Smarter and Stronger Business Decisions Start with Overcoming the Fear Behind Them

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We're starting different. We are start. And it's not a bow tie this time. No, no. But we are starting different. Because I'm going to start with a quote that I absolutely love about this week's episode. And Chrissy is sitting here just scared to death and I think this quote is going to ring home with her also. Most people do not think about stuff enough. You're not one of them. This week we are talking about fear. We talked about that in episode 25. We're gonna talk about some of the psychology in it and how to avoid it and get past it as a business owner by the laughter. I think Chrissy approves.

I do.

She's the CEO.

He's the marketing and operations guy.

If it's broken, you need the business fix. It's banter time.

Yeah.

How the hell are we in December?

It's a holiday chaos. It's fourth quarter. It's the don't talk to me season.

What did we call that? We called it something fourth quarter. Something about off.

Yes, yes, that's exactly what it is.

Yeah. Started with. It was another F word.

Don't ask me to do anything else. Not anything else.

No, no. Like a one legged man in a butt kicking contest. Um, yeah. No, I'm glad I'm not in your industry.

No. Hey, would you mind if. Yes, I would. And no, you cannot. That's how it works right now.

Someone comes up to you just before they even open their mouth. Nope.

Nope. Could we do.

How about new?

Let's try something new. No, we don't try anything new in December in our world.

Let's try something new. Yeah, how about you shutting the hell up? Walk away. Just walk away.

How about you? You're feeling better?

I'm getting there. I'm getting still some. The problem is, is my December now, my November is now part of my December and it's trying to catch up, it's trying to get organized. It's just all the. And I. I do not like the holidays.

Yes.

I'm just not a fan. But there's some other work that we do with stuff like, I mean, I was filming for Black Friday because, you know, I want to be in the mall. It took me 45 minutes to get out of the parking lot. That's how busy the mall was. So if you think retail's dead.

Not on Black Friday.

No, it is definitely, definitely not. That being said, fear was one of the things, like, I experience it. Yeah.

Black Friday shopping, filming. Black Friday filming.

I was Black Friday filming. I didn't buy anything. Gosh, no.

On principle. No way.

Right, right, right. I was getting paid to be there. Otherwise there's not a snowballs chance that I was going to be there. I did have a great fear of being there was a big piece of that. See, like. Do you like my segue?

I do. Good segue.

We want to talk about how it holds us back. It's a destructive mental game. I like how to put this there. I was listening the other day. Chris Williamson, a few months ago, had his 999th podcast. It's modern Wisdom Podcast. He talked worrying about the thing we can't predict usually involves us going to a nightmare fantasy, which is almost always way worse than what is probable or what could typically even happen in reality. We'd rather invent a catastrophe than deal with the uncomfortable step. And it's funny, I just. The look on your face, Chrissy, as I'm going through this, you're like, yeah, this is. This is an uncomfortable podcast.

Self torture. Yeah.

Yeah. And we've all been there. I mean, we're all like, oh, my gosh, what if I do this and it goes wrong? It's. It's part of the thought process. It truly is. Is it useful? Yes. I mean, obviously it's. I believe it's an evolutionary thing that's kept us alive for a couple of million years. So, sure. Probably useful. Is it as useful in 2026, 2025, when we've got. I mean, we're sitting in a heated room. I just had a snack. I've got a hot coffee in my hand. I don't feel real threatened. Unless someone asks you to do something in December. Yeah, that's the only way that I'm going to feel threatened. So what I. What I'm excited to hear about is because of your focus on resiliency, you. You look at a lot of the. Oh. Moments. Fear is. It's the direct opposite of confidence. I've got a thing about affirmations that I love that I Can talk about later. But like, leaders so often, myself included, we get stuck in this catastrophizing cycle where we're like, oh, my God, the sky is falling. And some cases it is. How does, like, the lack of resilience, the lack of. I'm going to say it. Clarity.

Nice.

How does that trickle down? How does that impact not only you, but your entire team? And then what is the healthy, resilient approach to facing that uncertainty?

Yeah.

So you can't get past the intro. She's. Gosh, he sold that.

Good job. So first thing I would say is that fear is absolutely normal. And as a leader, if you don't have it, then I think you should probably have more concerns. I mean, fear's just. It's a normal thing that rational people have. And excessive worry is something that most entrepreneurs have. So if you don't have it, I would have some concern. I would say that I. You're talking to somebody who gave herself an ulcer in elementary school. So, like, worry is. Yeah.

