132. Dangers of Decision Fatigue

Foreign. Hey, my friend. Welcome back to the show. Leadership in a nutshell for home service professionals. You made it. You are here, my friend, and I am honored to have you. I'm your host, Kenny Chapman. Super, super thrilled. Always such an honor. I know how valuable your time is. I know how valuable, how meaningful your attention is. And the fact that you're down to spend 20, 30 minutes today here with me, just so grateful and I'm so honored for that. Today you're joining me for episode 132, Dangers of Decision fatigue. My friend, people are crazy. People are tripping. There's fear running everywhere, rampant. Just decisions are being harder and harder to come by. People are just being asked to make decisions all the time. We're getting barraged with negativity and what's going on and Chicken Little and the sky is falling and money's going away and like everything is horrible. Please just take a step back. And one of the reasons you get together with me once a week is just to have a breath of fresh air, to have a momentary, like, lapse of Pink Floyd said momentary lapse of reason. I guess this would be. How about a momentary lapse of chaos so you can have a moment of creative expression, a moment of creative genius, a moment of confidence, a moment of love, a moment of gratitude, a moment of gifting yourself some self care to feel good, to be happy, to enjoy this incredible journey we call life. And you've chosen to show up in some form of leadership, which is why we're here together. And now let's not make any two bones about it, that yes, decision making is a challenge and there is decision fatigue. And that's why last week I talked about how important a sales focus is. Again, people need to be reminded how important decision making is. And as leaders, you've got so much coming at you. You're being barraged by changes and shifts and different things. And on some level, you might say that it's. It's getting harder. Maybe, maybe you've heard that or thought that yourself. Like, damn businesses. It's harder than it used to be. But is it, is it though? Or is it just a perspective where maybe it got overly easy, perhaps, or maybe there weren't too many tough decisions to make because it almost seems like you couldn't do the wrong thing, you couldn't buy the wrong thing. You. Everything was just going up like crazy. I. I talked about real estate last week a little bit, you know, so. So today though, I really want. I, I care about you. Protect one of the reasons that I, that I work so hard on understanding the relationship between the conscious mind, the subconscious mind, the spirit, the soul, the ego, why I spend so much time in mental health, in understanding happiness and unhappiness and that dichotomy that drives every decision that we make. I do that because people have a hard time. And I grew up, I spent a lot of time in pain, and I manifested that pain in different ways. And one of the ways I manifested my pain was to create stuff and build stuff and build companies and build teams and different things. And I did it from maybe more of an ego perspective than I do it now. And, and I build based around sole purpose and love and collaboration more than competition and really getting people to the best of my ability in their unique zone of genius and helping with that. And that's the only reason that I really don't coach and train in the frontline capacity any longer. Because at blue collar, I have a ton of phenomenal coaches and team that, that are more skilled than I am in certain areas of that. So it allows me to do what I'm doing today where we can peel back the onion of the brain a little bit and understand ourselves maybe just a little bit more in order to understand others, maybe just a little bit more. Remember, there's no. I don't personally believe in mistakes. I don't believe in failure. I don't believe the universe or God. God, universe, soul, spirit will allow you to make a mistake. I believe that we have free will so we can choose the path that best serves us at a moment in time. And the challenge is one of the reasons we have decision. Fatigue is fear. We're afraid we're going to make the wrong decision, right? Give me a show of hands if I, if we were together like you. Or give me a head nod, maybe you're driving in your car. Just give me a nod if you're not afraid of making the wrong decision. Sometimes it's human nature, right? We all get it. It's like, damn, I don't want to do the wrong thing. Well, now you just simply do the best thing possible with the information you have at the time and then you get to choose again. It's okay to want what you want because you want it. It's okay to choose what you choose because you think it' and then an hour, a day, a week, a year, 10 years, 100 years, maybe I'm going to live a long, long time. So maybe in a hundred years I'll go, ah, I don't know. Maybe. Maybe I'll choose again. Right? Whatever that is, it's okay. There's no harm in that. See, the. The challenge is. And I know I talk about ego a fair bit on the, on the show, and I do that because it's such a powerful separator and divider in our brain. And, and when the, when the ego wants to say, oh, well, man, you. You could have done that different, or regret comes in and we go, damn, I wish I wouldn't have made that decision. That's leading to decision fatigue. Because it's like, oh, my gosh, I wish I wouldn't have done that. Rather than. So the ego goes, damn it, I wish I wouldn't have