7 Steps for Making Decisions

When next time someone questions you, don't get hooked, get grateful. Thanks for making me think that through. I say it all the time. Thanks for making me think that through. Thanks for making me think that through. I'm going to think about that. Let me get back to you. That's a good point. I'm not sure that type of thinking allows an openness. That openness allows success to walk right through. How do you feel? Form critical thinking habits that will help you make better decisions and really figure out not only yourself, but the major challenges of your life and what you want, even in the future. And then you'll also learn a lot about how do other people think. We'll also be using this time to really reflect on the things that you learned about the world, about yourself, about your mission, about your family, about what you really had in terms of breakthroughs and struggles all year. So with that difficulty came a lot of opportunity to learn. And I feel like this topic is perfect for this time. So if this is your first time ever here, do yourself a favor, get a bunch of water, grab that journal, get ready to really learn and work on yourself. The change was all around the world this year, and. And the change was learning to adapt in a time in which we live in a world where it's very, very fast news cycles, if you can call it news. We have very, very, very fast response times. A lot of judgment, a lot of people throwing their thoughts at you. A lot of people making assumptions about you and other people. And in this cultural, worldwide context of speed judgment, of like walking in with assumptions, with accusations, with all of that, I saw this community rise above it. I saw this community care about how they treated people. I saw this community be open to learning. I saw this community be kind. I saw this community do the hardest things sometimes hold back on judgment, wait and see, really assess things, make the right decisions for your family, your teams. I know we have a lot of entrepreneurs here. Change is inevitable. How much stress we apply to that is often a very much personal choice. It doesn't say that some people don't have more obligation or more challenges or more distractions or more difficult issues with, you know, health, family and other things. But as a worldwide community, we all face very common challenges. And sometimes the way that we think keeps us up at night. Have you ever kept yourself up at night, night over night, overnight, stressing about something, and then one night you just had a great evening of sleep and you woke up and you realize I was the one stressing myself up and ruining my Sleep. There was no one standing in the room going, hey, think about this. Hey, aren't you upset about that? And one night you just forgot to stress yourself out and you slept great, you know, you just forgot. Or maybe you turned off the phone or you didn't watch the news or, or you went for a long walk and you woke up refreshed and you're like, oh, I can do that. Forgot about that. That is how we leverage our mind. You know, sometimes we also have the ability to deal with our fears. You know, a lot of people with, with their fears, they, they kept circling them up. They keep like ruminating on the fear over and over and over. And they make the thing so much bigger than the thing is in real life, right? They get stuck on a merry go round of doubt stuff, spinning themselves over and over and over again until they get sick because they've spun themselves that way. And often they are catastrophic in their thinking, they're negative in their thinking. They think the whole world's going to fall apart, democracy is going to fall apart, the world's going to fall apart, everything's going to end, we'll never open up ever again. Business will never be like all these never and evers and future forecasting, you know, who knows? And in the end, what happened? What changed for them? Well, their biology changed by getting a lot of stress and a lot less sleep. And sometimes it's important to know how do you focus on what really matters versus what's easy to get stressed about. And we're going to talk about some of these concepts today and I want to let you know this is sort of a warm up because like these concepts, this growth day experience is meant to drive some advanced concepts in personal development for you. I try to go deep on these layers and today we're going to go literally seven steps into critical thinking and decision making that I promise is going to help you so much and it's going to help you identify where you really struggled with your family and your friends and your team this year or where you really struggled with your customers or your coworkers this year. And I promise as we go down that you're going to go, got it. Oh, okay. That's why when I put that post out or I said that, they got mad at me, didn't think about that, or it's where you're going to go, oh, that's why I take things so personally. And that's where I get upset. And so I think this is going to be very, very helpful. Go ahead and write critical thinking and decision making on there. And let's get to work. We have seven big core concepts today. Now, before I share all seven of them. If you want magic in life, add some gratitude, add some optimism, and you start feeling better not only about yourself, but your social community rises to another level of energetic support of one another. And that's what we need right now. We need this coming together of energy that's positive, that's open, that's exciting for the future. Because if you're leading others right right now, man, a lot of people are crashing and burning. There'll be other times in life, in the future, they'll be harder than you went through this year. And that's like, oh, that sounds terrible. But I'm like, no, that's exciting. It shows that you're always in training. It shows that you're getting ready. The reason you always work on yourself is because you never know what's around the next corner of the future that's going to demand something from you. The reason you always work on yourself is because you keep elevating that. The next level of goal, the next level of weight training, of the mind, the body, the spirit, the soul, the next level of leadership. You're always in training, baby. That's why we're here together. Thank you for this opportunity to be in a worldwide community of people who care about one another. I'm excited about it and I hope you are too. So write down on your journal. Let's get excited here. Really just write like, let's get excited. And then again, make sure you have that critical thinking and decision making. And I'm going to walk you through a seven piece framework. We're going to go fairly advanced with these concepts so you can apply them to yourself, your team, your family and others. Okay? So critical thinking, decision making, number one. This is important. You must begin with objectivity in mind. You know how Stephen R. Covey taught us, God rest his soul, he said he got to begin with the end in mind. I love that. Well, anytime you're contemplating something or trying to figure out a problem, or entering a new conversation with someone, begin with objectivity in mind. What does that mean? Well, to be objective, what that means is imagine that anytime you're in a situation, I kind of want you to be the observer of the experience or the problem almost removed from self, okay? And this is not about you just not taking things personally. Begin with objectivity in mind. What it means is I'm going to enter the situation and I'm going To purposefully suspend my judgment. I'm going to enter with a learning mindset. I'm going to open. I going to open up a dialogue or I'm going to check this situation out, or I'm going to study this thing. Removed from my immediate emotion, removed from my immediate bias, removed from everything I think everything should be. I'm going to wander in curious. I'm going to wander in open. I'm going to wander in with a little bit of a scientific mind to really hang back and take a second before I judge, before I conclude, before I take anything personal, I'm going to begin with objectivity in mind. I like to wander in every situation and go, wow, this is going to be fun to figure out. This is going to be fun to learn. It means you want to wander in a situation and get. Listen, please listen. You want to wander in a situation and get multiple points of perspective and information before you apply your own, before you apply your old story to it, before you apply your values and your emotion to it. Even before that. What you want to do is wander in a little bit like a clean slate. And as an observer trying to piece together an argument, you're going to go in and go, I'm going to collect information before I decide. And I know that's obvious, but when I say begin with