The Art of Manliness - How to Make a Big Decision (Faster!)

00:00:00.000 brett mckay here and welcome to another edition of the art of manliness podcast

00:00:11.120 making big decisions can feel paralyzing whether it's choosing a new job moving to a different

00:00:16.540 city or deciding if you should break up with someone these choices can keep you agonizingly

00:00:20.820 stuck forever cycling through pros and cons my guests can help you finally choose and move

00:00:25.180 forward because that's what she does for a living nell wolfhardt is professional decision coach who

00:00:29.720 has all her clients reach a decision within a one-hour session today in the show she explains

00:00:33.980 why people get stuck when faced with big choices while we often take way longer than we need to

00:00:38.260 to make a decision now this actually makes our lives worse nell then walks us through two practical

00:00:43.380 exercises she uses with her clients to home in on the right option and shares her tips on overcoming

00:00:48.100 the paralysis that often intends making a big decision as well as how to deal with the regret

00:00:52.240 that inevitably comes with making tough choices maybe by the time our hour together is over you'll

00:00:56.820 finally have made the big decision that's been weighing on your mind after the show is over

00:01:00.520 check out our show notes at awim.is decide all right nell wolfhardt welcome to the show thanks so

00:01:17.860 much brett i'm excited to be here so you are a decision coach you help people make decisions how did you

00:01:23.940 become a decision coach because it doesn't seem like it's something you go to school for not yet

00:01:28.520 anyway i basically have always been the person that friends and family came to for help making a

00:01:34.680 decision because i'm very decisive i'm very opinionated and i'm a real straight talker but the

00:01:41.560 problem is that when a lot of people ask you for advice you find yourself giving advice constantly

00:01:46.280 it's just like i can't keep it in my mouth and uh eventually one of my friends very kindly and gently

00:01:52.020 said please stop telling me what to do maybe other people could use this service and it turns

00:01:59.180 out that they can people i've discovered have a really hard time making decisions and it's nice to

00:02:03.760 have a completely neutral third party to help you figure out what to do so how did you just put out

00:02:08.620 your shingle on the internet and say hey you can hire me to help you to make decisions that how it

00:02:12.380 happened that's exactly right and this is advice i give to people all the time i think a lot of people

00:02:16.980 don't realize how easy it is to start a business but you can just put up a website and tell people

00:02:21.420 that you're offering this thing and boom you have a business there yeah their first lesson they're

00:02:25.720 making decision if you want to start a business just do something oh god i i give that advice

00:02:30.380 constantly so you specialize in helping people make major decisions they typically come to you when they

00:02:36.760 got a really hard decision and they're having a hard time figuring out what to do what kinds of

00:02:42.540 decisions do people have the toughest time making and you see frequently in your line of work i think

00:02:48.380 there's like four major areas one is usually a career decision like somebody gets a job offer and

00:02:54.160 they're not sure if they should take it or not the second one is relationships usually should i break up

00:03:00.200 with this person the third one is should i have a kid and the fourth one is where should i live so

00:03:07.260 those are the four major topics and usually the decisions i help people with are pretty life-changing

00:03:12.180 but i have also helped people pick what novel idea to work on what color to paint their kitchen

00:03:18.140 whether they should get a tattoo removed like basically the whole spectrum anything you can

00:03:23.700 imagine i've probably helped somebody choose it so i imagine by the time people come to you for help

00:03:29.500 they've probably spent hours and hours maybe weeks trying to figure out what they're supposed to do

00:03:37.420 and they're probably on the internet and asking google and going to reddit and maybe now they're

00:03:42.260 asking chat gpt they are right and they're clearly stuck on this decision because they're coming to a

00:03:48.440 stranger on the internet for help how do they describe why they're stuck well first of all i would say

00:03:57.740 that people actually come to me often after months or even years of trying to make the same decision

00:04:03.140 i know and honestly this breaks my heart because i just want people to make decisions faster this is

00:04:08.760 like something that they will put on my tombstone i say it so often so people are stuck because

00:04:15.680 they are afraid of making the wrong decision and they are terrified of feeling regret so you know

00:04:23.440 basically we're all like this we're trying to avoid you know bad feelings or uncomfortable feelings

00:04:28.140 right and that is the thing that holds them back from making any kind of choice because when you

00:04:33.120 leave all the doors open then you get to still like feel good about all the options you don't have to

00:04:38.900 make a decision maybe it doesn't work out and then you beat yourself up and you feel like a loser

00:04:42.760 honestly it's all about the fear of feeling bad yeah i imagine like fomo fear of missing out you feel

00:04:48.940 like if you make a decision you're giving up you're losing a path like you grieve maybe the loss of

00:04:53.840 those possibilities you once had exactly like then by the time people come to me to make a decision

00:04:59.760 because they have spent so long weighing the pros and cons of each decision and have they've had the

00:05:05.280 same conversation with themselves in their head for like you know weeks or months or years and they're

00:05:09.820 just so intimately familiar with all the good parts of both choices that it makes it even harder to

00:05:15.880 make a decision because they know exactly what they're giving up and what they're missing out on

00:05:19.760 do you find that when people come to you they already know what decision they want to make but

00:05:27.120 they just can't consciously acknowledge it and your job is to kind of help them crystallize something

00:05:31.100 they already you know on some level know oh totally it's not universal it's not for every client but

00:05:39.240 i would definitely say that there's something in them like they're leaning towards a certain option

00:05:44.500 and my job is literally just to converse with them ask them lots of questions and sort of you know

00:05:50.220 yank that answer out of them and then basically it's just me writing them a permission slip a virtual

00:05:57.040 permission slip no one has yet asked me for a paper permission slip but a permission slip to go ahead

00:06:02.220 and do the thing that they wanted to do so they know but they don't know that they know right i imagine

00:06:08.080 this is particularly the case with people who come to you to ask whether they should break up with

00:06:12.720 someone i mean if you're at the point that you have to ask a decision coach on the internet if you

00:06:17.880 should break up you should probably break up with that person yes i always feel like i'm sort of

00:06:23.800 putting myself out of business by saying this but it's true if you're at the point where you are

00:06:28.200 thinking about calling a stranger on the internet to tell you whether or not to end your relationship

00:06:33.320 nine out of ten times the answer is going to be yes yeah you push your clients that come to you

00:06:39.980 to make a decision within like just in a one-hour session is it possible to make a big life-changing

00:06:46.580 decision in an hour well by the time people get to me as you said before they've usually been mulling

