Conquering Indecision: Strategies from Patrick McGinnis

Hello, my friend, and welcome to another exciting episode of Negotiate Anything. Thanks for joining us today. With over 10 million downloads and listeners from more than 180 different countries, it's dedicated listeners just like you who have made Negotiate Anything the number one negotiation podcast in the world. I'm your host, Kwame Christian. I'm a business lawyer, mediator, author, and the proud CEO of the American Negotiation Institute. Now, before we get into today's insightful conversation, I have a golden opportunity for those of you who recognize the power of negotiation in your professional lives. Have you ever found yourself wishing that you could navigate those high stakes conversations with more confidence? Or perhaps you're looking to empower your team with the art of persuasion and conflict resolution? At the American Negotiation Institute, we've crafted specialized keynotes and workshops tailored for those very needs. We've transformed the negotiation skills of professionals worldwide, and we're eager to do the same for you. We believe the best things in life are on the other side of difficult conversations. And our goal is to help you improve your lives and the lives of those around you, one difficult conversation at a time. Don't let another challenging conversation leave you second guessing. Click the link in the description to discover how we can help you find confidence in conflict, negotiate better deals, and have stronger relationships. Because in the world of business, every conversation counts. And now, without further ado, let's jump into the interview. Patrick, thanks for joining us today.

It's great to be here. Thanks for having me.

Hey, it's my pleasure. Well, how about we start off by telling the audience a little bit about yourself and what you do? Sure.

So, by day, I'm a venture capitalist. I invest in companies in the United States and Latin America. But I'm also known as the guy who invented the term fomo, which is short for fear of missing out. I invented that nearly 20 years ago now. And so I just came out with a book that's called Fear of Missing Practical Decision Making in a World of Overwhelming Choice. And I'm the host of a podcast called FOMO Sapiens, which is distributed by Harvard Business Review.

Fantastic. Yeah, we're excited to have you because I think this book is necessary now more than ever when we're overwhelmed by choice. And there are a lot of big decisions that we need to make. And so I'm excited to give the listeners some really robust and powerful frameworks to help them to make better decisions. With that, let's start off with the definitions just so we can have an open dialogue about it. And so, listeners, I know you're used to a pretty standard three part framework for this. But since we're talking about a book and there are a lot of different directions that we could go with this, I didn't feel like we would be giving it justice if we limited it in that regard. So what we'll do is we'll just start off with the operational definitions and then just have an open conversation. And so with that, FOMO and fomo.

Let me give you these definitions. And just so for folks who've heard about FOMO and many of you have, there was another term that I invented at the same time called fomo. And I wrote about both of them in an article in the Harvard Business School student newspaper back in 2004. I wrote this article about my experience as a student there. And so the two terms that I introduced in that article, FOMO and fomo, fear of missing out and fear of a better option. So let me give you each definition. FOMO is an anxiety provoked by the fear that there's something better happening than we're doing at the moment. And it's also a fear of being excluded from a positive group experience. So it's about, you know, it's about thinking there's something better out there for you. It's kind of aspirational, but it's also about not wanting to be excluded from the group or the herd, as I call it. And so as a result, we feel the stress and we want to try to do everything all the time. And of course that's impossible. FOBO is totally different. FOBO means fear of a better option. And the idea there is that when we're choosing between completely acceptable things, we do not want to get number two or number three. We want to choose the very best. And therefore we sort of keep looking for the perfect thing we're optimizing. And it also is a situation in which we value option value in and of itself, rather than valuing that, we actually choose something. So in that situation, rather than trying to do everything, you do nothing at all. You're paralyzed.

This is great. I'm so excited for this. And now, as it relates to decision making, when we're talking about those two terms, what are the negative impacts that they have on decision making?

Yeah, so let's take each one of them one by one. Let's start with fomo. So when you're feeling fomo, as you might recall from the definition I just gave, it's the perception that there's something better out there. Perception can be deception. It may Be that this is a classic example. You go on social media and you see some person's life, their job, their vacation, whatever that is, and you start to think, well, okay, that looks so much better than what I'm doing right now. Now you have no way of knowing if it's better. If you had perfect information, that would be a different thing. But here you have this information asymmetry, and you were filling the gap between reality and whatever is going on in your head with a bunch of projection and a bunch of sort of just air. And that's what creates the anxiety. And so when it comes to making decisions, if you are looking at something and you have no idea actually if it lives up to what it's sort of billed as, then you can be making decisions based on bad data. And so, you know, for example, you say you see somebody in there, you know, they live in some community, they live in. It seems like everybody's moving to Denver, okay? And you see that, oh, Denver looks so great. Well, you know, unless you go there and live there and you have no idea. And so it can be. It can cloud your decision making. And unfortunately, you can end up living somebody else's dream and not your own or coveting somebody else's life, even if it's not actually going to make you happy. Now, on the FOBO side, it's even worse because FOBO is a situation in which we're waiting for that perfect thing to come along so that we have a decision that is made for us. It's like a riskless decision. But as we all know, there is no such thing as a perfect decision. You can never know. Again, information asymmetry. We don't know if something is going to be the best. Right. And so as a result, we tend to delay decision making in hopes that somehow you'll have some new piece of data that'll make it easy to make that decision. And so really, first of all, you delay decision making. Second of all, all of the other people around you who need you to decide, you frustrate them. But the thing that's really, I've noticed that I think is particularly, maybe not obvious, but very damaging, is that we make an assumption that when we're deciding and we have options, that somehow the longer we wait, we'll continue to add to our options. But in fact, you may lose some of those options. And so you might end up, if you wait too long, with no good options at all.