Whoa.

Oh, yeah.

Whoa. Yeah.

Recover.

New high score.

Thank you. Thank you. I know. My parents were so proud because, again, everything was perfect in my life. I had a great childhood, so I didn't have any reason for truly have a reason for an ulcer, but I gave myself one. Sure. But what I would say is, as you move into leadership and hopefully you don't give yourself ulcers that maintain. Mine is healed. I don't have one anymore. But catastrophizing is something that often leaders do, especially when you're new into leadership. And then I think as you continue to climb, if you don't create those skills that keep you resilient and mentally tough, it's really easy to go down a rabbit hole. And you have to remember that when a leader catastrophizes, it doesn't just stay in their head. It leaks into meetings, it can leak into emails, it can leak into. I mean, even the silence between sentences. It can go everywhere within an organization. So I would say there's three things that I've learned because we like to keep things simple. Right.

Just so I can understand.

Exactly. So the first is that you set the temperature, right? So your team isn't just listening to your words. They're really reading your energy, they're reading your facial expressions, they're reading your body language, and they' constantly scanning and thinking and asking those questions. Are we okay? Can I relax in the work? Do I need to brace myself? Is there something that's going wrong? Are we in trouble? And that's why I like to say that the leader is the thermostat, not the thermometer. So you're. Yes. You're setting the temperature.

So your people are the thermometer.

Pretty much, yeah. You're the thermostat. So if you're running hot, if you're anxious, if you're overwhelmed, if you're spinning and creating stories for yourself, the team's gonna heat up right alongside of you. Your panic becomes their panic because they're gonna match your energy. And then when fear sets in that temperature, everything then becomes reactive. So small problems start to feel like really big ones. Progress stalls while people are waiting in the room for everything to cool down or they're waiting to see how's the reaction gonna go. So your steadiness doesn't just impact the vibe of where things are. It drives the entire pace and confidence of your team. So you are the thermostat. You set the temperature. That's number one.

If you appear in oh mode, not oh mode.

Oh mode is fine. Oh mode is. Hey, we got to do something. Okay. It's the O mode.

Oh, yes. Okay.

There's a difference between urgency and panic.

I agree.

Yeah. And a lot of times, I think business owners think everything is urgent. Everything is important. No, it's not. It's not. And if that is how you're running your life, I mean, you better name your ulcer, because it's not going anywhere.

I was about to say name your ulcer. Chrissy.

No, not Chrissy. The second thing I would say about navigating fear is that you don't have to have all the answers, but you do need to stay grounded.

Yes.

Yeah. So, I mean, you have to remember that resilience doesn't mean pretending everything's fine. We're not that dog in the bar. We're not that meme. It really means standing in the unknown and saying, you know, this is uncomfortable, but I can separate what's real from what's imagined. What are the current facts? What is the current situation? And then I can take the right next step, and I can lead myself through this. Because your team doesn't expect perfection from you. They expect presence. They need your brain. They need your calm. And they want to know that even when the path is unclear, you're not going to spiral and drag them with you, because that's the other part. Don't drag your people into your fear spiral. Don't do it.

Can I touch on the. Your team doesn't expect perfection.

Yes.

Oh, my God, my team does not. They catch my screw ups all of the time.

And you need to tell them thank you because that's really why you pay them 100%.

I hate it when I see people that are like, they get all grumpy when someone catches their. No, thank you. Yes, thank you. Glad. That's why. Yes.

Well, and even if they're willing to help catch your mistakes, and they're also going to be willing to help make you better. And that's the other part, is I want team members. I'm gonna say like a third of the team is there to prevent me from doing something dumb. I really do think that Manny, my assistant especially, she is there to make sure I don't do anything.

I think it's more half my team, but yeah, we need more resources. Yes.

And then the third thing I would say about navigating fear and using resilience is that resilience isn't loud, it's measured.

Ooh, I like that.

Yeah. So resilient leadership isn't about big speeches. It's not about taking heroic action. It's not about always being the hero. It's really about modeling calm clarity when things feel shaky.

I wanted to get my cape out, you know, Damn.

No cape is silent. So really, resilience sounds like as you're dealing with fear, here's what I know, here's what I don't know, and here's what we're going to do next. And that kind of leadership doesn't just stabilize. It helps build culture, and it helps build momentum in the organization. Because when leaders model that clarity over catastrophe, it gives permission for the whole team to breathe, which is good. Your team needs oxygen.