00:06:53.300 this decision for quite a long time on their own so we always make the decision in the hour like

00:06:58.480 every single time like nobody leaves a session without a decision because exactly you know they've

00:07:04.380 spent so much time thinking about this and debating and maybe asking their friends and family or

00:07:08.760 asking google or whatever that they need to need to take some kind of action any kind of action and

00:07:14.980 move forward and you know a lot of people have asked me why don't you offer more sessions i think

00:07:20.340 i'm going to need like three sessions to get through this decision but i don't even let them do that

00:07:24.800 because the whole point is that you make the decision and you take action and honestly no matter

00:07:29.900 what the decision is just taking that action is going to be better than continuing to debate and

00:07:36.020 wonder and mull and agonize you know yeah i mean i think intuitively people think if you're making a

00:07:41.440 really big decision like it's smart to spend a lot of time thinking about it and doing calculations

00:07:48.580 but typically i mean most times it's just the best thing you do just make a decision and move on

00:07:53.100 a hundred percent and like i'm not saying take no time to make your big decisions definitely you should

00:07:58.760 take some time but i think people probably take oh usually i say you should think about how long you

00:08:05.920 need to make a decision like i don't know you get into grad school and you're trying to decide if you

00:08:09.940 should go maybe you think you need like three months to make that choice so i tell people to take that

00:08:15.400 approach to every decision figure out your deadline and then cut it in half give yourself half that

00:08:20.100 amount of time to make the decision because it's not going to actually impact the quality of the

00:08:24.280 decision and then you get all the rest of that time back i mean honestly i would say 10 is enough

00:08:31.140 like 10 of the time you think you need to make a decision is sufficient for making a good decision

00:08:35.420 but that really scares people so i bumped it up to 50. all right so that's interesting so the quality

00:08:40.660 of decision making isn't linked to the amount of time spent making it again i'm not saying like

00:08:45.720 make a huge decision like have a kid just overnight wake up and move forward with it like definitely

00:08:50.600 not take some time think about it but i have found that for most people like the vast majority of

00:08:55.760 people and the vast majority of decisions that taking longer to make it makes it harder to make

00:09:02.780 the decision and it really makes your life worse while you're making the decision you know for a lot

00:09:08.980 of people there's one decision that they they wake up at three o'clock in the morning and it pops into

00:09:13.160 their brain they're taking a shower and they're still thinking about it like these decisions really take over

00:09:17.900 your life and they suck a lot of energy out of it and they think all that thinking is productive it's

00:09:23.060 getting them somewhere but i think a lot of it is kind of a waste of time one of the most interesting

00:09:28.520 classes i took in college and i think about it i still think about it it's like been over 20 years

00:09:33.620 i took a class on the philosophy of decision making and we talked about different ways people humans make

00:09:39.640 decisions we talked about heuristics we talked about really complicated ways people make decisions

00:09:44.100 there's like this thing called the multi-attribute optimization chart where you you create these charts

00:09:50.200 and then you give weighted um ratings to the different things then you kind of add it up and

00:09:54.380 like but i remember one thing that my that stood out to me my philosophy professor said oftentimes

00:09:59.080 people like the most important decisions you make like whether you should get whether you should

00:10:02.960 marry someone whether you should have a kid he says those are actually going to be your easiest

00:10:06.360 decisions typically for most people it's like i didn't really think much about whether i should

00:10:10.100 marry my wife and i didn't do a multi-attribution optimization chart to figure out whether i should

00:10:13.900 marry my wife i was like yeah i love her so romantic we're getting married you know um and i i think

00:10:19.900 about that a lot i mean i read all that stuff like i read all the research that comes out on decision

00:10:24.820 making i read all the books that people write on decision making i think about yeah the waiting and

00:10:29.780 the decision trees and the blah blah blah but honestly i think for most people that stuff is so

00:10:35.520 unhelpful like first of all it's basically you have to learn something in order to even start it it's

00:10:41.540 sort of like you know getting into notion or something like that like the learning curve is

00:10:45.820 quite high and um then it just it kind of extends the decision making process i think in in an unhelpful

00:10:53.900 way for me all those things i mean i love a pro and cons list but that's kind of as far as i'll go i

00:10:59.860 think like the weighting of the options and the decision trees and all these different things for most

00:11:04.660 people are not that helpful i think it's just kind of a way to like keep working at the problem and

00:11:10.080 working at the problem and working at the problem and probably you figured out the answer to the

00:11:14.480 problem like way before you even started creating this tree yeah and i i've i've done these things

00:11:19.460 before these weighted optimization charts and the thing i found it gets unhelpful because like

00:11:24.600 decisions there's so many factors and then once you start thinking about it like oh there's actually

00:11:29.400 more factors than i originally thought right right so like you know just trying to figure out whether

00:11:33.900 you're going to move somewhere it's like well okay it's a great job um i'm going to move there

00:11:37.620 but then you're like well wait a minute like what's the commute like what's the cost of living

00:11:41.820 what's the schools like what's the weather what's all and then i find i just start getting more and

00:11:47.780 more muddled when i start doing that right exactly and honestly i coach people on that exact thing all

00:11:53.800 the time like a lot of um couples sometimes with kids who are thinking about moving from one place to

00:11:59.420 another place and it's really complicated right there's schools there's jobs there's temperature

00:12:04.400 there's cost of living um like the factors go on and on and on and yeah it's really hard for them to

00:12:10.240 make the decision in some cases they have literally been talking about moving from one place to the

00:12:14.960 second place for years and they've never sort of like fully committed so they're always one foot in

00:12:20.440 one foot out and my solution to that is to just pair way way back like instead of making this huge list

00:12:27.660 of every single factor and try to figure out like this or that or the other thing like let's just pick

00:12:32.460 the three things that are most important and figure out which place is going to take those three boxes

00:12:36.740 like that's more or less it you know the other stuff you could spend well like i said five years

00:12:42.840 trying to weigh them all against each other and i just don't think that's helpful i think it's

00:12:47.120 easier just to have moved somewhere and you know what worst case scenario you can usually just move

00:12:51.440 back yeah it sounds like as i'm listening to you you're taking a very okay my listeners are probably

00:12:57.800 like oh my gosh brett's bringing up this guy again one of my favorite philosophers kierkegaard

00:13:02.000 soren kierkegaard and he's like you just got to make the decision take the leap of faith like you

00:13:07.460 can't figure it out you can't do all this deliberation you just got to just make the decision and that

