0:00

Hello. Hello everyone. And welcome to the

0:02

Intentional Advantage Podcast. I'm your host Tanya Dalton.

0:06

This is episode 298. I've got a fun show planned for you

0:10

because today's show has been driven

0:14

by one of my readers over at Not Rocket

0:17

Science, the sub stack that I have. And she asked me a question.

0:21

We'll get into that in a few minutes. She asked me a question and I

0:24

thought, you know what, this would be a fantastic podcast episode.

0:27

So today we are going to be talking about decision making because,

0:31

this season we're talking all about what sparks joy in your life.

0:35

Does your life spark joy? Oh my gosh, there's so many

0:38

decisions we make on a daily basis. We make big decisions and small

0:42

decisions, decisions about what to make for dinner, decisions

0:44

about which route to take to work. There are so many decisions in our lives.

0:48

We want to feel confident. We want to feel comfortable that we're

0:50

making the ones that feel right for us.

0:54

So in today's episode, we are going to be

0:56

talking about how do you make decisions?

0:58

Do you need to take the emotions out of your decision making?

1:02

Or are emotions actually important

1:04

for your decision making? We're going to talk about

1:06

maximizers and satisfisers. which type of decision maker you are.

1:11

And we're going to talk about how you can really start making it very clear as to

1:15

what choices are the right ones for you.

1:18

So let's go ahead and get started with today's show.

1:21

Does your life spark joy? I'm not asking if your life

1:24

is good or if life feels okay.

1:27

Does it spark joy? When was the last time you

1:30

slipped into bed at night and thought, today felt amazing?

1:34

Because if it's been more than two or three days, that's too long.

1:38

I'm Tanya Dalton, a best selling author,

1:40

motivational speaker, seven figure entrepreneur, and oh yeah, wife and mom.

1:45

So I get it. I understand the stress of daily life.

1:49

As a productivity expert, I'm here to

1:52

help you choose the extraordinary life.

1:54

This season, we will be exploring how we can create more joy and

1:57

intention into every single day.

2:00

And it doesn't have to be so hard.

2:03

This is The Intentional Advantage. Okay, we can't start this episode

2:07

without talking about the elephant in the room, which is Happy May!

2:12

I can't believe it's May already! Okay, I technically know that the

2:16

day this goes live is April 30th, but I'm gonna really focus in on

2:20

the fact that it's basically May.

2:22

And May is, in my opinion, the

2:25

best month of the entire year

2:27

because It's birthday month.

2:30

I love my birthday.

2:32

It makes me so happy. John is already cringing with the

2:35

fact that I've already moved May up a full day because he knows

2:40

that I, I just have so much fun.

2:42

I love my birthday. And this year is, it's a big one.

2:47

This is a big year because not only is it birthday month,

2:50

this is my 50th birthday month.

2:53

I am turning 50. at the end of May, and I

2:57

am so excited about it. I love my birthday.

3:00

And what I love about my birthday is I do a lot of fun things.

3:04

There's lots of presents. And there's lots of presents for other

3:07

people because I love giving presents.

3:10

So I thought, you know what? Not only is it my 50th birthday

3:14

this month, it's also the 300th

3:17

episode of the intentional advantage.

3:19

So there's so much to celebrate and I

3:22

wanted to do something a little more fun.

3:25

So I thought, you know what? I don't want to ask for presents.

3:28

I don't want a bunch of gifts. I really just want to give you, my

3:33

amazing, fantastic listeners, presents.

3:36

So, what if I ask you for a really simple gift?

3:40

And in return, I give you a couple prizes.

3:43

I'm thinking that if you will

3:45

share about my brand new substack.

3:48

I'm calling it brand new, but it's really a couple of months old at

3:51

this point, but my new substack, Not

3:54

Rocket Science, which ties in with everything we do here on the podcast.

3:58

If you will share about that new

4:00

substack, I will give you prizes.

4:03

So you'll get access to the premium

4:06

access level of Not Rocket Science,

4:08

which means you get all the extras, the bonuses, the downloads, all the things.

4:14

But what if we make it extra special and we do a special tier that if you refer

4:20

a certain number of people, you can You

4:22

can win a 30 minute consult with me.

4:24

I don't normally do 30 minute consults,

4:27

but I think it'd be a lot of fun. And I think we'd have a great time

4:30

chatting about maybe something you need help with or something

4:33

you want to work through a system,

4:36

something you're struggling with. So why don't we do that this, this May?

4:41

Because I think it'd be fun. Okay. It's a great way to celebrate my birthday.

4:44

It's a great way to celebrate the 300th episode.

4:48

If you are not in my Not Rocket Science

4:50

substack, go to tanyadalton.com/connect.

4:54

And that's where we'll get started. And so I'll send out all the

4:56

details through the newsletter. There's lots of information

4:59

in the newsletter every week. Almost always ties in with what

5:03

we're doing here on the podcast. Sign up for that.