objectivity in mind, I really want you to figure out, well, what is that objective I'm after? And be willing to see it from multiple perspectives and collect multiple data points. Now. Okay, Brennan, sounds really great. You're talking about scientific method. Yes, but when is the last time that you entered a conflict with your spouse with objectivity in mind? No, usually you go into relationships or into conflicts and you go, you did this, you did this. And you begin with accusations, not information collection. You go in and you begin with, here's how I felt, here's what you did. Instead of objectivity, which is saying, hmm, let me place myself not in my shoes, not even in their shoes, but saying, I wonder how a third party would have observed what happened in that conflict. If I could remove myself and not even take. Don't even take their shoes yet. Don't even do that. Try to be a third party objective viewer and in that role mentally, instead of going, how did I feel? What do they do? I would love for you to go in and say, I wonder how a third party, neutral party would observe this. What would they have thought of what I said and what I did? What do they would have thought of what that person said and what they did. And here's the most important part. Please listen. Then. What questions would that objective third party ask about this situation? Let me say it again. What questions would that objective third party ask about the situation? Let me give you an example. Very recently I was in a, literally a seven figure deal. And so it was a multi million dollar contract. And I was getting upset about everything that was, we're pinging back and forth all this stuff and I'm like, ugh, getting frustrated with it. And you know, their, their, their, their attorney had sent something. I was like, this is stupid. I was so upset. And I was like, okay, I feel myself getting hooked up. I mean, part of critical thinking is a recognition in when you are emotionally hooked. When you're emotionally hooked, you go up, get objective, Brendan, and I want you to write that down. When you are emotionally hooked, get objective. Ask how would a third party, a neutral third party, view this and what questions would they ask? So instead of me getting upset, I said, okay, I feel myself getting upset. How would a third party view this situation? So if someone is out here and they were looking at us doing this deal, what questions would they ask me and what questions would they ask them? What has been said and done in writing? Not what am I assuming. Because how many of you ever assumed something from an email and got upset and you were wrong? Yeah, right. So you get upset, you're like, you meant this, you said that. And they're like, I never even said that. Read the sentence. The sentence doesn't say that. And you are inserting subjectivity, not objectivity between every dang word of that sentence that ever happened to you. Someone wrote something, you read it and you were in a bad mood, or you read it and you thought they were terrible and you wrote back this flaming email at them and you were so upset and they got in like, dude, why are you so upset? Did you even read what I wrote? I didn't say any of those things. Who has read into what other people have written to you before you read into it? You inserted subjectivity, you inserted assumptions, you inserted your personal feelings and thoughts into what they said. And now you're fighting against them about something they did not even say. That is not critical thinking and that is not a good way to go about life. That is where you start super, you know, fights on the Internet with people and they're like, that's not what I was saying at all. Because people were getting upset, they were making assumptions. What was happening? They didn't begin from an objective standpoint. And so often they created a conflict or an accusation that had no base, no, no claims, no reality. And we see that. And when that happens, what ends up happening is it creates a tremendous amount of chaos and turmoil and upset and hurt feelings. And what does that achieve? Almost nothing. And so if you can learn to observe situations, seek multiple perspectives. So let me go back to this contract kind of conflict I was in. I was like, okay, what would a third party objective, you know, neutral party say at this point? If they looked at that contract, they look at how I'm, I've engaged so far, what would they say? What would, what questions would they ask? I, I realized I was like, oh, I bet that third party would ask this other party over here. Hey, it's, it's getting a little confusing about what it is that you want. Can we take a step back and see what you want? Oh, and hey, Brandon, um, I'm, I'm a little confused about what you want too. Maybe you two could get together and just recalibrate a little bit. You've been doing paperwork for a long time. You haven't actually talked face to face. Would you guys be open to getting on the phone and just clarifying what you want? Looks like it's getting confusing. And all these words and all these documents track changes back and forth. And I was like, oh, and here I am, I'm trying to fight this email war. Who's ever fought an email war? And you just didn't need to fight that war, right? I'm glad I'm not the only weirdo today. Okay, so that's what happened. I said, oh. So I wrote him back. I said, you know, I literally wrote these words. I said, I bet if a third party was seeing our interchange between us right now, they might suggest we just hop on the phone and clarify some points. I realize I might not have done a good job at that and I'd like to hear. Make sure I get all your perspective too before I reply. Literally, we got on the phone, we resolved it in 30 minutes, saved a multi million dollar deal in 30 minutes because I didn't write that fast email because I got in my objective mind, asked what a third party neutral person might consider, and by slowing myself from inserting my subjectivity or my assumptions or my accusations, I didn't start something that could have ruined a deal. Write those things down. Don't insert your subjectivity or your assumptions into what you are seeing or experiencing yet. Right. This is kind of like the scientific method a little bit. What do you do in the scientific method. Well, you have a hypothesis, you're going to test it out. You're going to test lots of things out. And you're not going to get emotionally hooked to what works until you kind of see how things go. You're going to get multiple data points before you make decisions. We should slow down our judgment process. People were jumping to conclusions, and so they were jumping into conflict over and over and over. So I want you to learn to be a little bit more focused on in the moment and in conflict and even in thinking about things. I'd love for you to be the observer a little bit more. Like observe yourself, observe your feelings, observe what you're seeing happening. I'd love for you to detach a little bit from the need to control so fast versus the desire to be curious. Let me talk about those real quick. The need. The need to control versus the desire to be curious. I really want you write this down. The need for control versus the desire to be curious. If we can enter in with that desire to be curious versus the need to control, we will almost always find objectivity faster. If we enter in with the need to control, we will shape, form, grab things, move things around based on our subjectivity and the other person or other information didn't flow in. And here's the thing about objectivity. It forces you, when you're the observer, to see yourself, to name it and claim it. When you're being the jerk, when you're making the assumptions, when you're getting too angry about small things, when you're making mountains out of molehills, when you're getting too stressed. I love it. My observing self sees me get stressed all the time and goes, brendan, chill, dude. And I'm like, chill. He's like, yeah. I'm like, oh, okay, you gotta have that conversation with yourself. I think this is so important. Number one, begin with objectivity in mind by instead of arming you with the need to control, empowering you with you. Empowering you with the desire to be curious about multiple perspectives before forming a conclusion. And I promise that openness and that curiosity with others will not only repair relationships, it will help you become more bonded with them. They will sense that you care about their perspective, that you're withholding judgment, that you're not applying your need to control. And they'll go, oh, I can be myself with this person because they're actually interested in what I think too. I think that's really important. And let me just say this, wouldn't you love for other people to do this with you. Wouldn't you love if other people gave you