 Welcome back to the Art of Charm podcast to show where we bring you actual tips and strategies on how to better connect socially, boost your emotional intelligence and master conversation. I'm AJ. And I'm Johnny. This month's been all about decision making. We hope that you enjoyed the first two episodes. I know that Johnny and I, as we were putting together our toolbox episode, we decided to air it a little later this month after bringing on two amazing guests who are experts in decision making. Yeah. I mean, there was a lot of trepidation and us putting together something that we certainly have talked about and we have done the research and looked at the science on decision making. But when you have two people of that stature who decided that they wanted to come on the show, well, sometimes you got to make a little room and you got to fudge a few things. Well, I think what's been fun is obviously we've been decisive, decisive in leaving our careers to start this, decisive in our personal lives, but at the same time, trying to figure out the science of decision making, especially when it comes to hard decisions that we're all faced with, we are happy and excited to bring on those guests. Now, Dan Ariely and Eric Weinstein, both of them shared a lot of valuable insights into decision making. And if you haven't listened to them, we strongly recommend that you do. This toolbox, Johnny and I want to take a few of the concepts we touched upon in those interviews and dig a little deeper into them and of course, share some of our personal experience. We're going to talk about why decisions are hard and how that makes them a powerful tool for self development. Why do we feel regret and how can we turn it around to use it as a motivator for action? And lastly, we'll also look at an important but often overlooked parameter in the decision making process. Opportunity cost. And how can we eliminate it? It's a lot of stuff. So let's get started. Now, one item that both Dan and Eric mentioned was just how hard decision making is. Yeah. Now we had two experts on the science of decision making and they both admitted that they're not great at making tough decisions either. And I want to add to that. They're both incredibly intelligent people. And the smarter you are, the more variables that you have in your decision making, which makes it difficult. And Eric pointed out to us that a lot of the work he's done with math and computers, the decision tree is quite clear. Yes. The outcomes are obvious. But as we know, when it comes to socializing, the outcomes are not obvious. Decisions are not as clear cut. Well, this is something that we talk about in class and decision making socially, does it come to ones and zeros? It's not. The market norms, as Dan Ariely was talking about, it's the social norms. And what motivates us and what compels us to build deeper connections is human connectedness. And this is what's very important. There are no ones and zeros in that. There's only emotions. I was relieved to hear both of them say decisions are still hard. Yeah. We heard Eric even mention that he overanalyzes and he knows it. And here he's running a capital hedge fund. Yeah. Important decisions have to be made. And he still says it's tough for him. So why are decisions so hard? Well, number one, they have long lasting consequences. Yes. And for a lot of us, they could be pretty detrimental. I know one of the biggest decisions I ever had to make was quitting graduate school, leaving the PhD program at Michigan to start this company. And we're still figuring out if that was a good decision. Some days more than others. Right. And of course, we heard from Dan that we as humans go for the path of least resistance. And a lot of times that path of least resistance is do nothing. Don't make a decision. Indecision allows us to keep moving on. And that laziness inherent in all of us has created a situation that makes decision-making hard. Yeah. And also when it comes to the path of least resistance, it usually comes in the form of the pathways that have already been built. The patterns and decisions that you've made in the past are going to dictate what is going to be the easier path. And lastly, when it comes to making tough decisions, well, a lot of us are striving for perfection. We're maximizers. We're trying to get the best possible outcome. And unfortunately, when it comes to making big decisions, we're often dealing with incomplete information, not to mention cognitive distortions. In fact, we had a whole show on cognitive distortions, episode 704, actually. So check that out, bad houseguests, where we talk about these cognitive distortions and how big of a role they play in our decision-making process. But let's sort out some decisions that we make. There are certainly some easy decisions, and there are some hard decisions. And Michael put together a great thought experiment here involving Johnny and a candle. So pay close attention. Say I wake up in the morning, and I try to decide what to have for breakfast. So I go to the fridge and the house, I open it up, and there's exactly two items, a donut and a candle. Why is there a candle in the fridge? You're probably going to have to ask Johnny. I don't know what it's doing in there. But of course, do I eat this donut for breakfast, or do I eat this candle? Well, that's a pretty easy decision, right? I'm probably not going to eat the candle unless it's been a really long night. Now, let's say the decision changes. Let's say instead of it being a candle, it's a bagel. Oh, now we're talking. So you can see that easy decisions, we're comparing two things, it's clear cut, one has nutritional value, the other one doesn't. Now, a harder decision is going to be the bagel donut, right? I might be interested in savory, I might be interested in sweet. That decision now is going to create more cognitive processes for me. I have to figure out what is best for me to eat. And of course, if I was to compare that to leaving a PhD program, well, that's not quite as difficult of a decision, but you can see that there are gradations to the decisions that we make. And today's episode, we're going to start talking about how to make those hard decisions, those decisions that have lasting consequences. When it comes to a hard decision, well, typically both options are going to be good. Both options are going to have some benefits and some downsides. So the candle, zero nutritional value, easy decision. Bagel donut, now we're starting to get a little tougher because we have to start thinking through. Well, the donut, some nutritional value, probably not as good as the bagel, but they both have carbs and here in LA, we're trying to avoid carbs, getting ready for the Ragnar. So how do we deal