done that. I want to live in regret because the ego needs pain, separation, division, and suffering. The soul, however, goes, huh, thanks for the information. Now I have more information than I did when I made that decision. I have more education, I have more experience, I have more understanding, and therefore I'm going to choose differently. Huge difference there, my friend, in setting you free. And I'm all about freedom. And what I've come to understand is it's about mental freedom. And yes, don't get. I'm super grateful. I can't even tell you how grateful I am that I was born in a free country. I was born with free will to be able to go execute and do things. And. Yeah, and I used to speak against laws. I didn't want any laws. I drive a luxury sports car. I should be able to go faster than most people. I don't think the speed limit should be the same. I think it should be based on your, you know, how much race car driver training you have and what type of a vehicle you own should have to do with the speed limit. Yeah, I'm that guy. I believe in certain laws like that I should be able to get to choose differently. Right? Here's the thing. In life, you are going to get a result based on the decision that you made. You're going to get better results when you make a decision that blows up in your face completely just as an absolute debacle, and you go, damn. Okay, that's what I didn't intend to happen. I guess I'll do something different that's going to free you up. And now you'll continue to make decisions without the fatigue. Because the fatigue comes from fear. The fatigue comes from desired perfection. The fatigue comes from the ego not wanting to make a mistake, my friend. And it's everywhere right now more than ever. Well, man, the markets are Down. I gotta make the right decision with my money. Well, supply chain issues. I gotta make the right decision about my vendors. Well, this is going on. I gotta make the right decision about my training. I gotta make the right decision about my team. I gotta. Yeah, there's a lot going on. I'm not minimizing that. But be easy with yourself as you go through making what the world calls mistakes. If you're not making mistakes, you're not making decisions. If you're not making a lot of mistakes, you're not playing a big enough game. That's my own perspective, but that's my perspective that's based on a guy that plays a pretty, pretty big game. I play a game of happiness now more than anything, but I make a ton of mistakes because I'm here to experience full out. And I'm here to do things and I'm here to share things. And when I launched this podcast, I mean, this is episode 132. And I remember my own leadership team kind of looking well. I don't know if this is going to be a squirrel moment for him or if he, if he really wants to do this thing or. We'll kind of see. And I committed to it. And I committed to a hundred episodes. I said I'm going to do a hundred episodes and then see where I'm at. And now here we are, 32% over that. Or maybe if I, if I go back to my Frank dow Blau days and, and maybe markup versus margin, what, whatever the exact percentage is, I'd have to run the math on it right. But 30% more than what I originally committed to because I'm getting the good feedback. You, as listeners, are continuing to share the show there. Did you get it? Did you get the action item? Share the show. You're continuing to share. No. Kick. But seriously, seriously, just kick the show to somebody if you like it. I'm loving watching our community grow. I'm loving getting the feedback that we are making a difference. And that's why I'm on the planet. That's what I'm here for. And so I'm going to continue with the show and I've talked about, I'll have some guests on at some point and I'm going to continue to rock and roll and that'll probably come sooner rather than later, but I also will continue to mix in solo casts and do these things because this is what people are telling me that they want and I want to honor what that is. So when we think about decision fatigue you know, I'm not here to beat you up and say it's it that it's easy and oh, you should never feel any fatigue. Fatigue is there for a reason and fatigue is part of growth. It's simply an awareness trig to realize, okay, maybe I'm not in super alignment, maybe I'm exhausted here, maybe I'm tired, maybe I need to pay attention to something. If I have just fatigue from a workout now I need to rest, I need to take a break. And so how does, how does decision fatigue show up? It shows up through straight up mental, like just mental fatigue. I'm exhausted. I have brain fog, let's say where I just can't, can't get clear. I have general tiredness. I just feel like I'm tired. One word, all caps. It's burnout. I just am burnt out. And if you feel that, my friend, I have massive compassion for you. I have massive empathy for you. And I'm here to tell you to keep going. The only way is to keep going. But being easy with yourself, implementing some self care, implementing some technology breaks, implementing some better sleep, implementing some movement of the body, be easy with yourself, some self care will do you well if you're in a moment of decision fatigue. Now remember, it's not just you as the leader, your team may be experiencing it as well. Because the news likes to. The negative media likes to throw a lot of things at us to confuse our brain and to challenge us from a perspective that we don't even have a decision to make other than feeling