[0:07] Hi, it's Rusty Gaillard here, and I'm your host for Do Something Different, a leadership podcast.

[0:13] This podcast is for high-achieving, smart, ambitious people who are starting to recognize their next step forward is not to push harder on the gas, but if they want to get ahead, it's to actually take their foot off the brake.

[0:28] So much of what we do in our day-to-day life is driven by habit. It's our old patterns, our way of operating, the way we think we need to show up to be successful in the corporate environment and we're going to challenge some of that today because we're going to talk about decision making and specifically five things you can do to be more confident in your decision making before we get there though i want to unpack a little bit about why decision making can be difficult and let's just talk about decisions first of all because all of the statistics that you can read online indicate that we make on the order of 65 000 decisions every day. I mean, think about that for a minute, 65,000, that's crazy.

[1:11] But most of those decisions are small things. It has to do with where you're putting your attention, whether or not you're going to switch to a different task, to multitask, when you're going to get up and go get a drink of water or go use the bathroom or go eat something, all of these little minute decisions. But here's the thing, those things dictate where you're spending your time, where you're putting your energy, where you're putting your attention. And so we think 65,000 decisions, that doesn't really matter. There's only a few decisions every day that do matter. Sure. But all of those 65,000 decisions control how prepared you are in that moment to make the key decision, how focused you are in that moment, how calm you are in that moment, how resourced and logical you are in that moment when you actually need to make a critical decision.

[2:00] So we're going to talk today about the way your brain works, some simple kind of brain science, some unpacking a little bit about the mechanics of your brain, because I think this is fascinating and I love it that it brings the science and the latest research about the biology of how you work as a human into your business life and what you can do to be more successful in your business life day to day. I'm going to do something a little differently today. So for those of you who are watching on YouTube, you're going to get to see the visual.

[2:32] If you're just listening in audio, that's totally fine too. You'll be able to follow along. But for those of you who are on video, I'm going to share my screen. And I want to just start with this concept of system one and system two thinking.

[2:46] Now, I first read about this in the book, Thinking Fast and Slow, which was written by Daniel Kahneman, who won the Nobel Prize for his research. And he basically debunked the theory that humans are rational decision makers. In the classic economics, you've got this kind of, you know, you weight a probability and an outcome and you get a most likely kind of weighted outcome and people decision decisions in classic economical theory based on maximizing their expected value. And what Daniel Kahneman determined was that's just not true. That theory doesn't hold out. and why that is has to do with system one and system two thinking so system one is the intuitive.

[3:32] Instinctive part of you of your brain and the part of the way your brain works it's the kind of thing that says when what's two plus two it's four you don't even have to think about it when you see the letters t-h-e you know immediately it's the word the they call these sight words when you're learning to read because they're so common. They're so expected, just like two plus two equals four, just like driving your car. All of these things that are become second nature. And that's what system one is all about. It's the second nature kind of thinking.

[4:03] System two, on the other hand, is your rational thinking. Now, this, of course, is what differentiates us as people from other kind of animals. But the key here is that system two is actually lazy. You don't like to use system two because it uses a lot of energy. And what your brain is really good at is moving things out of system two into system one because system one is quick. It's intuitive. It's fast. It's automatic.

[4:36] You don't really have to think about it. So think about driving your car. And I love this example because my son is now 17 and he'd learned to drive not long ago. And watching him drive for the first time, I mean, first of all, it's a little scary to be in the passenger seat. But second of all, I realized and appreciated how complicated driving is. There are so many things that you have to pay attention to all at once. And when you're using your system two to think about that, you're having to rationally think through each thing. How hard do I push the gas? How hard do I push the brake? When I want to turn is up on the turn signal to the right or to the left, or like, which way do I move it? And how do I turn? How much do I turn the wheel? All of these things, paying attention to the environment, there's too much for you to do all using your system to rational brain. Because system two also, by the way, is a limited capacity. You don't have the ability to think and process a huge amount of information on system two.