with hard decisions? And Johnny's smiling because even he and I take different tasks when it comes to decision making. Certainly, and there's a lot to go into this and that's why I was really excited about this topic. There's also, the thing that Dan had, we had talked about is, and there's also emotions that are tied to these decisions and these emotions are connected to biases and the cognitive resources that you mentioned. And a lot of times, I think our emotions have already made the decision of I'm going to have that donut and now I'm going to rationalize logically why it is a decent choice over the bagel. And your rationalizations are based on your beliefs and your temperament. Yes. Different than my rationalizations and my beliefs and my temperament. And when you talk about the beliefs, this is what's great and this is why I love that we had the opportunity to talk to Eric. There is a narrative that you hold about yourself and that decision to have the donut or the bagel either fits in this narrative or it doesn't fit in this narrative. Well, let's say Johnny's trying to be keto. Exactly. Now, that hard decision of bagel donut, Johnny's like, I don't want either, right? Because of who Johnny is. So we're adding another criterion on here which is your personal background and decisions. And Johnny and I even look at decisions differently. Well, another point with this is if you, let's just say that between the bagel and the donut, if the bagel has a fits in your narrative and you choose the donut, right? Now, does that, having that donut, does it support the narrative that you have built for yourself or is it unsupportive of the narrative you have built for yourself? It's a great donut, so it's supportive. Well, then the narrative, the frame of this narrative becomes weakened when you're not doing it, when you're not deciding to exhibit actions or behaviors that support the narrative. And if you have a weak narrative, if you have a weak frame, well, then a lot of things are gonna be very difficult because you cannot put much faith into yourself and confidence into yourself to make the right decisions when in the past you have done things to not support the narrative that you've built for yourself. What about PhD versus entrepreneur? All right, let's add another layer on because bagel, donut, apple, those breakfast decisions are a little bit easier than something that has real long-term consequences. And you could imagine, to my family's dismay, the wrong decision in that scenario is gonna have social consequences, not just health consequences of a bagel versus donut. It certainly does. So when we're talking about decision-making, we have patterns that have created the ability for our mind to not have to make decisions about everything. You could imagine that if I woke up today and I had to decide whether or not to brush my teeth, whether or not to drink a cup of coffee, what I was gonna wear, what was I gonna start working on first, what my morning habit and routine would be, by lunchtime I would be just exhausted making decisions. Did you, so I mentioned it on the Dan Ariely episode that I had realized in doing the research for this, so I'm not really making any decisions well after a few hours. It's close to about three hours, four hours after I wake up, so I start making decisions that are gonna impact my day. Upon doing this episode, did you take notice of when you started actually kicking in on decisions that are gonna impact your day? So I realized that even the decisions I know I shouldn't be making, i.e. checking my email before my morning cup of coffee. So a decision that I would like not to make, I end up making because of these same patterns that have been built up, these routines. And that's what we're talking about. And we've heard the classic Mark Zuckerberg, Steve Jobs, and we even work with executive clients who do one-on-one coaching with Johnny and I for a year. And one of our recent clients is the CEO. And he says his entire job is to make tough decisions because all the easy decisions are made by everyone else in the company. So you could see the importance of creating routines that remove you having to make good decisions or bad decisions and really focusing your cognitive abilities on a few really important decisions every day. So we've talked about building habits, right? Habits allow us to not have to worry about willpower and all that good stuff. You build the right habits, you don't need to be motivated. They fall into those patterns and routines. This is what we can do if we are finding ourselves in indecision a lot. So if you tend to be a very indecisive person, the one thing to look at is what are the patterns and habits and routines that I've built up until this point? And are there things that I can do to take some of those decisions off the plate? There certainly is. Whether that's buying seven of the same shirt. So in the morning, you just go into the closet, you grab the same shirt, you don't have to worry about it, you wash all seven on Sunday and you're right back at it. Or it could be breakfast decisions, exercise decisions. All of these little decisions, sap our willpower, create decision fatigue. And Johnny hates indecision as we're gonna learn a little bit later in this episode, why he hates indecision. I understand the importance of decisions and I've been trying to hone my decision-making abilities. But one thing we wanna talk about is regret. We had a great discussion about regret with Dan Ariely and I think this is really what keeps a lot of us when we talk about those hard decisions. And yes, there's probably some regret tied to bagel doughnut, but there's a lot more regret tied to PhD entrepreneur in terms of decision. Certainly. Why? Because the long-term consequences of those and the social repercussions of that decision are a lot greater than what you had for breakfast in the morning. Now, what Dan pointed out to us was that regret only happens when there's action. Inaction doesn't lead to regret. Regret is when you make a conscious choice because then when you're making a conscious choice, you can look back and think, well, was that conscious choice a good one or not? And you can game it out and think that, oh, well, there would have been a better outcome. The grass is always greener. That is what's leading to regret. So you have to be consciously awoken to the fact that you have a decision to make. Right. And what was his trick? His trick was to avoid indecision, attach a timeline to every decision so that you're forcing yourself to think about that hidden cost, which is time. Now, when you put a timer on it, you have since given yourself a wall. So I want you, the listeners, to put yourself in this experiment and I want you to think