10 Steps to Making Better Decisions TODAY!

0:28So, hey, guys, are you frustrated with where you're at right now?

0:33This is The Ed Myron Show. All right, welcome back to the show, everybody. So I'm so excited today because I get a chance to answer one of your questions that I get asked the most about, which is, how do I make better decisions? So if you've ever struggled with decision-making or knowing whether you've made it the right or wrong one, or you're looking for a process and a strategy that you could utilize to make better decisions in your life, I'm here to try to help you with that today as best I can. The first thing when it comes to making decisions is the overall belief system about making them.

1:06And so let me say this to you first. Write this down. Instead of worrying about making the right decision, why don't you just worry about making the decision right? What I mean by that is all you can do is really control the process and strategy you have of making a decision. And then you've got to sort of let the chips fall where they may. we've really developed in our culture, I believe, a really false belief system that paralyzes people from calling shots, from making decisions, from being decisive in general. And that is that one will work and one won't. One's right, one's wrong. Now, there are times in life where, you know, obviously something's right to do and is wrong to do.

1:43But when it comes to decision making, what if you started to adopt the belief system that maybe both would work, that you don't have this fear that if I call the wrong shot, everything's going to be terrible. There have been plenty of times in my life and yours where both decisions could work. Left or right will work. Up or down will work. That fork in the road, you've got to develop this ability within you, this belief system in you that you will make the decisions you make work or you'll correct them as you go. But what paralyzes people, what holds them back is this fear that, what if I make the wrong decision.

2:17And oftentimes in life, there isn't a wrong. You're going to have to work on both of them anyways. So I'm going to give you a strategy, but I want to say it to you again. Instead of worrying about making the right decision, why don't you just worry about making the decision right? Okay? And that comes down to believing that you have some influence or that there's going to be some blessing over which way you go and that all you can control is your intention and your process and the information you gather to make the decision. Please don't take this beginning point lightly. I have developed in my life, of all the different things, wins and losses I've had in my life, a true belief that I'm going to call a shot, I'm going to execute it with ferocity, and one way or the other, I'm going to make this work.

2:56This frees me up to be creative, to be innovative, to be certain about what I do, as opposed to timid decisions. You know, nothing is worse than the right decision made with timidity. I'd almost rather make the decision that may not have been completely correct, but with certainty and aggressiveness and focus and faith than I would making the perfect decision in a very timid way with a bunch of fear behind it. Probably one of the challenges you have is this internal fear of doing it wrong, of calling the wrong shot, of coloring outside the lines, of all the way back to childhood, you're going to get in trouble if you call the wrong shot.

3:33And the truth of the matter is you probably could make them both work. You and God partnering. So write this down too. Process over prize. Don't worry about getting it right. Worry about your process. I've developed a process I'm going to give you guys now of sort of 10 things, 10 steps to consider in making great decisions. And what I do is I go through this process. I have these thoughts. I have these strategies that are about making great decisions. But either way, I'm going to go to work as if I know I've made the right one because most times in life, it's not always wrong. There are times, there's an exception to that.

4:05You just called the wrong shot. You got it wrong. And then what's cool about life is you can then make a new decision to go on a new course and change direction and fix the one that didn't work out. One decision in your life can alter the direction of it. I wrote The Power of One More. You guys know in my book. And I have this philosophy that one decision can literally change your life. So let's talk about how to make those decisions. So I'm gonna give you 10 steps here to effective decision making. These are some of them are thoughts and some of them are tactical strategies. So number one, great decisions are made with certainty.

4:40And that's why it's so important to have that belief I've given you first. Certainty equals influence. You make two people and they're having a discussion, a debate. Almost always the more certain person will influence the less certain person, as long as there's some form of rapport there. And the reason that that matters is life has a lot to do with certainty and influence. When you're up at the batter's box and you're a professional athlete and you're totally certain you're locked in and can hit this pitch, you're going to get the maximum amount of your ability compared to the person who's in a slump who gets up there wondering and doubting and isn't sure and my hand's in the right places.

5:15Same with any athlete, whether it comes to putting, CEOs and leadership, parenting, anything thing in life, certainty equals influence. And so great decisions are made with certainty. Now, one of the ways that you can have tremendous certainty is by having a process that you believe in that I'm going to give you now. But never forget this. Once you call the shot, implement it with ferocity, with confidence, with strength, with faith. It has a way, it has a tendency of making an imperfect decision work out just fine. Listen to me on this. This certainty thing is huge when you call a shot in your life.