some space? Wouldn't you love if they were curious about what you thought and felt and needed and dreamed of and desired? Wouldn't that be a beautiful thing? Don't you want more relationships like that where people are objective instead of just like pushing their self on you? Wouldn't that be wonderful? Well, if you would like that, give that gift right out. Right. Give and you shall receive. Second big idea today. Choose your objectives wisely. Choose your objectives wisely. This is our second point today of critical thinking, decision making. Choose your objectives wisely. Let me give you an example. Let's go back into a conversation about maybe you're upset with somebody, right? If you're upset with somebody and you're trying to think through the situation, what do you often think through? Well, often when you're upset with somebody, your critical thinking goes into critical thinking. You're thinking critically of the other person. And your objective is to get them to show they're wrong, to, to show how stupid they are. To argue all around them, to minimize them, to make them feel better, to win, right? You have all these things going in your head and you're just trying, you're trying to deconstruct them, beat them, like shame them, get them back, corral or control them. And you know how that tends to go. It's a hot mess. And you end up with a bunch of phony relationships of people following you and listening to you in a fearful way. And you never have a vulnerable, real or authentic relationship with people when you are out to get them, right? But that's what people do. I'm in a conflict. My objective. Crush the competition. So critical thinking actually begins with what is your objective? What's your goal? And starting from that place and thinking our way into the outcome that we want. Not into, listen, please. Not, please listen. Not into winning all the debates, solving every little issue, coming to terms on every little problem together. No, no, no. There is a unifying objective here. What is it? And critical thinking will move backwards from that. So as in, let me. Let's talk about science. So in science, there's this thing called the hypothesis. Well, the hypothesis is the objective. But the most important thing in all of science is to know what the hypothesis is. Otherwise what you are doing is you are spending time doing all sorts of experiments that have nothing to do with the objective, right? When you hear about Edison's experience in trying to create light bulbs, right? What was interesting was that was the objective light Bulb, right. It was an objective in terms of creating light that wasn't a candle, if you will. And it was this major challenge. And as that effort formed and got closer and closer, the hypotheses got tighter and tighter and tighter until it was like literally down to what exactly is this filament in this particular placement? And it was like very specific. But what most people do is they start with making specific arguments or looking very narrowly at little problems and they kind of beat the little problems to death and they forgot what they were trying to do. Who this year had some trouble accomplishing things because you were doing a bunch of administrative things or a bunch of little things, fighting little fires and you forgot the goal. Anyone? Have you ever had a week where you got to a Friday and you were at Friday, one hour left of the workday and you thought, oh my God, I had this thing I was supposed to do this week, but I did all these little things, but they didn't matter. I forgot the objective. See, the most important thing in critical thinking is to know what is our objective here and then be able to construct into the objective or deconstruct from the objective to achieve it. And this is very, very, very important to understand. So let me give you examples how this applies in business and life and relationships in even further right. I have a friend right now who, you know, is, is blessed to have like a very big following internationally. And this person's objective, so they said, was like, oh, I really need to get into the English language market. So they're, you know, they speak another language where they're from and grew up that way, became very, very famous there. And now they want to kind of come more into the English language, specifically in North America. And, and they want their business to have some penetration in North America. So they're doing all these classes, they're doing all these things, like there's all these efforts of translations going on. I mean, it's this huge, huge effort. Millions of dollars being spent to try and figure things out. It's just like this big, big, big project. And I was like, oh, what is the objective here? I said, well, I want to be known worldwide, in English speaking territories. I said, well, what does being known mean? What's the objective to that? Well, our goal this year as a company is to double our revenue. I said, okay, well which of the objectives are you going after here? And he conflated going into English market with doubling business. And so without that clear objective and how to achieve it, which we'll talk about, Spent all this time and effort that actually wasn't going to move the needle that much to what he was trying to do. And so the objective wasn't clear and also chose the wrong one. The objective, the focus was become known here. What is the objective of becoming known? Right. That's not a wise objective. So we've got to choose a better one to. That enables us to think into it and to plan into it. Choose those wisely. Choose those very wisely. Some people say, I want to get rich. I'm like, that's the objective. How many of you people know someone who's incredibly wealthy and miserable? I know a lot of people. I meet them, they're like, Brandon, you're so happy all the time. How did you achieve that? I said, well, that was part of the objective, you know, and if you set the wrong objective, you set the wrong goal, you spend all this time and effort towards it, and then you end up with something you didn't even want. Who's be honest, how many of you had that happen in the last year or two? Who here y' all had that happen? You set an objective and you found out later, like, why was I chasing. That wasn't the right objective. Well, I bring this up because in critical thinking in the scientific process, the choice of the hypothesis, the choice in our language today of. Of an outcome, the choice of an exploration, what we want to figure out, that's really important. I mean, that's incredibly important, right? If you say, oh, I want to. I want to sail to Antarctica, and that's your objective, okay, that's a very, very important part. It's like, okay, that's the objective. We're going to sell and we're going to hit Antarctica. That's very different. We're going to go there and we're going to camp and we're going to traverse it. These are different objectives and where you set the objective, you have to think about this, what your objective is. All of your energy now subconsciously and consciously starts going towards it. When you start doing research, those little pieces of research start aligning towards it or not, and you start realizing and you start filtering things in and out based on the objective you follow based on that goal or the hypothesis or what you're after, what you're wondering about or even exploring. You start piecing together and removing things based on what that is. And so I tell people all the time, remember the first habit of high performance. Seek clarity. You better have some clarity on the objectives that you are seeking in life. And you better choose them wisely because you might not know it, but you and your filtration process, your unconscious filtration process, is now pulling in confirmation. Bias, is pulling in information that you think is relevant, is clipping out other things that you don't. And you are moving in this direction consciously, unconsciously, you are starting to make arguments for this. And what happens is whatever your objectives is in human nature and behavior, what happens is it puts a little bit of like those horse blinders on and we become very narrowly focused. So whatever your objectives is often blinds you to many other things. That is why it's very important that you know what the objectives are that really matter. I can't tell you how important that is. It's like everything is going to align towards what you choose to focus on. Everything's going to align towards that goal or that outcome. And the issue is, here's the true issue. Very few people ever choose an objective. Most people think, oh, I must have got the no, most people don't even know. Most people are showing up without the objectives. They didn't even choose them wisely. They didn't even draw a piece of paper and draw a line down the middle. Go pros and