like crap. Like half the time. I swear that people are just trying to make people feel bad so that they love their own misery, right? And I just look at, people are making decisions based on their own level of happiness. And if people treat me crappy or judge me or have things that negativity toward me, it's simply based on their own level of unhappiness. And I get that. I'm a happy guy. I love life. When things don't go my way, I quickly find a win in it. I take things from problems to gifts very quickly. Working through issues, situation, challenge, opportunity. It's a gift. It all is. And so I, I realized that pisses some people off. But that's okay. It's not about me and it's not my ego trying to say, oh, hey, life's wonderful, you should be happy. No, I'm saying life's wonderful. I've dealt with so much pain in my life, I'm not willing to deal with the little Things anymore, which ties little things that don't matter meaning and which is most things. If you really think about it. I just want to be happy and I want everybody around me to be happy. But if they choose not to be, I'm not going to take it on and I'm not going to find decision fatigue about that. I'm going to do the best I can with my team, I'm going to do the best I can with my environment. I'm going to do the best I can with my, with my situation. I'm going to do the best I can with my clients and then let people make their decisions. Here's the risks. If I don't get out of my decision fatigue, if I don't take a step back and go, okay, hang on, wait, I've got to check myself, I'm feeling brain fog, I'm mentally tired, I'm exhausted, I have general tiredness, I'm just burnt out. If I don't get out of that now, I've got some risks. Risks like I'm going to make impulsive decisions or changes. I'm just going to be doing things just to get it off my plate. I'm not going to be skilled at weighing pros and cons. When I'm, when I'm working with people, I'm a simplifier more than a multiplier. When it comes to how I run companies and how I run my life. I just take things that are full of complexity and I simplify them. That's one of my unique gifts on the planet. I'm a simplifier and that's why I work with high level executives and teams of looking at, well, there's massive complexity. Let's simplify it into bite sized chunks. Let's go rock and roll with it. Get some feedback from each other, the marketplace, our investors, our shareholders, whatever it is, and let's keep rocking and rolling. So I always am looking at weighing pros and cons, but decision fatigue makes that hard to do because I'm like, oh, I don't know, this seems pretty good, but that seems really crappy. But that's pretty crappy, but that's pretty good. Ah, I'm in a confused state. Another risk is procrastination. Procrastination is one of the number one avoidance techniques. Well, if I'm in decision fatigue, then I'm going to subconsciously be looking to deploy an avoidance technique because I don't want to deal with it. I don't have the mental capacity. I'm Shot. And so I will procrastinate because I will be making that decision another day. Even though there's nothing to think about, there's nothing to wait for. Sometimes, not all the time. So there's a difference between procrastinating and choosing to wait too, by the way. So procrastination is. I know what I need to do. I'm just not doing it. I know what I've committed to. I'm just not following through. And choosing to wait is I need some more information. It's not the right time. I know I'm not in the right head space. I'm going to wait to execute whatever this might be. So what do I do now? I know what it is now. I know what the risks are. Kenny, tell me what to do. What are we going to do about this? Here's what I do, here's what I recommend, here's what my clients do that win in this area. Limit low stakes decisions. What I'll call low stakes decisions. The things that just don't matter that much for me. I. I've got what I would consider my uniform. I've got my. I forgot what, 10 years I had black blue collar T shirts. Now that some of my team came on from Florida, they want different colors. And so now I have a few different colors, perhaps of. Of blue collar T shirts. But I. I eliminate a decision of what shirt am I going to wear today, what am I going like I did that early when I was by myself in the truck. I eliminated that from my decision making ability because wearing a uniform is one of the things I learned that in the United States Army. Me, I loved wearing a uniform in the army because I didn't need that decision. I didn't want him being. I just move me on to something else. What to wear. Not. Doesn't matter what's on my task list. I want that pre. Pre calculated. What am I going to eat? Planning meals ahead, whatever that does the question becomes does it really matter? Now you really got to check your ego here because the ego wants to take every single little thing. And yeah, it really matters. My gosh, I don't. If I don't wear the blue blue collar shirt today and I wear the black one. But I'm having lunch with a possible client. Oh my. But I'm going to be on the zoom. I'm going to. I'm getting interviewed on a different podcast today and it's a video cast. And what I mean. Oh my gosh. Stop it. Get your ego out of the way. Does it really matter? The other thing. So one limit, limit the things that don't really matter. Just stop making decisions about it. Have them pre made, have them done and easy to rock and roll with. Check your