, honestly, you know what, the biggest ones for me are... one of the biggest ones to probably another podcast. Because that literally altered the whole trajectory of my life, basically. And it was a life or death scenario. So within this context, we're probably going too heavy, too hard, too quick in the podcast. I think I'll just defer to another time. Yeah, you have to keep listening. It's just it's pretty much pretty much. But in terms of like, there's some decisions that were that I've realized

sure. Hmm. Right. Oh, look at this, guys. You guys got to keep listening. Keep listening. It's going to be in episode number 17.

The hard ones to make, the ones where I agonized over, were ones I wasn't clear in my values. And must have been about 15 years ago, 16 years ago, when I first got my coach, one of the first exercises they led me through, it might have been even longer, probably 20 years, sorry, led me through a values exercise, which totally changed my life. And what it helped me understand was,

Hmm.

important to me in my life. And so when you ask me, what are the three decisions, they're going to come around family, career, and children. They're the three most impactful things. And because I was really clear on those things, what felt like a really big decision for a lot of people externally was a really simple one for me, because I was really clear that that's what I wanted. And I remember my coach saying to me, listen, when you're clear in your values, decisions are easy. And particularly, and you have to have a level of courage to lean into those, but the process of making decision will be clear So if my highest value is love and family, and so fundamentally for me anything that's my guiding light That's my my basically my north star. So everything that I do That's my number one and if I'm going to value, you know, it could be a decision I've got to make that that is not in my top 10 values It may not be something that I value as highly like, you know I'm not a foodie, I love food, but I don't have the detail that some of my friends who are restaurateurs have. So consequently, if I've got a decision that puts my number one value against my number 10 value, why not win every time? Because I can make decisions and if I'm in conflict, I'm not gonna make the decision that is most important to me. So I guess that was a long way of going around basically saying, you're right, big decisions are big decisions.

Hmm.

a lot easier and a lot clearer is if you're clear on your values because then you know at least you're moving in the right direction. Then you've just got to find the courage to make the decision to take that step.

Yeah, well the next logical question and when you when you are making decisions is by following your values, then how do you find your values?

Well, it's a process that's been led through, but it's about what's most important to you. Some really general, clear questions were like, what things do you find curiosity and joy in? If you go into a bookstore, this is a really simple, if you go into a bookstore, what's the first section that you always go into? What's the one? For me, it's always the same sections. It's business and personal growth, every time. They're the ones that I went,

Yep.

okay, there's something about that that's important to me. And so growth, personal growth is a really important value. It actually features in my top three values. So fundamentally, that's my basis on my guiding light in terms of what's most important to me. So there's a process that we have gone through to determine those, but it's a really valuable, worthwhile exercise to go through.

Yep. Yeah. Yep. Yeah, so I think it's important for people to recognize, like I know this question comes up a lot and a lot of people just like, it's hard to find it really difficult sometimes to know their values. And listen, it takes a lot of self-reflection. It takes a lot of time. It's not something you can just figure out, you know, without actually having some deep thoughts around it. So I wouldn't recommend people rushing it, but I will say that it is something worth value. It's valuable to find your values. No pun intended, but yeah, you've got to value your values. And so one of the most important thing I think, you know,

Yeah, values, yeah.

You can look for hints though, right? You can look for hints and, you know, Jim uses the example of bookstore. I use that one a lot. But, you know, like even like if you go on YouTube videos, it's just a, you know, like what kind of what type of videos that you kind of, you know, tend to lean towards. Or if you watch Netflix films or like what kind of Netflix like genre, which you actually tend to do too. And sometimes people get embarrassed about, you know, what they're passionate and interested in. But it's like I, for example, like I love the 49ers, the San Francisco 49ers and, and

Yeah.

there's a gridiron NFL football. But he goes, well, that's not really a passion.

I remember you flew over there a couple of years ago, Lawrence. That was awesome. I remember what an experience that would have been.