5:55Number two, great decisions are timely. You've got to make them in the right time. Too many people hesitate and process information too long and miss the moment. I can tell you, especially in business, timing is truly everything. And most people are late. You know, I talk about the four D's that will hold you back in your life. Doubt, discouragement, right? Delusion and delay. Delay is a big one on making decisions. Most people, they try to wait and wait and wait, hoping they never have to make the decision and they've missed the right moment of execution. There is a rhythm and a cadence to success.

6:31And that rhythm and cadence has something to do with the timeliness of it. And if you wait too long, you hesitate, you miss the moment and you could actually make the right decision at the wrong time. And so that's why having a process where you evaluate information and you develop the muscle of just calling shots, of making decisions. I'm not suggesting you be cavalier and not process information. When you see the rest of these steps, you're gonna know full well that you're not gonna make a decision out of a lack of information. But at some point, you gotta call the shot. And oftentimes, you do need to rely on your discernment, on your gut instinct, on intuition, backed up by facts.

7:07But you can't always have all the information. If you're waiting around to gather it all, someone else is beating you by calling the shot. I can tell you that the successful people that I know in my life are more decisive than the unsuccessful. The happy people in my life are more happy because they are more decisive and they have their timeliness down and timing down in their life over the people who wait, who hesitate, who miss the moment, who are waiting too long to call a shot because they're afraid because they lack number one, which is certainty. So certainty is number one in making great decisions.

7:41great decisions number two are timely. Third, great decisions are communicated well. There's something to the power of communicating a decision well. Nothing's more frustrating than when you were the leader who does not communicate why they did something or what. What's it going to mean once we get there? So the communication aspect of decision making is huge, that you communicate it with strength, with confidence, with clarity, clarity. And too often in life, See, I actually believe this. People don't always have to even believe what you're saying. They have to believe you believe what you're saying.

8:17And that's why certainty matters and your ability to communicate it. Think about anybody that you admire politically or that you don't admire. One of the frustrating things is their inability to communicate why they do things. And when you don't communicate why you're making a decision, you've left it up to skeptics, critics, and naysayers to define why you made that decision. a lack of communication and why a decision was made or how a decision was made or even more importantly in some cases what it will mean if we institute it correctly is everything in life and in business even as a parent i've always seen you know myself with my children when i've got a discipline them i've made a decision i want to sit down and communicate clearly why i made it what it's going to mean to our family and not just because i'm in charge not just because i'm your dad or just because I'm the CEO of the company.

9:06That's not good enough. That's a weak level of communication. That's an arrogant level of communication. So communicate it with strength, with humility, with conviction. And if you can explain your reasoning, you don't have to explain every reason, but if you can explain why it gives context to the decision and it helps people execute on their role and the implementation of whatever shot it is that you've called. lack of communication, right? Or complexity. See, oftentimes complexity is the enemy of execution. You've made it too complicated. You haven't communicated. Well, a great communicator takes complicated things and makes it simple.

9:45Poor communicators make simple things seem very complicated or confusing. I want things to be clear when I communicate with people. It's a huge part of making the decision work one way or the other. So when I say earlier, there may not be a right or a wrong or a good or a bad, that comes down to your ability to communicate in a timely way with certainty. Number four, great decisions involve the one catalyst decision. Write this down. One catalyst decision. Oftentimes when you're looking at a problem or something you've got to create, there's one decision. That's what I call the catalyst decision.

10:22That if you make that one decision, it's more powerful and more impactful than 20 other ones. And if you made that one or that one thing happened, everything else may fall into place automatically. Not enough people when they're making decisions, look at the big picture and go, what's the one catalyst decision I could make right now that fix almost everything else that has everything else fall into place. It's a catalyst to create the change that I need by making this decision in the first place. And oftentimes it's a bigger decision. It's a bolder decision. It's a more strategic decision. It may be an uncomfortable one.

10:56But when you make the catalyst decision, oftentimes all the other things sort of fall into place. So what I'm saying is oftentimes when people make a decision, they've picked a level or two lower than the catalyst decision because that one requires more boldness. But when you make the catalyst decision, oftentimes everything else has a way of solving itself. And when you don't make the catalyst decision, you're required to continue to course correct and make a series of other decisions because you didn't call the one catalyst decision. This is good.

11:29Number five, great decisions consider the holistic impacts of a problem. So one way to build up your confidence is to regularly practice balancing the risks and potential impacts of each decision you make. This is simply a matter of thinking as broadly as you can to identify the what ifs and whatever choice you make. How likely is it that a potential negative outcome will arise? And if it does, what would the consequences be? So when I'm making a decision, I want to run through the what ifs. What's the worst case scenario? People say, you should never look at the worst case scenario. I love to do that because I can reverse engineer it backwards.

