WATCH THIS if you’re stressed about a decision

Summary

• I learned that making better decisions often means avoiding making really stupid ones.
• At 19, after multiple arrests, I decided to completely change my life and did not look back.
• I've discovered the value of valuing each other's opinions in partnership, as compromise often leads to better decisions.
• Having multiple perspectives in decision-making leads to more successful outcomes, which applies to companies too.
• Investing in multiple businesses simultaneously can be challenging; it's essential to consider timing and context.
• Being a business leader means understanding the impact on all stakeholders and making decisions that most likely improve everyone's situation.
• Recognizing that disagreements often stem from fear, self-interest, or overwhelm can improve understanding and communication.
• I've realized that communicating with logic and evidence rather than feelings leads to more effective outcomes.
• Intuition can be a form of pattern recognition, helping to identify when something is likely to be unsuccessful based on past experiences.
• It's important to reassess initial decisions as new information becomes available and adapt accordingly.
• Learning from the mistakes and advice of others who have achieved your desired outcomes can help you avoid making those same mistakes.
• Prioritizing requires considerate timing and an understanding of which tasks are most relevant.
• Being more decisive involves taking the perspectives of various team members and striving for clarity in leadership.
• I value walking as a reflective practice to help me think through decisions and be more decisive.

Video

How To Take Action

I would suggest implementing the strategy of making better decisions by not making really stupid ones. This means pausing and thinking, "Is this a bad idea?" If it feels off, maybe it's best to not do it.

If you're working with a partner or in a team, value each other's opinions. When you have to make a big decision, listen to each other, and find a compromise. This can lead to smarter choices that help everyone.

When you're leading a business, you want to be a good leader. That means thinking about how your choices will touch everyone involved. Ask yourself, "Will this make things better for all the people in my company?" This can be tricky, but it gets easier with practice.

If you're facing a disagreement, try to see where the other person is coming from. They might be worried, thinking about themselves, or just really busy. Understanding this can help you talk it out better.

When you're making decisions, use logic and evidence, not just feelings. If you have an intuition about something, try to figure out why. Look at past experiences – it's like your brain spotting patterns from before.

Be open to changing your mind if new info comes up. Ask, "If I started this today, with what I know now, would I do it the same way?" If not, what can you change?

Learn from others who got where you want to be. If they say they wouldn't do something again, maybe you shouldn't either.

Finally, decide what's most important to do right now. Focus on what's most relevant at the moment.

And remember, walking can be a great way to think about your choices. It's quiet time to reflect on what's best.

Quotes by Leila Hormozi

"you just can't make stupid ones"

– Leila Hormozi

"make fewer dumb choices"

– Leila Hormozi

"when we both bring our opinions to the table and we find a way to integrate them both into a decision we tend to make better decisions"

– Leila Hormozi

"I promised myself after that happened that I'm not going to do that again"

– Leila Hormozi

"If I knew then what I knew now would I still have selected all these things if the answer is no how quickly can we change"