[5:34] System one, on the other hand, is how you drive a car. If you've been driving for 20 years, I mean, if you're like me, you've probably driven for a period of time and realized you weren't even looking at the road because you were looking at the radio or you were daydreaming or hopefully not sending a text message, but you can drive for a good chunk of time without even paying attention because it's so automatic now. And that is what system one does. Now, why am I talking about this? And why is it relevant? Because system one is also the part of your brain that tees up the information that becomes available to you to make a decision. It makes automatic associations between things, and it's what creates meaning. So when you walk into a situation, when you walk into a room, it's your system one brain that automatically scans the room, the people in the room, the energy in the room, the vibe that you're getting, what people are doing, how loud the conversation is. And your system one automatically assesses all that and makes a quick assessment of, is this safe or dangerous? And that's one of the things that system one does is it keeps you alive.

[6:41] So back to the number of decisions you make on a day-to-day basis. The vast majority of those are driven by system one. And in fact, the numbers that Daniel Kahneman puts in his book, 95% of your decisions are made by system one, these quick, rapid, intuitive decisions that you make on a daily basis versus only 5% made by system two. So what does that mean? It means when you go in and you have a decision to make that's important for work, obviously you want to think through it rationally and logically and thoughtfully. However, that doesn't mean system one's not at play. It's still there running in the background. And system one is teeing up the information, it's making quick assessments, it's making intuitive assessments, and oftentimes it drives what we consider to be our gut feel.

[7:30] Now, if you're in a work situation where your read of the room, if you will, you walk into the room, you're about to make this decision, and your read of the situation triggers some amount of discomfort or fear, then that's going to impact your brain chemistry. Now, keep in mind, your brain has about five times more circuitry devoted to avoiding problems and detecting fear and detecting danger than it has to finding reward and possibility. So you've got way more of your brain devoted to keeping you alive than it is to building a successful life or capturing an opportunity. So think about that when you make a decision. Your brain is automatically biased towards looking at the risks and the problems. And Daniel Kahneman identified this as loss aversion. And that is one of the reasons we don't automatically make decisions based on expected value, because losing $50 is much more painful than gaining $50 than the benefit of gaining $50.

[8:33] So when you're going to make a decision, you have to consider what those risks are. And if there are risks, then that's going to activate the fear response part of your brain. So let's take a look at that for a moment here. So on the screen, I've just got a simple diagram that shows your brain in two modes. You've got the sympathetic and the parasympathetic nervous system. The sympathetic nervous system is the fight or flight kind of response. And what that looks like is when you're in the sympathetic nervous system, your amygdala, which is the part of your brain that detects fear, triggers. And when your amygdala triggers your higher cortex, which is the thinking part of your brain, it's what differentiates as human, that part biologically is deactivated. Now, of course, it's not totally deactivated, but the blood flow to that part of your brain goes down, Your access to that part of your brain goes down because your body is in fight or flight mode. It's in survival mode. You don't need to think a lot when you need to survive. You need to move. You need to run. You're going to get to safety because of course your brain all evolved hundreds and thousands of years ago when threats were not intellectual threats or career threats. They were literally a matter of life and death. And so your brain evolved to keep you alive in those life and death kind of situations.

[9:47] So when your amygdala triggers because of fear, your higher cortex is disabled. So the question is, how do you get back to this other state where you have access to your higher thinking ability? How do you calm down so you can access it?

[10:04] So I'm going to give you a framework here, which I like to just refer to as Bayer. I sometimes call it the results formula, but I like to call it Bayer because it's an acronym that stands for belief, actions, oh boy, belief, emotion, action, result, and Bayer, belief, emotion, action, result. Now, if you work backwards, if you've got a certain result you want to achieve, it's pretty logical that the actions you take are going to drive the result.

[10:32] But the fact that emotions drive your actions is not always intuitive to people, but it's absolutely true. Think again about walking into a room and you walk into a room. Let's just say you walk into a room and you're presenting to the CEO of the organization and the direct staff. Now, if you're not accustomed to doing that, and that's a somewhat unfamiliar environment, you're going to have some emotions about that. And that's going to impact you. How much you smile, how much you sweat, whether you look people in the eye, whether you shake their hands? How relaxed are you when you shake their hands? When you start the presentation, how calm are you? Are you likely to tell a joke? Are you not going to tell a joke? Does that come off easily or does it come off as something intentional and deliberate? Now contrast that to walking into a room with all of your family and best friends in it. You're going to feel completely relaxed and at ease and happy to see them and your actions, your behaviors are going to be very different.