5:05

You'll get all the info, but let's, let's have a fantastic May.

5:09

There's so much to celebrate. All right.

5:11

And speaking of the Substack, John, you've been very quiet here.

5:15

Is it because you're already cringing thinking about the

5:17

fact that it's birthday month? Yeah, I'm trying to figure out.

5:20

Oh boy. I I have to start a day early

5:22

this year and it is a big year

5:25

so there's a lot of pressure. I have to deliver right but really we

5:29

joke about it because it really is a lot of fun for everybody, me included.

5:32

It's just one of those things that we like to have a lot of fun Bantering back

5:36

and forth with each other about oh god. Here we go again.

5:39

Tanya's birthday month It's going to be insufferable,

5:41

but it's really a lot of fun. I think the ideas to give away some

5:45

stuff to sub stack readers are great so

5:48

i'm really excited about that and the 300 episode happening at the same time I

5:52

mean, it's it's a really exciting month. So You know, we we joke about it,

5:56

but it's it is a lot of fun for not just you but for everybody

6:00

Yeah, well, I never want to be at that point where I'm not

6:02

looking forward to my birthday. I don't think I've ever had a birthday

6:05

that I've not been excited about. So, I think the fact that it's

6:09

50, I kind of was wondering if I would feel differently about this.

6:12

And this is definitely what we're going to be talking about later on this

6:15

month as part of the podcast is aging.

6:18

And as we age, how we're feeling about it.

6:21

I'm really excited about it. the fact that I'm turning 50

6:24

feels like this amazing milestone. It's not something that I'm

6:27

dreading or I'm worrying about. I'm excited about it.

6:30

So I think it's going to be a fun May. And I felt like to kick off May

6:34

and talking about how we want people to share about the substack.

6:38

What I love about the substack is that it has created this channel

6:41

of communication back and forth. And a lot of times in the past,

6:45

I have felt like it's just me talking on the podcast.

6:48

This has created this great back and forth.

6:50

And a great example of that is actually what inspired today's

6:53

episode, because I posted over on

6:56

not rocket science on the sub stack. I posted a question saying, Hey, if

7:00

you and I were to meet for coffee,

7:03

what would you want to ask me about? What kinds of questions would you have?

7:06

And I had a lot of people who answered that question.

7:08

And I have certainly some ideas for some episodes that came from that.

7:12

But I also got some private messages, just some replies to the email

7:15

that came directly to my inbox. And one of them was from Liz and

7:20

that inspired today's episode because Liz emailed me and she said,

7:25

I'm 64 years old and I want to pursue new career adventures.

7:29

With all the new stuff that's out there to earn money or to just enjoy working,

7:34

I'm not sure where to start finding these different types of opportunities--

7:37

work from home or whatever. Do you have any ideas of

7:41

where I can begin looking? This is such an overwhelming task.

7:45

I love this question from Liz

7:47

and I answered her and I'll answer it more at the end, but

7:50

it got me thinking about this idea and

7:52

this concept of decision making because I

7:55

feel like in today's world, there are so

7:58

many options and so many opportunities.

8:01

We're seeing this actually with Jack, our

8:03

21 year old who is going back to school.

8:06

He took a year off, went to Costa Rica. We had talked about that

8:08

a couple episodes back. Going back to school, feeling

8:12

really overwhelmed with the

8:14

number of opportunities. And it seems like it should be one of

8:19

those things where it's like, wow, we have all these choices, all these options.

8:23

But instead of feeling like, wow, this is great.

8:26

We end up feeling overwhelmed. Yeah, and with Jack in particular,

8:30

trying to figure out what his next chapter in his life was does

8:34

feel very daunting, so having

8:36

conversations and we've been through some of this stuff with him before.

8:39

seeing how he would work through that decision and having those

8:42

conversations with him it was, it was.

8:45

Enlightening to see that. Oh, he's he's made a lot of progress,

8:47

but these are still big decisions and you know you need to have a process in

8:51

a way to Think about it and address it

8:53

so that you don't Spend too much time

8:56

whether that's on research or something else because Decisions can be hard and

9:00

I think it's okay that they're hard

9:05

the paradox of choice, which we have definitely talked

9:07

about on the podcast before. Barry Schwartz pioneered this whole

9:11

study with the paradox of choice,

9:13

where it feels like the more choices we have, the more opportunity we feel.

9:18

But in fact, once you get over seven choices, you suddenly

9:22

feel stymied and you feel stuck. And he even talks about it in terms

9:27

of being in the salad dressing aisle, where there used to just be like,

9:30

ranch, blue cheese, vinaigrette.

9:33

Now there's like three million types of salad dressings when

9:37

you go to the grocery store. And sometimes you're standing there and you're like, I have

9:40

no idea which one I want.

