THE POWER OF DECISION-MAKING

How to make big decisions. To me, making a big decision isn't about making a list of your pros and your cons and why you should do this or why you shouldn't take that deal. Making a big decision comes down to your values. Who are you? Or what does your company stand for? When you figure that out, it's way easier to make the big decisions in your life. I'm reminded of the story of Steve Jobs. When he started Apple Computer, he, he dropped out of school. He sold all his stuff. He sold his car. He sold his possessions to finance this company. He left the safe path, the path everybody said was the right thing to do. Graduate school, get a job. This is the safe way to go. He left all that to start a business. And if that wasn't crazy enough, he did it in computers. And people said, "You're nuts! Like computers? Why computers? Nobody needs a computer!" There was no market for computers. It didn't exist. The only people who bought computers were huge corporations. There was no need for a personal computer. It did not exist. It was a crazy decision for him to make. And yet he did it. How did he have the courage, the confidence to go out and make this company? Because he wasn't looking at his list. He wasn't looking at the pros and the cons. He was listening to his values. He knew that this thing had to get done. This was part of him, and he had to create this. And often you'll find that when you look at your list of pros and cons, the answer that you come up with is not actually the answer that is best for you, because the list is going to represent everything you can think of. You're thinking with your head, and it's always limited to a world that currently exists. Where, when you think with your heart and you think with your values and the person that you stand for, when you think of that, then you can create a new world, and you can have the courage to chase something, to follow a dream, that may not make sense to anybody else but feels right to you. When I was in university, I had a part-time business. It was a software company I had with two friends, and I was making $300 a month trying to get this thing to go. And I remember when I was graduating, I got opportunities to work with two of the biggest financial companies in the world, opportunities that my friends were jealous of. Like, they wanted these opportunities, opportunities that paid 80 to $100,000 a year starting salary. 80 to 100K starting salary. I'm here making $300 a month, can barely survive, and here's an opportunity to just totally transform my life in a second. They're flying me to New York to recruit me. They're putting me up in the Waldorf Astoria, and as I go through the process, I just felt like I had to keep going with my business. You know, it didn't make sense logically. If I made my list, reasons to do it, reasons not to do it, it didn't make sense logically. And my friends were like, what, you're crazy! How could you, how could you not chase this? Why are you doing your business? You're making nothing, like you can't survive. You may be out of a company in 3 months. And, and, you know, it was close for me, but something made me want to keep going, and I'm glad that I did, because I turned that business into an international company, and I had clients in over 30 countries, and I sold to brand-name clients like Johnson Johnson and NASA, and I got my business acquired. And then I hooked up with a venture capital company, and now I'm doing this, and I'm so happy with my life and what I'm doing right now. And I can't imagine what would have happened if I didn't go this route. And it's funny now because some of those same friends who I, who I had early on who told me this is the route you should go, and they followed that path, they come back and I see them now and they're telling me I'm Evan, I'm stressed out, I'm overworked, you know, I hate my life. I feel like I'm on this crazy treadmill and I don't know what to do, and I'm thinking about starting my own business. What do you think? And I'm just like, my mind is blown, and I'm happy to help them out with their business, but that was so close to being me. I almost made that decision, and I would be that guy who hates his life and is super stressed out and overworked. And logically, that was the right thing to do. But I listened to my values and what I wanted to accomplish in my life, and I just felt like even though this doesn't make sense rationally, I have to listen to my heart and go after this opportunity. I got emailed recently by one of my newsletter subscribers, Philippe, and I really feel for Philippe. Philippe is a seller of Canon products. He sells the cameras, the point-and-click and the higher-end cameras, and he's found that his sales have decreased because people are no longer buying the point-and-click cameras. They're just using their phones. And he sees his business is struggling now, and I feel for him because it's, it's really hard when you have a business that's doing well and then starts to crash. And you're not sure what to do, you start to panic. It's almost better to have never experienced that taste of success because when you get it, you hate losing it. And Philippe now is in the point where he doesn't know what to do, and he writes to me, he's like, "Do I— how do I get people to be more loyal to me? How do I get people to refer more customers to me? How do I get more related products in here?" And he's wondering, should I go with Should I stick with network marketing? Should I bring in printers and sell something totally different? Should I implement some kind of customer loyalty program or points program? Here's the thing, Philippe. Until you understand what it is that your business stands for, you will never have clarity on any of these issues. You're going to bounce around from idea to idea, grasping at straws, trying to make it happen. You have to first understand why did you start this business and what are you all about. Because until you do that, it doesn't matter if you have a customer referral program