[11:24] So this is not to say it's like a one-to-one. Of course, you have some control over how you show up, but your emotions drive a huge part of your body language, your energy, the way, and even what you do in a situation. And what drives your emotions is your beliefs. That's why it goes bare. Beliefs, emotions, actions, results. Because your beliefs about the environment matter. Is this the kind of environment that is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity? I'm walking in to present to the CEO, or I'm walking into a VC to pitch my new business idea. And it's either going to sink or it's going to swim based on this presentation. This is my only shot and I've got to get it right. If you hold that kind of belief, that is going to drive much more nervousness and anxiety. It's going to activate that amygdala. It's going to, you're going to be into this kind of fight or flight sympathetic nervous system response.

[12:17] And because of that, your rational thinking ability is going to be down regulated. it. So your access to system two thinking is not as good. And so many more of your decisions are going to be driven by system one, this kind of automatic, instinctual, fast, habitual kind of response. So if you want to get a different outcome, and you think about this, like most people will say, oh, I want a new result. I want to increase my success or my progress in some area of life. It's like, I want my results to go up. That's great. Most people then are going to say, well, I'm going to go try to address my actions. I'm going to try to do something different. In fact, that is the name of this podcast, Do Something Different. So I fully support that. But if you're not going upstream of that and saying, okay, this is great, but really it's the beliefs. And if I can shift my beliefs, how could that change? So think for a moment about some of the beliefs you might have when you are making a decision. One of the common ones is don't mess up. Don't make a mistake. You want to look good. You want to impress people. Because you want to actually make a good impression on people. You want to look smart.

[13:35] Avoid mistakes. Any of these beliefs that you might hold are going to be, these are all, I mean, you can hear it as I'm describing it. They're all fear-oriented beliefs. And so as you go through this Bayer process, those beliefs are going to create certain feelings. And those feelings are much more likely to be feelings of nervousness or anxiety, a fear of loss. It's a loss aversion kind of feeling. That's going to drive your actions. And ultimately, it's going to drive your results. So the decisions you make when you hold those kind of beliefs are highly impacted. So what are some different beliefs you might think about? Well, first of all, before I go there, I just do want to say that to me, a lot of these beliefs are very common among high achievers. And this is what I call the A-trap because it was like you've got A's in school, you're an A player at work, but ultimately that mentality of not messing up, being the smart one, looking good, impressing other people, delivering exceptional results, that kind of striving for perfection, if you will, becomes a trap. I call it the A-trap. And so there's different ways to shift your beliefs that help you to be more successful.

[14:46] So that's what I wanted to describe in terms of this, how we make, some of the challenges around making decisions and this bare model,

[14:58] beliefs, emotions, actions, results. So now let's talk about the five rules for confident decision making, because there's five simple things that you can put into place that are going to help you to make better decisions that recognize this pattern that we find ourselves into. So the first one I'm going to put on there is space. And what space means is to get some distance from the stressful environment, from the churn of the environment. Because if you're in a high stress situation, your amygdala is activated, you're in that fight or flight kind of mode. One of the best things you can do is to change your physical environment. If you can't change your physical environment, that's okay. You can do things like take a deep breath. You might even close your eyes for a minute, step out and go to the restroom, whatever you might do, but just see if you can change your physical environment for a moment to get away from whatever it is that's raising your anxiety about a decision. Put yourself deliberately into a place where you can calm down. Because if you can take a few deep, deliberate breaths, and I just recommend in through your nose, out through your mouth, and count to six on the exhale, so you have a nice, long, slow exhale.

[16:06] If you can do that, that will change your body chemistry. That will change your stress hormones, it lowers your cortisol level, and it helps bring you back into a slower, calmer state of being where you will think more clearly and you can make better decisions. So number one, space. Find yourself some space. Change your physical environment. Number two, simplify.