9:43

And you end up just feeling stuck.

9:47

First of all, spending way too much time feeling like you're spinning your wheels,

9:50

standing in the salad dressing aisle. I mean, nobody wants that.

9:54

And it's the same thing in life is there's this paradox of choice And

9:58

we get frustrated with ourselves. We feel like this shouldn't be so hard.

10:03

I'm sure with Liz, who's

10:05

thinking I'm 64 years old. I've made lots of decisions in my life.

10:08

Why is this so difficult? truth is, what we've been told

10:11

about decision making is all wrong.

10:14

All the things we've been told historically about take the emotions

10:17

out of it, don't be emotional, just be

10:20

very logical and make the decisions, is the absolute worst advice.

10:25

Because, When it comes to decision making, we

10:28

think that we're rational, but decisions

10:31

are intrinsically tied to our emotions.

10:34

They're tied to the emotions in our brain,

10:37

and you cannot actually separate the two.

10:40

decision making happens in the prefrontal

10:42

cortex of our brain, which happens to

10:45

be the same spot in our brain where our emotions are stored as well.

10:50

And, you know, John, you and I have been talking about some of this research

10:54

and diving into some of these studies.

10:57

I found it fascinating that when

10:59

people have these brain injuries,

11:01

where their emotions are stifled,

11:04

suddenly they cannot make any decisions.

11:06

Yeah, that was I don't want to say shocking, but it was very

11:10

surprising You Because you

11:13

would think the opposite, right? If somebody did not have that emotional

11:16

noise clouding what decision they're

11:19

trying to make, then it would be so much

11:21

easier to logically see the differences

11:24

between different things and decide, well,

11:27

obviously this one is a better choice. but it, it's totally the opposite

11:32

with these people that have these brain injuries where they're literally

11:35

incapable of making a decision. Yes they couldn't even decide

11:38

what kind of sandwich to make. That's how debilitating it

11:41

can be when they have these brain injuries specifically

11:44

to that one area of the brain. And they've done these MRI studies,

11:48

these fMRI studies, where they look at all the different areas.

11:51

The other areas are all working great.

11:54

The logical part of the brain, the, all these different parts

11:58

are working fantastically. The relational part of the brain.

12:01

It's just this one area When it

12:03

gets damaged, your decision making

12:05

skills just fall off a cliff.

12:08

It's kind of amazing. And I think that explains a lot about why

12:13

we cannot take our emotions out of it.

12:16

That old advice, remove the emotions,

12:18

doesn't work because literally, that's not how our brain works.

12:23

And I think, too, this actually explains

12:26

a lot about why teenagers and young

12:28

kids make a lot of bad decisions.

12:31

As a mother of one who just got out of

12:34

the teenage years and one in it, you see them making decisions and you're

12:37

like, Oh God, what are they doing? But their brains are not fully developed

12:43

in a lot of these areas, especially with the hormones and everything else going on.

12:47

Trying to make these decisions is actually very difficult for them.

12:51

And so I think understanding that that circuitry.

12:55

Is not connected makes it so much

12:57

easier to stand back and go, Oh, this is why they're struggling

13:01

to make better decisions. This is why I've struggled to make good decisions.

13:04

I think so and you know when you think about it, taking your

13:07

salad dressing example, right? And it's even worse now because right

13:11

you have these salad dressings on the shelf And then you have the ones over

13:15

in the produce like refrigerated section

13:17

So there's two places you have to go for salad dressings and it's overwhelming

13:22

and you don't have time to do all the research So you need something that?

13:25

gives you the ability to make that decision.

13:27

And I think that's where the emotional prefrontal cortex comes into play.

13:31

And with kids, when they, their brains are not developed, they

13:34

can't make the right decision,

13:37

certainly most of the time, right?

13:39

Because they don't have those connections built in their brain.

13:42

And it's difficult to watch them make those mistakes.

13:45

But I think sometimes. By making those mistakes, that's

13:49

what makes those connections, right? So we can't save them from

13:51

all of those bad decisions, even as often as we want to.

13:55

But, they do really struggle, especially

13:57

with, with big decisions like, where do I want to go for college?

14:01

I mean, that's kind of the, the first huge decision a lot of these kids face.

14:06

and it could be debilitating for them. I know it was very difficult for Jack when

14:09

we started his junior year in high school.

14:12

Oh, I wouldn't even say his junior year. That kid was stressed about it.

14:15

Like in fifth grade, what if I don't know where I want to go to college?

14:18

What if I don't know what I want to do? What if I, he was always our worrier,

14:22

which is why I think it's so funny that he is now leaving to go travel

14:25

through Europe for two months by

14:27

himself with just a backpack, right?

14:30

I mean, but it is because.

14:32

There's been lots of decisions he's made in the past.