cons. They didn't even go to that level of critical thinking, which is like the super basic level and not even sufficient. So most people are kind of just going through the motions. And they're going through the motions all day. And so they're super scattered and they're clipping out things or narrowing to bias, to unconscious, to nothing that is oriented towards choice. And so it ends up happening. They feel like they've lived an unlived life because it's been an unchosen life. I know a lot of people felt that way this year. Like, man, I just didn't feel like I chose all these things. And if the only objective was just, just get through it, then that means if it's just get through it, what ends up if your mentality is objective, just get through it. You know what you do? You clip out opportunity, you clip out optimism, you clip out exploration, you clip out learning. Because you're just like, I'm going to show up, I'm going to grit, bear, survive this. And I'm not here to say that that isn't an important impulse sometimes to listen to. But if that's the only objective, there's no growth going to be there. That's purposeful. And so it's really a big challenge for us. You've been living your life based on objectives, did you choose them? A lot of people, their objectives are their parents objectives. A lot of people, their objectives are the professors objectives. A lot of people, their objectives came from childhood, their community, something they saw on the news, something that was programmed in their head and was hard coded in there that they never wanted. That this is the time to become extremely conscious and conscientious about our outcomes, our objectives and what we really want, especially in times of uncertainty. Now some people say, well, Brendan, I don't know my exact complete perfect dream or purpose. I'm like, oh, I'm cool. If you don't know your lifelong complete purpose, that's cool. People's purpose and mission, those things shift throughout their lives. People's values shift throughout their lives. When they change cities, change jobs, have kids, have turmoil in their life. Like there's adaptation. It's part of the human response. But when we feel like we can narrow our focus, that's when some of the greatest things are built. And when we feel like we know our objectives in our relationships, that's when we enter with more intention. Because let me come right back to that conflict idea. You're having to fight with your spouse or your partner or the kids, team members having that argument over and over and over again. See, a lot of those objectives is to beat them, persuade them, control them, minimize them, sometimes shame them. But if you can say the objective is for us to feel like one another, respects each other, learns from each other and grows happily together, that objective things start lining up for that. You start noticing positive things about your partner, not things to tear down. You start noticing when they say things, and you learn to validate those things. You learn to hear what they're saying and see how objectively it's different than your thing. That perspective might be different, might be in conflict. And yet the outcome is we together, not me apart. And that's why it's so important that you choose objectives wisely. For those of you who are like me, who's a writer and a researcher, it's so critical for me to figure out the structure of a nonfiction book first versus just start writing. Because without that structure, I'm going to spend that chapter is going to go 50, 60 pages in the wrong direction, all over the place. Then I go, oh my God, I've written all this, but there's nothing here. Writers, anyone out there ever write and write and write and write, and you realize there's nothing there. And all you had to have done is go, I should have just written down the three points that are going to be in this chapter and worked towards those. If you decide to expand from there, cool. But at least aim. At least aim. I think it's so important. Hey guys, it's Brandon. I'm jumping in here real quick. First, I want to make sure you've gone to progressmode.com to join the newsletter because I have a resource for you related to this episode and I have an upcoming meetup with my private group, Ultra. If you've ever liked to be in a private group with me where I help you get more progress towards your passion projects or to build your business or your brand in a bigger way, just go to progressmo.com, click on Private Group to apply to see you can get into Ultra and we can take it to the next level by getting in person and meeting up virtually once a month online as well. Just go to progress mode.com third big idea. This is one of my favorite ones ever. Gather the means, not the extremes. Gather the means, not the extremes. This is everything in research. This is everything that is causing a lot of the problems in the world right now, which is how society shifted from discussing norms or the middle of the bell curve, if you will, the majority positions. And it only started communicating extreme positions. And the idea was, well, by showing the extremes, it will help people become more critical thinkers. Because when we show the extremes, then they can go, oh, that's crazy. Oh, that's crazy. I must be somewhere in the middle. That didn't happen. If you watch the development of what we've learned in journalism over the last 20 years, it's become extremely obvious, and you know this from how much vitriol the media can cause. Because in good efforts was originally, I would say good faith efforts, there was this idea, oh, let's show polarity here so people can find themselves in the middle. But that's actually not how it ever works. What happens is you show extremes, people take a side, and now when they've taken a side, they believe they're on the extreme and the other is the extreme. So everyone is an extremist. Everyone's an extremist. And it's like, wait, how can everyone become an extremist? That actually mathematically doesn't work out. It's not like actually how human beings are. So not everyone can be an extremist here. So where did we go off? It's because what people do is they're seeking confirmation bias of their polarity, of their extremity, of their extremity, of their extreme views. Or values, because that's what we've culturally been taught to do now worldwide with media, because media is able to get more engagement, the more extremes they show, because people feel like they have to choose a side because that's crazy or that's not. And when we feel like we have to choose a side, we engage more. And so the more sides we choose, the more engagement we get, the more media companies and journalists get paid. And so we have to realize, oh, got it. That doesn't quite work. Right. Imagine if they did that in like science testing. Like, okay, let's take this study we're going to do to figure out some new antibodies and in rats. And here's what we do. We're going to figure out some antibodies that will immediately kill as many rats as possible, and then we're only going to figure out the ones that does not overhear. Okay, great, go. If we actually did science based on extremes, we would absolutely been in a horrible place. I mean, the worst decisions are made at the extremities. And so what we have to do is go, oh, okay, great. Right, right. Actually, if I'm going to seek information, let me seek more of what the means are. In other words, what's the middle of the bell curve? Right. What's most often the truth? Right. What is most often the truth? What is most often the finding? Right. So as an example, if you've ever written for academics, right, you know that what you do is a literature review and you're trying to go find papers that have been cited the most and been tested the most by the most number of people and the most number of experiments worldwide, because those have a solid basis in testing in academics and in critical reasoning. So it's like lots of people have tested out and this tends to be the truth. That is is so much more important than going, I wonder what some fringe rider has found. Because if you drive towards the fringes of the road, what happens? You end up off the road, right? You ever try to drive on the outside lane, right. On the, on the, on the outer lane before, and you found yourself being pulled into the ditch. But when you're in the middle, you're better and you can go faster and it's not as scary? Well, there's a reason for that. And I'm not here to say everyone should be in the middle. This is not a political discussion. This is not a discussion of choosing right or wrong. Even notice the words gather means, not extremes. I want to know, for example, when I studied high performers, I didn't go out. I really want you to listen to this. My objective in studying high performers was not let me find the, the only. The, the five