They do, they do. They do.

Yeah. So I would say too resilient leaders, they don't just power through the storm, they plan through it. They breathe through it. They teach each other and teach others how to do the same. And they don't have to be unshakable. And that's, I think, oftentimes as entrepreneurs, especially when we're new to having a team, we think that we have to appear bulletproof to the people that are around us. And that is just. It's not true. You have to just be grounded enough to remind your team that you've got it.

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I'll give you a few seconds to go to the website while we get ready to get back to the show. With that. So I want to ask something on that. So you think showing fear is perfectly a. Okay, fine. It's just making sure that they also know that you're, like, looking at it in a calculated manner and haven't switched on to hair on fire mode.

Yes. I think that fear. Fear gets a bad rap as a word, sure. But you can replace fear with uncertainty. You can replace fear with concern. And when you replace it with those words, it seems way more reasonable and manageable. You're like, I'm fearful about this. And you're visibly showing freak out as opposed to, I'm concerned this might be something that we need to work on. I'm concerned this could leave us vulnerable. How you use your language around fear, I think is also just as important.

100%.

Don't hide under your desk either. That's bad luck.

Just saying, if your team walks in and sees you under your desk with a helmet on and some aluminum foil, they're probably gonna.

They're gonna have concerns. Now, that said, have there been times where I'm laying in the middle of my office on the floor trying to, like, calm myself down? Yes. I shut my door. And nobody needs to see that.

Right, right. In a meeting.

In a meeting. Occasionally. I mean, it does. Cause occasionally you're gonna have. As a business owner, there are gonna be moments where you are going to panic. Not everybody needs to see that. So you need to get. Get a handle on yourself and keep moving forward. So, I mean, that's why we talk about. Is I want to transition to operational perspective. Catastrophizing is an emotional choice.

Yes.

I think we both would agree with that 100%. Terrible results in terrible business decisions. So I want to talk about the operational cost of this behavior. How can a leader use simple systems to force themselves to be calculating instead of catastrophizing?

It's funny because I. When I start to think of some of this, I realize in many ways I am more calculating than most. So I'm like, okay, how can we adapt this? I lack some Emotion in some areas. I get it. It's late. It's always, it's four hours after the fact when I freak out.

It's okay. That's, that's really good. That means that you're really good in the moment.

But I want, right. But I want to try and present this in a way that's adaptable for normal humans. One that I found that was interesting is like when we, we catastrophize stuff. Another Chris Williams Williamson quote is most people will deal with years of misery instead of facing a few moments of pain. That is why 90% of people are still in relationships.

It's the sweaty 10 minute conversation by gay Hendricks.

Exactly. It's 100% that they don't want to have that. And it's delaying a difficult decision, a difficult conversation, a layoff, a price increase, a client termination. You're going to delay that for months because you're like, now's not the right time. No, it's, it's, it's never the right time.

It's never going to be.

It's never the right time to break up. It's never the right time to increase prices. It's never the right time to tell a client it's been real, it's been fun, but it hasn't been real fun. Get out of here. What so many people don't realize is not making a decision is still a decision.

It is an expensive one, usually.

Oh gosh, is it ever? And I mean, I know I think back to some stuff where I'm like, we're just going to put that off a little bit. And then I sit there and think and I like, oh, that probably cost me only like four or five times more.

Exactly.

The ways that people do this are what is tough. We get the, and I've done this. Let's wait and see. Now, I've actually used this as a tactic when I was at the semi truck dealership. The, the corporate office, the, the, the manufacturer was actually like, hey, we want you to build another dealership. And I'm like, oh, you've given us data. But the data doesn't. This data isn't clear. It's kind of dirty data. Get us clean data. Which I knew they couldn't for another couple of months. Get us clean data. And then we'll, we'll go ahead and make the decision. And they're like, okay, we'll do that. And I'm like, great. We already knew what we needed to do. I used it as a delay tactic. Thankfully, it was the one time that it was to our. Our advantage. If a vendor is becoming unreliable, I mean, start working on switching. First off, you shouldn't just have one vendor anyways.

Keep a bench.

But. Yes, but start, Start working on those types of things. The other one is, too, is, I'm going through this with my father right now. Option overload.

Oh.

He's looking at a purchase. It's several hundred dollars. I can't say what this is because it's for someone else. It's a. It's a present.