– Leila Hormozi

Full Transcript

I got arrested six times between 18 and 19 it's not like you have to be like Warren Buffett making insane decisions you just can't make stupid ones then at 19 years old you say like all right that's it six time and 5 years later you're running an incredible business worth millions of dollars what were the things that you did when it was most difficult I made a decision in that moment I was like I am not this Leila who I was yesterday who just got arrested who just did all this [ __ ] no longer me anymore I am a new person and it was just like a switch I made the decision to change and I was like I'm Not Looking Back make fewer dumb choices we were talking to uh somebody else yesterday about that it's like being successful often times is just not doing really when Alex was thinking about starting the software company you had an intuition that this was definitely the wrong idea you acquiesced in that moment one why did you acques to what he wanted and two two how would you know it was the wrong decision to go down that path we noticed that when we made decisions where we both spoke up and we compromised we came up with the best decision we have backup plans for all this stuff but like in case it happens we have to Pivot everything I think it'd just be useful to have everybody there okay well I was just saying like cuz it's going to be weekend and then we're going to close car yeah I think actually that was one thing I was saying here which is like Neil I don't know how much it's going to affect and so we've learned over time to Value each other's opinion because we realize that when we both bring our opinions to the table and we find a way to integrate them both into a decision we tend to make better decisions by the way goes for companies too companies that have more people that help mold the decision tend to make the best decisions and so we've seen that over time at that point in time I think that we had made a lot of progress and then this decision came and it felt higher Stakes because we'd invested a few million into the software Alex had been the one primarily cuz he's usually like a 0 to one it's like I kind of came in and I was like I don't really like think this is going to work for for these reasons and we had probably like the biggest the only fight that we've had it was like two days straight of like are we going to do this or are we not going to at the end of the day it was already rolling I think when you don't make a decision you kind of just stick with what's happening which is like it's already going and so that's what we did is we just let it continue to go and I think that in order for me if I had not felt like that was a good idea to stop it I would have needed to be more articulate I would have needed to learn how to communicate more effectively and I would have needed to take Massive Action much more quickly and so I didn't and I promised myself after that happened that I'm not going to do that again because it's not that the business was a bad idea it's that building a third business when you have two others is very hard and that it's timing and context I didn't feel like I could be a good leader to anybody because I was trying to lead three at once I think that the reason that me and Alex make better decisions together is because we have very different perspectives when it comes to business therefore when we're making a decision about the greater business we both have more in the trench knowledge on different areas that the other ones unaware of and so it's up to us to inform the other one how one decision will affect each of our areas so that we can come up with a decision that makes it a win-win for both of the areas of the business that we pay attention to not just one or the other it's really When You're Building building a business especially one that you want to be really large you have to think about the impact you're having and I think that a huge skill of people who are great leaders is it's truly a skill is the ability to take different perspectives and I actually think that's one of the things that I can say I'm very good at is taking all the perspectives if acquisition. comom does X Y and Z how is the general public that watches the content going to perceive us how are our future candidates going to perceive us how are our current Partners going to perceive us their teams going going to perceive us how is my team going to perceive us both on an executive level and a lower level how's my family going to perceive us like what's Alex going to think you know like and I think if you can take all those into perspective and then you're able to go through and say okay well how could I make this decision one that it creates a win for every single person aligned I look at my job as to understand everybody in the organization and everybody that interacts with our organization enough to be able to understand their perspective about it it helps me make better DEC decisions so that every time I do make a decision I know that there's a more likely chance it will make everybody's lives better not worse people will disagree with you you can't get the entire organization to be on board with your decision but you also have to understand that people have different competing priorities when they're thinking through a decision and so I think that there's a lot more reasons to why people disagree with things in my early years I didn't see that and so I was just like wow I can't believe some of these people don't agree with me and now when people didn't agree with me I can see that it's cuz they're scared I can see that's because they're self-interested and they're more concerned of how it's going to affect them or I can see that maybe they have a lot on their plate and they're overwhelmed just even in that conversation and so they're just going to say no today but they might be fine with it in a week I do a lot of things intuitively that end up working out for me in terms of like people like how do you become a leader how do you make good decisions I'm like my natural set of ethics and morals is one that has set me up for success in this role so I think that when I used to go to Alex a lot of the times I'd be like I don't think this is going to work it doesn't feel right to me like this it doesn't feel right I don't think they're the right hire but I couldn't point to data he knew that there's a lot of times where he's like she's right when she feels this way about something but I didn't know how to articulate my feeling comes from this set of data that's what I realized is that it's very hard especially for like a female to communicate with a male in terms of like my feelings and and I also don't communicate like that anymore at all I don't ever say my feelings anything because I don't care it like it's not relevant and now I've realized that I have to gather the information I've got to present data and a logical argument that is supported by evidence