about this. So let's say that you have three doors, decision door number one, door number two, and door number three. And you have now, you have to make that decision. Of course, you don't want to make the wrong one because there's consequences to not choosing the right door. Right. Now, every day you look at those three doors and you get flustered about it, you get frustrated. And let's just say after looking at it and if you say screw that, I'll do it tomorrow. And then tomorrow hits. And another day you're looking at all three and you can't really figure it out. So maybe you put it off again. Now, you realize because there's no deadline to make those decisions, you can continue to push that off. Now, once we put the deadline on it, that is a wall that you are half the face. Now, every day that you, there is indecision on your part. That time that is allotted that you had not made that decision becomes pressure. And now that pressure, every time the longer you take to make that decision, the more pressure that gets put on you. It's as if you were going under water. The farther you go down, the more pressure there's going to be. Now, for as long as you don't take that decision, time turns the pressure. Pressure then turns the stress. Stress now opens you up to immune system problems and cortisol and everything else that goes along with it. And now, right, you had there as health consequences to indecision. You are indecision. The sad part is we're wired, as we heard, for indecision because it lowers our perceived risk. So subconsciously, we view decisions and the potential for regret as carrying a risk. Oh, well, I will regret leaving graduate school to pursue this. I will regret letting down my family to pursue a podcast, whatever the case may be. And what ends up happening is that pushes you in an indecisive state. So what we're doing here is we're looking at regret and the impact that it has on our decision-making abilities. And oftentimes, regret is caused by us taking action. It's a conscious decision. I'm going to move in this direction and at some point, you may think back, well, maybe I should have moved in a different direction and all the what-ifs that go along with it. But that at least has moved you in a decisive state. Yes. That's where we wanna be. Yes. Because indecision comes with hidden costs that we struggle to often realize. Yes. Now, to go along with this, where you're looking at the three doors, the minute you choose, right, you've alleviated the pressure valve and now, as you were talking about decision, you are now in a position to prepare yourself for whatever outcome happens from the door that you've chosen. You can now prep yourself without making that decision. You're just getting pressure put on you. And this is why, if you're indecisive, especially with a long, a large choice, such as the one you had, this is when you're gonna be staring at the ceiling and you're not gonna have a moment of peace. It's always gonna be in the back of your mind. Your happiness always has to roll through that or constantly gets invaded by that thought of, hey, you may be happy now but you haven't made that decision yet. Hey, are you gonna make this decision? But as you said, the minute you choose, you are now moving forward. You're now in a decisive role and you can now start working towards the decision. Now, let's talk about the psychological immune system. Okay. So, Professor Dan Gilbert in his research showed that there is actually a twist to regret that we need to pay attention to here, okay? We now know that inaction, minimal regret, action leads to more regret, but there's regret in either case. And if we cause it through something we actively did and made a choice, then that regret's gonna feel stronger. The twist is, and Dan Gilbert was able to show that this is only true in the short term. And the long-term regret that we cause through our actions hurts less because of the effects of what Gilbert termed the psychological immune system. Before we talk about how that works, let's look at a simple example. So say that you have a rundown car that keeps breaking down. You can make the choice to keep it and every few weeks spend money on repairs, or you could use your savings to just buy a new one. Now, let's say that you decide to take action and buy that new car. But in a few weeks, it now starts breaking down as often as the previous car. Oh boy. Yeah, Johnny's getting a little stressed already. You'll have a lot of regret for making that choice, right? You had a car that was breaking down, you spent money and now you have the same result. But heading out to the car dealer, putting down your hard-earned money, buying that car, yes, there is regret there. That regret is going to be measurably stronger than the one you would have had through inaction, right? If you're sitting in the repair shop again waiting for your old car to get fixed once more and regretting that you didn't buy a new one, you're feeling regret. But here's what happens over the long term. When your brain's psychological immune system kicks in, it will work hard to turn that regret into a learning lesson. So that the next time you spend harder and money on a car, you'll actually do more research so that you don't end up with the same result. You'll bring a friend along who's a mechanic, you'll make sure you buy the extra warranty and so on. Your brain can actually learn from this mistake and it transforms that regret into a learning lesson. But it only works if that mistake was caused by action we took. And this is why we hate inaction so much. Because inaction causes regret and we don't realize that action may appear to cause regret too, but that regret can be turned into valuable life lessons through action. Inaction and the regret that's caused by inaction does not lead to lessons. I love this. So not only within decision are you dealing with stress and pressure and staying awake at night and dropping your immune system and everything else, you are also missing out on a learning opportunity. I mean, there is so much to be gained from going forward and it's difficult. We all understand because we don't wanna make the wrong choices and the reason being is we are living in such a market norm world as Dan Arioli was talking with us about through all the technology that we have. And with that, it's a lot of ones and zeros and there are clear right paths to choose from. But there's not always going to be clear cut right choices. And because of that, that makes it difficult and the more intelligent we are, the more variable there is going to be in that. And when there's not a clear right decision, this is where people start to break down because it's not given to them. It bears repeating that your psychological