ego. Does it really matter? If it doesn't really matter, just have it done easily and move on. And the other one is challenging your, your kind of perspective around making decisions. The ego also wants to make decision making a big deal. It's why some of you got into or some of us. I'll throw myself in there, got into leadership in the first place. Oh, Making decisions makes me feel powerful. That's all ego. Oh. I feel like I'm doing something big or great or important or something that matters because I make. And then it's hard. It's exhausting. But here's the question. Is it hard or is it exhausting? Or is it perhaps the easiest thing on the planet? Because it goes back to, am I afraid to make the wrong decision? Just making a decision is the most powerful thing to just get it done and move on. And so I want to limit the low, make the low stakes decision. I don't even want to mess with those. What about this? What about. It's one of the reasons that I empower team more than most leaders. Because I've checked my ego enough and I'm not saying all leaders that don't delegate a lot have a lot of ego. I'm just saying for me, I'm focused on what matters. I know that I'm put on the planet to help people unleash their own success laws, to unleash their happiness, their love, their peace of mind, their caring, their compassion, their empathy, their soul bliss. That's what I'm here to do. And I'm doing it through business and through leadership. That's why I'm here. That's why we record the podcast. So I limit the low stakes decisions I challenge. What my belief is, are decisions really hard? I just don't think they are. I don't think most decisions are that hard. You're going to make a decision, you're either going to get the result that you want or you're not. And then you get to choose. Again, not that big of a deal. Third thing and really focus here is delegation. I mentioned it earlier, my friend, you've got to delegate. When you're in decision fatigue, have other people making decisions on your behalf. Again, you got to check your ego here. But it's time to simplify. It's time to offload. It's time to stop certain things. Sometimes we're making decisions on things that don't really matter. And the lovely Christy and I were recently making some major changes around our home situation and we were packing some stuff and I was asking her like hey well what do you want this, what do you want that? And I was joking with her because she's a super detail organized individual and she had decision fatigue and I was, I was joking with her in a loving way where it was either in two categories where if I'm, if I'm packing a box, it was either I really care for her perspective. She was either going yes, I 100% care about that and that, where that goes and where it's packed or if it's going to storage or what it, that I care a hundred percent about or it was, I couldn't care less. Just make it go away. You make the decision Kenny. It doesn't matter whatever it was. And, and I love that. That's, that's probably one of the reasons I'm recording this podcast right now is because it was cool to see my wife in that place where normally she wants to weigh this and that and being she just hit that point point where like it didn't really matter. So she was able to delegate decision making that she normally wouldn't. And that's a powerful positive thing. So I encourage you to do the same thing. Where are you involved? Where we, and I get it. I, I started by myself in a drain cleaning truck. When and I ended, I had to make every single decision. Then as I started growing my team and I built a, a national role model self managing company that allowed me to take six month vacations without ever walking into my building and have success in the form that I wanted. I had to offload those decisions. Now I go to launching the blue collar success group. When the lovely Christy and I founded this organization, made every single decision all the way throughout. Everything ran through her and I as we grow the organization, I want those decisions off my plate. I want them forward, forward, forward. I'll make the big, I'll make the vision decisions, I'll make some input on personnel decisions. But really I'm making the decisions that matter to me and the organization and my clients now and in the future. That's where it's all about. So otherwise I'm going to delegate, I'm going to simplify, I'm going to offload or I'm going to stop. It doesn't matter that much. That's what it's all about. My friends dangers of decision fatigue, just check in on yourself. Watch out for those risks we talked about. Limit your low stakes decisions. Challenge your decision thoughts around is it hard or not? It's really not that hard. And then delegate. Set yourself free. It is the greatest time to be alive. It's the greatest time to be in business. It's the greatest time to be in the role that you're in right now. Regardless of what that is, step into it and embrace it. Love it, honor it, learn from it and continue to choose your next level of your greatest self. My friend, that is what it's all about. Do me a favor. Share this episode take 37 seconds and go give me a review. I would be super honored. Please give us a review. Share it if you haven't got my new book yet. Again, it's blue collarlaws.com blue collarlaws.com just cover shipping and we'll shoot you a free copy of that book until we talk, my friend. Make it a better than fantastic week. I'll see you next time. Thanks for being here.