14:34

He's strengthened up that muscle. And I think part of it is we've talked to

14:39

him quite a bit about decision making and

14:42

understanding There is

14:44

no perfect decision.

14:46

I think that's the thing that, that

14:49

really most people struggle with is they want to make the right decision.

14:52

And the problem is quite frankly, we

14:56

don't know a good decision in the moment.

14:59

We often can only know if something was a good decision when we're

15:02

looking in the rear view mirror. When we're looking back after

15:06

the passage of time, we can go, Oh, that was a good decision.

15:09

I'm so glad I did that. In the moment though, there was still

15:12

the anxiety, there was still the stress. There was still a lot of that uncertainty

15:17

where you're like, I don't know if this is good or bad or right or wrong.

15:21

And so it is, a lot of it is

15:24

letting go of that need to be right.

15:26

Yes. Or for it to be good. Because the truth is, we have

15:31

to let go of this idea of good

15:34

decisions and bad decisions. So many times, we don't know

15:38

if something is good or bad. We really don't.

15:41

John, you and I were talking about this a while back.

15:44

That if we look at our timeline, and the

15:47

things that happen to us, there are things that in the moment, we judged as good.

15:52

Or bad, right? The guy who broke up with me, before

15:56

I met John, that was a terrible thing. It was awful.

15:58

Oh my gosh, the melodrama of it all.

16:02

I thought it was bad in the moment. Clearly though, great.

16:06

I'm so glad. I'm so glad he broke up with me now as an

16:10

almost 50 year old because if he hadn't,

16:13

I wouldn't be with John where I am happy.

16:16

And how many other things in our timeline did we judge as bad or terrible?

16:22

that actually turned out to be good or amazing or incredible.

16:26

How many things that we thought were good, Oh, good.

16:29

This guy is working out that actually

16:31

ended up being bad because you know,

16:33

six months down the road, you want to break up with him or you marry

16:37

somebody and you realize later, Oh, I

16:39

thought it was great, but it wasn't.

16:42

So again, we don't really know that until we've had the passage of time.

16:46

So one of the things I've been working on is letting go of this idea or

16:51

this concept of good versus bad.

16:54

This is a good thing that's happening or this is a bad thing that's happening.

16:58

The truth is we have no idea in the

17:01

moment because in our timeline all we can

17:03

see is this tiny little swath of time.

17:07

We can see behind us and we can see right where we are.

17:10

This whole thing in front of us, this whole timeline.

17:13

All these years ahead of us, we have no idea what's going to happen.

17:16

So that's the first thing that I would say is let go of the idea that we

17:20

have to make a good decision because truly some of my, you could say worst

17:24

decisions turned out to be great because

17:27

I got so much knowledge out of it. I got so much wisdom out of it and

17:31

they didn't feel amazing at the time when they were bad decisions.

17:34

But I'm grateful for them now

17:37

because they gave me a lot. We talk about my backpack, right?

17:40

We talk about the idea and that concept of your backpack as you go through

17:43

life and you're gathering together the wisdom and the knowledge and the

17:46

experiences and the failures, the

17:48

failures were a lot of bad decisions. And thank goodness I have them because

17:52

that's made me so much smarter. And that's made me so much better

17:55

and stronger and more self assured.

17:59

I like what you said there, John, about we want to save our kids

18:02

from making these bad decisions. This is the hardest part of parenting,

18:07

quite frankly, is hands off.

18:10

Watching them make choices, watching

18:13

them make decisions, watching them

18:15

as they're failing at something and not going in and just Oh, you want

18:21

to save them every time and yet

18:24

that's where the lessons are learned. So I think for me, that's

18:28

been a big turning point. I think, you know, going through

18:31

that together has been helpful.

18:33

And then going through it again with Jack, I can see the growth in him, like

18:38

this second round of deciding where he's

18:40

going to go to college now, instead of

18:42

a three year process of him worrying

18:44

and Us doing all these different things

18:46

that it took us like a month, right?

18:49

And I remember talking to him about this

18:51

very same thing about making decisions.

18:53

And you know, what I told him was,

18:55

All you can do is make the best decision that you can right now.

18:58

Obviously, that's, the goal. You can't make a perfect decision.

19:01

The only wrong decision you can make is to not decide.

19:05

and I think that helped him. You know, you're going to make this

19:07

decision and it could turn out great.

19:10

Two years from now, you might be like, well, maybe that wasn't the

19:13

best school for me, but that's okay. Because a lot of those mistakes and

19:17

failures, like you talked about in your backpack, those are some of

19:20

the greatest lessons that we have. And those are some of

19:22

the things that shape us. And if you don't make that decision that

19:26

leads to that mistake or that lesson, You're not the same person like that.

19:30

That's part of your journey. so I used to have, I don't know if

19:33

you remember this, but back when I worked at Brinker on my, on my

19:37

whiteboard, I had this quote that said The best decision is to act.

