52. Mastering Decision-Making

Are you struggling with decision-making?

In this episode, my partner Monica and I share our secrets on building a sustainable location-independent lifestyle. We'll be discussing the power of decision-making and how it can shape your path toward living life on your own terms.

Throughout the episode, we'll share practical tips on becoming more decisive and taking action, even in the face of fear. We'll also delve into the origin of the word "decide" and explore its significance in our journey toward success. We also highlight the importance of being decisive and how it can inspire others and establish you as a leader in your sphere of influence.

If you're ready to unlock the nomad mindset and embrace a life of limitless possibilities, then this episode is a must-listen!

You'll learn how to:

•  Become more decisive
•  Learn from every experience
•  Inspire others with your actions

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Chapters

• 1:52 Decision making is a superpower.
• 6:17 Decisiveness leads to faster progress.
• 11:30 Take action to build momentum.
• 15:29 Trust your instincts and goals.
• 20:07 Setting clear goals aids decision-making.

Transcript

0:58

Hello and welcome to the Profitable Nomad Couple podcast. This is a show where we share all of our secrets about building a sustainable location-independent lifestyle. We're Austin and Monica. We're a digital nomad couple here to help you develop an entrepreneurial mindset, ignite your passions, and develop a purpose-driven online business. Get ready for weekly insights and inspiring stories to empower you to live life on your own terms. So are you ready to unlock the nomad mindset and embrace a life of limitless possibilities? Let's dive in. Hey, what's up everybody? Monica and I are so excited to talk about this topic of decision making. And I know we say basically every episode that we're excited for what we're going to talk about, but that's because it's true. We are so excited about every topic that we talk about and this one is definitely no different. Yeah, I definitely feel like this one could possibly be the single most influential thing in your business. Like if this was a characteristic that you could develop, you're going to go a lot farther, a lot faster in your business and it's a total game changer. Yeah, so we're talking about decision making and how to be a little bit more decisive. And like honestly, you guys, decision making is a superpower and it really sets apart successful individuals from everybody else. This has been a skill that Monica and I have been working on a lot recently and it's not something that we're perfect at by any means, but we've worked very intentionally to become more decisive and to take action. We've seen how quickly our business changes for the better and how much faster we grow because of it. Yeah. So if we go like to the heart of the word decide and we really break it down, decide comes from the Latin word decidere. I think it's the cheedere. At least that's how you say it in Italian and I'm assuming it's similar in Latin. So how I learned it is think of the word like homicide. Homicide is to kill another person. Suicide is to kill yourself. So that side at the end means to kill or to cut off. And so decide you're killing and cutting off other choices. So when you decide something, that means you're presented with multiple options. You decide to go down one route. That means you are putting away the other choices that you have. You're setting aside, cutting off, killing other alternative paths you could go down and instead focusing your time, energy, attention towards this one that you've chosen. Yeah. So I just looked it up. The D means off and then cheedere means to cut. So literally like it does mean cut off other options, which is incredibly scary to do, you know, to officially like. I mean, in all other circumstances, homicide, suicide, like all of these other sides are bad things to do, like really bad things to do. So then when it comes to decide, we kind of have that same like geared mentality. Like that's such a permanent thing to do and it kind of freaks us out. But it is really, really, really important to be really good at making decisions. And here's why. The first reason is that it helps us progress and to grow more than anything else. So indecision really stalls our progress, inhibits us from making both personal and professional growth. So like when we finally make that decision, it's really empowering and allows us to move forward and then learn along the way, make adjustments along the way. And it's, I mean, it's really the best teacher we could have instead of being stuck by having multiple choices that we have in front of us. If we pick one and we go down that road and even if it's the wrong decision, OK, well, now we know and we can move on to another decision. Right. But if we stay here and we deliberate, OK, like maybe this one, maybe the other one, like we're never going to make any progress. We're not going to get anywhere. And we're never going to know what is the right or wrong decision. Yeah, man, like making a decision. And then even if that decision is wrong and learning from that, that's always for us, that's always been a much better teacher than sitting on multiple choices and not making a choice because you want to make the perfect one. But let me tell you, there is no such thing as a perfect decision. You can make informed decisions, definitely do your research. But if you just sit on that decision and don't choose an option, you're never going to learn anything. It's when we go down a path and we realize either that was right or that was wrong, then we can look back and reflect and learn from it and then make even better decisions the next time something comes around. Yeah. And the second reason it's so important to be a decisive person is making a decision that provides clarity and focus. So it really helps us channel all of our energy into one decision, really clear on what, you know, what decision we're going with, what our goals are and how we can start to make it happen. So Austin and I were kind of talking about this idea before the