How To Make Better, Faster & Stronger Decisions w/ Brendon Burchard

0:00So, hey, guys, are you frustrated with where you're at right now? maybe stunted in your progress. Well, if you are, I want to recommend a place for you to go called Growth Day. GrowthDay.com forward slash ed. It is the number one personal development app on the planet. It was created by my friend, Brendan Brouchard. It's got all kinds of high performance techniques in there, courses, accountability, journaling, live speeches from some of the top influencers in the world, including me. And here's the other thing I recommend you do. Come see me speak this year. And you know, typically ticket prices to see me speak are very, very expensive for most people to be able to afford.

0:34But if you go to growthday.com forward slash ed, you can actually get two tickets to see me speak for free in Los Angeles at some point this year. Yeah, my friend Brennan Bruchard, he's crazy. He's going to give away two tickets to see me speak and for anybody involved in the Growth Day app. And by the way, you can actually get started in the Growth Day app right now for a free trial at growthday.com forward slash ed. It's the number one personal development hub on the planet. People like myself speaking in there on Mondays, Brennan Bouchard, some of the top speakers and influencers in the world.

1:03It'll teach you high performance techniques, goal setting, motivation, hold you accountable. It's an overall environment to change your life. And you get two tickets to see me speak for free. I can't get over it. GrowthDay.com forward slash Ed.

1:20This is the Ed Myron Show. Welcome back to the show, everybody. I love Thursday episodes because Because once a month, you get a chance to spend time with me and the legend, Brendan Brouchard. And today, going into the new year, beginning the new year, it's all about making the right decisions. And we thought if we're going to cover something that could make the biggest value, the biggest return for all of you, we would discuss today how to make decisions. Because that's one of the strategies. You can go all the way through high school, elementary school, college, learn all this stuff. But in life, people don't teach you how to actually properly make decisions.

1:55and decisions shape your destiny. And so today is all about the strategies and tactics of how to make proper decisions with the dude I've decided that's one of my best friends on the planet and I've decided to be involved with in Growth Day with, growthday.com forward slash ed, by the way, my buddy, Brendan Burchard. Brendan, welcome back to the show, brother. I love being on this show. Every time we finish the show, thousands of listeners say, oh my, that's an unbelievable episode. The high performance, the tactics, the strategies, but also just Ed's energy. When we get together, it's like the room fills.

2:33I love it. It's so true, brother. And by the way, we both know that it's not my energy. It's your energy combined with mine. And that's one of the things I want to ask you. I've decided in my life to make different business decisions. One of them was I've decided in 2024, I was going to be a part of growth day and this amazing environment that you've created. And I had to have some strategic things I went through in order to make the decision. So let me ask you this just to start out. When you make decisions, how much of it is gut instinct? Do you rely on instinct, intuition, your gut, or are you a little bit more, I will call it cerebral, less heart, more cerebral, where it's facts, data, figures, when you decide to make a conclusion and call a shot?

3:15How do you usually make your decisions? Yeah, I think there's almost two right there. There's strategy and there's performance. So I'll talk performance first. Performance is, listen, before the performance or in the moment when you have to do something, you're less cerebral and you're tapping back into what you already know, your flow, your preparation, your practice. So I would say in the moment, don't overanalyze. Don't over decide. Don't get stuck on overwhelmed. I could do all these things. No, no. You've already prepared. You've already practiced. Be in the moment, win the game, make the decision.

3:53You're in the conversation with your team. You already kind of know what to do there. If it's a longer term thing, now we're talking strategy. yeah now i'm much more of a chess player i gotta take a moment and not over commit myself by the way everybody listening closely one of the great decisions of your life is not to over commit yourself if you're going to make a decision this year make the decision not to over commit yourself so if it's strategic i'm going to go okay let me take a step back let me place play some chess because I don't want to make the number one mistake in decision making, especially this time of year, which is overcommit myself into a million things.