00:13:13.300 gives you the ultimate freedom like you just have to make the choice i think that point of like

00:13:18.080 that gives you the ultimate freedom is like that's exactly it like trying to make a decision

00:13:23.540 is so exhausting it's so limiting and honestly it gets really boring after a certain point oh yeah

00:13:29.860 and yeah i feel like for most people they forget that a lot of decisions are reversible you know

00:13:35.280 like you get so caught up in like say a job offer that it becomes like the only thing in your world

00:13:40.500 that it's like do i take the job offer do i stay in my job do i take the job offer do i stay in my job

00:13:44.240 and you forget that like oh you could take the job offer and if it doesn't work out then you'll

00:13:49.560 find another job like the most likely worst case scenario in these situations is not you're going

00:13:54.980 to end up living in your car or in prison yeah like the worst case scenario is that you're going

00:14:00.480 to end up in a job that you don't like very much and if you're looking for other jobs you might

00:14:05.400 already be in that scenario yeah i want to talk more about this later on about the reversibility

00:14:10.780 decisions i think that's a really it's a release valve or an escape valve that can help people

00:14:15.080 actually make a choice let's talk about kind of what a session looks like with your clients

00:14:20.580 and something you do is you give your clients two exercises one is to make a list of their values

00:14:27.120 so what kind of values are you talking about here okay i'm not talking here about like religious values

00:14:33.960 or like corporate values whatever those are i'm really talking about just the things that

00:14:40.320 make your everyday life good so for me that's not setting an alarm in the morning that's having

00:14:47.200 total control over my physical body like where it is what it's wearing what it's eating not to be you

00:14:53.500 know sitting in a place that somebody told me to be in at a certain time you know getting to wear

00:14:58.400 sweatpants every day is very important to me getting a lot of sleep you know time with friends and

00:15:02.980 family etc etc so it's really just about thinking about the way you like to live your life and the

00:15:08.340 things that make you happy for some people it's like financial security for other people it's

00:15:12.760 autonomy for other people it's like getting to spend all day with my dogs it doesn't really matter but

00:15:18.100 just to think about your your daily life and the things that make it feel good have you found that

00:15:21.920 there are values that people underestimate as to how much effect they'll have on their day-to-day

00:15:26.240 happiness yes number one is community spending time with other people i find that for so

00:15:32.760 many people community is the thing that they always bump to the bottom of the list like it just

00:15:37.080 doesn't get that much importance in their lives but you know people are lonely they are too lonely

00:15:42.520 they're way too isolated they don't see enough adults outside you know the adults that they live

00:15:47.500 with like even on a weekly basis and so many people feel this way so i often give the advice that like

00:15:54.660 working on your community and maybe seeing one friend a week is might be the the single thing that

00:16:00.960 you could do that would most quickly improve your quality of life any other ones there are some

00:16:07.080 that i think are kind of significant for certain people like when i see autonomy on a list of values

00:16:13.420 that is often very highly correlated i've found with people who want to be self-employed like who should

00:16:19.700 eventually be entrepreneurs of some kind or freelancers there's just a very high correlation between those

00:16:25.220 two things i also think not enough people put fun on the list of values i think fun should be

00:16:30.400 quite high on most people's lists i think so too i agree so in previous conversations i've heard you

00:16:35.680 know preparing for this interview that you've had with other podcasters you talked about some of your

00:16:39.800 values you mentioned something like not dressing up for work not having a set schedule

00:16:42.900 warm weather is important to you yes but you're in switzerland right now how's the weather in switzerland

00:16:48.740 actually right now it's pretty hot because we're talking in the summer but it's true i mean you can't

00:16:54.360 always get a hundred percent of the things on your list but i moved to switzerland for my partner's job

00:16:59.160 and i would say that my partner is higher on my list of values than warm weather so okay so there is

00:17:04.680 some there's some multi-attribute optimization going on not all not very complicated but you do have to

00:17:09.380 wait wait these things i encourage people at the maximum to put them in order of priority if they can

00:17:15.400 but it is also something that's really hard for people to do you know and sometimes it causes them

00:17:19.680 additional stress trying to figure that out so sometimes that's just something that emerges in

00:17:23.720 the course of our session okay so you want to know your values because you want to choose the option

00:17:28.120 that's most in line with them something you've said is that when you make a decision that's not in line

00:17:34.180 with your values you're just taking a shortcut to unhappiness yes yes and that is like really true i talk to a lot of

00:17:42.060 people in bad situations and then when we go through their values it's like oh this this is why you're

00:17:48.180 not happy the life you're living is like totally out of alignment with the things that are really

00:17:53.080 important to you it's it's not rocket science yeah well speaking about if you're making a decision and

00:17:58.540 you have a partner involved it's like the case of you moving to switzerland what do you do if you're

00:18:03.160 making a decision that affects both you and your partner or also your kids and your values

00:18:09.960 don't line up with your partner's values like how do you figure that out i encourage people to

00:18:16.720 often do that values exercise like as a family you know it doesn't have to be like two or four

00:18:21.700 people's individual lists and they all value different things it's like what are the things

00:18:25.660 that are important to us as a team as a group as a couple and to work from there you know and also

00:18:31.940 a lot of parents are making big decisions that of course like affect their kids like moving to a new

00:18:36.940 location and they you know respect their kids opinions and they want to make sure their kids

00:18:40.900 are happy and thriving etc etc but in the end you know the parents are the deciders and they get to

00:18:47.080 make the choice yeah so a few years ago my wife wrote an article called the 90-10 rule and it's about

00:18:53.220 figuring out where to move and the idea is that whenever we're thinking about moving we sometimes

00:18:59.380 just hone in on this one factor that sticks out in our mind but it doesn't really affect the majority

00:19:04.520 of our life so your example is you decide to move further out of the suburbs because you want a

00:19:09.220 bigger house uh you know you want a guest room or something like that but you only end up using that

00:19:13.640 guest room just a few times a year so that's like that's that's 10 of your life but in the process of

00:19:19.120 moving further out in the suburbs like you've doubled your commute every day to work and that's

00:19:22.940 part of the 90 of your life you're really going to feel that's going to affect you another example is

00:19:27.700 that you decide to move out to colorado because you love the mountains so you move out there

00:19:33.060 and the problem is you only go to the mountains just a few times a year so it's just like 10% of

00:19:37.840 your life and then the rest of that 90% is your kids school your house doing errands it's part of