Okay.

Several hundred dollars. He has sent me 10 of these items to compare. I know he has probably spent seven to ten hours on this.

Yes.

And I'm like, no, just. And they're all going to work fine. Every single one of them.

Just pick one.

Just pick one. It's like going to a car dealership. Do you do like. There's 10 different cars sitting here on the lot. This one's a blue one. That one's a red one. But this one has the heated seats. But that one has the. Just pick one. This is. It's not a decision that needs to take two weeks of your life.

Yes.

Figure out what fits your budget. Figure out what you have to have, and go get it.

Well, and there are very few decisions in business that are absolutely life and death. Even tattoos can be removed. So stop it.

I've never, never, ever, ever had one.

Me either. But they're removable, right?

Right. No, it's a great analogy.

But they're removable.

Right. Things can be undone. That's the. Yes. The. The thing that I see with it so often is people are so shy to pull the trigger on something, and they've already got momentum in that direction. So now all that momentum's gone because they're like, I'm going to do more research because I've got 500 options. Nope. Pick one. We were talking about this before.

Yeah.

In terms of CRMs, I'm like, hey, what CRM do you use? Because I'm looking at two or three of them. But we're really just going to be like, you know what? This covers the basics. Done. I'm not going to. I. I'm not going to spend a week on this. It doesn't make sense to do it. But so many people want to want the perfect decision that they just either a waste time or never make a decision. The other one is. Is the what if?

Oh, God. Yes. We see this in HR all the time. So that's why I'm laughing.

I'm sure you have some stories.

Yes, all very expensive ones.

So. Yes, very expensive ones. And probably not ones that we want to record. No. People don't typically spend it. Like, they'll sit there and they'll worry about, like, all the bad things that can happen, but they won't focus on the actual worry. What happens if we do this? Like, we might lose our biggest client. Whoever. Okay. But if that's 20% of your business, that sucks.

Yeah.

But you're not shuttering tomorrow. What happens if the new product launch might fail? I just heard something too, that Darwin kept the theory of evolution in a drawer for 20 years.

Really?

Yeah. It wasn't until someone else came out and started to talk about it that he finally said, oh, yeah, I've had this book. Because once again, there was that fear of what's going to happen with it. The problem is, is we spend so much time, like, looking at the bad outcomes of this. I just worked with a client that we did a bunch of great videos with them. It was to help promote them and to get an issue to pass. And they were fun. They, I mean, they were good quality stuff. And they were so worried about too bad comments from people that always make bad comments that they were unwilling to go out and get those thousand or two or three thousand people that never would see the stuff otherwise because it's something that was edgy and not even edgy in a bad way. Edgy in a funny way. Someone could be like, oh, why are they doing that? That's wasting time. Or wait, it was 36. Yeah.

So now to the trolls. Darn.

And that's it. They looked the. The guy I was working with, I. I asked him about it and he goes, look. He goes, I look at everything is like, how can I cover my ass?

No.

And I'm like, no, you need to. You occasionally need to get punched in the face. It may. It's going to hurt. Is it going to. You're going to wobble around for a few seconds.

Yes.

But if you are so worried about getting punched in the face that you just keep your hands up, you're never.

Going to throw a punch.

You're never, ever, ever going to throw a punch and then you're just sitting there like a sitting duck. The other thing that I, that I always work with on this is I assign a measurable cost.

Yeah.

I look at things like, let's say, hey, we lose our top client. What is that? Is it 10% of the business? Well, okay. When you add that up, okay, that's a Shot to the business.

Exactly.

But I mean, it's not crushing.

No. Can you quantify it? Because I think often we overestimate what that actual number is. There's a lot more feeling to it than there is fact to it. And I would say, too, going back to what you were saying about defining the worst probable outcome is, I think often we are always good to plan for when things go wrong, but I think as a business owner especially, we need to plan for when things go right. Because you will die from success just as likely as you will die from failure. Actually, more from success. It's more likely that you're going to die from success than you are going to die from failure because it can crush you very quickly. It's like, what happens if, if no one buys our product? Well, what happens if everyone buys your product, too? Like, you need to think like.

You should. You should never have the mindset, holy shit, it worked.

Yes. Agree.

You should go into it with the confidence.

Yes.

That you expect it to work. Exactly is.