immune system can't turn regret from inaction into lesson. The only regret that gets turned into lessons is the regret that comes from action. There's nothing to be learned for the future and nothing to transform your regret into if it's inaction. In the end, our psychological immune system has a hard time when it tries to find credible and positive views of inaction. I mean, no one has ever said, I'm really glad I didn't do anything. I learned so much. I love it. You've never said that. We are always learning from action. And as we talked about, I would rather live a life filled with lessons than a life filled with regret. So I have this saying and I'm sure I've said it on this podcast before but it's one that I live by that has helped me out with this and it is clear what the advantages are and they're in these studies. And so this saying and I tried to look up where I heard it and see if I could find a source for it and I couldn't. It seems to many different people have said it but sometimes there are no right or wrong decisions. Only decisions you make right. And that saying, that bumper sticker so to speak has served me very well because when we go back to the door analogy, three doors, we don't have any information, either one of those that are going to be a clear cut choice. The longer I wait to make this decision, the worse I'm going to be even health wise because of that. But the minute I decide I can prepare myself, I can go into it. I know that I'm getting a lesson. I know that I'm going to get a great story to tell my friends about this situation that I've put myself in. And I'm also going to get experience points that always transfer to confidence points. And none of those things can be taken away. All three of those things make me a better person than when before I had made that decision. And so upon understanding that, this has led me to be and you've seen this in me that I'm a bit brash about things at times because I don't want to get too caught up in the weeds when there is a direction and ground to be made on some of these decisions. Now granted, sometimes that's hurt me as well, but in a health wise and just feeling safe, making those decisions blindly, but yet looking to get the most out of them has allowed me to feel very good. And it's certainly made the decision of moving to New York and jumping on board with the art of charm and creating the art of charm with you a very easy decision. And I think that's the ultimate point we're trying to make. Lessons over regrets, every day of the week. I would rather make the decision, take the action. It leads to a lesson that will allow me to not make the same mistake twice or at least not the third time, right? To be honest, we are a little thick skull as I'm sure a lot of our listeners know. And when we look back at our lives, some total of everything, right? And we talked a little bit about that Harvard study looking at happiness over time. Regret on your deathbed around inaction is the single greatest source of psychological pain and trauma. Regret and dwelling on indecision and inaction. So for those of you who are listening, feel like you're indecisive, feel like you've been mulling over decisions and just kicking that can down the road walking by those three doors every day and not choosing one. There is a cost in terms of your life's happiness and fulfillment around the actions you can turn into lessons versus the regret of inaction. Now there was another thing that we talked about and that was with Eric. Eric Weinstein, we talked about opportunity costs and how they are a parameter that also often gets overlooked when we talk about decision making. Yes. Put simply, these are all the things that you miss out on while you're waiting to make that decision. So your indecision has another cost associated with it and that's opportunity. So let's say you decide you want to lose weight and you're a maximizer, like someone who's probably listening to the show, I won't name any names. And you know, you want to have the best gym with the best trainers and what's been scientifically proven to get the best results and blah, blah, blah, blah. So you do all this research, you're trying out different gyms, you're going about and three months into your gym discovery journey, you've probably gained a couple pounds because you haven't stuck with anything and you still don't have a gym. Well, that research of reading reviews and trying to figure out what's the closest to your work and your home and the commute and all of that, that came with a hidden cost. That was the cost of time not spent in the gym, the less than perfect gym, lifting the weights that would lose the weight for you. That cost often gets dismissed, but guess what? In the end, that cost adds up over time. That is not something that you shouldn't think about. The opportunity cost of indecision is often a lot more expensive than we think. I think it's difficult for a very conservative thinker to look at decision and with all of the variables of what they can choose, but yet how does that one not play a role? How does the time being spent not moving in any direction come into the fold? I know for myself, when I realized the time that I had wasted on indecision and direction was, that was one of the reasons I had gotten into self-development. I didn't wanna be in limbo in life anymore. I was moving into my late 20s and I just felt that there was time was slipping through my fingers and I had not put a really good foothold in any sort of direction music wise. As I had mentioned on this podcast before, the industry at around the 2000s was almost unrecognizable of what I had grown up and wanting to be a part in. So it's like, I wanted to get moving, I wanted to get moving then and indecision was holding that back and we see it week after week after week of how many guys come through that there's always a few of them who are indecisive and that indecisiveness has held them back in their work, it's held them back in their friendships, it's held them back in their health and if you can catch that you have indecision in one area, it's probably in a few other areas. Spilling over in other areas. Now we talked about the time not spent in the gym working out in your search for the perfect gym but guess what? That opportunity cost also means the time you spent researching and reading Yelp reviews, you couldn't hang with your friends, you couldn't go on that trip, you couldn't spend a little extra time playing fetch with puppers. No, you were on the computer on Yelp trying to find the perfectly located gym that was equidistant between work and home that would guarantee that you got the best calorie burn, blah, blah, blah. And these hidden opportunity costs, for a lot of us, we're