00:19:44.420 that 90% and maybe colorado isn't as good for that so basically you want to make a decision that

00:19:51.560 prioritizes the things that affect your life in the biggest portion of your day-to-day life not just

00:19:57.540 one factor that might stick out to you the most so you just don't want to focus too much on that 10%

00:20:02.720 and then the rest of your life is terrible this is so common and I have a lot to say about this

00:20:08.660 yeah so when I'm doing a session with someone I always start off by asking them just like some

00:20:13.620 general background information and I always ask them what they do for fun because I do think it's

00:20:17.920 really important like if you're making a big decision it's going to impact every aspect of

00:20:22.500 your life and so it's important to think about you know how the decision will change each of those

00:20:27.600 parts of your life and the values exercise kind of goes along with this because if someone says like

00:20:33.100 I hate commuting or I like to spend a lot of time with my family and they're considering a job that's

00:20:37.820 going to be like 60 hours a week plus a two-hour drive like okay we can see that there is a real

00:20:43.800 mismatch here so the whole idea is to take a 360 degree view of your life not just focus on like

00:20:49.680 the number one value or the number one priority yeah I also think this is really funny that your

00:20:55.600 wife came up with this 90-10 rule because I just wrote a newsletter with my own 90-10 rule

00:21:00.440 about how I think that most people when they're making a big decision most of you are like 90%

00:21:06.760 of the way decided and you make that 90% decision like very quickly but it's the last 10% it's like

00:21:13.940 it's a getting to moving forward the getting to action part the last 10% that I think really

00:21:19.360 bogs people down so there's a lot of 90-10 rules out there yeah it's that last mile effect that's

00:21:25.140 usually the hardest mile yeah it's just like because it feels so irrevocable I guess and just

00:21:30.220 be able to to take that final step and actually put the decision into action that's where a lot

00:21:34.040 of people get like totally paralyzed okay so the first exercise list out your values but the values

00:21:39.540 thinking about are just like the day-to-day stuff that affects you on a day-to-day basis that have a

00:21:44.300 big impact so weather commute spending time with friends and family autonomy things like that like

00:21:51.020 those are the things you think about prioritize them and then if you're married or have a family

00:21:55.000 maybe do that together so you can kind of get on the same page the second exercise you recommend is

00:22:00.340 to imagine your ideal life one five and ten years in the future you know I've tried this type of

00:22:07.400 exercise before and I think for me imagine your future life can be hard because you're trying to

00:22:12.040 figure out well what does future me want am I gonna like that any tips for making this exercise more

00:22:18.040 fruitful yeah people hate this exercise I yeah I and I fact I hate doing it myself it is really

00:22:25.120 really hard for us as humans to predict the things that we're going to want in the future but I make

00:22:30.680 everybody do it anyway because I found it to be really helpful when it comes to making big decisions

00:22:35.840 so it's basically about thinking like your ideal life and you know the thing that I discovered when I

00:22:44.420 started asking people to do this is that most people were not putting down like I want to be

00:22:49.300 on a mega yacht in the Aegean Sea five years from now most people are putting things like I'd like to

00:22:55.540 be working part-time and get a dog and maybe take a trip twice a year you know most of their dreams are

00:23:02.540 very achievable but I think it's helpful to just write it down and to get as detailed as possible about

00:23:08.520 it because then when it comes to making a decision you can look at the choices in front of you you can

00:23:14.140 think about the future you want and you can really see which one of these choices is going to get me

00:23:19.660 to the future that I want you know it becomes much more obvious and so once you imagine your future

00:23:24.360 self what do you do then like you map something out for yourself like what do you do with that

00:23:28.080 I think it's more like okay in five years I'd like to have a kid I'd like to own a house I'd like to

00:23:34.260 take two vacations to see family a year and one vacation just me and my wife you know whatever

00:23:40.000 whatever I want to have my own business or maybe like a side business going or I want to have

00:23:44.220 advanced in my career or I want to have a lot of people have written a book I want to have written

00:23:49.100 a book by that point and then you can look at the choices you're trying to decide between and think

00:23:53.620 like okay if this is the life that I want if I know that I'm going to want at least these things

00:23:57.820 that I've written down in five years is this job going to help me get to that point is moving to this

00:24:03.760 new city going to help me get to that point etc etc okay so we're imagining our desired future and

00:24:09.240 then we're seeing which option allows us to draw the most direct line to that desired future what do

00:24:16.480 you do in the case where you're like you know let's say you got a job offer in California and in 10 years

00:24:25.360 you do want to be in California but for the next you know five years plus you still want to be in

00:24:32.600 Oklahoma so you can draw a direct line from the job offer to where you want to be in 10 years

00:24:38.060 but you can't draw a line from it to where you want to be in five years so like do you take that

00:24:45.120 decision now that will take you to where you want to be in 10 years or do you hold off on it

00:24:49.840 I think if in five years you want to be in Oklahoma and 10 years you want to be in California

00:24:55.440 then you stay in Oklahoma or you move to Oklahoma if you're not already there but you make sure that

00:25:01.040 that choice is going to help you get to California at the 10 year mark if moving to Oklahoma in five

00:25:06.080 years is going to wipe out all possibilities of getting to California in 10 forget it something

00:25:10.920 you need to adjust the plan maybe you go to California sooner you know it's hard to think

00:25:14.620 of a situation in what that in which that would really occur but who knows so it's you know that

00:25:19.280 seems to me like a pretty straightforward decision like if you know this is what you want in five

00:25:22.760 years okay go ahead and do that and just remember all the time that you have had this ultimate

00:25:27.600 idea of being in California and make sure as you go along through your life that you're making

00:25:32.060 decisions that are going to get you to that point when you want it I'm sure imagine a lot of people

00:25:36.580 going through that situation like well what if that opportunity doesn't come to go to California

00:25:40.520 again like what if I got a ticket now but that might not be the case because you know you'll probably

00:25:44.760 get another job offer in California someday so you know just don't worry about it yeah I would say in

00:25:50.000 most cases a lot of opportunities it is really rare to get like a once in a lifetime opportunity that

00:25:55.700 will never appear again you know you can usually get what you want even if it's not in exactly the

00:26:00.860 right order or the perfect way that you'd want it we're going to take a quick break for your words

00:26:05.600 from our sponsors and now back to the show okay so those two exercises the first one list out your

00:26:13.620 values and the second one imagine your ideal life one five ten years in the future let's talk about

00:26:19.300 you know in the decision making process a lot of people often go to friends and family to ask