outlying people over here and the five outlying people over here. I said, no. What do high performers from 190 countries around the world tend to do? And let me expand like let's say the top 15% so we can learn from them. Right. And so I was seeking the commonality, the practices that are most often put into place because that most often information is incredibly valuable and useful information. Now I know the argument can be. But yeah, yeah, yeah, Brendan, if we go based on the average or the mean or the most often, sometimes that's terrible, right? The most often use of the classroom in the United States of America is probably not the best method. When you can see other like extremes, if you will, that work better. This type of academic style versus this type of academic learning. Yeah, you can find those. But listen, notice I said gather the means, not the extremes. You want to know what we call in consulting or in business, the best practices. The best practices say, you know, what this game plan or this playbook run the most number of times seems to get the best results. When you start from that base of information, invest practices, you're more informed on everything else that came before it. If you take an extreme that hasn't been studied or hasn't been contemplated or listened to or tested out, even what ends up happening is you're hanging your hat on something that is very, very untested. And so what I tell people all the time ago, oh, what is the best information you can get that has been beaten up and tested the most number of times? Find that best practice, find that strategy, and at minimum deploy that towards your hypothesis, deploy that towards your outcome, because that at least has a base of understanding. And as you do it, you can jump off and try new things. How many of you have heard this phrase before you try to change the game, you have to learn the rules of the game. That's what we mean by that, right? Before you try and do something extreme or crazy, it's like, well, learn what it is. Before Elon Musk creates an electric vehicle, he must learn what are the best practices in manufacturing a vehicle. Like, start there. Even though I want to go, no, I'm going to create some new way to electrify this car and make it go, okay, cool. Still, we still have to learn what's a chassis? How does the engine turn, the wheels? Like we still have to figure out a drivetrain. We still have to figure out an assembly. You still have to figure out those things. Starting from scratch is what most people are doing in their lives. And this is why it takes them decades and decades and decades to build any success. They keep starting from scratch. When 7 billion people are alive now and we've got over 10,000 years of recorded human history to draw from, and what do we do? Yeah, I guess I'll figure out how to do it myself. And I'm like, oh, no, Gather what other people are doing. And notice I'm asking you specifically in step three here, I need you to gather. I didn't say make a decision yet. I didn't say form an assumption yet. I said just gather, just be gathering. I'm not saying that you can't grab some extremes and go, that's a crazy one. She became a billionaire, and that person just became a millionaire. I'm only going to study her. Well, if she's one out of seven billion, but you find another, I don't know, 300 billionaires. I'd rather know what's in common between the 300 billionaires or just that one person. Right. That collective nature of gathering information is what gives us the ability to have perspective and to start from something that already has kind of like momentum or base behind it. I hope that makes sense. I think this is the number one people do. They forget to do that gathering piece and so they immediately just jump off. I am a researcher at heart. I feel all of my success came from knowing that I'm a dumb kid from Montana. And that's. That's not offensive to anyone from Montana. That's me. I was like, I was a dumb kid from Montana. It's just true. And so I decided I didn't want to be a just a dumb kid from Montana. And I said, I'm going to have to learn. And so I made my life a study of the best practices. What do the most number of people do in this category to achieve the greatest outcomes? What's the mean of the bell curve? Not the outliers only. And it helped me form an understanding of the norm. And when you have an understanding of the norm, you can choose whether you want to go with it, fly apart from it, fly above it, innovate from it, change from it. You can choose that. But if you don't know the norm, if you don't know the means of anything you are studying, researching, or trying to do, any decision you're making is starting from scratch. It's going to be slow. So why does this matter. For those of you who are starting a business, for those of you who are building your first team, for those of you who are managing people for the first time in your life, Right. What do you end up doing? You just wondering. I guess I'll figure this out. I'm like, study management theory. Like, people have been studying this for thousands of years. There's information here of exactly what you need to do. Like, why would you start without reading something contemporary that shows this is what's working now across hundreds of organizations? Why would you just try to figure out on your own, Listen, without knowing the norms and the means, you are stuck at the extremes. And you know what's usually at the extremes? Beginners. People who just toil for year after year after year after year when they could have figured it out way faster by jumping in and understanding what the direction is that has been established previously. I hope that really helps. I think it will absolutely change your game. And I'll give you an example in real life of me. Like, I was going to do this, this promotion I'm working on right now. And I was coming up with all these ideas. The other day I had some green tea. I was on the balcony, I was writing some ideas and I got super excited about it. And I actually came in here, I set up the camera and I started shooting the video. And I got about maybe 10 minutes in the video and I stopped it. And I thought, I think this is going good. And then I had the critical thinking, that observer come in and I realized, how would I know if this is going good? And I realized I didn't even look at any other promotions, didn't read any other copy, didn't sign up for any courses. You. I didn't even call any of my friends or email or text any of my friends and say, hey, how do you do this? And I realized I don't even know what my holes are. Here I am, I think I'm doing a great job. I have no understanding if I'm doing a good job or not. That's called crazy. In a world full of information, I didn't gather the information first. So I'm reinventing the wheel. And this is where extremism happens in businesses. It's called going broke. People on the extremes tend to go broke when they start business because they didn't fly in and understand what is everyone else doing here? What can I learn from? That was the mistake I made had I launched that campaign. I remember. So the good news is I reached out to people because My critical thinking came in mind. I'm like, I don't know if I'm doing good. I need to gather some information. So I messaged about 10 or 15 people, and I said, how do you do this specifically? Can you send me, like, your bullet points? And out of those bullet points that came back, I was like, I would have missed four of these. All of these people who I asked did four of these things. And I don't have any of those four things in my video. Wow, that's critical thinking, that gathering of the means. Okay, number four. Number four, I need you to document your assumptions. Now. This. I know all the critical thinking teachers here are super excited about this, and they're like, I thought he was never going to get this part, Brendan, you know? But here's what's important with this, is documenting assumptions is I always want you to write down what you think is true, what you think is true, and what you value in any situation. So let's go back to you're having a fight with a, you know, a spouse or a partner or a coworker before the next conversation with them, you're like, I'm. I got to do better in that next conversation. We got to repair this relationship, get them on board, whatever it is. I want you to go, okay, what do I think is true in this situation? Notice what do I think is true in the situation? And write down everything that comes to mind. What do I think is true? Write down everything comes to mind. What do you think is true about yourself? What do you think is true about them? What do you think is true about the situation? Three layers. Self. Them. Situation. What do I think is true? Then I want you to write down, what do I value? What do I value in situations