looking at it the wrong way, we're looking at the downside of a great decision, we're not thinking about the downside of indecision and that's why we wanted to bring it up and this is something that for me, I really hadn't faced until I became an entrepreneur. And one question we get all the time from our clients who followed the show a little bit, know the backstory of Johnny and I both leaving home, leaving our families, leaving the path that we thought was the right path for us and the question I always get is how did you make that decision? How did you make it? How did you decide to leave graduate school? And for me, in making that decision and the more I thought about it looking back, I looked at the pain long-term of me staying on this path that was in the moments that should be making me happy, making me miserable and thinking about is this misery gonna somehow turn around 10 years from now, 20 years from now, or is this misery just gonna continue to persist? And when I took the long view of it, right? Long after my family was disappointed in me, my friends questioned my sanity and all of that, but where have you 20, 30 years from now? Yeah. Adding that calculation in helped me make such a big decision career-wise. I'm glad you brought that up because the reason that we get asked that question all the time is there are plenty of people out there who are listening to show who are unhappy in the career path that they have chosen or that was chosen for them. And they're wondering, well, I've already spent X amount of years here, so shouldn't I just buckle in and just make the most of it one decision? Or do I bust out and pursue what I've always been interested in? Now, the other part that we're not talking about that people bring to that equation is they often come to us and look at our success and look at everything that we've built now and feel like, oh, these guys have it figured out. And I didn't make the decision, jump to New York and land on my feet running 100 miles an hour with yard of charm. No. I made the decision. The decision came with a lot of lessons, right? I went for freedom over having a boss and following a normal path. And along the way, I learned lessons about decision-making. I learned lessons about my medal. I learned lessons about putting in the work. And I wouldn't trade any of those lessons now. It's also made me more decisive. So if you're listening and you feel that you're struggling with indecision, you can start to move out of a place of indecision by starting to make more decisions. You can strengthen your decisive muscles. And I would say now, having left 12 years ago, these big decisions don't stress me as much as it stressed me 12 years ago. You get more comfortable with the whole process. And you also get more comfortable with comes with learning, which is embarrassment, shame, humiliation over dumb things or decisions that you made. But that's okay. In the long run, that's where the goal is. That's where you're gonna be learning. And at some point, it's like, for me, I was like, oh, I've been embarrassed enough in my life. What's getting embarrassed even more? Especially if it's coming with learning and in the path of me being an entrepreneur, in the path of me pursuing something that is going to allow me to feel fulfilled and excited every day when I wake up. I mean, that's an easy decision. What am I thinking about this now? One of my first lessons on opportunity costs. My dad, so my great uncle, he loved finding the cheapest gas in town. And gas prices fluctuate. Penny's on the gallon. I've been there with people who know that gas station or look for it. My dad would crack jokes all the time about the amount of time my uncle spent burning gas that he paid for to find cheaper gas. I think we all know those people. And that opportunity cost is baked into every decision or indecision we have. Now, what's also tied to opportunity costs? And we were laughing about this on the way over to the studio. So we hop in the Uber, and this happens occasionally. It was just one of those moments where the driver recognized us from the show. And I was like, funny enough, we're going to studio. So we're gonna be doing an episode on decision making. He's like, well, I loved your episode on procrastination. Guess what? Procrastination creates this exact thing that we're talking about. It creates opportunity costs. And procrastination and perfectionism are costing you. That's the bottom line. They're costing you time. They're costing you probably financially too from making these decisions. And when we start to realize that there are hidden costs and start to pay attention to these hidden costs, we can start to move in a direction of becoming more decisive. Now, of course, we'd love for you to check out episode 700, The Myth of Perfectionism, where we talk about this in detail, but we want to talk about something that Johnny brought up here, which is the process over the outcome, right? You understand as you start to move in a more decisive manner that strengthening your decision making skills and focusing on the process over the outcome allows you to alleviate, again, some of that regret that we're feeling. Now, this is where something you mentioned earlier that I want to make sure that we get to. My pet peeve of indecision comes in because I had done this work on myself. I did not want to be indecisive anymore. I saw all the areas in my life that that indecision was wreaking havoc. And you're not going to get a foothold in life and with yourself if you're indecisive. So I went through the process of getting better at that, putting together a narrative that I can now contribute behaviors and actions that are going to support and strengthen. And because of the work that I had done on myself, indecision is alarm bells in my life when I see it in other people. And it drives me through the roof because I can see all the other damage that it's causing to that person and they can't. But yet I can't say anything about it because I'm going to be Mr. High Horse or whatever. Because these things as decision-making are very innate to us as human beings. And we like to think that we have it figured out. And then for someone to point out such a flaw in your life and how it's permeated through other areas, that is nothing that you want exposed to from your buddy who's like, hey, look at, check this out. This is why everything in your life is falling apart. That is the case. Why you gotta go there, yeah. But because I had done the work on myself, when I see it around me, it freaks me out. And where I see it the most is in music. So of all the bands that I'm in and the recording process and like any art, like a painting, when you're in the studio, you can sit there and tweak and rewrite