episode and we started thinking about how if you have two different people and one person is wanting to become a musician and an artist, famous athlete, they're going to start splitting their time between those three things. If we have a second person who only wants to be a musician and he's going to focus all of his time on practicing guitar and getting really good and learning new things, right? Who's going to become a better musician faster? Clearly, the second person who's spending all their time focusing on becoming a musician, right? Not to say that that person A won't ever become a great musician because they will eventually with time, but it will happen at a much slower rate than person B, the second person who has channeled all of their focus and energy towards this one goal. Yeah, I love that. So if you can decide towards one route, one path, and it really does give you much more progress because you're focusing on that one thing. Yeah, I would say that this might be the biggest mistake that we see people coming to us with, especially like new clients and things like that, is they see all of these different ways to make money online and they say, OK, like I can do a little bit of all of these things and I can kind of like Frankenstein together my business and it'll be great. But what happens is when we spread ourselves so thin, we get set by decent at all of the things a little bit, but we never see massive success in anything. Whereas if instead we say, OK, like I want to be a copywriter, I want to get really good at copy and specifically website copy, then you like really deep dive into that. You figure out the strategy, you figure out how to market yourself, you get really, really, really good. And then you see a ton more progress. You make a ton more money a lot faster and then you can start to say, OK, I also want to add in ad copy. And then you start working on ads, you know, and then you can start adding in more things into your business after you've already had that success. Yeah, you guys can tell Monica's getting real passionate about this. You can tell by how much I move my hands. Another thing that being decisive does for us is that it helps us overcome fear and uncertainty. And this to me, when I was talking about this with Monica, it seems somewhat paradoxical to me because a lot of times we think that we need to be certain about a choice in order to make a good choice. Like we need to know for sure, like this is the best way to go. You know, I need to be comfortable about this. And once I feel unafraid about a choice, then I can go down that route. But in reality, we've experienced that making a choice is what makes you certain. It's by deciding to cut off other options and to go down one route and to focus on one thing that we become more certain about. And it's a really interesting, it's kind of an interesting phenomenon for me. Our brains want to be right. Our brains want us to feel like they've made a good choice. And so it's going to work once you make a decision, it's going to work to prove that decision right. And the more that you take action, the faster you're going to kill your fear, the faster you're going to kill your uncertainty. And that is, that's like learning that has been so instrumental for me in moving forward because otherwise you just feel stuck hoping that if you think about it long enough, if you analyze all the options enough, then you're going to eliminate the fear and you're going to know you're going to be so clear on what to do. But it doesn't work that way. That feeling follows action. Action has to proceed it. Yeah. Our brains are such a powerful survival mechanism. They're so, so incredible. But it kind of can be to our detriment a little bit when we're trying new things because our brains will come up with all of the reasons why all of these options that you have are scary and might not work out and could be terrible. And then they kind of spiral and they make them worse than they really would be. But like Austin said, like the antidote to that, make a decision because then your brains will be like, oh shoot, like, okay, we're going to do this and I want to be right and I want to be, you know, like, and it'll start looking for all of the things that made this a good decision. A really good example in our business is the first time we ever made a reel and it was the dorkiest reel you've ever seen. It was so terrible. And I wish I could tell you, you could just scroll back in our Instagram feed and watch it. But unfortunately that account got hacked and we lost it, but it was terrifying. And we overthought every single aspect of this reel. I got super like made up, like super perfect. Everything was good. We were trying to figure out the lighting. We were trying to figure out like the set. I don't know. We way overanalyze everything and it was really, really scary. And actually we didn't post it for a really long time. And when we finally did post it, there was definitely this like relief of like, oh, reels aren't that bad. You know, like it's not that terrible. At the end of the day, I think like three people watched our first reel. So we're like, okay, like not many people saw it. Like it's okay that it was dumb. But now, I mean, we literally make reels Monday through Friday every day and it's so easy. It's just part of our routine and we don't even think twice about it. We don't think twice about getting on video. But at first that was a terrifying thing to us, like to think about being on video. But the second we made that decision and then took action, that fear just... And that's to me, one of the amazing things about decisiveness and taking action is it compounds on itself. The more that you do it, it's like a habit. It's like any other habit that you build. The more you do it, the easier it's going to become. Like Monica was saying, that first reel we made, we were incredibly uncomfortable. We were fearful. We thought about it way too much. We took way too long making it. And now we don't worry about it as much. We can bust out a reel in 10 minutes and we're not as afraid of it. It's easier to do because we've practiced it. So I mean, both tangibly, like what it