I-

Yeah.

Yeah, I went to the Super Bowl. Like, I mean, that was just like a last minute decision, fly over there to the Super Bowl, because I was like, you know, last time they were there, like, was 20 years ago, you know? And I've flown over there several times to watch a game. And, you know, I time sometimes my trips just to like, oh, I can actually get there. I've actually been to attend about four games now, so which is over the last 10 years, which has been amazing. But the thing is, is that, you know, people say, well, that's not really, well, how does that give you values? I'm like, well, it's, you think about it,

Yeah. Thank you. Bye.

I love sport, but I don't, I don't love it from my point of view of just because I'm passionate about a team. Like I love actually, so I dig deeper and I go, well, what I really love is the way, um, I love stories around sports. I love like people overcoming something. I love like building teams, you know, um, it doesn't have to be my team. I just love like just that depth of that. And so there's value in that and going, oh, I'm, I'm really about my, so for me, it's like, it's about growth. Like just like you, Jim.

Yeah.

growing something and building something and building something for long term and join the process rather than trying to win like today. Those are all the things that I value and that's why I search for. Look for people that I admired, the Muhammad Ali's, the Kobe Bryant's and stuff. I look at what can I extract from them? That's the stories I want to listen to and the books I read. All of those things kind of accomplish all, sorry, accompanist

Yeah.

basically includes all of those things, right? I think that's such a, like that's the clue that I'm sort of saying to you guys. It's like, you've got to look through your life and go, what has always been of interest to you? You know, how have you always behaved or acted? Because there are clues in there that gives you what is valuable to you. And what's valuable to you is irrelevant to what Jim's values is, is Jim's values, my values, my values, you don't have to have our values,

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

we need to define what our values are and that's how we make our decisions.

Exactly, and you know, just as you were saying that, I was thinking to myself, Toyota have got a great process, it's called the Five-Wide Principle, to help dissect into the reasons why things happen. So for example, they use it to get to core truths, which is really helpful, but you can actually use it to work out your values as well. So you might say, okay, I flew over to watch the 49ers, okay, why was that important to you? Because you go, this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this

Yep. I can tell you straight off the bat. The reason why it's for life, for basically life experiences. That's why I went. You know, that's exactly why I went. Because it's like for me, it's about creating experiences that are memorable. Memorable experiences matter to me. And I think the five why exercises awesome, because it forces you to dig deeper. And your first answer, your second answer, your third answer, usually are very surface level,

Okay, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. 樣

then you can get to that core. So I love that, Jim. Thanks for sharing that exercise. Yeah, that's good. So Jim.

And if you get really clear on yourself, that's what I mean by deep diving into it. And once you're clear, the decision is really easy. So I'll give you one example too. My dog flies in next week on Tuesday. Right. We're flying her from Australia to Spain. Right. It's been four months almost since we left and we miss her dearly.

Yes. I can't believe that.

Right? Yeah. And man, I've really, I've really missed her a lot. I said, okay, I'm like a little kid on Christmas morning, just anticipation. It's just beautiful, right? And the, you don't want to even think about what it's costing to bring her over, right? She's flying, she's been flown over, fantastic service. When we got the itinerary for the dog coming over, we looked at this, and the tenor and my wife and said, this is amazing, they pick her up, they drop her off at Dubai, she has a night over at a hotel. It's just fantastic, right? I went, we looked this way, we want to go with the dog. This is just brilliant. And it cost an arm and a leg, and yet, I didn't bet it on it. I did not even care what it cost, because to me, my dog, my kids, represent my number one value. And so I will do, as John did my turn ago, do whatever it takes to travel any distance paying price to fulfill my highest value. Whereas if there was something else that wasn't as important, that could have been a tenth of that price, I would have got not a priority. So I think this is how we make really big decisions on that. Can make them automatically if they mean that and not that much to you.