19:41

Because I was one of those kind of research people that I wanted to go and

19:45

get everything perfect before I presented it to my boss or the team or whatever.

19:51

and a lot of times that would. That was to my detriment.

19:54

So I had to remind myself sometimes you

19:56

just need to make a decision and move forward, with the information you have,

20:00

because if you don't make a decision, that's that's the worst possible outcome.

20:04

Yes, not making a decision is a decision.

20:06

That's a choice, right? I like what you said there because even

20:11

last year, your word of the year was now.

20:14

Like, stop overthinking it. And we do.

20:17

We make decision making a part of procrastination.

20:20

The overthinking is procrastinating in a lot of ways.

20:24

You are, without question, a maximizer.

20:28

That's one of the categories of people with decision making.

20:30

A maximizer is someone who wants to have the maximum information.

20:35

They will go in these rabbit holes of

20:37

finding and gathering and researching

20:39

and researching again, and then maybe researching again to the

20:43

point where it's the time to make the decision has already passed.

20:47

I on the other hand am a satisfiser,

20:49

a satisfiser, which is someone who is generally satisfied with

20:53

like, this is enough information. And we kind of touched on this in the

20:56

last episode when we talked about the how

20:58

and the wow, how I have the big ideas.

21:00

And a lot of times you're like, I want to know the granular steps.

21:04

And those of you who saw my leadership guide over there on my sub stack that

21:07

I shared a couple weeks ago, you know,

21:10

that I don't like granular ideas. That's not for me.

21:13

We talked about that on the last episode,

21:17

you know, in our disc assessment, even we, we see that I am the risk taker.

21:22

And you are not the risk taker.

21:24

And for a long time, I struggled

21:27

with when I was making decisions and

21:30

brainstorming, trying to use you as

21:32

my brainstorming partner when that did not work for you because you

21:35

were wanting to do all this research. And I'm like, let's go, let's go.

21:38

So there we go again with our strengths coming in to play

21:41

a role in how we operate. And I think it's important

21:44

to know which one are you? Are you a maximizer or a satisfiser?

21:48

Because for me, as a satisfiser,

21:51

that sounds better, right? Like, oh, I make quick decisions and I

21:54

don't look for way too much information. But I have to make sure I'm not just

21:58

running and leaping off a cliff. I gotta make sure that I have all the

22:02

information I need before I jump, right?

22:05

And then for John, as a maximizer,

22:08

you know, it sounds like you're gonna get stuck in a rabbit hole, but if

22:10

you know that about yourself and you give yourself a container, you

22:14

give yourself a deadline of, okay, I have to decide this by this date.

22:17

Then you can do all the research you want until that date, and then you have to move

22:21

on, and you have to make the decision. So, understanding how you operate.

22:25

This is, again, understanding your operating system.

22:27

Your own unique way of doing things. When you understand that, it allows

22:32

you to go in and make decisions the best you possibly can.

22:35

I just feel like understanding how you operate is the key to a happier life.

22:39

It truly is. Understanding that,

22:42

communicating it, accepting it. Instead of thinking, ugh.

22:46

I'm the worst. Like John could think, Oh, I'm the worst.

22:48

I do so much research. I'll be honest when we're going on

22:51

vacation and John has researched all the things to do and he knows where

22:54

we're going and all the, it's fantastic.

22:57

It's so amazing. It's such a gift. I would never have the patience for that.

23:01

So both of them have good, good things

23:04

and bad things, but it's understanding

23:06

how you work and how you operate, right?

23:08

I think that's the main thing. So when it comes to making the

23:13

decisions, What is it you should do?

23:15

I think that's the big question, right? I mean, that's the question that Liz

23:18

was like, how do I make this decision? And I think the old thing

23:22

was making the pro con list. And I want to touch back on what

23:26

we talked about a few minutes ago about the idea of good and bad.

23:29

That's the problem with the old drawing a line down a sheet of paper,

23:33

listing the pros on one side and listing the cons on the other side

23:36

is, how do you know what's good? How do you know what's bad?

23:40

And a lot of times we're looking just at short term, we're not

23:43

necessarily looking at long term. Sometimes the short term pain

23:47

is for a long term gain, right?

23:49

Which column does that go into? So, Doing away with some of

23:54

that and understanding what

23:57

is truly important here. That to me is the key to good decision

24:01

making understanding how you operate,

24:03

what kind of information you need, and then, what are the criteria that are most

24:07

important for you, John, you touched on

24:10

that idea and that concept of when we were going with Jack trying to figure

24:14

out where he's going to go to college back when he was a junior in high school,

24:18

we had this whole donut philosophy.

24:21

Do donuts make you better decision makers?

24:23

Yes, I do. It's funny.

24:25

I shared this, how we had done it with my friend.