It's funny. I'm going to go back to the affirmation saying. And I heard Jimmy Carr, the comedian, say it. It's. And he kind of pulled it. Alex Harmozi. But he said after he goes, you do not gain confidence from shouting affirmations in the mirror every morning. You gain confidence from doing the thing and proving with irrefutable proof that you can do it. And that's where this comes in. You can prove that you can do it. And if you didn't do it, guess what? You reset. And the next step that I have is creating a mitigation plan.

Yes.

So that way, when it doesn't work now, just like what we've talked about in preparing for, like, stuff to go sideways, preparing for the client to leave, preparing for a vendor to collapse, preparing. When you've created those mitigation plans, when you look at it like, oh, okay, first off, this didn't. 99.9% of the time, it is going to go a quarter sideways than you think it will.

Yes.

You're, you're, you're thinking, this is going to be the full 360 burning into the wall. You're going to spin out, you're going to look around, you're going to be like, okay, not a big deal.

Anyone see that? Look both ways. Get back on the road. If you've got that mitigation plan.

Yes.

You know what the actual cost is. And then you can start to take those steps. As soon as you start to see it go Sideways. The one that, like I said, if, if, if, if it's something that could lose a big customer, you look at like, as you do that, you ramp up lead generation.

Yes.

Oh, hey, we could lose someone in this. Guess what? We should probably go find more other someones.

Yes. Or if you want to have steady growth year over year, you should be doing that anyway.

Yes.

I think often, especially when you're new to building your business, it's easy to turn things on and off as opposed to maintaining and remembering that, you know, momentum is okay. And something that I'm working on with my business coach right now, as I told her, like, I just, I'm struggling in trying not to control freak my momentum. Like, there is a certain speed that I am ready to move at, and I feel like I'm getting pulled a little bit faster. And I need to do a good job of not freaking out and pulling everything back because I've built a team that knows what they're doing.

How did you say that again?

Control freak my momentum.

Once again, I think me sitting across the table, I can speak for our audience in saying, you are the only person I would ever expect to say those words together 100%. That's a Chrissyism.

Well, maybe it is, but it's. How do you. I mean, even as you're maintaining, whether you're building something or you're maintaining a level of success, or you're moving and you're accelerating up your own success spiral, how do you not freak yourself out and pull yourself back down? Because that's the other part. When things start to get uncomfortable and we start to move into a level where we haven't been before, it's easy to shrink. And so that's where I'm like, don't shrink. And don't shrink the people around me. Because that's. The other part is what we've been doing this year at AUI and Clarity is really building capacity and adding additional team members who can really help with key things that are no longer within the absolute claw of my control. And so I'm having to do this and release my hand from everything when I really just want to pull it back because it's safer when I'm just doing it. But it's also a lot slower. If you're a small business owner navigating the world of marketing or looking to establish yourself as an industry expert. You already know the power of a great podcast.

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Back to the show.

I feel like this should have involved you sitting on a couch and me taking notes in the chair. This is the. This is the therapy session.

Yes.

I love it. Boy, you do not. That's a mis. That's. That is a bad mistake that you should fear is having me as your therapist.

Yeah, I would agree.

The other one that I'm going to say real quick is calculate the delta.

Like, oh yeah.

The emotional weight of your initial worry. Like, what is that? And think about. If you think about that with intention, you realize I am carrying around a 20 pound bag of nothing.

Yeah.

It's really only got two pounds in it, but I'm treating it like it's got 20 in it. So that is the thing to look at because once again, we're typically going to look at what happens when this goes sideways. Also balance that with what happens when this goes. Right. That's. I mean, you know that I'm. My favorite saying. If I'm walking into a storm, I want to know which way the wind's blowing. And just looking at that, like actually look at the wind. Yeah, don't look at the. I mean, so many times we see the clouds on the horizon and we're like, oh, that's bad. And we get a couple of raindrops.

Yes. No big deal.

Right. The other thing that I want to look at too with some of this is the. I talk about this a lot. The anomaly versus the pattern. If it goes a hint sideways at once, that one small issue in this big plan doesn't mean it's time to scrap the whole thing, ball it up and chuck it in a can. If you get a single customer complaint, a one time process error, don't give those the same weight as like, oh, this is the 10th time this has happened. Once is not a pattern. Look for the patterns, look for the trend. A single data point. I like, this is noise. When stuff starts to go sideways, don't think. I mean, if it's the big bang, it's the big bang. But if you see one little issue, especially as you're growing. Great. Three issues. Then maybe. Maybe you put your hand on the rudder. Not yank the rudder one direction or the other. No, but put your hand on it. It's three repeated data points. That is a pattern. And they've all. They've all got to be in the same direction. If you've got one high, one low, and one in the center, guess what? You got nothing. You got noise. The other thing that I want to talk about with data anxiety is not data. The.