Yeah, we can probably switch shift a bit of a conversation around towards business and how, you know, our customers and clients actually make certain decisions. Because the way you spoke about that is just exactly, it just got me thinking around, you know, from a business perspective, because, you know, one of the fundamental things that most businesses, you know, forget to really ask is how that how does your customers decide whether you are worth what you're worth for whatever product or service you're trying to deliver. And really,

Yeah. Hmm.

to say that. But I don't think we really dig deep enough to figure out exactly what those values are and what you're actually offering. And when someone says, you know, when a client says I can't afford that, or I, you know, I, you know, I don't believe in that, I'll think about it. I think the first thing that I tend to do is I tend to look at myself and be self reflective and go, okay, what part of my, you know, what part do I have to play in that, their decision? Obviously, one thing is that I did not create enough value proposition to that person for them to feel like this was a no-brainer for them. Because that's something I couldn't influence. That's something I can change. That's something I could easily make a difference on, or at least I can upgrade and change. Versus where someone else doesn't have that same ability. Someone else's because if a patient or sorry if a client doesn't have the same response then it could be really challenging to um

Hallå, vi er kjære, ja?

Hey, oh, my internet just dropped out. I'm actually just hotspotting on my phone now. So I'm not sure what's happening.

That's okay, that's okay, that's okay. Let's just pick it up from that last bit that you said that we can splice it together.

Yeah, I'm trying to...

So I finished off with basically, I was talking about the dog and you went okay let's make it relevant around business. Have you just started? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Three, two, okay, three, two, one.

Okay, let's start from that, from the business part. Okay, all right, let's go ahead and mark this. Let's go ahead and mark this. Yeah, so that's perfect example of where I think, when you just said that, it just makes me think about business from the business side of things, right? Because when we as a business owner or providing a business a product or services, we gotta start thinking about what our clients want or clients or customers want and how they make decisions. And I think we forget as business owners oftentimes that the clients or the customers or the clients, they are human beings too. Meaning like they are making decisions

Thank you. Thank you.

whether your product or service is worth the value that you say it is. And really when it comes down to when someone says to you, I can't afford this. What they're really saying in my mind is what they're really saying is that I haven't demonstrated enough value to them that this is a no-brainer for them. That's it. I just take full responsibility and go, okay, I just obviously did not communicate well enough the value, how much this product or service is going to be valuable to you and your life. And I'll take ownership.

Yeah. Yeah.

I typically do that. I know I love to hear your answer. The reason why I do that is because that's something I can control. I can control whether they like me. I can control whether they don't think it's worth it. I can control myself. I can control where I'm gonna go with this. And that's something that I think that it's, as a business owner, is such an important element to do is to figure out is what is the actual product service value, not just to you as the owner, but to your client, to the customer.

Mm-hmm. video. Yeah, yeah, you know, yeah, no, that's great. That's a really good point. I share a great segue into that for me was, you know, we talked about value, your values before, a really big key thing that I've come to understand is that when you value someone else's values, you're then able to communicate and help them make a decision. So, given the example of business, if you value someone's value and you can link your product

it.

to their highest values in one way or another for helping them experience something more, get a faster outcome, feel whatever it is. If they can get an outcome better, faster, more efficiently using your products and services, you've demonstrated value. The biggest problem that we find particularly with country clients as well is what we call the projection of values. You hear the word health or fitness or finance and you project your definition or interpretation of what that value means to you, thinking that it's exactly the same for them, and in reality it could be totally different. So what will help them make a decision is number one whether they're aligning their values, and number two if it comes to a business situation for them to value your services, you've got to demonstrate how your product or service will actually help them express their needs or their values even better.

Yeah, absolutely. And once we're able to do that, once we're able to communicate that value, then you have a much better chance on the increase of the probability, obviously, for them to kind of engage with you further with your product and services. So. So.