24:28

Yeah. Donuts are good for everything. I had shared this idea with my friend,

24:34

Jon Acuff, when his, his daughters

24:36

were getting ready to go to college. And he was like, this is such a genius

24:39

idea because it made it so much easier.

24:42

You know, we talked about the fact that it's very overwhelming.

24:45

There's so many choices and options. First thing we need to do is we

24:48

need to whittle down the options. We need to figure out what is

24:51

truly most important to you. So with Jack, what we started

24:55

with when deciding on college is we decided on this donut shape,

24:59

If you look at a map of the United States and you look at our house in Asheville,

25:03

North Carolina, my rule for him was that

25:06

he needed to be at least an hour away.

25:08

I didn't want him feeling like he could come home and do his laundry, or he could

25:11

come home for, for dinner on Sunday night.

25:14

He needed that space. I needed to give him that space so I

25:18

wasn't tempted to go every weekend and

25:20

see him because I want him to adult.

25:23

I want him just to step into adulthood, right?

25:26

So we had this little circle that was an

25:29

hour outside of Asheville that was like nothing in this area was going to work.

25:34

And then he said he wanted to be within five hours.

25:37

So we had this donut shape of, okay, this

25:40

little swath of the United States where it was like, what colleges are in there?

25:44

Well, just creating that donut of,

25:47

okay, one hour outside of Asheville,

25:50

and then about a five hour radius, which is about to Nashville, I would say,

25:54

you know, going around in a circle. That eliminated, I don't know, like

25:59

90 percent of the colleges out there.

26:02

I mean, immediately that whittled our list down tremendously

26:05

yeah, that was a huge help. I mean, and that's the thing is if you

26:08

can figure out, what decisions need to

26:10

be made as part of this bigger decision.

26:13

You have to have those, what are those little decisions you need to make?

26:16

Okay, well let's start with where

26:18

in the country do you want to go? And you're right, just making that

26:22

one decision, or I guess it's two, like here's the, the first, the inside

26:26

of the donut and here's the outside. We did, we eliminated 90, 95

26:31

percent of the colleges in America.

26:33

Just right off the bat, it became so much more easy to deal with.

26:37

And then we whittled down the list more because it was like, okay,

26:39

what's, what's the next thing that's most important to you?

26:42

Well, the next thing that was important to him was the size of the college.

26:45

He wanted a college that wasn't big. He wanted something that was

26:49

small, but not too small. So we, we kind of got into this range of

26:53

what was the right size for him, right?

26:56

We had a conversation about what size college. Well, right there, we whittled

26:59

off a lot more, right? We took more schools off of our list.

27:03

And then we just kept going through, what are the things

27:05

that are most important to you? So it was like, next up was the, I

27:08

can't remember the next thing, but there were all these things that

27:11

he listed out as being important. And each time, we looked at that

27:15

one thing, it would clear out

27:18

quite a few options on the list.

27:20

And then all of a sudden, instead of having 3 million options of

27:24

where you can go to college, I think we were down to like 10.

27:28

and you can see how it's so much easier to make a decision based off of that.

27:34

So it's almost like knowing which levers you need to pull.

27:37

What are the things that are most important to you? So when you're making a decision,

27:41

that's where I would start, not with the pro and the con list.

27:44

Start with what's important to

27:46

me about making this decision. What are the key things that are

27:50

most important when I am making this?

27:53

Okay, and then start with one, And

27:55

then get some of those options off your list and just keep wiping them away.

27:59

It's almost like they're all laid out on this table and you're just

28:02

like scooting them off the table. You're swiping them away so that you

28:06

have fewer choices and fewer options.

28:08

That sounds contrary to what you want.

28:11

We think we want all these options, but it's overwhelming

28:14

us with that paradox of choice. fewer options that fit and that

28:18

align with what I truly desire.

28:22

That's the key. And so I can't just say, well, these

28:25

are the five, things that you need to look at if we're talking about colleges

28:28

or we're talking about whatever. It's really what's most important to you.

28:31

What aligns with your goals? What aligns with your values?

28:35

That's a great place to start. I think the other thing that was really

28:38

great about the way you set up that

28:41

particular process for Jack is because

28:44

he's a maximizer like me, And especially

28:46

as a teenager with the Internet, he'll

28:48

research things for weeks if we let him.

28:51

you set up a system where we just, we said, okay, we're going

28:54

to meet and talk about this on Thursday nights after dinner.

28:57

That's the only time of the week that we're going to talk about this.

28:59

So he knew that he, he could do

29:03

his research for an entire week, but Thursday night came around,

29:06

we were going to talk about it. And it also, it saved him from

29:10

that uncertainty of when are we

29:12

going to talk, you know, how are we going to make this decision? I don't know.

29:14

Like we had this check in every

29:17

week for 30 minutes and we were able

29:19

to make these little incremental steps and these small decisions.