Really to sound like a therapist right now, you're right.

Right.

You're 100% right.

Your. I mean, this going right or wrong.

Yeah.

Doesn't directly correlate with the number of Xanax you've taken this week.

No.

There's other things that you could have going on. There's all sorts of other things. You have to wait for the data to confirm the pattern before you act.

Oh. And I think for those of us who are recovering perfectionists, this anomaly versus pattern is. It can be difficult to master at first. Oh, it's because you have to sit. You're like, I'm getting criticism. And it's like one troll on the Internet. It's like, instead of saying, oh, my gosh, you should be saying, congratulations, someone is annoyed enough to pick at you. It's okay. It means you're growing. I used to see. I still get anxiety around some of it, so I just. I have to keep telling myself, myself, it's okay.

You have dignity. I do not. There, there. We're just going to call that one what we see it right now. Chrissy has dignity. Josh does not. That's. That is the difference in how we handle these things. It's It. I get it from the perfectionist standpoint, because as soon as you see something out of line, you want to put it back in line.

Yes, you do.

Oh, we got to adjust for this.

No, no.

If you've got a thousand data points, there's a pretty good chance that 100 are going to land outside where you want them to.

Mm.

That's life. That's statistics. But if you go along, like, trying to shove all those little data points in there, every single one of your teammates is gonna be bald because they have all yanked their hair out.

They have. And I would say that this is one of those things where there are a lot of business consultants, business book writers that say at some point in time, you hit a ceiling, and you are no longer capable of moving your organization forward. And I disagree with that. What I think the issue is is that you cannot. You haven't grown your skill set to be able to maintain being comfortable in a level of chaos. And so as things get bigger, you have to be willing to deal with more momentum, more direction, more things coming at you from different places. And it's easy to stay comfortable and stay in one spot. I think that's a lot of times why you see organizations that have to shift and they go through. They have a CEO for five years, and they get to a certain revenue number, and they get a new CEO, and then they bring in a new. Like this CEO only works with organizations that have $100 million or more. This CEO only works for companies that have $500 million or more. It's because they're willing to deal with a level of chaos and complexity. But if you continue to grow your skill set, I think there is no ceiling.

What's interesting about that is I was listening to something else the other day, and did you notice as your business has grown, your friends have changed?

Yes. I feel like we need to have a podcast about that.

Yeah.

Seriously. Big one.

It's funny, there are situations that I have noticed that I am in now where I'm like, I used to be the. The. The guy, and now I'm kind of the target. And I'm like, I think I've outgrown this situation.

Yeah.

And these people just want me to be what I was.

Yes.

And it's. It's not out of malice. It's just what they were used to and where they would like to be.

That's comfort.

Yep, it's comfort. And they aren't willing to deal with the fear of growing.

Yeah.

Do you like how I like that?

Because there's a lot of fear around growth.

I'm good at bringing things back into the.

We don't land the plane.

I don't like that one.

No, you don't. I did it anyway.

How do you teach team members to bring you a calculated risk instead of just. They're like, oh, I don't like this, boss.

Oh, well.

Because I know you've presented stuff to people. You're like, hey, we're going to do this. And I know there's been times where your team is like, I don't like that.

I don't like that. I don't want to do it. It feels uncomfortable. Tell us why. So when they bring me, like, calculated risk issues, so I mean, I usually tell my team, you know, don't bring me the disaster movie. You need to bring me the math that goes with it. So it's same as opposed to the panic. So there's really three questions that I think you really need to answer or have your team members answer. Coach them around this. And that is, number one, what's the actual issue? Number two, what is the probable outcome? And number three, what is the cost? And for me, I'm generally just waiting for you to get to number three. I really just want to know how much is it going to cost me to fix this? Because I have a number, and if it's less than a certain amount, I go do it. If it's more than a certain amount, I go, oh, I got to think about it.

I wait for the cost for a different reason.

Yeah, tell me.

Because to me, if you go through the issue, what the actual issue is, what the probable outcome is, and then you start working on the cost. By that time, you've taken. You've sucked a lot of the emotion out of.