takes to make the reel, but also like mentally, the fear behind it and the uncertainty behind it has changed. And it's every time you take action, it becomes easier to take action again. So it just really gets the ball rolling, really builds momentum. Yeah. The other really big benefit to just making the decision and taking action is after you take the action, you start to collect the data that you can analyze and you can look. And now Austin and I have a library of reels and we can look and say, okay, like these ones do really well. Let's make more of these and oh, like these ones don't do as well. Like I wonder why. And then we can kind of dissect it and we can start refining our process and we can start getting better and better and better and more efficient at what we do. And so we get out of the gray area and all of a sudden we can see, okay, like this is working, this is not. And then we can forward with that information. That's the coolest thing about being an entrepreneur. It's one big giant experiment. Everything you do as an entrepreneur and starting up your business is just experimentation. You got to see what works, see what doesn't. But in order to have that, you got to take action. Yeah. It's not just a game. Like it's so fun to just try something out and just like watch your strategy play out, see if it works. Okay. It doesn't quite work. Like let's have it. Let's you know, it's really fun to get into that space where you can analyze what you've done and what's working well and you know, and start to refine your strategy. It's definitely is. Yeah. One extra additional benefit to being decisive is your ability to inspire others. You can lead by example and other people can look at you and see the progress that you're making and they can see how you're changing. And it's just a great way to lead, to be a leader in your sphere of influence. Yeah. This is something Austin and I talk about all the time because it has been the most inspiring thing and really what keeps us going sometimes is when we started our business, all of a sudden everyone around us was like, Oh, I think I could do that too. Like, and started like looking at their lives and what they actually wanted for their lives. And we've had so many people kind of around us and be like, Hey, like teach me what you do. And like, Hey, help me start a business or Hey, like, like people I never, ever expected would ever start a business or change their way of life have come to us and been like, Hey, like I really want to do this. And it is the most, the most on inspired thing to me that the second that you start making decisions and start making things happen and start living your dream life, everyone around you is going to, going to see that and be inspired and want to start taking the same action. It's incredible. Totally agree. So how do you become more decisive? We've kind of given some tips here and there, but we're going to, we've really narrowed it down to three tips here at the end of this podcast episode on what you can do if you don't feel like you are a super decisive person. You feel like you've struggled with indecision through things that you can do. Yeah, I just, I want to interject here really quick. Austin, before we started a business was the most indecisive person you've ever met. These are things that have literally helped him become such a decisive person. Like you wouldn't even recognize him anymore. Like if you met him before, like pre-business Austin. It was bad, you guys. It was really bad. I still struggle with it sometimes. Monica has a hard time letting me go in the grocery store to go pick something because I will stand in front of the cereal aisle or the granola bar aisle, try and make the perfect decision on what snack to get. So I struggle with it still is what I'm trying to say. If I'm being completely honest though, sometimes it's kind of nice because I send them to the cereal aisle and I know we'll all find them in 10 minutes. You know, they'll still be there. Okay. Yeah. So all this to say, this is something that I personally have dealt with. No, but you've come a long way, especially like when decisions really matter, like in business over like trivial things like cereal. Yeah. You'll still deliberate a lot, which is so funny, like so funny to think about. But when it comes to like really big decisions in business, he is so much better. And obviously we talk about it. We talk about the pros and cons and then we make a decision and we move forward with it and it's awesome. And these are the three steps that we have taken to become more decisive. And it's been really, really helpful in our business. And we've seen tons of growth because of these three things. So with that big setup, we've got number one, trust in yourself. You've got to trust your instincts and trust your intuition. You possess so much knowledge, so much experience, wisdom to make informed decisions. Like we definitely think you should research things. You know, the bigger the decision, the more research you're probably going to want to do. The bigger consequences that potentially could come from this decision, the more research you're going to want to do. Seek advice from people who are farther along than you. Seek advice from people that you respect and admire. Gather as much information, valuable information as you can. But ultimately the decision lies in your hands. Like it's your choice to make and you've got to trust yourself. You got to trust that the experiences you've had in the past will help you make a good decision now. The more that we question our abilities, the harder it's going to be to make a decision. Yeah, definitely. I think this has been a really big thing in our business to like really take away all of the thought in it and really like sink into how do I feel right now when I think about this decision? And sometimes, I mean, sometimes we feel really scared, but also excited. And that's when we know like, okay, this is a decision that we're making that's really going to stretch us. It's really going to help us grow. But we're excited because we feel like this is the right step. And those have been the best decisions that we've made. Okay, number