[16:34] Oftentimes, when you're facing a decision, you make it more complex than it needs to be. Classic example of this is what are all of the other people going to think? Most of us are in a business situation. Many times the key question gets obscured by our anticipation of other people's reactions. Is my boss going to agree with this? Are my co-workers or my peers or other people in the organization, are they going to think this is a dumb idea or too risky? Or am I going to look bad because it might get rejected? All of this other dialogue that goes around in our head when we try to make a decision gets in the way of making a good decision. So if you want to make a more confident decision, simplify it. Get to the core business question and answer that question. That's rule number two. Rule number three is to assume as you're contemplating this decision that you will be successful in the decision.

[17:42] Now, why is that? Because so many of us, because we have five times more circuitry devoted to finding risk and danger, so many of us think about a decision and our first thought is, what are all the ways this can go wrong? Of course, it's worth thinking through downsides and risks and all of that. I'm not saying that. But don't come at the decision and don't try to make a decision from this place of fear and worry about all the problems and all the things that could go wrong with the decision. Assume instead that the decision will be successful. This is another way of using your brain circuitry to calm yourself down, to assume this might actually be a really good thing. This could go well. This could be positive. It's going to advance the business. It's going to advance my career. This could be a really positive decision. And when you think about it that way, your whole body chemistry, once again, changes. It's changing your belief. And that belief impacts your emotion. And that, of course, is going to impact the action or decision that you make.

[18:37] Come at this from a place assuming success item number four for making more confident decisions is speed many of us when we're facing a decision we tend to drag it out especially when it's a complicated decision we're not sure what to do and we delay we avoid it we procrastinate and all of those things add to sense of anxiety i'm sure many of you have had this experience before where you have an important decision to make and you're not making the decision. And it weighs on you. You think about it a lot. You might wake up in the middle of the night thinking about it. I certainly have done this.

[19:17] The question then is, can you make the decision faster? Because I know for me, when I finally make a decision, it's like, oh, it's a sense of relief. And this energy that has been tied up in the decision-making process is released. And that energy I can now put towards implementation, towards action, towards moving forward. So one of the other premises around speed of decision making is you're way better off to make a decision and move forward and learn from it than you are to stand still. Because when you have not made a decision, when you're a place of indecision, you're not moving. When you're faster at making a decision, you're moving more. Now, when you think about speed of decision making, I'm not saying there's some absolute number you have to hit, but lean into it. Lean into saying, can I be a little bit faster in making a decision? And if you are, that's going to give you the benefit of gaining information from it so you can move forward. Now, number five, the last item I've got here is remember, you can always switch direction.

[20:23] So many of us assume that our decisions are irreversible, but very few decisions are. Most decisions, you can change your mind. You can adjust course. So this goes very well with item number four in the list. Because if you remember that you can change direction, it makes it way easier to make a faster decision because you say, well, I'm going to lean into this decision. I'm going to make a decision. I'm going to move forward. And if it's not right, I'll change it. So just remember your ability to adjust, to compensate, to learn, to grow, to make progress, and then to tweak your decision as you need to. So these are five things that you can do to make better, faster, more confident decisions. Number one, give yourself some space. Change your physical environment if you can. Number two, simplify the decision. Take away what's everyone else gonna think about it and just focus on the core business question itself. Number three, assume that it will be successful instead of focusing on all the downside and the risk which causes fear and can paralyze you. Number four, speed. Lean into making a faster decision, recognizing number five, you can always switch direction. Learn and grow from the process.

[21:36] Now, this video, this podcast episode itself, we covered two things. We covered both some of the brain science behind why it can be difficult to make decisions and the different ways your brain operates, the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous system, in other words, the fight or flight or the calm, relaxed, creative part of you, the way you think, and some tools to help you shift that. And these five simple rules for making more confident decisions. Now, don't just take this and file it away and say, oh, that was cool. It's kind of inspiring. Maybe I'll use it someday. Don't do that. Think about a decision that is coming up for you and think about how you can apply this. Use these five things that start with the letter S, space, simplicity, success, speed, and the ability to switch direction. Think about those. Think about a decision that you're facing right now and apply them. Apply it because it's in the doing of something different that you actually make progress. So take that have a great week.