00:26:25.300 other people for advice yes when is it and when is it not useful to ask other people for advice

00:26:31.660 okay this is a really touchy issue because by the time somebody gets to me they've often talked to

00:26:37.720 like 20 or 30 people and usually the first thing they say when they get on the phone with me is like

00:26:42.900 I'm so sick of talking and thinking about this 20 or 30 people is too many way too many I usually

00:26:50.220 recommend three to five people maximum because when you talk to more than that you know their

00:26:55.660 opinions just get layered on and layered on and layered on and it becomes even harder to figure out

00:27:00.400 exactly what is it that like you specifically want so it's good to talk to people that know you well

00:27:06.740 but you know you also know them well I talked to a lot of people who are making a decision maybe a

00:27:12.800 college decision or a career decision or a moving decision that their parents are going to hate

00:27:18.840 you know yeah and they say like my parents always want me to be here they want me to do this so you

00:27:24.040 know you know best yourself the people that you're talking to don't ask people for their opinion when

00:27:29.500 you know that they are not usually supportive of your decisions because it just creates turmoil and

00:27:34.660 further obstacles to you doing what you want you know I often recommend that people inform their

00:27:41.520 parents of the decision instead of explaining as they're going along so instead of talking to them

00:27:46.760 and saying like oh well we're thinking of moving to New York make the decision and then inform them

00:27:51.940 we've decided to move to New York yeah because your parents they've got skin in the game they've got their

00:27:57.520 interest and they want they'd want you to stay here and they're probably not going to give you the most

00:28:02.080 unbiased advice but is it good to find people who disagree with you like kind of give you a

00:28:10.480 different point of view because it might bring up issues you're not thinking about oh definitely

00:28:14.840 yeah I think that can be really helpful I mean when people get on the phone with me I often tell

00:28:19.240 them something that surprises them or that they didn't expect me to say you know I think it's good

00:28:24.720 to talk to people with a variety of opinions but again five maximum like cut yourself off after that

00:28:30.540 yeah I imagine this is why you know going to a decision coach is helpful because like you don't

00:28:35.180 have any skin in the game like if someone moves to California it's like well okay you can move to

00:28:40.020 California whatever so you can maybe help them see some things they're not thinking about in a

00:28:44.940 neutral way whereas if you know you went to your best friend say hey I'm going to take this job in

00:28:50.240 Connecticut I'm going to move away from you they're going to be like well well here's all the reasons

00:28:53.920 why you shouldn't do that because secretly it's like I'm going to miss you if you move so I'm going

00:28:57.880 to tell you why Connecticut is awful exactly exactly like that like I have absolutely no personal

00:29:03.020 investment in what any of my clients decide to do except that I want them to be happy and I think

00:29:08.800 just getting to know them over the course of our session asking questions being able to look at the

00:29:13.620 situation with some perspective is helpful for people as opposed to talking to people who have

00:29:18.500 known you for a long time or even like a therapist you know I mean I'm a big fan of therapy but sometimes

00:29:23.300 people spend you know a year talking to a therapist about a single decision and I think they might be

00:29:29.040 better served by making that decision taking action and seeing how it works out let's say you

00:29:34.480 are absolutely agonizingly stuck between two options let's talk about some ways you can mentally

00:29:40.580 reframe your thinking to help you get unstuck how can thinking about the sunk cost fallacy help and for

00:29:46.960 those who aren't familiar what is the sunk cost fallacy so the sunk cost fallacy is when you think

00:29:51.520 about all the time and effort and maybe money you've put into something and you use that as a reason

00:29:56.960 to make a decision even though that time and energy and money is long gone it is sunk as if to the

00:30:03.760 bottom of the sea and it will not come back no matter what decision you decide to make this comes up a

00:30:08.480 lot in relationship choices if someone's deciding to stay in a relationship or not and they think like

00:30:13.120 oh but we've had all these years together like you've had those years those years are you know are not

00:30:20.520 necessarily relevant for moving forward with the decision like the years are already gone you can't

00:30:24.760 re-spend them in a different way so when someone is agonizingly stuck between two decisions first of

00:30:31.200 all i would say that they can be actually in a good position because if you're so stuck that probably

00:30:37.460 means that either option is fine you know it is very rare for someone to be stuck in between two

00:30:42.860 options like that one is really good and one is really terrible actually relationships might be might

00:30:48.880 be the one exception to that when people call me and they're like in a really bad relationship but they

00:30:53.240 truly feel stuck but i would say for most decisions location decisions career decisions

00:30:58.440 should i get a dog or not get a dog decisions either option will be fine and the fact that you're so

00:31:04.120 stuck really just means that like those options are probably pretty equal yeah so taking any kind of

00:31:10.920 action and not letting your life be sort of bogged down by more decision making for weeks or months or

00:31:16.960 years is the most helpful thing you could possibly do one question i found useful to help with the

00:31:22.480 sunk cost fallacy let's say you're trying to decide whether to stop something because that's those are

00:31:26.440 hard decisions to make because that's when the sunk cost fallacy can really creep in you're like well

00:31:30.860 i've invested all this time i mean money into this thing so if we stop it now just all go to waste

00:31:35.380 the manager theorist peter drucker he had this question you can ask yourself to help you cut through

00:31:42.680 that and the question is if you did not already do this thing would you start it now right yeah i think

00:31:51.000 that's a really helpful question to ask i think a lot of people can reframe things by like you know

00:31:55.960 if they're thinking about quitting something and i personally am a huge fan of quitting big fan of

00:32:01.320 quitting way too many people say stuck in situations that they should have left then quit things too early

00:32:06.960 that is for sure so yeah i like the idea of approaching it like if someone offered me this

00:32:11.580 volunteer gig or this job or this relationship right now would i take it would i start doing it i think

00:32:20.240 that's a great way to frame it what about reframing things so they're not so binary right because i

00:32:26.540 think sometimes in our head we're like what's either or but maybe there could be a third option or

00:32:30.600 compromise option oh yeah i have been in many sessions where somebody comes to me with what

00:32:35.640 they think is you know two options these are the only options and i come up with another option or

00:32:41.840 even a fourth option and again i think that's sort of a factor of taking too long to make a decision

00:32:46.360 that you become like hyper focused on the two things in front of you but there are many situations

00:32:50.860 in which you can find a different option you know you're stuck in your job and you also want to spend

00:32:56.180 time with your kids so you're like oh should i quit my job like maybe you can go part-time maybe you can