29:22

And by the time we got to his spring semester of his junior year,

29:26

he felt so much more comfortable. and we had, we had a list of

29:30

five that were prioritized and he

29:32

knew what he was going to do and he felt so much more confident.

29:35

but it was all in the approach. And I think that's, that's,

29:39

what's really important. Having that college planning night,

29:42

I think we did it on Thursday nights. I talk about this in On Purpose and

29:46

in my book, because it was so much

29:49

nicer that we weren't dealing with this uncertainty, the uncertainty of me.

29:52

Wondering have you looked into

29:55

the colleges, him not dealing with

29:57

the uncertainty of when his mom gonna jump down my throat about

30:00

not, not having these things done.

30:03

Right? So it took all of that out of the equation.

30:06

And you can do that for yourself because a lot of times making

30:09

these decisions in a silo. By yourself is like an echo

30:13

chamber where it's just the idea

30:15

is bouncing right back at you. So having a regular check in as you're

30:18

making, especially a major decision with somebody else and say, Hey, if

30:22

you don't mind, let's check in on Wednesday afternoons for like 30 minutes.

30:26

I want to talk to you about how this is going. That's a great way to really feel

30:30

confident about your decision. the truth is not all your

30:33

decisions are going to be winners. Even the ones that you take a lot of

30:36

time and you take a lot of effort and a lot of energy to make very intentional,

30:41

they're not all going to be winners. As shown by the fact that Jack

30:45

then left High Point, it turned out not to be the school for him.

30:49

There were other levers we didn't even know about that needed to be

30:52

pulled, Although I will say, He had a

30:56

fantastic experience his freshman year. He met some incredible people who he's

31:00

still very close with and he still meets with and chats with regularly.

31:04

There's no regret in that because he got so much out of it.

31:08

And now with him making the decision about, okay, I'm going off.

31:12

I'm going to backpack. He saved money. He's backpacking across Europe.

31:16

by himself, meeting up with several of

31:18

his friends he met through Costa Rica, that he's got friends all around Europe.

31:22

And then he was like, okay, I want to go back to school. This decision of where he's going

31:26

this fall was so much easier, so

31:29

much faster because he already had

31:31

a lot of tools and he had a lot more

31:33

idea of what was important to him. So for him, he was like,

31:37

I want to go in state. And I want to do graphic design.

31:41

He understands that now that that graphic design is where he wants to go.

31:44

So that was so easy. It was like, what's good.

31:46

What schools are good and graphic design that are in state or at

31:49

least close by and we had that

31:51

decision drilled in very quickly.

31:55

So, that's the thing is, you're going to make decisions that stink.

31:57

Sometimes you're going to make decisions that are the wrong decisions.

32:00

You're going to make decisions that you're going to look back and be like, I can't believe I did that,

32:04

but you learn so much from it. Right.

32:07

And then your next decision gets even better and it gets stronger and it gets,

32:10

and that's the thing is I want you to

32:12

realize that letting go of the idea of

32:15

making the perfect decision is so freeing.

32:17

Because then it allows you to experiment.

32:20

Life is an experiment. Life is truly a game.

32:22

Try things out. If it doesn't work out, most

32:25

time it's no harm, no foul. You can shift, you can change,

32:28

you can do something else. treat life more as, okay, this is

32:32

an opportunity, I'm going to try it. I'm not locked in.

32:35

Very rarely is a decision permanent. Very rarely.

32:38

So giving yourself that grace and that freedom to do that.

32:41

all of this to say. It truly goes down to

32:44

what's important to you. in thinking about that email that I

32:48

got from Liz about where do I go now,

32:51

I, there's all these opportunities. Let me tell you what I said to Liz.

32:55

I said to her, I think the place to start

32:58

is figure out what's important to you. do an audit of yourself

33:02

to get some clarity. So on the sub stack, I've done a

33:06

couple of activities and exercises.

33:08

I said, there's one on essential needs, which we talked about

33:11

here on the podcast, right? If you know that your essential

33:15

needs involve being in proximity to

33:18

other people, then working from home

33:20

probably isn't going to work for you, or at least working from home, if

33:24

that's like exclusively how that job

33:26

operates, but you know, you need to be

33:28

around other people that, that clears

33:30

the table of a lot of opportunities. If everything is work from home and

33:33

you're like, Oh, I'm going to hate that. Great.

33:36

Let's cross those off the list. Right?

33:39

And so then you can start to figure out what's the work style that works for me.

33:43

And you can start crossing off opportunities. These don't work for me because

33:46

this isn't the style I want. So I said, do the

33:48

essential needs exercise. And then do the superpowers exercise.

33:52

Figure out what are your strengths? What are you great at?

33:56

And then we can figure out and hone in on what type of work you really want to do.

34:00

Because remember, if it's a superpower, not only is it something

34:03

you're good at, it's something you're really passionate about.