I'll give you an example. Let's say if you ever had to go to an orthodontist or dentist, I remember when we were students, Patero and I were studying and we just started to marry him. We had students who loaned the whole lot and Patero had to go to an orthodontist and it cost $10,000 at that time and it was like, I don't know how but we'll find a way because this is really... And we did. away and there's no handling, there's no, this isn't going to happen, it's like this is going to happen and anytime you get a kid and they do all the daunting work, you'll find a way, they'll say five, ten, but you'll find a way because it's really important to you. Whereas you might make a decision away from other things, but you're really clear that that's a priority and that's, you know, you make decisions as long as your priorities are evaluated.

Thank you. Yeah, and that's a good reminder for people is to recognize that, you know, what I kind of look at that. I ask people and my clients is to think about how do you spend money? Right. And what do you spend your money on? And what are decisions that you make when it from buying position where it's easy and simple, like there's no way I'm willing to pay whatever it takes. For some people, it might be a really nice restaurant. So for some people, it might be a nice bottle of wine. Some people might be like a nice hotel. Like, or some people might be buying, I don't know, their latest guitar. Like, matter what it is. But the thing is, is that that same buying decision is exactly how your clients and customers choose to make their decisions. Like it's the same, like it might not be the same item, but it's the same process, the same decision making that goes on in their brain. And so in business, it's, we have to think like our clients, you have to get inside their head so that you can actually go, wow, what would make like without even thinking without batting an eye. Now the only way to do that is that you have to be, you have to know them, you have to understand them, which means you have to learn to listen. And you also have to have the ability to be able to really pay attention to other people other than yourself. And that's really, I find that, I think a lot of people find that difficult or if they don't do enough work to really get deep inside the psyche of their clients and customers.

here. Yeah, that look at that and that's coming down to the, you know, I guess it depends on what type of business that you have, you know, you may basically run a boutique service and you can, those kinds of things, they're gold. So if you're delivering products and service to a particular subset of the community, the more information you have about them, the better you actually are able to support them to make good decisions, right? And if there's a match between your product and services and then, I know it's going to work really well. What quite often happens is that disconnect will be, like we said, is that they're not a match or they're not aligned. And so consequently, they'll make a very, very quick decision, because this is not for me. One of the things I wanted to talk about, as we were talking about this, is the flicker of this, the 180 degree. The opportunity costs and what it costs you not making decisions, right? I don't know about you Lawrence, but I've had situations where

Hmm. Hmm.

I knew I should have done something. I'd made a decision and then I sat on her. And that was costly in a whole lot of areas. Have you ever had a scenario where you went, yep, I should have done that. I'd made a decision and I didn't take action.

Oh, there's, I don't, I think I can probably make a whole podcast on this, uh, I had like with multiple episodes, uh, and you know, of the decision, all the decisions I didn't make, uh, or just, yeah.

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Oh, geez. Yeah Absolutely, I mean like I the one thing that popped my mind right right off the bat as you said that was you know I had a back in about 2008. I Made a real estate investment deal that just was basically a Ponzi scheme basically came down to and lost a ton of money on that But I was younger so I knew that it was nothing. No one likes to Lose, you know that much money Yeah

It's called tuition, right? You pay this tuition fees, right? Yeah. Yeah. If it helps you, sorry, if it helps you and you feel any better, I've paid tuition equivalent to those amounts as well too, right? So from the university of hard knocks, right? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, well, it was a quarter of a million dollars of tuition. It was not fun. But, you know, I learned a lesson. Yeah, exactly. And so I think, you know, and what I learned from that too, as well as like, there was other people involved. And, you know, we all responded differently, you know, and I get it, we all have just in circumstances. And some people dealt with that with a lot of anger. Some people dealt with that, like, you know, that's our life savings or and the thing that got to me was, I'm, this is where the ill decision I made was, I was really into investing at that time. time and got me to this point, I thought I was untouchable and then this happened. And it was also in combination with the 2008 GFC crisis as well. And all of that kind of just comment, I'm like, you know what, uh, I'm just going to focus on my business and I'm not touching investing right now. And well, 12 years later, right? Because I didn't, I didn't touch that, that poor decision or 12 years of not investing. Um, I think was a very poor decision. All right. And for me, because if,

Yeah.