and turn knobs for years. And it's just never going to be done. At some point you have to say, this is a perfect picture in time and it's complete. And you have to let it go. But I have, and it's just with artists. Some artists can just, they cannot let go of things. Well, I know we've talked about some of your battles internally in your bands around what you thought is ready for public consumption. Many, many times over. It's where it aggravates me so much where I'll just leave the situation. Like, you know what? I'm done. You guys let me know when it's finished. And then, but yet they want me in the decision in that process. And I'm like, I'm not going to put myself here and drive myself nuts watching you guys. And so they get mad at like, oh, he's too good to be in here and do the work. No, the work was already done. What you guys are doing is twisting knobs and being perfectionists and putting expectations through the roof so that you, whatever happens here, it's never going to be done and it's never going to be good enough. And that is no way to go about something that you put so much work in creating. Oh, there's got to be nothing worse than having an archive full of songs that never get heard. Now, we talked about this with both Dan and Eric. And that is the ideal process versus the ideal outcome. Those of us who are struggling with indecision are looking for the perfect outcome. We are looking to maximize the outcome. The problem is decision making is not about the optimal outcome, it's about the optimal process. It sounds counterintuitive, but look, when you search for the ideal outcome, there are a few things that happen. The first is you need to be aware that you're always operating with incomplete information. I mean, we talked with Eric about this exact thing. Even when we think about the truth and our search for the truth, we have to think about the source of that information and the biases that they're bringing to the table. So we may think after spending two hours on Google and if you're Johnny on YouTube going through every review and every breakdown and every product video that we've somehow magically realized the optimal outcome, you don't have all of that information. In fact, we've heard this time and time again from our clients. They get excited about a job offer. Job offer seems amazing. It's a pay bump, it's new skills and the person who interviews them seems like a fantastic boss. So they're like, oh, this is an ideal outcome. This is a no-brainer. I'm gonna jump ship to this new job. Fast forward a couple months, that boss has left, the company's been bought out and actually what you sign to do is not what they're asking you to do because it's chaos internally. Now, obviously we would think, well, AJ had did all the research, I talked to everyone and I had all the information. You didn't. There is no ideal outcome. There's always, as Eric pointed out, there's going to be fog on the decision tree. There's going to be dragons around the corner as he called it. We are not able to game out the system because it's not a one in zero system. Now, there's also a lot of cognitive distortions we're dealing with. We talked about them in both episodes. You're driving across town to find that cheaper gas. Well, now all of a sudden, you're gonna be dealing with cognitive distortions. These cognitive distortions, we've covered in a few episodes. We don't realize that the decision-making process is not cut and dry. The best that we can do is make the decision. That's the important process we're looking for. Well, in the end, through your biases and the cognitive distortions, and this is what no one wants to hear, but it's the truth, that that decision is going to be made emotionally first. And then you're going to use your brain power to rationalize that decision so that you can logically get comfortable with it. Right, so you can feel good. So you can feel good. You're not often gonna realize the cognitive distortions that led you astray. How many people do we know, and we see it all the time when it comes to our, the boot camps and the core confidence, there are people who love to think that they have been able to separate themselves logically and emotionally. And I don't care how on the spectrum you are, it's that these decisions, you are so incredibly wrapped up emotionally and everything that's going on. And the other thing that is really important is it's difficult to grasp how easily influenced you are and just every all the stimulus around you that is influencing you all the time. And we've just now tried our best to uncover all of the spin that's going on. And we're still not to the bottom of it, whether we're being targeted on social media based on our preferences of the data we gave them or we're being led astray by the biases of where we're getting our information, we are being spun and we don't even realize it. We don't even realize it. And one of the things that Eric brought up that I have been thinking about, but I never had any context around it. And when he brought it up, I was like, well, that is a real thing, which is the professional wrestling spin. The way that they were able to get these storylines that are so emotionally charged that sucks everybody in. For myself, it's just this drama, so I can't deal with it. Did you ever have a period in your life where you enjoyed professional wrestling? Of course. Yeah, so that's the fun part for me now. That's the funny part for me now. Now, I can't even watch it. Like, I know it's like going to see a magic show after you've learned all of the secrets. Do you have friends who love it? Absolutely love it. And I do too. And I've asked them, and I was like, listen, don't take offense to it. I'm just kind of curious, what is it? Why? And when they explained their attachment to it, it still doesn't work for me. And listen, it's different strokes for different folks. We all have our things that we nerd out in. However, the allure and its magnitude and its effectiveness is insane. It is, I can't even put together a good enough word that encapsulates just how influential it is to everything that's going on. So ideal process is more important than ideal outcome. Why? The three pitfalls, as we said. The first is, you are always going to have incomplete information. The second is, you're probably in your search for the ideal outcome, not taking into consideration your own cognitive biases. And we talked about this, how much we loved the Sam Harris interview with Daniel Kahneman about this exact thing. Because Sam asked him, point blank, has this made you a better decision maker? And he said, no. Because just raising awareness around cognitive biases does not make you immune to them. That is, and I was so happy that he was able