like this? What do I value? And write it all down. Write all down. Then I want you to go, I wonder what assumptions that they are making, And I wonder what they think is true and what do they value? Write that down and a magical thing will happen on those journal pages. You go, I think all these things are true, but I don't know. I think this is true about her, but I don't know. I think it's true about the situation. I actually don't know. And then when you reverse it and you ask, I wonder what they think is true. If you struggle to imagine what they think is true, then you just found your first point of the conversation. So when you go in them and say, you know what? I think I've made some assumptions about this conflict, we're Having. And I thought I should check in with you because I'm guessing you're thinking some things that are true and I might not know you think those are true. And so I'd like to ask you, what do you think is true about me and this situation? And when you start discovering what other people think is true, often you're like, oh, that's not what I thought at all. Oh, I'm sorry, that's not what I value at all. Oh, I'm sorry, I didn't clarify that at all. Or. Or you're crazy. You know what I'm saying? When you find out what other people think is true, you're like, oh, I didn't even know you were thinking that. It's so important for you to document your assumptions now. The truth is, you're going to have to bounce those assumptions off of people. You're really going to have to do it. And that's why it's so important for you to write down the assumptions that make sense. Always write down the assumptions. I write them down all the time. I mean, I literally have journals and journals and journals of just my assumptions. I'm like, I think this is true about my audience. I think this is true about my customer. I think this is true about this person I'm coaching. I think this is true about this particular situation in the world. And then having the guts to go, how do I know that? Like, what level of certainty do I know that with? On a scale of 1 to 10, what level of certainty do I know that with? Scale? 1. 10. 1. I don't know. 10. I absolutely know. And I know some of you are like, God, this critical thinking, Brandon, this is exhausting. Now I got to write these things down. Everything. I'm like, only if you want to make good decisions, set big, big goals, and achieve great things in life, you don't have to do any of this. Hey, if you just want to show up and just keep winging it, it got you this far. Cool. Ain't going to take you that next mountain. It isn't going to take you to that next level. It's not going to make your life that much easier to keep doing the same thing you're doing. You're going to have to put more thinking. You're going to have to use your mind more. And one of the ways, and the easiest ways to do that is to document your assumptions on a consistent basis. I tend to document mine every single Sunday. I just write down, like, what do I think is true about my career? Right now, what do I think is true about my job? Right now? What do you think is true about my team? Right now? What do I think is true about my mom? Right now? What do I think is true about this pandemic? Right now, I just write down what do I think is true? And I write it. And then what I do is whenever I write, I go back and I go, okay, on a scale of 1 to 10, how certain am I about that truth? And the ones that score the lowest, those become the questions I ask others. I think my mom is, you know, too scared of this. How do I know that's true? I don't know. Like, a three. Hey, mom, are you worried about this? And now that relationship repairs, that relationship improves, I think about, oh, let's see. I think my teammate did it because of this reason. I might get a 5 out of 10 for the information I have. Hey, why did you do this? I'm just curious. Got it. Okay. Because your perception, unchecked with your assumptions, is complete narrative. If you don't check your perception against your assumptions, I promise you, your perception is not very strong. And so you've got to be aware of those assumptions. And I'd love for you to do that. I love for you to do that. For those of you who run your own business, just write down, like, these are the assumptions I made about my customer. These are assumptions made by my team. These are assumptions I made by my revenue. These are assumptions I made about my audience. Just write down all your assumptions and then say, how certain am I that I know that is true? And wherever you are, up there in certainty, I'm telling you, those are great questions to ask. I love assumptions because they open the gate. Two questions. Once you realize you're hanging on an assumption, you realize you need to reach out with a question. Once you realize you're hanging on to assumption, you realize you got to reach out for a question. And so you just got to ask lots of questions. The older I get, hopefully the wiser, better leader I become. Hopefully, the more questions I ask, I'm just always like, what's going on with this? What do you think of that? Why is that happening? And just taking in information, just asking and is also letting people know, oh, I'm assuming this. Is that true? I always say that. I'm assuming this. Is that true? I'm assuming we did this because of that. Is that true? I'm assuming this because when you tell someone your assumption, they feel like, oh, this person's open to having a dialogue this is so great. I love it. Okay, number five. As you gather this information, you document assumptions. You must identify what matters. You gotta identify what matters. Critical thinking is so often identifying what really matters with the information that you have, and it's identifying the things. In high performance research, I often call the needle movers what. And as I'm thinking about this, what are the major areas of thought or what are the major areas of effort that I need to apply to this? What matter? In other words, what matters and what does not. I really want you to get good about that. As I'm moving towards that objective that I've identified, I've checked some assumptions, I've gathered some information. I've checked some assumptions. Okay, what really matters here? Does this kind of information matter? Does that person's viewpoint matters? Because listen, how many of you are listening to other people's opinions and their opinions should matter to you? Raise your hand. But how often do you listen to them? And you keep listening. You're like, I'm not going to stop, I'm going to stop listening. No, you're still listening to them. You've got to identify the sources of information that matter. So please write that down, the sources of information that matter. Second, you got to invite the moves, the efforts that matter towards the thing. What are the major efforts? So if you study high performance habits, you heard me talk about the five moves. Identifying the five major moves to get to your goal and obsessing about those five major moves. You learn from the research from us with high Performance Institute that high performers spend 60% of their time each week just on those five major needle movers. So 60% of their time is focused on only what matters. Focus. 40%, maybe. Administration, relationships, management, all those things are important. I'm not saying they shouldn't be there, but most of the time is in creating and doing these specific things that leads to productive quality output, the needle moving. Things that matter. The most critical thinking is a constant removal of the things that do not matter. Removing the things that are noise, that have, you know, that have unchecked assumptions that have negative intentions for you. Here's a good way to realize what to like, remove and what doesn't matter is when you get around people and they're really trying to control you. I mean, they're really trying to control you. You got to be careful. The information coming from them. It. There's no objectivity there. The more someone tries to control you, the more you have to realize their specific opinion doesn't really matter. Objectively. Why? Because there's no objectivity. They want this. This is what they want. This is what they're going to do. And come hell or high water, that is the thing. So they're going to force it. And you have to realize, oh, their suggestions to me are so painted by what they want, they couldn't possibly see what I want. Huh. I better be careful of their voices. I always tell people, the more someone tries to control you, the more careful you should be of listening to their voice. I'm not saying don't listen, but if their intention is control, it means they're probably blocking off other perspectives and points of view because they only want this one thing and they're going to try to ram it down. And so it's very