00:33:00.820 freelance maybe you can be a consultant i mean that's the most obvious and like easy answer but i think a lot

00:33:06.460 of people just they forget to consider like the third option to sort of zoom out look at the whole picture

00:33:12.540 and think like is there another way that i could do this because there often is yeah another thing

00:33:17.640 you talk about in order to battle sunk cost fallacy is instead of thinking what if to think even if what

00:33:25.380 do you mean by that yeah this is something that i actually heard on a podcast about 10 years ago and

00:33:31.220 i've been trying to remember what podcast it was ever since so it's not my original thought but

00:33:36.260 because people tend to push back on any decision they make with like oh but what if this happens

00:33:42.820 what if that happens you know things that are really full of fear so if i never hear the word

00:33:48.820 mindset again i will die happy but if you can manage to change in your mind the phrasing of what if

00:33:56.860 and just substitute even if so like even if this job doesn't work out then fill in the rest of the

00:34:04.200 sentence you know so instead of saying like oh what if i regret my decision change it to even if i

00:34:09.840 regret my decision and fill in the rest of the sentence so it does two things it sort of reinforces

00:34:14.980 that you will figure things out that you have faith in yourself that you are not like at the mercy of the

00:34:19.800 elements and it makes you create a little backup plan that you can keep in your pocket you know a

00:34:24.380 little plan b for when things if things go wrong yeah i think this can help especially if you have a

00:34:30.700 tendency i have this problem i you know i think it's helpful to imagine the worst case scenario

00:34:35.620 but i have a tendency to catastrophize and it's like you know if i make this decision then this

00:34:42.620 thing will happen and then this thing will happen then basically it all leads to like i'm homeless and

00:34:46.380 broke right right it's usually not the case it's usually not the case well have you started uh changing

00:34:53.260 in your mind what if to even if i'm starting i this would be useful too i mean this happened to me

00:34:58.100 when i was in law school a lot because your whole grade is contingent on this one exam you take at the

00:35:02.960 end of the semester and then after the exam you do these post-mortems in your head for days it's

00:35:09.180 like oh my gosh i missed this issue and i missed that question and then you start thinking oh my gosh

00:35:13.360 uh i'm gonna get a d in this class and because i'm getting a d i'm not gonna get a law review because

00:35:17.920 i'm not in law review i'm not gonna get a job offer and i'm gonna have all the student debt and

00:35:22.240 my wife had called it i started logging out she's like you're logging out you need to quit logging

00:35:26.360 like a log like a big giant log i think back then like even if would have been useful like well

00:35:31.300 even if if i get a d we'll figure something it's gonna be okay and i ended up getting like a c in

00:35:36.320 a class and i've learned it wasn't in the world right it's often not the end of the world when you

00:35:41.820 said logging out i thought oh she means logging out from reality no it's like like a log i would

00:35:46.880 just lay there on the couch like a log and just be like oh my gosh here's the worst case thing

00:35:52.800 we're gonna be broke just like we're gonna be fine that's that's hard to live with no yeah for

00:35:58.180 sure well that's another reason why making decisions fast can be useful because someone

00:36:03.080 who's trying to make a decision they're often not pleasant to be around yeah i have had more than

00:36:08.960 one person tell me that they found me or they reached out to me because their partner was like

00:36:13.340 i just couldn't listen to you anymore and i think another thing too to help with those worst

00:36:19.080 case scenarios or thinking about oh if this happens then this bad thing will happen uh is

00:36:24.760 you know just think of decision making as experiments the stakes don't have to feel so

00:36:28.880 fraught like you're just trying something it doesn't have to be permanent and even if it doesn't work

00:36:32.940 out you know you've learned something from the experience that you didn't know before and you

00:36:37.740 maybe couldn't have known without trying it so you just got more data oh i love that i think that's

00:36:42.520 great like i talk about experimenting and testing things out all the time to the point of like

00:36:48.040 really boring everybody around me because i think you mentioned a little earlier something about

00:36:52.760 like sitting and wondering what you should do like that is not how we make good decisions we make good

00:36:58.760 decisions by trying the thing and seeing if we like it or not and collecting information and getting

00:37:03.960 that feedback not by sitting at home and thinking like i don't know what i would i like to go to grad

00:37:08.340 school or should i switch careers and become a social worker and there are so many ways to test things

00:37:13.560 out and to experiment that i just would encourage people to try before making a huge decision because

00:37:19.020 you can really play around and discover so much information really really quickly and then you

00:37:24.680 can make a decision with actual tangible data not just with like well i i thought i would like this

00:37:30.520 yeah even if you make a big decision let's say you decide to move and you find out oh man i really

00:37:36.920 don't like it here like you can move back like even a costly decision in time and money yeah it's

00:37:43.400 gonna hurt but like you can reverse it like most big decisions you can you can quit the job you can

00:37:48.780 move back it doesn't have to be set in stone you really can and i've had people quit jobs to take new

00:37:55.120 jobs and then go back to their old jobs that happens all the time you know it's easier than you think it

00:38:00.900 is to go back and to make a change and a lot of times people don't do it because of i think some

00:38:05.760 feeling of shame or embarrassment because they're like oh i made a mistake or i tried this job and

00:38:11.960 it wasn't what i thought it would be or i moved to california and then realized california is very

00:38:16.520 expensive but they're ashamed and they're embarrassed to sort of pivot or go back to where they came from

00:38:21.540 because they wonder what other people are going to think of them which is such a sad reason to kind

00:38:27.720 of put your life on hold and to stay somewhere you know whether it's a job or location that you're not

00:38:32.440 happy you know and honestly most people just aren't thinking about you that much so you should

00:38:36.680 go ahead and do it anyway i think that i changed my mind is a very powerful sentence i think so i i

00:38:42.740 definitely succumb to like the social pressure and shame like i made this decision i had to stick with

00:38:46.880 it because i'll look like an idiot if i turn back very common but my wife she's a great example of this

00:38:53.340 after she graduated college she got into a master's program in political science

00:38:56.820 and she thought she would like it and then she went to the first like the orientation week

00:39:01.520 and she's like oh my gosh it's not what i thought it was going to be and so she dropped out like that

00:39:07.040 week and then she ended up applying for a master's program in religion instead and she ended up loving

00:39:11.560 it it was the thing and it was funny because i remember i went to we went to the same college and i

00:39:17.240 would go in the building where the political science department was and i would see her name still on the