to admit that. Because that is a difficult thing to admit. And it's almost saying that I don't have any control. Well, yes, you do. And you can be, and you can. But I think also, the more you're willing to admit that you are influenced and have these biases is when you can actually break free of them a little bit and use them in the context of the decision making, rather than being completely maneuvered by them. And the third pitfall of searching for your ideal outcome is exactly what we talked about with Dan Ariely. You will default to no action and no decision. And that's the third hidden pitfall. So you're always going to have incomplete information. You're always fighting cognitive biases and oftentimes, in your search for ideal outcome, you're going to end up doing nothing, which is why we prefer you focus on the ideal decision making process, whether that's creating an artificial deadline like we heard from Dan. You know, it's funny. I mentioned that. I got engaged. And we've started the wedding planning process. Oh, yes, you have. And when everything kicked into high gear, when we finalized the date. Sure. When you create that timeline, you create a dynamic that forces you to make decisions. We can't hymn and haw about the caterer. It's happening. We can't hymn and haw about the entertainment. It's happening. So the date created a timeline that allowed us to make more decisions faster. That's why I really enjoy when rather than making the right decision, you're making the decision right. So you've now chosen, you're going to put now all of your efforts, which is your cognitive efforts, your biases, your framing of the situation. You are now in control of all of that. And you can make it your own. If you don't make that decision, you don't have that power. And that power is what's going to allow you to derive the most value out of that decision that you could possibly get. I could have said it better. That's exactly where we need to be. Now, the problem with all of this is we are so focused on the outcome. That's the whole reason we make decisions. It's tough for us to separate out the process. But as you start to look at the process again and again, you realize that if you focus and put emphasis on the process, decisions become easier, and you're searching for ideal outcomes, no longer stresses you out. And that's the thing that we talked about. The stress that comes along with maximizing, with trying to find the perfect solution, the optimal outcome, is just not worth it. And we also need to talk about feedback loops. Or as Eric put it, the tuition from the market. What a perfect Eric way to put that. You're only going to learn based on the feedback. There is no feedback from inaction. It's the same you've always been getting. So in order to improve, you need that feedback loop, which means you need to start making more decisions. And it's going to start to strengthen your decision-making process. Well, this comes back to something where everyone can relate to this, myself included. It's when we put off decision-making till certain things are done. And you can always kick the can down the road. But at the end of the day, that damage, what we've already discussed, to your mental stability is going to be there. And we say, oh well, I'll deal with this job situation after I get the raise. Or I'll deal with this job situation after the wife and I quit fighting. Or I'll deal with this situation after. That, once again, we're setting up in decision because of the fear of making that wrong decision. And listen, it's there constantly. I mean, even when we took over the show as hosts, there was a lot of pushback. You're not going to be able to live up to the old host. You're not going to have a good show. You're not going to be as competent. And guess what? We weren't. We didn't have 10 plus years experience at the helm of being a host. But guess what? We started to get better when we started to hit record. Hopefully, those of you who've been tracking along would agree that we've gotten better. But that feedback loop has been important. Had we sat there and in decision said, you know what? We're not going to be as good. The show's going to suck. It's not going to be fun. You wouldn't be listening. We'd be frustrated. We'd be thinking, oh man, what could have been? Well, that feedback loop is something that, you know, when Eric was talking about it, the first thing he asked us, I can't remember if the tape was rolling or not, but he had asked us if we read our comments. Right? And that's a double-edged sword. Of course, you want to remove yourself from them because it's just anonymous trolls just having at it. But at the other side of that is, how are you able to look for anything that is helpful in order for you to get better? And to his point, I laugh when Rogan and him are arguing about those comments where he's like, I like to read them. He's able to remove himself from it. But I think it's certainly harsh for anybody to go through a YouTube comments page and come out of that with any semblance of sanity and direction. Well, listen, it's any skill that you're trying to put it together, whether it's posting a podcast like this, we need to pay attention to the feedback loop with the listeners or it's decision-making. That tuition from the market is gonna strengthen that skill for you. So understanding that we're not gonna become better decision-makers by reading all the books, by watching every YouTube video, as Johnny does every single night and trying to suss out all of the best process, you need the experience to allow yourself to get better at decision-making. And that first decision of leaving graduate school, that was a painful decision. There was moments of regret. There was moments of jubilation. But after going through that decision, realizing that the downside was not nearly as bad as I thought, my family came back around and hopefully if they're listening, they still love me. And also realizing that, hey, there's a world of opportunity when I become more decisive, right? It creates freedom. It creates opportunity to be decisive. Many of us are walking around in the indecisive shackles. We're not realizing the hidden opportunity cost to being indecisive. We might be soothing our nerves in the short term, but long term, we're creating a load of regret. And think about in the decision-making, there's only so many things that you are actually able to control. And to bring in into that process a bunch of things that you're unable to control, only clouds, it only clouds your attempt to make a quick decision and get moving. Now, how do we tie all this together? We've talked about regret coming from inaction and regret coming from action. We've also talked about procrastination and