I just did something, just a little bit of something, or got some advice, or just asked for help at that point, instead of just shutting down completely and ignoring the situation and go, oh, I have plenty of time left in my life. Cause I think I was in my 30s, early 30s, and I was like, oh, I'll be fine. I'll worry about retirement later. And it's not even retirement, it's just like I'll worry about investing later. And it was like, not until 2020, when everything kind of down in the world, that's when I realized I'm like, I reflect on my man, I'm getting on this side of 50, or close to 50, you know, and I'm like, all right, I better start doing something now and start doing aggressively. And so, you know, and I don't have it as regret, I just have that as a reminder, right, of that, the no decision, you know, that I didn't make, the decision I did not make, has that made to this point. And so I, you know, really kind of, it's something that

Yeah. Thank you. Thank you.

is to say, don't make that mistake again. You know, it's a lesson. I didn't, well, I don't know what the cost would be, but you can just figure it out. If I even just did a $1,000 a month or something, you can see the compound effect of that 12 years would have been. And so I just want to, and it helps me through this period of time. I mean, we all know like the financial term all, you know, the financial situation that we're kind of all in, you know, in 2022 and the next couple of years, is to remind us of, hey,

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

from the last GFC crisis, just keep doing it. Don't stop because you don't want to have the same feeling again, 10 years in 20, 32 kind of thing. So that's something.

Yeah. Yeah, and yeah, I reckon you've touched on something that would be probably very common for people, you know, in terms of making a decision and it may not go there, and then it's the meaning you put on the outcome. You know, like a lot of people, you know, could look at that scenario and say, I'm not never doing that again, or, you know, some people look at it and go, okay, well, okay, I've got to level up my education.

Mm-hmm.

And so that doesn't happen again. And other people will just go, okay, all right, well, I've got to suck it up and keep it. So there's interpretations around outcomes. I think that's a really important one. Same sort of thing, man. I've lost similar amounts of money. For me, it was about trusting the wrong people. So once again, you probably, you know, did a whole podcast of this as well. So that was a really big decision for me. Yeah, I learned very early on that you trust the verified.

We can do a hit list podcast if you like.

And so I'm by nature of a trustee versus I've learned over time that always look for the good of people and get them in writing. You know, so, but that's one of life's lessons, right? So that was the process of making decisions. I don't even get to decision, but I needed to obviously learn due process around that. That was the, leaving a little bit the gate slightly in jar and open and that's where basically, you know, for all my friends who run up.

Thank you. Bye.

have properties that have run cattle and sheep, you know, you leave the gate slightly, and your stock basically runs out of the unluched door. But so I definitely have commonality in there as well, is what I was wanting. I'm trying to normalise it and go, yeah, I've been there, it sucks. And how you rebound from that also is a decision, right? I was gonna share specifically within business another one where, you know,

Yeah.

someone to our business who we really liked and just didn't have the skill set that we were looking for and because they were the circle that they were a person who really needed that role I was in conflict. You know for me it was a case of saying okay this person is not right. I know they're not right. I don't think they can stay on and yet I found reasons to keep them on right and it was it's not so much that I can't make that decision but that was I had confusion between empathy and all those kind of things, and I relegated the needs of my business at that time because I was feeling sorry for somebody. So I deferred making a decision, and what that did is it culturally had a big effect on our business. Other team members who knew that the standard that we set was really high were seeing that basically we were making allowances for someone who wasn't cutting the mustard. So consequently it impacted financially, it impacted the impacted the morale. In the end, you know, people were frustrated at me for not making a decision, but certain enough. And really, you know, that's really what it cost me. I mean, when it got to the point where I went, you know what, I can't keep making excuses for this person. When I had to walk in the hallway and mirror and go, the problem is not that person, the problem is you. I had, you know, a reality check that I had to basically making it to see you because I was worried about how it would affect somebody else and in the end it affected me worse than good.