4:36I want to narrow myself strategically. And that just takes more thought and logic. You and I were literally just talking about this before we went on camera about the different things that we're both involved with. And you're like, brother, I'm just basically involved in four things. I've decided I've got four things in my life that I'm running from a business standpoint. And what you just said is something really true. I think last year I made the mistake of overcommitting. And then we've all got these things on our calendar, our agenda, we're like, I kind of hope that cancels. I can't believe I agreed to do this.

5:02You know what I'm saying? We all have those things. But for me, I'll say, you know, I've always like to learn from mistakes, right? Success leaves clues. We're all both learners. We're both curious people. You know, I have, as I've gotten older, become less impulsive when I make decisions. But when I was younger, I had this notion. I used to really believe that, man, if I just make a decision and I execute with ferocity, I'm going to win either way, right? I'll just win. And I still have some extent, I believe that this notion of growing up right and wrong, which there are right and wrong things ethically and morally in life.

5:36A lot of times you can over deliberate on a decision because you're like, I don't want to make the wrong one. I don't want to make the wrong one. But there's been a lot of times in my life where both would have worked. Both would have worked if I just executed the decision with a degree of certainty and ferocity, frankly, aggressiveness, where I'm going to make either one work. And for me, that's taken the pressure off me a lot in my life where like not every decision is like this one's going to work and that one won't. What I want to do is take the path of the most bliss, the most joy, the most profitability, the best way to scale.

6:11But I think this notion of right and wrong, meaning good and bad, sort of paralyzes people to decide anything. And then they just stay in this loop, this pattern of the way they live their life because they're afraid to get outside of it because they might make the wrong decision. You agree with that? A hundred percent. And I think it's so important because people will delay on a decision as long as they can, because then they can stay in the comfort of what they know. Yes. And so I always tell people, there's no two week plus decisions except two things. Meaning every decision that you could possibly fathom in your entire life can be made in under two weeks.

6:53So if you're like, oh, I just haven't decided to write a book. Okay. That doesn't take two weeks to decide you're going to write a book. There's almost no decision that takes longer than two weeks. Two decisions take longer than two weeks. Number one, who to marry. Please don't do the Vegas marriage thing. They never turn out. Very rarely. You need more time in relationships, for sure. Number two, when to quit a job. not if to quit a job when to quit a job so true you want to quit a job the if that decision you can make that today when usually you need to kind of play that chess out because it might take six months of financial planning you know sitting down with the budget talking with family looking out there getting yourself ready but outside of literally marriage and when to quit a job Every possible decision in your life can be made in this next two weeks.

7:55And I just say, make it, force it. I literally, if I have a decision I have to make, it goes on a little post-it note and it goes up on my little computer here, like literally right off screen here. And I force myself to look at the decision every day because it'll tear me up inside until I make it. Very good though. What most people do is they pretend they don't have to make the decision. They don't look at it anymore. Yeah. One of the biggest compliments that I get, and I don't get a lot, but from people that know me well, is that I am a very decisive person. Yes. I've built the muscle of decisiveness.

8:28And the reason is, is I think that indicates a level of confidence that I have, that I can make something work or that God's going to bless the decisions that I make. But I have a really hard time. I don't know very many mega successful or happy people who are not decisive people. meaning they built the muscle. It's habitual now to call shots, to make decisions. There's nothing worse than working for a leader who's indecisive or flinches or doesn't know or constantly needs more information. They've got almost like a perfectionist mentality about making the decision as opposed to just believing you have the tools and abilities to get into a room.

9:10Like for one thing I really believe strongly is that most of the things that I've accomplished in my life or I've had happen were me deciding to move into a room and a space that maybe I wasn't completely prepared for, but I had the belief and ability, I will figure it out once I get in that room, but I got to get in the room. I got to get in the space. And you think about someone like Henry Ford, who built this incredible company, built Ford Motor Company, right? Or Steve Jobs, who built Apple. Those companies don't even resemble what they initially were built to become. Imagine if Henry Ford thought, Brennan, in the beginning, he's going to build Ford Motor Company, and someone started feeding him all the objections of why he shouldn't decide.