thoughtful to know who's like that around you. It's very important, too, in the marketplace when you get tons of people telling you what to do and they've never done it before, it's like that. Why is that quote from Roosevelt so famous? Right? The man in the arena, the person who's gotten dirty doing the work, who's actually been in the arena with blood and guts and sweat and toil. Why is that so powerful? Why is that? Do people love that quote worldwide? Because it's saying, you know what? Be careful when you listen to the critics who've never tried something, right? Identifying the voices that matter. I'd love for you to do that in your journal. What are the voices that matter next year for me? Who should I be listening to? Let me. Let me explore that a little bit. Who did I take too much advice to from this year that didn't lead to positive outcomes? Who did I let control me? I also want to explore that with what you did this year. Could you write down all the things you did this year real quick? Like, just start writing from the top of your mind even as I'm talking. What are some things you did this year that didn't matter? You really didn't need to do that, didn't make an impact. Just write that out. Like, what didn't matter this year? What didn't matter? What? What did you do to that didn't really matter? In retrospect, maybe you didn't know it then, but now you're looking back, you're like, I didn't matter. I really didn't matter. Please take a moment to that. What didn't matter? Like, you can look at it now, maybe hindsight's 20 20, but you realize that really didn't matter. I spent a lot of time on that or I thought about that, that didn't really matter. And when I say matter, it means it didn't meaningfully move you forward. It doesn't mean it might not have been good or great information, and it doesn't mean that maybe you failed to act on it. What I mean is, it just didn't seem to make an impact for you. Now, here's my guess. Whatever you're writing down that you feel like that didn't matter, I bet whatever you're writing down that didn't matter was loaded with assumptions at the time and a lack of objectives. Whatever you write down that matter, you're like, oh, I didn't have clear objectives to where that was going, and I had all these assumptions around it. Is that true? If it is, now you understand how the power of this session is coming together for you. You did a bunch of things that didn't matter. You had all these assumptions. You didn't gather the right amount of research to know if those things were needle movers. You worked the wrong levers because you didn't know what the right levers were, and you didn't know exactly what you wanted. So you spent some time doing some things. You're like, why'd I do all that? Because what we do is we're easily distracted when we don't identify what matters. Moving matters up front. But notice where I'm giving you this advice is identifying what matters. We're on what step five. Right. This is after, like, okay, let's enter here. We don't know yet. We don't know what we're after. Okay, cool. Let me gather some information. Let me choose these objectives. Great. Let me write down my assumptions. Let me ask a bunch of questions. Now let me identify what really matters and start moving towards that same thing. Right. In any research effort, you have to. As you're moving forward, you have to start identifying which things actually make the impact in your trial. Well, this doesn't make an impact. This does. Okay, let's move towards these things that are making the impact and these things that aren't getting us the results. We got to push them aside. I'm not trying to make you feel bad. I'm trying to help you analyze your thinking. That's all. And by the way, if this feels like I get everything right, because I'm teaching you this. No, I made like, I probably did three or four major efforts in our business this year. I'm like, what? That so didn't even matter? Oh, my gosh. And sometimes it's not your fault. Sometimes you do something and it just didn't matter and you thought it did and it didn't move the needle. That happens. That's learning. But identifying that it doesn't matter sooner than later is the important part about decision making. See, a lot of people actually have the facility for critical thinking, but the problem is all they do is remain critical and all they do is think. That's why this session is critical thinking and decision making. Because you're going to see towards the end here, I need to move you towards decision making, and we need you to be more decisive to cut off the things that do not matter sooner. And how do you do that? You check your assumptions, you get clear about your objectives. You check your assumptions, you get clear about your objectives, you gather great information. You check your assumptions, you get clear about your objectives, you gather great information. And the more that you do that, the more you're able to go, this don't matter. Cut it out. Focus. This what matters. A lot of people are like, I should have pivoted earlier. But you didn't, because you were critical and you were thinking, which is good. But we weren't deciding and we weren't making. Decision making, right? You decide and then you make the change. You decide, you make the change. Decision making. I love that phrase. Decision making, decision make, okay? Move forward. That's what's important. Okay, this one's my favorite one. Number six, critical thinking always involves checking the self versus the social. Checking the self versus the social. This is number six, checking the self versus the social. This is so key. You can't make a good decision and you can't have great critical thinking if you haven't taken it from that perspective of this. Is this good for me and it's good for others? Would I apply this to other people? Would I apply the same rule set that I'm applying to myself as I'm applying to others? Would I want others to do what I'm about to do here? Right? This is the old. This is the standard conversation of what we call ethics, right? The expansion of the conversation about ethics always comes down to what's right for one person versus everybody, Right? It's that old thing. Whatever you're about to do, would you want that, like, would you want that to apply to everybody in the world? Right? Whatever you're about to do, would you want your mom to open up the newspaper and read about you doing it there? That's perspective checking, Right? I think I've recommended this group maybe for Those who are new, you don't know. But I always recommend that everyone read this book by Rushworth Kidder was one of the foremost academic leaders in ethics in history, and he wrote a book called How Good People Make Tough Decisions. How Good People Make Tough Decisions. Rushworth Kidder, Everyone should read it, get it for everybody, you know, for Christmas. Absolute classic. So good. And he kind of defines how a lot of the tough decisions we make in our lives come down to the self versus the communal, where we have to say, okay, I should do this, but I wouldn't want them to do it. So should I do it right? Should, should I seek justice here or should, you know, people in these situations receive mercy? You know, should I make a short term decision versus a long term decision versus what I'd want them to do? Like, a lot of these conversations in our head are really ethical conversations and we cannot put ethics back into the conversation in our world unless we start realizing we must ask, would I want my decision to apply to other people as well? Should this be the rule for the norm, or should this just be something I'm doing as a one off? And being critically aware of that will really help? Because listen, it's that old gold, this is the golden rule, right? If you don't have this way of thinking, self versus social, you'll be narcissistic and crazy and mean with other people. Because you never thought, like, I wouldn't want to be treated that way, right? You feel like you can do things that you would never want others to do to you and you wouldn't want to see happening in the marketplace, in the world, in the culture. But isn't that what we do? We get all fired about something. I'm just going to do this. And you're like, oh, you wouldn't want other people to do that to you. So critical thinking always comes back to this lens of knowing what self is doing versus what norms you'd want to apply to a social aspect. And why does this matter? I think about this in my career all the time. You know, when I spend my time personally in New Year's, I always think about what my goals are. But listen to what I do. I always think about my goals, but I always also write, what are my goals for my industry? What do I wish would happen for the entire industry? And then I make sure I apply that to my goals. And so what I mean by that is, I wish the whole