Oh, exactly.

And now they're to a base of it. This is less. This is more risk assessment.

Yes.

Than just this feels awkward. It goes to that actual. Okay, what is the thing that. What it. What are the calculated things here? Because they've had to do the actual work to get there instead of just seeing the piece of paper and thinking, oh, this is bad.

Well, and you're taking them out of panic mode into problem solving mode. And that's ideally what you want your people to always be able to do. You hired them to be problem solvers, at least I would assume you did. If you didn't, then I don't know why. I don't know what you're doing.

So I want to hear this one because the notes you have in here are great. So you had a decision that was delayed out of fear.

Yes. Gotta find these notes.

Chrissy's got. Chrissy's now uncomfortable. It's the discuss a real life example.

Oh, discuss a real life example. Yeah.

She's like, oh, I didn't want to talk about that one.

Yeah.

She's like, I didn't want to do that.

So I spent. And this was math too, because it was.

Did you have fear in this?

Oh, I had huge amount of fear. I had huge amount of fear. This was a conversation I had to have with someone who is integral to our organization. But she also, she. She built business with us too. And so all of a sudden the numbers flipped and it was no longer what her compensation structure was, was no longer working for our organization. And so there was, part of me was like, well, let's see if we can deal with this for a couple months. And it was, I mean, I spent weeks, probably months around the decision because I was convinced that she was going to be so upset about this issue and she was going to be angry with me and I didn't want a dramatic chain reaction with it. I was just, I was so fearful about it. And I mean, reality was like, I had, I put everything together. This was before ChatGPT. I'm trying to think how many years ago. It was probably five years ago. And I, I like wrestled over this email for probably two weeks. I made myself sick. And then I hit send and like 30 seconds later the phone rang. I'm like, oh, oh, oh crap. And it was less than a 10 minute conversation with her and it was, oh my gosh, I had no idea. Why didn't you tell me? And we renegotiated terms, everything. And she is one of my best business friends at this point in time. Like, I, if something happens and I need someone to talk to, she's who I call. And she always rehearse, rehearses that, converse, like regurgitates that to me. She's like, ever since we had that conversation, she's like, I know that you are always willing to, to care about me and you always are willing to. And I'm like, oh my gosh. Like, that's where. Yeah, the emotional cost was like a thousand times more than the actual cost. But at the same time, like, I, it cost us. It cost time, it costs money, it cost energy. It was. You want to talk about the ability to catastrophize? I can, I can match anybody. I can probably raise them. Remember ulcer in elementary school?

So, yeah, no, I, I could probably give you a run for your money.

You might. But I think I would actively pitch a tent. Be perfectly happy in fear. I can live there for a long time.

Yeah. No, so it's funny, I have very much had to be intentional about removing the emotional components of things. Like what's emotional. And it's okay to feel those emotions.

Yeah.

But don't let the emotion make the decision. It was funny for me because when I, like, I had to fire an editor and it was the same thing and I'm like, I delayed it a little while and eventually I'm like, oh my God, this is just. No. And I thought, this is going to be this big blow up. I sent the email, she's like, where do you want the hard drive sent? And I'm like, here? And she's like, great, thanks. It's been a lot of. She goes, I've enjoyed this. And I was like, oh, okay.

This was way, way easier than my mind said it was going to be.

But we all think, I mean, literally, we're pretty sure that when we sit down across the desk from someone to have that sweaty 10 minute conversation, in most cases we feel like they're armed.

Yes.

Are they going to come across the table with me? In fact, what I think of is, I think of when Michael Scott did the role play. You know exactly what I'm talking about with Jim where he had Jim pretend to be the boss and he's no, no, no, I'm gonna kill my. And he just goes on and on and on. And I, we all imagine that. That is exactly what we imagine when most people are like, yeah, okay, well.

And I would say as you're going through these fearful conversations and you're learn, like, learn from it. Because like what I dealt with that issue five years ago. There is no way that I could have done what I did two years ago. And walking to an organization that had no revenue and getting it to turn around and getting it to revenue before I exited, like, there's, you have to be able to measure your fear and learn from it.

Yep. One thing that we haven't covered much of is celebrate those courageous actions.

Yes.

Like when not just the, hey, we did it and it worked. Holy cow, we got lucky.

We did it and we didn't die. That's a good one.

It's just the moment that, like, to me, I'm terrible about celebrating things. When I played soccer, I would score a goal, I'd be like, yeah, and I would just run back to half.