9:49Someone said to him, hey, Mr. Ford, you know, someone has to fix all these cars, and there are no mechanics and shops because there are no freaking cars, right? Or where are you going to get all the tires from? Or who's going to do these repairs? Or what about all the fuel? What about this? What about when there's emissions issues? What about someday when, if you'd have thought through every single thing, and someday there's going to be an environmental issue, an electric power, you'd never get started. But what happens is you make a decision based on the data in front of you, a little bit of gut instinct.

10:23You call a shot and you begin to execute, even though you know you're not completely prepared. I think most successful people, they're preparation freaks. You and I are both crazy about our preparation. But ironically, on the other side of it, I don't need this threshold of knowing everything to take action. And people that are less successful or less happy, they have too high of a standard or threshold of what they think they need to know to be ready to take action. Steve Jobs with Apple. It started out as a board company. Steve Wozniak's become a friend. He's come into Arate with Andy and I in our coaching group.

11:02And I asked him, did you ever think this is going to turn out this way? Of course not. We were trying to create a board company. He didn't know that the internet was going to take off and there'd be Mac. They figured it out as they went, but they made decisions strategically in the beginning to start in Jobs Garage and start a company and get it going. Do you agree with that? I think sometimes there's this nuance between you've got to be prepared, the separations and the preparation. Yet at the same time, knowing you're not going to know everything to call the best shot and make the best decision.

11:37I agree with that completely. Well, first, I agree that you're incredible at being decisive. Thank you. You're incredible being decisive because you've run the reps. You had so much discernment because you were decisive that your decisions get better. And I always tell people, if you want to make terrible decisions for your life, don't make any. Wow, really good. It's like what people do. They don't make any decisions. So now every decision is terrible because they have no practice. It's like if you go on a football field and you go to throw the football, you suck. But the more you throw the football, the better that you get.

12:12Yes. Being great at decisions is reps. So get in the game of making real decisions for your life. Adopt what psychologists would call that action bias. which you have, and I've seen, he's like, you just make the decision. Okay, I'm going to go in. And it's very much like, you know, even Jeff Bezos talks about, he's like, you need to have maybe 60 to 70 % of the information you think you need, then make the decision. That's really good. You're never going to have a hundred percent. And what people do is they make the mistake of having what I just call the wrong payoff window. They don't make the decision because they think the payoff has to be tomorrow, immediacy, or the payoff has to be complete.

12:56Like I get it all tomorrow. So they want all of it tomorrow, all the change tomorrow, and they want it to be complete and perfect. And instead, what you have to do is actually the payoff window of any decision, it's the second you make it. And then it's as you build it long-term, you got to get in motion. Like you said, it's like, you're going to figure it out. Confidence is actually your belief in your ability to figure things out. So true. I think there's another element to this that's sort of insidious that I want to talk about with you for a minute. And then we'll talk a little bit about like investing and deciding when to start a business, when not to, when to shut one down, things like that.

13:34But I think there's, I think a lot of people think, and I want everyone to hear this, have you actually really made a decision? in other words they think they've made a decision but what they've actually done is sort of enhance the negotiation with themselves meaning the idea of decision is to decide which is to cut off other options so like you use marriages a lot of people say i've decided to get married but yet the minute they're married it's very conditional they're in and out they could be in they couldn't be out they've decided to start a business but really they haven't because it's still conditional on the price they're going to pay.

14:10Most people spend most of their time wasting their energy negotiating the price tag of things. What's it going to cost me? Is this worth it? Is it this? I'm going to have to give up this to do it. And that's a poverty mentality. It's a scarcity mentality. I know this because when I was poor, when I would go into a store, I wouldn't decide to get what I wanted. What would I do? I would flip price tags over. What's it going to cost me? I was doing things that I thought I could afford, not that I really wanted. And if the price was too high, I wouldn't get it. And so I think a lot of people run their life that way.

