Episode 45: How to Make a Hard Decision

Welcome to the Create youe Laptop Life podcast, where entrepreneurs all around the world come to learn how to market and grow their online business right from their laptops, wherever they are. We don't have traditional nine to five jobs and we don't want them because financial and lifestyle security and freedom is too important to us. We know the world is changing for the better and that the freelance and entrepreneur economy is the cleaner, greener, smarter way to work for both families and businesses. My name is Julie, and this podcast will teach you everything you need to know about creating and growing your laptop life. Hey, everyone, this is Julie. Hope you guys are doing amazing. It has been a long time since I recorded a podcast, and that is in part because I have been wrestling with a really difficult personal announcement. If you follow me on social media, maybe you know this, maybe you don't. But if you only listen to me on this podcast, you don't yet know that I made the decision to step down as the VP of Marketing for Click Funnels. And this was a brutal decision. I cried a lot of tears. I really went back and forth in my head and in my heart for quite, quite a long time. And honestly, I think one of the things that I feared most about making that decision was that I feared that if I did what was best for me and my family, I might lose the friendships, the connections, the community. And by the way, that didn't happen. Russell and the ClickFunnels team have just been unbelievably gracious. I can't even tell you. So, anyway, I want to share this with you today. Not because I want to go into all the nitty gritty of why I made the decision that I did, but I want to talk to you guys about the struggle to make a hard decision. And this kind of struggle happens in our businesses all the time. You know, when I was younger, I thought indecisive people were silly. Making decisions never came difficult to me as a kid, right. In large part just because my personality prefers to close loops rather than to open them. So if any of you geek out on the Myers Briggs, I'm an infj. I guess it's the rarest combination of letters, but the letter that really helps me with the decision making is the J. When you take the test, you can either be a J or a P. So it's just one of those two choices. And the difference can be best described as a J personality will feel better after a decision is made, and a P personality will feel better before a decision is made when the Options are still open. Anyway, like I said, I thought indecision was silly when I was younger, but I was just ignorant. Turns out the reason I thought decisions were easy was because I only had 2D versions of them in front of me. So what the heck is a 2D decision? It's basically a term I made up, but it's what I consider a decision that has fairly easy to see boundaries around it. Right? It doesn't have 8 million dimensions, really, just 2. It also might be a decision that will have like a big glaring driver like money or survival. Right? So the choices are limited. It's like a multiple choice test in school. Pick A, pick B, pick C or pick D. Right. And so my whole life, decisions really were driven mainly by money, right? Can we afford it? Does it give us the money we need to live? Can we afford the expenses? Or decisions were morally based when I was a kid, not a kid. When I was a young adult, it was things like don't have sex till you're married or don't drink or pick the right friends. And so I just had all these 2D decisions in front of me that were fairly easy to make. Then I grew up, I had kids, I thought for sure I hit the hardest decision making path I'd ever face with kids. I would be sitting in my living room and I'd have to choose like, you know, two out of three of my kids would be in a crisis, right? I had three kids in three years. Evan would be like, you know, four years old, he was vomiting on the couch. And then my three month old, Eden was screaming because she needed to nurs and the decision felt impossible. Like, which kid do you help first? But you just would make them anyway and make them fast using sort of your survival instincts. So I thought like, all right, I had this, like I still was decisive even in those moments. And those were hard decisions. And then I met a 3D decision again, another term I made up. And really I had my head handed to me because these are moments in life, decisions that have no wrong path, no moral compass. They are not driven by need, they are not driven by money. And every possible choice or path carries with it potential opportunity, cost, unintended consequences, and soft and hard benefits and risks. And finally, a 3D decision is one that happens upon you and you're in charge of making it. But it will affect hundreds to possibly thousands of people when you do. Funnily enough, it looks like I'm quite indecisive when a 3D decision hits me and I'm also sure there are 4D and 5D and 6D decisions like people like, you know, the president and huge CEOs make, but I don't know, I haven't felt those yet. So. Deciding to step down from clickfunnels and reforge my own path was a brutal, brutal 3D decision that took me to some really dark and lonely places. And I went on a kind of a social media blackout after my announcement. It was in part just sheer exhaustion from carrying around this open loop for as long as I did. And, you know, the minute that I made the decision, within a few days I had several job opportunities from companies you'd all know if I told you who they were. And these were opportunities with equity. Basically, more 3D decisions just appeared in the road the minute I acted. And so that was the reason for, you know, my two weeks sort of hiatus. Anyway, I. This has been an incredibly difficult decision. And, you know, for those of you who've been following me for a long time, prior to coming, going on board with ClickFunnels, I was doing my own business, create your laptop life. I started as a freelancer, morphed into an agency, became a course creator, a coach, and I put a lot of that in, you know, second place on the back burner when I took this opportunity with ClickFunnels. And, you know, the ClickFunnels community really has become an integral part of my life. The relationships education, Russell has taught me so much about marketing in 18 months. It's just like, it makes me dizzy. And so. And when I look at my journey to financial freedom and entrepreneurship, ClickFunnels and Russell, like himself, they've been probably the single greatest catalyst to launch me to where I am today. And so even though I'm stepping down, I will continue to remain a very strong advocate, user, cheerleader of the software, and I will attend the events and wear the swag and, you know, continue to be a part of it. But I have a path that I need to forge and I am so excited to share with you guys. The last two weeks have been an explosion of ideas, thoughts, feelings, teachings, just like I can't even explain it to you. But to put myself in a moratorium for two weeks and really not write and talk and speak has created a lot of pressure. So you're going to see over the coming weeks, whether you're on my email list, my podcast, following me on Facebook, that I have a lot of things that I'm excited to share with you in places that I want to go so I'm very hopeful and I hope that you come along with me on this new season. It is going to include more balance. That was one of the key decision markers in this whole journey because the last year in particular has been very difficult on my marriage, my family. And I want to make sure that the business and the mission and the things that I'm doing is going to continue to serve my family and not burn them out. So anyway, for any, anyone who is sat at the edge of a decision tormented, that any move in any direction is going to cause a host of spinning plates to crash, I can promise you that the anticipation is way worse than the decision itself. I was a lot stronger than I thought and so are you. So anyway, I appreciate you all and stay tuned because there is some really cool stuff coming down the pike here in the next few weeks as I start to gear up and make a change. So thanks so much, guys. Talk to you soon. If you're ready to create, grow, scale your online business, you can go to createyourlaptoplife.com podcast and get a free plan on how you can get started today.