00:39:21.800 bulletin board of like oh here are new master's students they're all semester it's like hey your name's

00:39:26.740 still there even though you're not there but she didn't care i mean i mean it was kind of embarrassing

00:39:30.840 to drop out right before the semester started but she knew it just wasn't for her so she decided to

00:39:36.460 get out right away and do something else i mean there's also the possibility of getting out much

00:39:41.080 later i had a client recently who you know when you're studying to be a doctor it takes like 12 or 13

00:39:47.160 years and she was in year 12 like she had done you know residency fellowships med school everything

00:39:53.820 like that she had one more year to go before she would be a fully qualified practicing doctor

00:39:58.300 and we decided that she should quit you know how did she do that that's a lot of sunk cost fallacy to

00:40:04.180 get through it's a lot of sunk costs i mean it's a lot of time but basically she had become disillusioned

00:40:09.320 with um the american health care system as so many of us are and she had just realized that like it

00:40:16.040 wasn't for her and there was absolutely no point in her investing another year of her life

00:40:22.020 and taking out more money in student loans just to do something that we already knew she was not

00:40:27.680 going to practice like as a doctor like she had become very clear about that so what was the point

00:40:32.500 in doing that extra year you know it was hard for her to tell people she was dropping out but she had

00:40:37.820 really good reasons and we came up with some ideas for what she could do next and i think it was the

00:40:41.640 right choice you know i think i did that so i went to law school all three years but i ended up not

00:40:47.540 practicing law i didn't take the bar exam and i remember when i made that decision people like

00:40:52.080 what that was a lot of money that was a lot of time but the thing that did it for me was i did

00:40:57.400 some internships here's here's some testing out i tested out the career in law i did some internships

00:41:02.600 you know in the summer at a big law firm and i did not enjoy it like i got my first case of heartburn

00:41:09.180 while being an intern at a firm i was like i i can't see myself doing this for the rest of my life

00:41:15.700 so i was like no i'll just do something else i mean that that heartburn thing is probably more

00:41:20.740 common than you think that that's where people get their first case of heartburn but i think that's

00:41:25.400 great and the only thing i would have suggested is that you try to do some kind of internship at a

00:41:29.380 law firm before you went to law school but i know that's not it's hard to do i tell people that

00:41:34.360 who are considering like you know young people are considering law school because i think a lot of

00:41:38.020 people they go to law school because they've got nothing else planned they don't like they're

00:41:42.100 having a hard time finding a job it's like well i guess i'll go to law school like i went to law

00:41:46.720 school because i decided in high school that's what i wanted to do and i had some teacher tell me like

00:41:52.800 i think you'd be a good lawyer it's like oh yeah i think i but i had no experience with the law like

00:41:57.080 there was no one in my family that were lawyers i didn't see what law but my only experience of law

00:42:01.920 was like watching you know matlock and uh law and order and i was like that looks awesome

00:42:07.800 but then you actually when i started practicing law i was like oh it's basically just sitting at a

00:42:12.480 desk all day writing memos and going through discovery like i this is not for me right yeah

00:42:19.140 you know i am like a maybe not famous for this but i talk about all the time about grad school as just

00:42:27.300 like the most expensive elaborate procrastination technique ever and that so many people use going

00:42:34.080 to grad school just as a way to like postpone having to make a decision about you know in

00:42:39.440 quotation marks what they're going to do with their lives like really really really common and i i have

00:42:44.920 to talk people out of it all the time well let's talk through that scenario because i'm sure there's

00:42:48.680 a lot of listeners who are young and they're thinking about grad school or maybe they hate their job

00:42:53.480 and they're like well i'll just quit my job and go into grad school how do you know if grad school

00:42:57.600 is the right decision for you okay i have a few long established rules on this one is if you're

00:43:05.060 independently wealthy and it just seems like fun and you're not gonna have like a lot of loans

00:43:08.920 afterwards and you're just like oh i really want to learn about you know 18th century literature and i

00:43:13.160 think it would be really great to do that for two years go ahead have fun wonderful if you're not

00:43:17.780 that person and most of us are not then i would only recommend going to grad school if you know

00:43:24.800 exactly what you're going to do with that degree afterwards as in you have identified a job you have

00:43:31.020 ideally done an internship at that kind of job or shadowed somebody doing that job to make sure that

00:43:35.500 you actually want to do that job and that this degree is like absolutely necessary for you to get

00:43:40.920 that job that there's no other way for you to get that job except by having this particular degree

00:43:45.700 also that you have asked at university how many people with this degree go on to work in this field

00:43:53.320 that i want to work in press them for real numbers they will be reluctant to give them to you

00:43:58.360 but press them for real numbers because so many grad programs talk about their graduates who go on

00:44:03.900 to do this and that and the other thing but like what are the statistics on that what are the

00:44:08.000 percentages what are the real numbers if it turns out that you know only five percent of people

00:44:12.220 with this particular degree go on to work in this field that you want to work in

00:44:15.980 your odds are not good and you'd be probably be better off spending that time doing something else

00:44:20.620 okay i like that let's talk about regret how often do people experience regret after making a

00:44:27.340 big decision like whether to take a job move etc some people experience regret like after choosing the

00:44:33.820 wrong kind of bagel for breakfast like some people experience regret after every tiny decision but yeah

00:44:39.960 it's a really hard emotion and that's again what keeps people stuck and stops them from making any

00:44:45.120 decision at all i mean regret is one of the most powerful feelings i would just try to remember that

00:44:51.020 regret exists you're allowed to grieve the choice you didn't make and in a lot of ways it makes sense

00:44:56.820 especially if you're making a really big decision like there's going to be grief no matter what there's

00:45:02.340 going to be sadness and regret no matter what path you take that's just it comes with the territory so

00:45:07.880 it can be helpful to remember that there was going to be regret either way yeah going back to

00:45:13.340 kigger guard this is famous kigger guard quote he's being kind of glib because he was kind of

00:45:17.320 glib sometimes he was talking about whether you should get married or not he's like marry or don't

00:45:21.920 marry you'll regret both well right i mean exactly and i think a lot of people feel that way with

00:45:28.260 i mean i think that's actually true for a lot of decisions especially the ones that people have taken

00:45:32.580 like a year to make like if it's been so hard to make and there's such good things on both sides or

00:45:38.200 such bad things on both sides like there's going to be regret either way 100 and i know that sounds

00:45:43.720 kind of dispiriting but i am trying to reframe it as liberating you know if you know you're going to