Field like most entrepreneurs are.

So to me, to say, look, we're starting this, make a big deal about starting something.

Yes.

Don't wait until it's gone good or bad. Or when you start, celebrate that. Celebrate starting. Celebrate the people involved with starting.

Well, and I would say success is great, but courage is really what builds your momentum. And so you need to be able to reward and incentivize those team members who are being courageous because that takes a lot of fortitude and momentum, especially when they're dealing with their owner or their boss. So. And the other thing too is that when you only reward people for being perfect or always achieving perfectly, you're going to teach them to play small because they're Only going to be willing to go to the things that are absolutely attainable. This is why I always say that smart goals are stupid. I hate them. They kill vision.

Celebrate trying, yes, but celebrate it as the try is happening. Don't wait for the outcome. To wrap all of this up. Oh, to go back just half a step.

Yeah.

When you talked about living in the fear, I always. One of my other famous saying is, is when my esophagus and large intestines have swapped places.

Yes, that's true.

We have all had. The other one that I use on the motorcycle is I had, I didn't need a seatbelt, I had a firm grip on the seat. To wrap this all up and stop with my 9 year old analogies. Actionable steps for me, one is name the fear, calculate the cost, stop saying it could be a disaster instead. Right. The most probable worst case scenario is X. And when you say most probable, put like okay, this, this is where we could land. Not a big deal.

Yeah. I would say be a thermostat from number one. You know, as the leader you set the temperature. So remember to model what you want to set. See in your team.

Love it. Another one that I heard is run into the storm, not away from the storm.

Yeah.

If you run away from the storm, you end up longer in the storm if you run through it. So put the 10 minutes on the calendar and commit to getting the tough part done immediately.

Yeah. And I would say practice. Probable not possible.

Love it.

So when your brain jumps to the worst case scenario, you're going to pause and ask yourself what is most likely to happen. Because resilience comes from training your mind to stay grounded and what's probable, not what's terrifying. No more ulcers.

Chrissy's on the anti ulcer.

I am.

For me, this is easier for me than many others. But lead with fact, not emotion, just I mean, data numbers. Those are what speak not your anxiety. Like if you just peed yourself change before you talk to your team.

I agree. And I would say shrink the fear with the first step because action is the antidote to anxiety. So picking that small step, sending the email, looking at the number, starting the conversation. Fear grows in avoidance and it shrinks when we're in motion.

Oh, I love that. I absolutely love that. Fastest way for a leader to destroy all trust. When fear becomes the crisis.

Oh, it's panic in front of your team. Yeah. Second they see you unravel, they start imagining the catastrophe because they assume you know something they don't. Yeah. Be Steady. Be an anchor. If you lose it, the whole boat starts to drift.

Josh is looking for a job. Does that mean we should be looking for a job also? Exactly right.

So what's the single best operational method for forcing yourself to stop catastrophizing time on the calendar?

Like a worst case cash flow projection that forces you to put real, measurable, like number on the imaginary disaster.

Nice.

So if it is the. If. If you're avoiding something like why? And put a number to it. Yeah, if you've got a number to it, you can figure it out. If I'm paying someone, that's putting in half the effort for six months, that's expensive as hell.

Yeah. Don't do it.

We've both done it. We've both done it more than I.

Want to admit and way more money than I want to ever tell anyone.

Oh, God.

Yeah.

You're like. How many numbers are left of the decimal point? Damn it.

Yeah.

That's my retirement.

I don't want to. Yeah, we can talk about million dollar mistakes. Multimillion dollar mistakes yesterday.

Yes, yes. Before Christy and I start to cry at the end of this episode thinking about those types of things, we definitely really appreciate all of you guys. To me, it's trade your nightmares for spreadsheets. Ooh, yeah. Chrissy, once again, thank you. The insight stories and everything like that and the resiliency that you have with us is awesome. And the clarity at which it's presented. I'm getting better at this.

You are. This is good.

Do me a favor. Do us both a favor. Hit businessfixpodcast.com Follow us on all the social media is at the business fix. We've had a pretty good run on Instagram recently.

Yeah, it's been fun.

Yes. Review subscription on any of the podcast platforms we'd greatly appreciate. Next week, we are talking about what employees expect from you.

Yeah.

Besides bad jokes. As always, do us a favor. Take care of yourself. If you can take care of someone else, we will see you very, very, very.