14:48They run it with a poverty scarcity mentality, meaning they think they made a decision to start a business. But the truth is, you may even quit your job. You may really be, but you haven't really decided to run your business. It's still conditional. And there's a point where you'll just give in and roulette. There's a point where you'll sell your dreams up the river. There's a point where it's just too difficult. So that's not a real decision or maybe something in your relationship. It's not a real decision. Like too easily you get back out of it. You're still negotiating the price, which to me is indicative of someone who's not decided.

15:20I think if you're listening to this or watching it and you're involved in a business or your job or a relationship or it's a fitness program you're on, but you're still negotiating in your head the price you're paying, you have not decided. And that means you are not decisive. You think you made a decision, but what you've really made is sort of like an optional choice. You're trying. You're sticking your toe in. You think you're nickeling and diming the terms of some deal or decision. But what you're actually nickeling and diming is your time. You're nickeling and diming time. It's like all this stuff that you're doing to figure out every little thing or to save a little bit of money here on this little, little, little thing.

16:02It's like you're actually just wasting time.

16:08You're giving away bits and pieces and the real value of time. And that's the real ultimate problem with decision-making is like, you don't, you don't get back that time where you ruminated about it for years. Regret is almost always, I didn't take action soon enough. Yes. So, hey guys, as you know, I've partnered up with my good friend, Brennan Brouchard, who's created the greatest personal development system that has ever been designed called Growth Day. If you go to growthday.com forward slash ed, you can get all the information, but it's that time of year where everybody's trying to form new habits.

16:41They've got new resolutions and goals, and you need an environment, and you need some coaches, and you need to be able to do it super inexpensively. And that's where growthday.com forward slash ed comes in. There's everything from journaling to accountability programs, live messages every Monday from myself and other influencers. There's an opportunity for you to get courses that would cost thousands of dollars completely for free. It's incredible. Go to growthday.com forward slash ed and check it out. I think it's – here's the thing about you. I'll give a secret inside scoop about Brendan to all of you.

17:13When this dude does anything, he is all in. I mean, all in. So, I mean, we're talking about growth day, all in. You get to an event, all in. A speech, all in. A call, a podcast like this, all in. His marriage, all in. We do an event like the beach gang, all in. And there's something where the universe conforms to people who are all in. It bends to your will when you're all into something. And that's why this notion of if you actually really decided to get fit this year, I mean, like really decided, it's not negotiable. You're not going back. You're depleting none of your energy on whether you made the right decision at all.

17:59you're in it, or your relationship, right, or your business, or your finances, like you've stopped all negotiation. There is a power to the will of a human connected to their higher power, their God, who says, I am all in on this. Look at it this way. Your faith, whatever you believe in your faith, Brendan and I are both Christians, but whatever your faith is, okay, do you think your God's halfway in on you, halfway in on your salvation, halfway in on the fact that you were born for a reason, that by the way, when you misstep or make a mistake, they're out on you. That's not how it works. So the relationship you value the most in your life, the one thing you know if you have strong faith is that God, in our case Jesus, is so in on you, it's non-negotiable.

18:50That brings comfort, strength, safety, etc. And in business, especially in business, when you're with a leader who's all in, it creates safety in that company. It creates safety in that environment. When you see them waffle, they're afraid. They're going to give in. They're going to renegotiate their commitment to you or this. In a relationship, the minute you threaten a divorce in a relationship, the relationship is never exactly the same again. It can still be a beautiful relationship. But the truth is, once that line is crossed, and that's now a possibility, doesn't mean it's right or wrong that you've done it.

19:29It's just not the same anymore. Because that commitment has been by, it's not all in. And that's okay even if you're not all in. There should be probably things in a relationship that are conditional, right? So I understand that. But what I am saying is, once you've made that statement, it's different. And there are certain things, someone does something to you repeatedly, you know, that relationship may not be for you. So there's nothing wrong necessarily with threatening a relationship, but once it's threatened, it's not the same again. And so the all in aspect means you've decided. And I think if you're not all in, it's not a real decision.

