How To Never Regret Another Decision
22 Aug 2023 · 1 min
James Laughlin shares a VP decision-making model: draw a V for your three key values on one side, a P for three to four priorities on the other, then weigh opportunities and costs for each option. He uses choosing between hosting an event and attending his son's school production to show how it works.
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Seven (former seven-time world champion musician).
A free copy of his book 'Habits of High Performers' will be shipped to participants who join the 2026 goal-setting workshop (link in the notes).
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I'd like to ship you a free copy of my book Habits of High Performers. If you come and join the 2026 goal setting workshop, I will ship you one of these today. The link is in the notes. Please come and join me to set up the very best 2026 you could imagine. If you've set up goals in the past or New Year's resolutions and they haven't substantiated, I'm here to help you across all the key pillars of your life nail your goals. I'll see you there. Welcome to Lead On Purpose. I'm James Laughlin, former seven time world champion musician and now executive coach to global leaders and high performers. Each week I'll publish a solo cast where I'll share my top high performance habits and methodologies to supercharge your life and career. If you enjoy the show, please take a short moment to subscribe and leave a rating and review. I'd greatly appreciate it. Thanks for taking the time to connect today and investing in yourself. Enjoy the show.
I want to share with you how to Never replace Regret Another Decision have you made decisions in your life that you regret? Look, I think we all have. In fact, I know we all have. We've made decisions that we wish we could go back on because we've seen what the ramifications are of that decision. And I want you just for a moment to think, what is a decision? Well, if you look at the derivative of the word D side so the last part of it is side C, I, D, E. What other words do you know that end in cide? Suicide, homicide, genocide, pesticide. These are all awful words that bring about certain feelings, right? Because cide means to kill. So when you decide you are killing off all other options, that's what it means. And look, I think it's important that we take a moment to look at the words we use. I ask ourselves, what do they actually mean? So I'm a big fan of trying to figure out those words that I use all the time. Where did they come from? What do they truly mean? When I started researching decisions and decide, it was a bit shocking when I started going, wow, every time I make a decision, I'm essentially killing off all other options. Every single other option. So when you make a decision, that's what you're doing. You're saying no to so many other things. You're saying, hey, that opportunity to go and do X, Y and Z is not happening because I picked option C. So I'm going to move forward on that. So your Decisions will direct and dictate your destiny. Everything you decide will take you on a certain pathway. It'll take you 1 degree to the left or 1 degree to the right. Might not seem like a big decision, might not seem like a big shift, but that's how we start to ship and compound our growth. Or the opposite, our decay. Right? When you look at high performing teams, you know, I've been fortunate to work with some incredible professional sports teams and individuals who are leading great companies. Look, the one thing about game changers, the one thing about people who are changing the world, they know that their decisions are important and they know that they need to have a model to make great decisions. I'm going to share with you a really powerful tool to make decisions that you won't regret. You know, recently I had to use this and a lot of the things that I share with my clients, I use them day in, day out. So this model, it's called the VP model for decision making. This model, I had to use it recently. I was offered an incredible opportunity to host an amazing event, like incredible event with the most amazing people out. It would have been, I think, a big game changing moment in some respects. But when I looked at my calendar, it was the same day as school production for my son. And this was a difficult decision because I sat down and go, big opportunity, could this come from it? The benefits for my family and the business are X, Y and Z. We've all had those things come up, right? But I sat down and went, okay, let's put the filter of the VP decision making model over this to see what I need to do. So first of all, I slept on it. I'm going to urge you to do that. If you've got a big decision to make and you don't need to make it right away, don't sleep on it. I woke up the next day, got my journal out, expressed all of my different ideas and challenges around this decision and then I went, okay, V and P. So V on one side of the page and P on the other. So if you're trying to make a big decision right now, please take a moment. Put a V on the top left of a page and put a P on, on the top right of a page. And all I want you to do for the V is say, what are my values? Or a better question is what do I value? Let's start there. So do you value honesty? Do you value excellence, Innovation, mastery, Loyalty? What is it that you value? Ask yourself, what are the things I value? And Then once you've done that, I want you to, you know, if you can just bring it down to three of those values that are the most powerful and meaningful for you, three values that you know, help you shape your decision making. Then on the right hand side of the page, under priorities, what I want you to go is, write down is what are my priorities? On a day to day and a week to week basis, what are my priorities? Is it your personal physical health? Is it your intimate relationship? Is it your relationship with your family or friends? Is it your career? Is it revenue money making? Right, what is it? What are your priorities? Is it your mental health? Is it giving back to others? What are your priorities? And again, I want you to get it down to three or four priorities. I don't want 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10. That's a list, that's a bunch of things that you commit to. But priorities should be prioritized over other things. So your aim here is to have three values and three or four priorities. Values in the left, priorities on the right. Now I want you to go, okay, now I know what my values are, my priorities are. I've got this decision. So what are my opportunities? In both decisions, I've got to go to the left or to the right, I've got to make this decision or that. If I go to the left, what's the opportunities that come from that? If I go to the right, what are the opportunities that come from that? Take a moment, press pause on this if you need to and just write it down. And then the last part is cost. If I go to the left and make that decision, what are the potential costs? And write down every single cost, financially, relationally, emotionally, everything. And then if I go to the right, what are the costs? Take a moment, close that book or turn the page over, go for a walk, pour a cup of tea, get into nature, come back and look at it and go, okay, I've got a decision to make and I'm going to make a decision based on a filter of values and priorities. It's the VP decision making model. So it should become really apparent. What's the most important decision for you to make in that moment? What's that decision going to be? How is it going to shape what you need to do? And are you going to live after making that decision with no regrets? Look, as I said, I've used it recently and I've had no regrets after making the decisions I made. Now that's not to say I haven't regretted decisions in my life. Because I've got many that I regret. I'm very imperfect. But this decision making model has been a game changer for my clients, for the organizations that I serve, and for myself and my family. So I want to share that with you and I hope that it serves you. But just remember that in leadership, your own personal leadership, whether you're running a family, a team, an organization or a country, everything comes down to to your decision making and your ability to make clear and clean and very informed decisions. So I want to wish you the best with that. And everything rises and falls on leadership. Economies, world wars, relationships, companies. Everything rises and falls on leadership. I hope you enjoyed today's session. Look out for our next interview. I've got an amazing guest coming up, but for now, please get out there. Lead your life on purpose.
Thanks for tuning in today and investing in your own personal leadership. Please hit that subscribe button and I'd love if you'd leave me a rating and review. I've got some amazing guests lined up for you in the coming weeks. And leaders, it's that time to get out there and lead your life on purpose.
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