I think, you know, to end, I think to this good way to kind of wrap this up here, because it's around this whole concept around stories of what you mentioned. If you look at, you know, my story and sorry, my decisions are indecisions and look at your decision, the indecisions, you know, what it comes down to, you can, I hope the audience can start to see is that it's actually the story of what you mentioned around the story we wrapped around it after it happened. And that changes the direction of how we feel about that incident. Right. And I think that matters a lot to everybody here because when you start really thinking about it, I would love for people to reflect upon the decisions you made in your life that you felt that went wrong. What story did you create around that to make you feel this way about it now? Because that story may or may not be true. I'm not saying it isn't true, but I'd say let's just kind of take a look at it and let's reevaluate it with hindsight now to go, was it true? Like, you know, like, for example, And he goes, oh, I should have said I should have never invested in real estate. Well, that's not really true Right, I could have made that story and then never invested in real estate ever again But that's not really true. It's just that I made it about real estate, but it's not it's nothing to do with state I just I what it you know, the real reason I said I just invested in things. I wasn't prepared for yet I was too high of a sophistication that I was not it's almost like I was trying to do university while I was still in grade 5 You know, that's what it was I thought I could jump, I thought I was untouchable, as I mentioned, so therefore I was skipping grades, thinking that I could just get to that level. And it's almost like buying 10 plexes really stay when I just bought one house before. It's not the way graduation grows. And so the key element here is the stories. What stories are you telling about yourselves about the decisions that you felt that have gone wrong and ask and re-evaluate yourself, are they still true? And if, you know, maybe if you just rewrote the story and you'd see it from a different perspective, you might actually see like, so how's he how, you know, Jim and I just made those decisions. I think that kind of put points you in a better direction because that's how we grow. That's how we learn. I think if we put a different spin on that, any stories that we went through our lives, then we would be in a different position. We might be here with anger. We might be here with, you know, maybe not making better decisions because we're still hung up on the decision that we didn't make or make from 10 years ago.

I think that's a great way to wrap up the allure in terms of that. Like you said, the meaning you tell yourself about yourself and what it means will dictate not only your experience around that decision but subsequent ones as well. So that might traumatise you to the point where you defer making even great decisions because you feel burned by previous ones. So I think basically they say entrepreneurship is the process of having enough money to survival of bad decisions you make along the way. And it's basically a long journey process, but with time, and as you said, we're both in the fifth chapter of our, fifth decade of our chapter, and I guess us being transparent in terms of what's going on, get normalises for people to go, hey, you know what, okay, all right, well, they're getting to call truth, and they're revealing that basically, They're basically going to take the learnings and what we've shared is the cost of making great decisions, but sometimes the cost of not making decisions. And if we normalise it for you, hopefully you can reflect on your own life and go, okay, well, what am I doing or not doing that's helping my life and helping me move forward. So I think this was a great podcast for us. Well, I also hope everybody else gets as much out of it as we do because I certainly got a lot of feedback.

That's right. Yeah. Perfect. So I'll end with this one thing to remind people, decision, the word decide. If you think about the word decide, anything that ends with side, like insecticide, pesticide, side, that root word is actually to kill, right? To kill off. And so when you decide is to kill off all options. So that's what a decision is, is to kill off all options. And that's what you're doing. At every point in your life, you're always killing off options so that you can move forward. If you don't make decisions, you're basically standing still. moving past you. So don't do that. Alright guys, it's, you know, it's Wabi Sabi time and I really hope you enjoyed these episodes. Please tell your friends and share these videos and podcasts with, you know, on all those channels that are available. And please share it with amongst other people who you feel like it's going to get some benefit from this. Until the next episode, I'll talk to you soon.

Thank you. Thank you.