to show why my opinion is what it is or why the feeling is there it's like the feeling is based off of evidence so you have to go and find the evidence and show the evidence rather than lead with I feel a certain way it's very difficult for us to communicate with like I feel a certain way because there's no evidence to support a feeling when I realized that I was communicating in a way that was like well I feel this way a lot of men aren't receptive to that you know they want to hear the logic and the evidence behind it and honestly I just think that's that's better communication in general is like let me tell you the logic and the evidence behind the decision that I'm thinking I need to make rather than I think what I grew up saying is like I feel a certain way and I do think that that's almost like societal conditioning is that a lot of women say like I feel this way and they talk in feelings and I think that I've had to unlearn talking in feelings and had to learn rooting my arguments and my decisions in logic and evidence yeah that makes sense but your feelings led to the accurate result yeah a lot of the time your intuition was correct yeah why is your intuition often correct I think it's pattern recognition if you've been in similar situations before you are just recognizing patterns that can be helpful it also cannot be helpful and I will say this which is that like more things don't work than they work lots of the times we have ideas and things that we want to try and experiment in business many of them won't work more than they will work so I have a lot of evidence to support things that don't work I am so close to the details in the business of when things don't work this is what they looked like right and so then I can take that and be like this looks very close to that other time things didn't work it doesn't look like it's worth pursuing because the likelihood it succeeds is lower but I don't think that a lot of people know what that means it's like when you meet somebody you're like I just got a bad feeling about that guy it's like you mean that there was a guy in the past that had similar character traits that you had a bad experience with and now this guy reminds you of him because it's interesting it's like you make a decision in the past and then often times what happens is like lots of things gradually change over time but you're sticking with the decision that you made in the beginning I never want to do this again yeah we should hire some definely hire a company to do it dude I didn't think it was like so much until until I started getting involved and then I was like Jesus Christ we're doing all of this I didn't I truly didn't know and I think because things are moving so fast there's so many parts and pieces it's like when problems start to occur you start to think oh gosh like what's going wrong what's all these things but it usually has to do with the decision you made in the beginning when you had less information circumstances change new information's acquired if if expectations aren't communicated then everyone is just left to their own assumptions which is like we hear that there's a launch that we're going to sell a lot of books we don't know anything about what that entails so I think it's just it's just like that means something different to me than it means to somebody else you know and so for me I try to look at it like if I were starting from scratch today would I still do things the way that they're about to be done and if the answer is no then what can I do today to at least make the decision better maybe it won't be optimal but how can I improve the situation by bringing in different variables or new variables based on the new information how can we mitigate our own behavior is just taking other people's perspectives if I do this is that going to build our relationship or detract from it is that going to punish this person or build them up and I think I've just been able to ask myself a lot more of those questions which takes practice like there's not there's no like one pill for me it's like if we chose these platforms and these people and this way of doing things in the very beginning and then it Chang changes over time then I look at it today and say if I knew what I knew if I knew then what I knew now would I still have selected all these things if the answer is no how quickly can we change and it's just a cost benefit is the cost of change higher than the benefit or not and if it is then do it I've avoided a lot of really bad mistakes by just asking people who have been there before and done that before and who now have the outcome I want and then when they're like I wouldn't do it that way I'm like that's all I need to hear I won't do it that way there's a million other ways to do it not going to do it that way I heard a quote and it was like what's the difference between humans and animals and it was like humans can learn from the mistakes of others whereas animals can't surprise that was what he said yes I'm guessing Alex didn't tell you and may not remember did you say no you did yeah we have two quarterly that day he sent me this how do you like decide between what to prioritize like that like it's just like timing you know what I mean like if I have that capacity that I feel like there's like not enough there's not too many fires with whatever's like most relevant in the in that time then I just let everyone know I just said like hey please don't send me anything or ask me for anything for the next few days like I'm out and I put my way message up and stuff like slow to get back to people I don't usually ignore people ever but if I say like if I set the expectation it's up to me to hold it so yep you know yeah so like they I got a bunch of other stuff sent to me by the team and I was like I'm just not going to respond cuz it's it's not relevant at this exact moment like acknowledge like got it but like no actual response for you what are some of the ways you think about how to become more decisive and how to be more confident in your decisions for me what helps me in becoming more decisive right now has been being able to take different perspectives of different people in the company you know in running the company one thing that I have to constantly work on is being more decisive when I'm trying to make a decision and I have five Executives who are very smart and opinionated I find myself like wanting to make sure that there's almost consensus I'd rather be that than overly confident but I don't think that that always sends the best message to the team if I'm not very clear on leading the way and so the last year I would say I told the team that that's my focus is I want to be more decisive I want to make decisions faster let's go walk I walk a lot because I do a lot of stuff when I walk one of the things I do is I think but I think in terms of making decisions I think it's like uh it's a time I have to reflect and think and so I value that a lot