34:05

It's something you really enjoy. both of those activities are there on the

34:09

sub stack that I have Not Rocket Science.

34:11

Both of them are free for anyone. I will put the links in the show notes.

34:15

If you're thinking about something like this, go through, do an audit of yourself.

34:19

Now that we figured out all of this, What type of work you want, what style

34:23

of work you want, all of a sudden our

34:25

options are a little bit more narrow

34:27

and it's easier to make some decisions. And then you figure out what

34:30

other levers I need to pull. What are the other things

34:33

that are important to me? Is it important for me

34:35

to, to stay in my state?

34:37

Is it important for me to live in my city? Or am I willing to go out of state?

34:40

Start figuring out those things and you'll start whittling it in

34:44

and figuring out what's truly going to be the best decision for you.

34:47

And that's what it comes down to the best decision with the

34:51

information you have right now. That's all we can all ask for.

34:54

great advice, you know, like how can

34:57

you create your own Decision donut

34:59

like we did for Jack, you know, and it doesn't have to have anything to do with

35:02

geography, but what what levers can you

35:05

pull to limit that and whittle those

35:07

decisions down and, you know, I think the

35:10

other part of that is don't be afraid.

35:13

To make a wrong decision or a bad

35:15

decision, because, like you said, we don't know if this is going to

35:19

end up being the right decision

35:21

or a bad decision right now. All we're doing is.

35:24

making a decision. And whether that job you take

35:28

ends up being the perfect job or you love it, maybe it won't.

35:31

Just like Jack's first college experience, it may not be the best thing.

35:35

But you'll learn a lot from that. And the next job you take

35:38

will be an even better fit. And that's, that'll all

35:40

be part of your growth. a lot of, decision problems that I always

35:44

had was, it was all fear based, right?

35:46

Because I was afraid to make the wrong decision.

35:49

But, you know, I would just say, don't

35:51

be afraid to make the wrong decision, you know, because it's going to be

35:54

the right decision for you right now, however it turns out in the future.

35:59

and you just, you just need to make it and figure out your donut so that

36:04

you can whittle those things down and make the best decision that you can.

36:07

Yeah, and to make that easier, actually,

36:10

what I think I'm going to put on the Substack, I created this little decision

36:14

making machine where you can plug

36:16

in the things that are important to you, and it makes it so much easier.

36:20

I used it in my business. I use it in my personal life.

36:23

So I'm going to include that in the Substack, the newsletter

36:27

that's going out today. If you are not part of my sub stack,

36:31

Not Rocket Science, get over there.

36:34

I'm telling you so many things that we talk about here.

36:37

We go more in depth with in that

36:39

not rocket science sub stack. So go to Tanya Dalton.

36:43

com slash connect. As I mentioned.

36:46

I'm asking you for the month of May to share, share this podcast episode.

36:51

Certainly, if you know someone who struggles with decision making,

36:54

snap a screenshot and share it. But also sharing the, the sub

36:57

stack, because I would love for

36:59

more people to feel confident with how they're making decisions.

37:04

Everything we talk about here on the intentional advantage and

37:06

the sub stack really is about you finding more meaning in your life.

37:10

So, please share it. I would love that.

37:14

It would be such a fantastic birthday present for me.

37:16

And if you're not over there, come and join us because we're having

37:19

some fantastic conversations. This, email that I got from Liz

37:23

is just a perfect example of how I

37:26

love that this is helping me decide.

37:28

You know what? This would be a great podcast episode. Let's talk about this more.

37:32

And I have some other episodes coming up that are driven from people talking

37:36

about it over there at not rocket science.

37:38

So Tanya Dalton. com slash connect is a great

37:41

place to go get more information.

37:43

I would love to see you over there at not rocket science.

37:46

All right. If you're interested in that decision making machine, I'll have that posted

37:50

today, and here's what I want you to walk away from today's episode.

37:53

There are no perfect decisions.

37:57

If you are waiting for the clouds to part and the rainbows to shoot out of

38:01

the sky, saying that you have made the right choice, it's not going to happen.

38:05

Really, truly being clear on who you are, what you desire and what

38:09

you want, that's how you're going to make the best decision for you.

38:14

There are no right or wrong choices.

38:16

There's just the choices that you choose to make.

38:20

And when you do choose to make decisions, when you do them with

38:23

intention, well, that's when you've got the Intentional Advantage.

38:28

Ready to take action on what we talked about on today's episode?

38:31

The easiest way to get started is my 5 Minute Miracle Mini Course.

38:35

It's normally 97, but you get it for

38:38

free when you join my free sub stack.

38:42

It'll boost your productivity and it will double your happiness.

38:45

Plus, you'll get access to all kinds of extras from the podcast.

38:49

Just go to tanyadalton. com slash connect.

38:53

And don't forget to follow The Intentional Advantage on your podcast

38:56

player so you never miss an episode.