that creates opportunity cost. So we wanna propose a mindset shift. We want you to make it a rule to include as many feedback loops as you can into everything you do. And how do you include feedback loops? By taking action. The more action you take, the more feedback you're gonna get, the more it's gonna be able to guide you onto the right track. When you remove the feedback loops and you remove the action from the equation, we're going to struggle. And as our coach, Michael says, and this is early on in the core confidence program, he asks, when did you last fuck up? And it's funny, but a lot of people reply, I don't. Yeah. And you sit there and go, what do you mean? But look, that's more of a curse in disguise than a blessing. To say I don't fuck up is not a blessing, is not where you wanna be. And you need to ask yourself, why am I not making mistakes? That's a problem. Is it because you always get everything right on the first try? I doubt it. Or is it because, well, you're not really putting your neck out there. You're not really stepping into the arena. Well, that's where life comes in. A vibrant and joyful and interesting life is riddled with mistakes and wrong decisions because you're outside of your comfort zone going for it in uncharted territory, making new stories. If you don't wanna make mistakes, then you're just going to sit home and do nothing. And for everyone who likes to think, well, I'm boring, okay, that's an ease. That's, first of all, that's a choice in and of itself to be bored in this day and age. That's an easily rectified sensation. We have plenty of information for you there. Failure, whether it's in the decision-making process or in life in general, is a part of the equation. And when you say, I haven't made mistakes, I don't make mistakes, I don't fuck up, I don't fail, you're telling us that you're not trying. And we would rather you shift to taking action, going after the tuition from the market and getting it sooner rather than later because guess what, tuition goes up. And as we know recently, tuition's rising faster than inflation. That market tuition of indecision leads to greater tuition on the whole when you finally enter the market. And as we've found, you do get better. You get better with decision-making, you get better with hosting podcasts, you get better the more action you take. You don't get better through indecision and inaction. And here's the bottom line. The decisions that matter and are important to us are the decisions we care about. If your decision wasn't important to you, you wouldn't care. We wouldn't be doing a podcast about that decision. And it might sound obvious at first, but think about that for a second. The reason that we put so much effort into the decisions that we make is that we really care about the outcome. If you didn't care about your health, well, you wouldn't bother finding the right gym and figuring out what's the right thing to eat. If you didn't care about your relationships, well, you wouldn't worry about finding a partner, trying to get engaged. And if you didn't care about your purpose or taking care of your family, then finding the perfect job really wouldn't be an issue for you. And Dr. Stephen Hayes and us discuss this at length. Crave in our episode 754, Why Craving Pain is Human. In situations that matter, they matter because we care. And it's okay to care about the outcome, but we want you to focus on the process. And the more you focus on the process, the better the outcomes become. So here's our challenge for you this week, and it's a bit of a scary one. Find an area of your life that you are currently working on and ask yourself about how you can double or even triple the amount of feedback that you're getting. Remember, acquiring knowledge is only part of the equation. The other is getting the tuition from the market. That feedback to course correct and to accelerate the process. Let us know, we're always excited to hear from you about these challenges. You can send us your thoughts by going to theartofcharm.com slash questions. You can also email us at questionsattheartofcharm.com or find us on social media at theartofcharm. And we got a few shout outs this week. First off, thanks to our Uber driver soon who got us here on time to record this and enjoying the show. Hope you enjoyed this decision-making episode. We got a shout out here from Rachel. Hi, AJ and Johnny, my name is Rachel. I've been listening to your podcast for about three years. I cannot tell you how many episodes I listened to that pointed to the fact that I was not in a good relationship and I should get out. Then I heard the podcast on toxic relationships and it finally hit home that I was in a very toxic relationship of 12 years and I had to get out. I did get out and my sister helped me through all the days where I was tempted to go back. Getting out of that relationship was the easy part. Staying out of the relationship was and is the most difficult part. But we share a child and I continue to have to interact with him and he could be very persuasive but I'm sticking to my decision. This experience is teaching me to have a backbone and to be my own person. I couldn't be happier with my new life with gratitude for all you do for my sister, her kids and me, Rachel. Not an easy decision. Those decisions are never easy. The process is more important than the outcome and we're already seeing having a backbone becoming her own person has made her happier. Yes. Last shout out here, Roommate Talks. Check them out. My roommate and I have been listening to y'all's podcast for a little while now and we decided that we want to start our own show. RM8 Talks or Roommate Talks as they're calling it just like y'all too best buds spreading words of wisdom, fitness, creativity and fun for college. We figured that we could impart what we've learned in the last few years of college to others like us. Their motto is a podcast by college kids for college kids so check them out. They're currently on all of your streaming platforms including Spotify, Roommate Talks. Shout out to you all. I'm so happy that we're helping our listeners make big decisions, huge changes in their life and have some fun starting a podcast. Absolutely. How amazing is that? That just warms my heart. Also, could you do us in the entire Art of Charm team a big favor? That's right. We need help with the feedback loops. Absolutely. We appreciate and read all those feedback loops. Could you go over to iTunes and rate this podcast? It would really mean the world to us. The Art of Charm podcast is produced by Chris Holland and Michael Harold and engineered by Danny Luber and Bradley Denham at Cast Media Studios in sunny downtown Hollywood. I'm Johnny. I'm AJ. And we'll see you next week.