00:45:50.480 have to experience some uncomfortable feelings either way maybe it frees you up to do the thing

00:45:55.640 that like feels bold and exciting and it is the thing you really want to do because there's going to

00:46:01.620 be bad feelings no matter what so you might as well go for what you really want yeah and i think also

00:46:05.540 too you know not only will you might end up regretting both decisions a decision no matter

00:46:10.720 how it turns out but like i in my experience i mean maybe this is going back to the even if

00:46:16.400 heuristic you have there like when you make a decision like it ends up being the right decision

00:46:21.700 like you find like somehow we were able to figure out in our head like oh it's actually this is the

00:46:26.240 right thing to do and if you did the other thing you probably would have thought oh yeah this is the

00:46:30.080 right thing to do i mean we're i mean we kind of we i guess we we acclimate to the decisions we make

00:46:35.400 and we learn how to continue to live even no matter what decision we take i mean i always try and tell

00:46:42.240 people that you can make almost any decision to success if you work hard enough at it and that the

00:46:47.500 thing that really helps with making a decision feel like the right one is to just lean really hard

00:46:53.640 into the reasons that you made the decision like if you're moving to new york because you just love you

00:46:58.620 know museums and theater and culture like you better do three of those things a week and then

00:47:04.540 because you are living the reasons that you made the decision you feel like oh this decision was the

00:47:08.840 right one i'm doing exactly what i wanted to do you know you're literally making it a success yourself

00:47:13.840 you're making it the right decision so whatever decision you make if you can just lean as hard as

00:47:18.940 possible into the reasons you made the decision you're much more likely to feel less regret and to feel

00:47:23.800 like right i made a good choice yeah so you can put up with the noise outside your apartment

00:47:27.860 window if you're going to all the museums yeah right exactly so something you've said is that

00:47:35.040 the decision making business is the regret minimization business and we can minimize regret

00:47:40.620 by doing the things we've talked about so you know making sure your decisions are aligned with

00:47:44.620 your values making sure your decisions connect you to your desired future you know talking with just

00:47:50.700 a few people whose opinions and advice respect and you know but some regret is going to be

00:47:56.000 inevitable and normal even when you've made the right choice but what do you do when you feel

00:48:01.720 regret because it does seem like you actually did make the wrong choice any advice for dealing with

00:48:08.300 that regret so a way to minimize regret that i've found to be pretty useful is for people to remember

00:48:14.420 that when you make a decision you know you don't have a crystal ball you can't predict the future

00:48:19.420 even i can't predict the future and that when you make a choice you're making the best choice you can

00:48:24.420 with the information that you have at the time that decision is within your control the outcome of

00:48:30.600 that decision like let's say you decide to take a job offer and it turns out that the boss is like a

00:48:36.100 terrible micromanager or the person in the cube next to you like sings all day you could not know

00:48:42.580 those things in advance and you cannot control them so in this case the outcome is very different from

00:48:49.220 the decision and you had no control over the outcome but a problem is a lot of people will blame

00:48:54.480 themselves you know they take a new job and then something goes wrong that was beyond their control

00:48:58.980 and they're like oh no i made such a huge mistake like i made a bad decision i'm such a bad person i'm

00:49:04.520 such a loser and they beat themselves up and it's awful and it's not fair you know you could not have

00:49:09.420 known those things so i would love it if everyone could um just sort of separate in their brain a little

00:49:15.180 bit the decision from the outcome and remember that they really can only control one of those

00:49:21.320 things so if the outcome doesn't work out the way you expected like most of the time that was

00:49:25.360 not your fault and it doesn't mean the decision was bad yeah i think that's a useful thing to do

00:49:29.740 separate the decision from the outcome i think we had annie duke on the podcast she talked about

00:49:34.020 like this is called resulting in poker where you know you decide i'm going to play this hand

00:49:39.200 and the decision was good but then the outcome wasn't good because of just random chance like

00:49:44.720 you can't beat yourself up over that exactly it was out of your control yeah i think that's

00:49:49.680 really important you make the best decision you can with the information you have at the time

00:49:53.100 you can't know everything in advance so you can make a good decision but have a bad outcome

00:49:58.720 and you don't need to beat yourself up about it so what's one last piece of advice you would

00:50:03.960 offer people who are currently feeling stuck about making a hard decision can i say just make it right

00:50:11.280 now like before the podcast ends and take action on it and that will be better than continuing to sit

00:50:16.300 on it i love it i think that's a great that's great advice okay it makes people really nervous which

00:50:21.900 i understand but um i honestly think like taking action even if it feels too fast is probably going

00:50:28.800 to make your life so much better than continuing to analyze and wonder and stress all right so maybe

00:50:34.820 there's someone right now they're putting in the two weeks notice they're sending that email they've

00:50:38.960 been having in a draft for weeks they're gonna do it right now so sometimes i do that with people

00:50:44.740 on the phone like we have a call and they're they're making a choice but they feel sort of nervous

00:50:48.460 about it and like i'll wait on the phone while they send that email i love the pressure well yeah

00:50:55.080 no this has been a great conversation where can people go to learn more about your work

00:50:57.960 you can find me at decisioncoach.com i have a newsletter you can sign up for it there and you

00:51:04.300 can listen to the decision coach podcast anywhere you get podcasts fantastic well nell wolfart thanks

00:51:09.280 time it's been a pleasure thanks so much brett this was really fun my guest today was nell wolfart

00:51:14.320 she is a decision coach and you can learn more information about her work at our website

00:51:17.200 decisioncoach.com also check out our show notes at aom.is slash decide where you find links

00:51:22.220 to resources we delve deeper into this topic

00:51:24.200 well that wraps up another edition of the aom podcast make sure to check out our website at

00:51:35.520 artofmanless.com where you find our podcast archives as well as thousands of articles that have been

00:51:39.420 written over the years about pretty much anything you think of and if you haven't done so already

00:51:42.720 i'd appreciate it if you take one minute to give you a beautiful podcast or spotify it helps out a

00:51:46.420 lot and if you've done that already thank you please consider sharing the show with a friend or

00:51:50.060 a family member you think it's something out of it as always thank you for the continued support

00:51:53.980 until next time's brett mckay remind you how to listen to the aom podcast but put what you've heard

00:51:58.040 into action

The Art of Manliness - August 11, 2025

How to Make a Big Decision (Faster!)

Episode Stats

Misogynist Sentences

Hate Speech Sentences

Summary

Transcript