or a loyalty points program, because you're not giving people a reason to talk about you. If you stand for something important, then people will want to help spread your message. So here's an example. Say, say you wanted to make photography available for everybody. You believe that everybody can take great pictures. And you want to show them the way. Okay, if that is your guiding principle— everybody can take great pictures— you build your business around that. What does that mean? It means you're not selling printers. It means you're not selling anything that's not related to taking great pictures, because everybody can take great pictures. It means that when you are working on your sales staff, when people come into the store, they're made to feel welcome. I've walked into a lot of camera stores and they obviously know a lot more than I do and I feel inferior. I feel like, like I'm nervous and I'm worried walking in. They make me feel bad for not knowing these things. I'm asking logical questions that they seem for some reason are stupid and they make me feel bad about it. So as a beginner, I'm not going to go back to that store. I'm not going to tell my friends about it. So you need to have, your salespeople, be friendly to these people coming in. It's part of everything, do you understand? Once you get that messaging, once you understand what you stand for, it impacts every decision in your business. If you believe everybody can take great pictures, that has an impact on who you hire, how you hire, the types of products you carry, what your store looks like, what kind of marketing you're doing. It impacts everything. You're talking about what products to get into, you're worried about the, the phones coming into the market. Maybe you should sell phones. If you believe that everybody can take great pictures and you're educating them, that starts with the phone. And maybe from going to phone, they'll go to a bigger camera afterwards. But you're educating them even on their phone how to take a great picture. And that's a gutsy decision and a hard one. You might be the only guy in Canon who makes that decision to go out and sell phones. And people might say, Philippe, are you crazy? What are you doing? You're selling cameras. You were not in the phone business. It doesn't make sense logically on your list. It doesn't make sense, but it makes sense here because you're following a purpose, a mission, a vision that you believe in. Everybody can take great pictures, and you're helping them I'm willing to do that. And that's a message that people can spread for you. So you have to find out what that is for you. I just made that one up. Find out what it is for you. And when you figure that out, then your decision-making becomes easier. So how do you find what you stand for? How do you find what you believe in? This is a long, thought-provoking exercise, but I'm going to try to drill it down to 3 simple steps for you that you can start start working on right now that will give you insights into yourself and help you make those big decisions. Okay, number 1: Understand why. Understand why you started this business. Why did you start this business? What did you do it for? And, and it better not be for money. You started this business for a reason. If it was just to make money, you're going to fail. You got to start over, new business. You look at famous entrepreneurs, why they got started was never for the money. It was to have some kind of impact. And if you're providing value, doing great things, the money will come. But why did you start this business? Write it down, one sentence. Why did you start this business that's not about money? Okay, that's the first part. Understand why. Number 2: What do you want to be known for? Think about it. You know, you have a limited amount of time on this world. What do you want to be known for? What do you want people to say about you? What's going to be written on your tombstone? It's not going to be Philippe made $1 million. That's not going to be it, I guarantee it. But I could see it on mine saying Evan believed in entrepreneurs. I could see that being on my tombstone. What's going to be on yours? What do you want people to know you for? And again, it's not going to be about money. It's going to be about something more, something bigger, something more powerful. Write it down. Write it down right now. What do you want people to know you for? What do you want to be remembered as? And number 3 is imagine. Imagine a world where you were rich, okay? You had all the money you needed. What would you do? What would your daily life look like? Because it's not just going to be sitting on some beach, okay? You get tired of that. How would you spend your life? How would you make decisions if money wasn't an issue? What would you do? What, what does your day-to-day life look like? Write that down. What project would you work on? Write them down. From everything you've written down from those 3 points, those 3 important questions, there's a common theme, and that's who's uniquely you. You have to ideally drill that down to one word, but start with a sentence and get closer and closer and closer. And then whenever you're making a big decision, it's easier. You look at your sentence, and ideally you look at your one word. And from there you make a decision. For me, it's about believe, and specifically believing in entrepreneurs. When I'm faced with a big decision, if it's not about believe, it's easy. I don't care how much you're gonna pay me. It's not believe. I'm not doing it. And I'll take on other projects that may not make any sense financially but are all about believe, and I turn them into big successes. So use those 3 steps and find your word: belief. For those of you watching, you like the video, please give it a thumbs up below. Let me know what you think. Leave a comment. You have a question, leave it, leave it below. I'll make a video response. And if you like these videos, don't forget to subscribe to the channel. Thank you so much, and I'll see you soon.