12:02And that worst case is typically not as bad as we think. So what are the potential negative outcomes? Not just the worst ones. What are the potential negatives for the people involved, for the money involved, whatever it might be, and look at it. It's okay. It's not bad to look at the negative side of things to evaluate the risk versus reward. Again, you can go back to sports. If you're sitting on a golf hole and it's a par five over a lake and you've got a decision to lay up and take the easy shot and get on the green in two, or do you go for it and smash the three wood over the lake, it's important to assess the risks involved and the potential negatives.

12:39If I don't make the shot and the ball lands in the lake, then what does that mean? Et cetera, et cetera. There's nothing wrong with evaluating the negative outcome and deciding whether you're okay with it. Oftentimes, once you sit with the negative outcome and you become familiar with it, you go, it wouldn't be as bad. It's okay. This risk is worth the potential reward. But if you don't evaluate the negatives, you may not know. Same time, you may evaluate and say, this risk is not worth the reward. And I'm going to make a secondary decision that mitigates my risk and increases my chance of winning.

13:13So evaluating negative outcomes is an important thing in calling a shot and evaluating consequences, which leads me to number six. I love to do a SWOT analysis when I make decisions, SWOT. And what I'm doing is I'm evaluating. SWOT stands for strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. So I will oftentimes draw out a SWOT analysis. What are my strengths? What do we have going for us right now that favor this potential decision? What are our weaknesses? What are some of the things that we could be susceptible for or that could hurt us if I make this decision? What are the opportunities ahead in making this decision, the potential opportunities, and what are the threats?

13:54And so oftentimes, just a simple SWOT analysis, strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats, help me gain clarity and perspective on which shot it is that I need to call. And so when I tell you early on that you've got to do something with certainty, that it's okay, That may seem very basic in nature, but as you can tell, you can have that certainty. You can have the confidence that you might make both decisions work because you've got such a detailed strategy here that, by the way, can be done in a matter of minutes or you could take hours on it. I've done SWOT analysis on a napkin at lunch that take me three minutes.

14:28I've also drawn them up on big whiteboards and done entire board meetings for a day and a half on a SWOT analysis on potential choices, tactical directions and decisions. But I highly recommend that you use that, especially coming off of the idea that we're going to evaluate the negative impact. Number seven, great decisions are made by a clearly accountable person. Even after receiving the feedback, you need to make an informed decision. Remember that you and you alone must be ready to claim responsibility for your choice. Weak leaders find it comforting to have their decisions endorsed by the people around them, which is fine.

15:03But strong ones are accountable for the decisions they make. And if they get it wrong, you know, one of the most powerful things you can ever do as a leader, which we rarely see in politics ever anymore, is somebody who says, hey, I got this one wrong. I apologize. My intentions were X, Y and Z. This decision is my responsibility. I'm accountable for it. I made an error here, but I'm going to get it right the next time and I'm going to get it right most of the time. But if you want to follow a perfect leader, I'm not going to get every decision right. I'm not going to get them all perfect. But when I get them wrong, I will be accountable.

15:34I'm responsible nobody else is to blame and even though this decision may not be popular or I have to make an unpopular decision I want to be accountable and responsible for the decisions I make because when accountability is shared and you sort of spread it around it dilutes your decision and your effectiveness as the person making the call and so I want to gather information which I'm going to talk about in a minute I want to get opinions from people that I value but at the end of the day as the leader you're calling the shot as the mom as the dad as the CEO as the business owner, as the coach, it's your shot to call and it's nobody else's responsibility and nobody else is accountable for your decision other than you.

16:13And when you begin to embrace that a decision maker, you will get more buy-in consistently from your team than you would if you always put off the responsibility and accountability to somebody else. I will run through a wall for a leader who says to me, man, I got that one wrong. Man, I thought I had it right. I did my SWOT analysis. I looked at the negatives. I instituted with ferocity. I got the feedback I needed. And you know what? We just we got it wrong. But I'm going to get the next one right now. We'll follow that leader to the top of the mountain because that's an accountable leader who I will believe in.

16:45But when someone is constantly not taking responsibility, wants to spread it around, wants to blame as a leader going forward, I don't trust your decision making. I don't feel safe in giving you feedback for that decision because I may be blamed for the shot you call. So think clearly very through what I just said. It has to be accountable and responsible to the leader because once you put that off, people don't want to give you the feedback. They don't want to follow you anymore because they know that the good decisions you take credit for, the bad ones you blame other people. That's not how an effective leader operates or a good decision maker.

17:20A good decision maker says, I'm calling the shot. I appreciate the feedback. It's my responsibility. And if we win, you get the credit. And if I get it wrong, I take the blame. I think that's what a great leader does. Okay. Eight, great decisions address the disease, not just the symptoms. Too often when we're calling shots, we're looking at the ancillary symptom of a much bigger disease or problem. And we treat the symptom. You know exactly what I'm talking about. And so you treat the symptom. For example, if there's an issue in your relationship and, you know, they treat you a particular way and you treat that symptom.