two, set clear goals. Really define your goals and your aspirations, especially like just kind of know like the end goal here. Like what's the end goal? And then anytime a decision comes up, you can compare it to that end goal and you can say, okay, like my end goal is I really want a successful, thriving copywriting business. I want clients lined up coming to me. I want to maybe hire someone underneath me to help with some of this copywriting. Okay, that's my end goal. Now is this writing course going to help me get there or no? And then you can kind of compare like, yes, this is a great writing course that is really going to help me become a copywriter or maybe like this web design course isn't the best thing to be doing right now. So it'll really help you get clear on what kinds of decisions you should be making and when to know like if it's going to help you progress or if maybe you should table that one for a little bit later. I've got two examples for you guys on this one. The first one is a personal example. Just a couple of weeks ago, we participated in something called a push. This was something that we did with Rob Dial and his team in our coaching program, which he got from Cutco, I believe. It's basically for two weeks, we dedicated everything we had to our business. So as you know, all of our free time, all of our energy, everything that we were doing in a day for two full weeks was business related. We put a pause on hanging out with friends. We put a pause on a lot of recreational activities so that we could grow our business. And that was really hard, but we knew where we wanted to go. We had a goal for how many clients we wanted to sign on. We had a goal for how many new comments we wanted to send and direct messages to potential clients we wanted to send. And so we had very clearly defined goals and we clearly knew where we wanted to be. And that made it so much easier every morning that we got up and started working because we knew where we were going. It made it easy to sit down and start working on it. And it made it easy to know what was a priority for that day. So that's our personal example. Another example that I really, really like was something actually I just heard a couple days ago. One of my favorite comic strips of all time, Calvin and Hobbes. I grew up reading these comics and I just learned a story. The creator, Bill Waterson, he was kind of presented with this opportunity to turn the Calvin and Hobbes comics into like this big merchandise operation where they could make t-shirts and water bottles and stickers and all these things to sell Calvin and Hobbes comics and merchandise. I mean, he was already pretty well off, but he would have become even more wealthy, would have earned a lot more money. And he was sitting down with a buddy of his talking about this opportunity and he turned it down and the person, I don't know if it was a friend of his or just a coworker, they were kind of baffled. Like, why would you say no to this opportunity? You could literally be making millions. Like everything's set up for your success. And his response was basically he didn't set out to be a big executive product management guy. He set out to be a comic writer. He set the clear visualization, the clear goal of being a comic writer and he had made it. And if he had chosen to accept this opportunity to create all of these different things for his comic strips, that would have pulled him away from comic writing and into more of a manager production kind of role. And he didn't want that. So it made it easy to make that choice because he came to these crossroads and he knew the destination. And so he knows at that point which road to take. So those two examples hopefully clarify for you how setting goals and knowing where you want to go helps you make a decision now in the moment. Yeah, that was a really cool example. Thank you for sharing that. Okay, so the third way to become more decisive is to really embrace a growth mindset. And this, I feel like it's almost a buzzword now. Like I hear growth mindset a lot, but I can't stress the importance of this enough. If we can change our mindset to instead of like, oh, like it's black and white, like I either succeed or I fail to, wow, this is a game and I get to try new things. I get to experiment. I get to see what works and what doesn't. And it's ultimately all going to work together for my benefit. And I'm going to grow as a person, my business is going to grow. It is so much easier to make decisions because that takes a lot of the pressure off of us. Yeah, you just got to go into it with this mentality of you're going to learn something new, even if you fail, you're going to learn something from that. And then you can use that to make a better decision moving forward. So that brings us to the end of this episode, you guys. Hopefully you've learned something new about decision making, even if it's as simple as where the heck the word decide comes from. I'm kind of a big etymology nerd. I like the origin of words. So maybe that doesn't really do it for you, but hopefully there's been some other tips that you've learned. And honestly, I just want to reiterate for you guys taking action, even if you don't know the best action, even if you are afraid, just buckling down and taking action has been the one of the greatest catalyst drivers for success in our business. It's been such a big game changer. I can't really express fully what it's done for us, but man, it's changed the whole thing. And so hopefully you can take something from this episode and become a more decisive person yourself. Thanks so much for joining us here on the profitable nomad couple podcast. We appreciate you listening to us today. If you enjoyed this episode, share it on Instagram and be sure to tag us at awesome and Monica. Together we can inspire others to embrace a location independent lifestyle. And while you're there, we'd love to connect with you. So make sure you follow us for more tips and inspiration on living your dream location independent lifestyle. Until next week, remember that you have the power to shape your own path. So stay curious, stay adventurous and stay connected.