industry would be more open, inclusive, thoughtful, slow in judgment. I wish the whole industry would learn from each Other. More. I wish the whole industry would change its tonality from, you know, always calling other people the negative people, always calling everybody else the criticizers, always calling everyone else the haters. And instead be more open and saying, you know what? Most people around you are actually positive and supportive. It's just, you know, you don't see it, like, painting the picture that, like, no, no, no. We live in a good world, right? We. We focus so much on the negativity, but we have so much abundance. Can we talk about the good news, Anybody? So these are types of conversations I had in my head. It's like, I wish that for the whole world in the industry. Okay, Brennan, how are you gonna apply that to yourself? Got it. Okay. That's self versus social. I have my things I want in my life, but I also have to think about what would I love for others to have. And when I think about that, I step from self into the social. I step from the self into service. I step from self into, hopefully, leadership. I step from self concern to social issue. And I'm able to now really look at situations and go, oh, yeah, if I do that, that advances me or people like me, but these other people are left out. Let me think about that. Let me think about that. Is there an assumption I'm making that they also couldn't benefit from this? And it's so critical to learn to do that. And this isn't just stepping into another person's shoes. This is stepping into a more global conversation. What should culture be like? What would society be like? What should democracy be like? What should healthcare be like? What should like? It's that expansive thinking. That expansive thinking beyond the self is where real critical thinking takes place. Right? We tend to think of critical thinking of like, I'm going to make the best decisions here. It's like, no, no. Most of the great decisions are out there. Think of everybody who you admire, who moved culture, who moved history, who became pivotal leaders in history. They were not obsessively and narrowly focusing on decisions that was just right for them and their family. They were thinking big, right? I have a Dream wasn't just about one family. It was an application to a bigger context. And when we start realizing that, oh, critical thinking is always culture thinking, boom, something shifts inside and we start making better decisions and we start changing things. I want you thinking bigger picture, and I think that will change the game. All right, last point. I'd love for you to realize. And this is number seven. Number seven. To encourage doubt and decisiveness, to Encourage doubt and decisiveness. I love to encourage team members, people around me to question me. What questions do you have? Does this make sense? Tell me if I'm thinking crazy here, what do you think of that? Like, I want people to doubt me as a leader. I want people. I don't need everyone's blind faith. I want people to doubt me, question me, ask why we do it this way. Does it have to be done that way? You don't innovate without inserting doubt, without inserting assumptions. And yet how many of you are so easily offended when someone doubts you? Critical thinking is allow the doubt without taking it personally. Like I let people doubt me and doubt my thinking. 24 7. Half my inbox is people questioning my decision making. That's awesome. That's why I have success. I have all these people questioning me. See, we think now, everyone who doubts us, they're haters. No, they're helping you think critically. Like next time someone questions you, don't get hooked, get grateful. Thanks for making me think that through. I say it all the time. Thanks for making me think that through. Thanks for making me think that through. I'm going to think about that. Let me get back to you. That's a good point. I'm not sure that type of thinking allows an openness. That openness allows success to walk right through. Through. Stop hating the doubt and start realizing it's just a way for you to check your assumptions. It's a way for you to reorient towards the objective. It's a way for you to communicate the objective. Some of you are leaders and every time your team or co worker questions you, you get all ruffled because you're trying to control versus root out the assumptions and move collectively towards the objective. Encourage more doubt. I'm telling you, it will help you, it will open you, it will help you discover greater things, but also encourage decisiveness. Doubt becomes a spiral, a merry go round of doubt, if you will. And if everyone keeps pushing it, it just spins faster and faster and everyone gets sick with the doubt. Right? Doubt is one thing and doubt, hey, that can happen for a conversation, two emails, one meeting. But decide be like, you know what, we're unsure. My favorite interviews ever with Jeff Bezos at Amazon. He said that they tend to make decisions at Amazon with only 60% of the information. They go. We got 60% of the information. We've got as much as we can. We've checked the assumptions. We know where we're going. We're not sure. We can't. You Cannot predict everything. So he gathers about 60% of decision. I think we got. Let's go. The only non replenishing thing in the world tends to be time. And listen. You can repair relationships, you can change the course of a business, but you can never regrasp this moment in time to do something great for yourself and your family and your team and the world. You can't regress the time. And so sometimes the longer you wait, maybe you missed the day to be decisive doesn't seem like a big deal. But not making the decision that day, that set you off six months. Now you're behind. One day lacking a decision can put you off years. I'm here to encourage you, make the decisions faster. Do everything we talked about. But here's the good news. You know why you don't make decisions faster? Because you don't do the six things I talked about previous to this point. See what happens. You got your gas. I don't know, I don't know. I guess I don't know, I don't know, I don't know, I don't know, I don't, I don't. Instead of being the researcher and go out and go, okay, what's the objective here? Okay, what are my assumptions? Let me gather this stuff. Okay, let me check it. What really matters and if now that you have these seven steps, guess what the good news is now they help you make decisions faster. Because listen, there's a difference between just critical thinking and again, decisiveness. And the good news is when you use critical thinking, you decide faster. See, without this process today, you'll just keep spinning in circles with the process that you can apply this process I told you to. Any problem, any conversation, any negotiation, any challenge tomorrow and come out with a decision sooner than later if you didn't, it is the lack of applying critical thinking to why most people wait. Most people are waiting because they didn't apply critical thinking. So they're hoping the information lands on. Some mentor comes along and tells them the answer. They're hoping. No, no, no. Stop hoping. Apply critical thinking. Then you get decision making, critical thinking, decision making. It just happens. It's faster. How everyone's always, how are you always early? Brendan, in my industry's history, I've always been early. I was early to doing online courses, I was early to doing live broadcasts. I was early doing virtual tools and running virtual teams. I was super early on lots of things, from the types of funnels to utilization of the technologies to pivoting and like everything I've always been early on. How? Because I run through my little critical thinking exercises and I just make the decision. That's it. It's not because most people think there's some esoteric genius behind you or other people, they think, oh, they must just know things. Nope, they're applying critical thinking rules. Makes them decide faster. The more that you apply these critical thinking rules, teach your family to Teach your team to. The good news is it's a process. And guess what happens at the end of the process? A decision is making. Don't run the process. No decision gets made. That's why I love processes. And when you run a process, there's a conclusion to it and you can go. If you don't run the process, you're just hanging out, going about it, and nothing ever happens. All right. I hope that this has inspired you for a new way of thinking through things. I try to use lots of different examples. What did you like from today? What message hit you? What served you? What like. You're like. I love that. I like this. It's been my joy to be with you. Until next time, go out there, live fully, love openly, and go make a difference. You still got time. Thanks, everybody.