17:58But the disease is truly that they just don't feel good about you anymore or worse. They don't feel good about themselves anymore. And as a result of not feeling good about themselves, they're saying hurtful things to you. So although you ask them to not say these hurtful things to you anymore, you've treated the symptom. But what you really need to get to the bottom of is the disease is why is this person not feeling good about the relationship or you are not feeling good about themselves. And when you begin to make a decision that treats the disease, the symptoms all clear themselves up. It's very similar to the one catalyst decision, but it's a different way of looking at a problem or a challenge and saying, what's the disease here?

18:33We know the symptoms. The symptom is our profitability is down. The symptom is, you know, we're behind on this project. The symptom is there's dissension within the team. Those are symptoms. What's the disease? Why? And maybe there's dissension within the team and we're behind on problems because previously you didn't take accountability or responsibility for your decisions. And that's the disease. The symptom is they don't trust you anymore. The symptom is they're not working as hard as they used to. The symptom is they're not as productive as they used to be. But those could just be symptoms of a bigger disease within the company.

19:03Maybe they're not clear on your vision. Maybe they're not clear on their role. Maybe they don't believe in the company anymore. Maybe they don't believe in the leader anymore. So it's easy to just, hey, that's the symptom. But the great leaders, the great decision makers ask themselves, what's the broader challenge? What's the disease? Number nine, great decisions are made as close as possible to the action. What do I mean by that? Who exactly should you be seeking feedback from before you make a decision? People have the most extensive knowledge and experience and perspective on the issues at hand is who I want my information from.

19:38and oftentimes this is generally someone who works at not the highest level in your organization it's not always necessarily somebody in the room where the decision is being made remember this the most powerful people at your company are rarely on the ground doing the actual work so most of the influential people are kind of in the boardroom right making decisions i want to seek input and guidance from the team members who are closest to the action which are the ones actually doing the real work. It's important to walk into the warehouse and ask them, how are things going? The ones who interact with the client and the customer.

20:11Most people that lead companies get all of their feedback from the people that are at the top levels, the highest paid. And oftentimes those people are the farthest away from the real work. So you're not getting real feedback. I want to get feedback from the people. I want the high level people's opinion. They're being paid for that. But the best decisions are when you're asking the people doing the actual work, the actual marketplace. They're interacting with the client or the customer. They're doing the physical work for you in your construction company, right? They're dealing with the suppliers.

20:41You want to get feedback, not always just from top level people, but from the most valued people, which are those that do the work. I see all these big companies oftentimes they're in these boardrooms making these decisions. They don't talk to the salesperson. They don't talk to the person that's in customer service. They don't talk to the person in HR. Talk to the people who are talking to the people and you will get the best information often from them and then you can run it by your top executives but I think the best decisions oftentimes come from getting that from the people who are doing the work that are in the marketplace that day-to-day are doing the grind and can give you the best feedback that someone in an office somewhere or a cubicle potentially wouldn't have if they do physical work and if they're in sales man talk to the people who are interacting in the marketplace.

21:29They'll tell you what they need. They'll help you with the right information. They'll help you guide it. They will probably tell you where the disease is and not the symptom. And then number 10, I believe after you make a decision, pray about it. Take some time and pray. Get some discernment. Ask for some guidance. Ask for some sense of direction. Praying about something will always give you comfort, will always give you more strength, will always give you a perspective that you may not otherwise have, and probably for you will give you peace about making that decision and certainty that you can execute on it.

22:03So no matter what your faith is, if it's, you know, whatever the faith is that you have, pray about it. If you're not a praying person, get quiet and use stillness to your advantage. There's a lot of answers in stillness and quiet and seclusion. And so sometimes it's just getting away from the noise. For me, it's my prayer life. For you, it may be your prayer life and or just sitting in a quiet place alone with your thoughts and calling the shot. And that'll give you great perspective and discernment. So today is really about not just making the right decision, but by making the decision right.

22:41And I think I've given you 10 steps today that can help you do that so that you can go do something great with your life. because remember this, you were born to do something great with your life and your intention is to serve and make a difference for people. And I hope today helped you do that in an even bigger and more powerful way. Thanks so much for being with me here today, guys. If you believe my show and my content is valuable or the most valuable you get, all I ask is that you share it. Just share the content so that the show grows, the message expands, and more people out there are contributing the lives of others in a great way, in a peaceful way, in a giving way, in a way that makes the biggest impact in the world.

23:16that's what I hope for you God bless you Max out this is the Ed Myland Show