20:01You agree? So powerful. You hit on, I want to listen to that riff like 10 more times. So everyone listening, like just rewind, hit that 30 second rewind button. That was so good. uh everything you said i think is so true uh i'm reminded of two stories one is um uh i got to work with paulo coelho oh wow wrote a book called the alchemist it's so good changed my life he has a line in there i'm not going to say it exactly right because we're off the cuff but it was something the fact of you know when you have a dream and you decide to go for it the whole universe conspires with you to make that happen it's a real commitment it's like the energy flow, God goes, oh, that's where you want to go.

20:43Let me align with that. It's just like, it's a, it's a, it's a force of both decision and will, but there's an energy that comes along with it when it's all in, like you said, I love that phrase. And, um, I just think that it's so powerful. I remember reading that book and underlining that line. And I thought, you know what, this book just changed my, I'd love to meet this person one day. I don't know, 10 years go by. I'm in my studio and I had a phone. Remember old phones? You plug it in the wall. You? Phone rings in my studio. Pick up the phone. Hello, Brandon. Yeah, this is Brandon. Oh, Brandon.

21:26Yeah, Brandon. Brandon. Brandon Broussard. Yes. This is Paulo Coelho. No way. I go, what? And what happened is my publisher had given him my contact because he was launching a new book and he wanted some help with it and saw what I was doing in the U.S. with these big book launches. And I got to fly out and spend some time with him at his home. And we did all this. Wow. Wow. Wow. Oh yeah. I brought out, by the way, what was an early version of Breach Gang, our mastermind. We brought them out. So David Bach and Jeff Walker and a couple of others, we brought them out. We had a day with Paulo. It was amazing.

22:00I spent another day and a half with him. And then we did a bunch of interviews and things for his book. I shared the story because he was one of my heroes and I really wanted to meet him. When I went to sit down with him, one thing that blew my mind was he said, we have four hours to work. Genius works in four hours. You have to commit to this time. And in this amount of time, we're going to really go. Now, I didn't know his real intention and intensity about it, and I kind of forgot about it. I thought it was going to be there the whole day. The end of four hours, he stands up. It's like, that's it.

22:37That's what we had. You know, he put out those little cookies and a little tea. It was the end of the day and he ushers me out of the house. And it really taught me the power of like really committing to time and to your craft and being all in on it. Yeah. flew across the world. We got four hours to be all in on this section. And it really, it changed me forever because I just think a lot of people, even in their own craft, they're so lackadaisical. They don't, I'm deciding in this four hours, I'm going to crush it. Yes. Instead, they wander through the four hours, opening 40 tabs. Yes. They get nothing done.

23:17He was all in on his craft and his time. I was, it blowed my, Do you think the four-hour thing was his belief, which, by the way, I tend to have some agreeance to, that the sustainability of all in in certain increments is a window of time, and then you do need to breathe and recuperate and rest and recalibrate? Do you think that's why it was four hours? I think so, yeah, because he believed you could do two of those blocks a day. So we do that, then you'd go away, then you'd have dinner and another working session. yeah and i think that his ultimate the thing that blew my the decision and the genius was we're going to decide to work really hard for four hours how often do we do that in the modern area instead we go i'm going to work i'm gonna work hard all day and and the truth is you're distracted half the day decide to be all in on a block of time is one of the great lessons i've ever learned That's how decisive people get a lot done.

24:16They are making decisions to really go at something for blocks of time. And I think you can't separate great decision-making or action without talking about time blocking. I think the other thing that hit me so hard when you were talking about you made the decision, you're all in on it, is the emotional freedom everyone listening can have. If you learn to own the decisions you've already made, I don't know if you were there, but a guy stood up at Ultra and he was struggling. He's like, I used to be so driven. I was so focused. And I asked what happened. And he'd just recently broken up with a girlfriend.