Yeah, this makes a lot of sense. And what it sounds like to me is we almost have to come to terms with the imperfection that is in front of us when it comes to decision making. Because like you said, I think you articulated it perfectly. We're looking for riskless decisions and we're looking for the perfect life, but neither of those exist. And so for people who are trying to make better decisions when it comes to those two terms in particular, what are some steps that they can take to improve their decision making process?

Well, the good news is that it's in many instances much easier than it may seem to overcome these two things. So let's. One of the important things that I talk about in the book, and I also made a TED video called how to Make Faster Decisions, is that when we have FOMO and fobo, because there's all of this emotion and stress, we tend to feel like even the small decisions in life, they gain this sort of increased importance. And so therefore, like you go on Netflix, right? Netflix, it's. There are 7,000 choices and it's not an important decision. But if you're trying to make a decision about what you're going to watch on tv, it can take up a lot of time and energy and that is terrible and a waste of your time, right? Treat yourself better than that. And so therefore the first step to doing this is to. Basically what I like to say is there's only three types of decisions in life. High stakes, low stakes and no stakes. So high stakes decisions are things that they're important, they're going to have long term implications on your health, your wealth, your family. It's like, where do you live, who do you marry, what do you work? Those are the things that really require you to put in a lot of time and effort because you want to get it right. Low stake things are things that you probably won't remember having made the decision in about a month. And it's sort of like which sofa, which printer, you know, these kinds of things that they require some thinking. It's not that you just sort of willy nilly decide anything, but they're not the kinds of things that you want to spend tons of time on. And the final one is the no stakes decision. That's something you won't remember having decided in a couple of days. Like, you know, what should I have for breakfast? Or which socks should I wear? Things, they just don't matter. And so the first step to overcoming FOMO and FOMO is when it comes to low stakes and no stakes decisions, you must outsource them. So what I do, for example, with no steaks decisions, it's like, should I have the chicken or the fish if I can't decide? And by the way, most of these decisions, you'll decide without having any issues. But we all know that we spend some time on these things once in a while we get stuck. And so rather than get stuck and delay and spend time on things that don't matter, I outsource, for example, to my watch. So I actually will, you know, if I can't decide, should I go for a run today or not? You know, that's a classic one. I look down on my watch. The left side is a yes, the right side is a no. I see where the second hand is and then it's decision is made for me. And I have been doing this for 20 years. And it's basically, it simplifies your life and it takes you out of the equation because you're the one who's injecting the drama into something that is inconsequential. And so, you know, that's going to be different for every person. It sort of reminds me of with the classic Steve Jobs strategy of, you know, wearing the same clothes every day. Well, for him that was a no stakes decision. If you're a fashionista, obviously you would not outsource that to your watch. But it's that kind of thinking that allows you the space to deal with the bigger things in life.

Absolutely. And for you listeners out there, I'll tell you this, for me, that's my five star point of the podcast episode, Patrick, because I think you just saved me over the course of my life a lot of time.

Oh yeah.

I'm realizing that I'm spending a lot of time making bad decisions. And as you were talking, we're not bad decisions, inefficient decisions. Because as we were talking, I'm sure you noticed a few times I was just smiling because I knew, oh my gosh, I should have. I wish I had this interview yesterday because I spent about 20 minutes with my wife trying to figure out what we were going to watch on Netflix and we ended up not doing anything and just doing work and checking emails instead. And so, yeah, this is incredible. And I really like the idea of distinguishing between high stakes, low stakes and no stakes. Because when you think about it, you're. You're absolutely right. Low stakes and no stakes. We're not going to remember that. And I think that's really the key to analyzing a lot of our human experiences, memories. Because the lived experience is only as important as it when you consider it over the course of our entire life looking backwards in retrospect. And so yeah, it helps us to make better decisions in general because now we're allocating mental energy we where it's most needed on the high stakes decision. Hello my friends. Before we get back to today's episode, I want to ask you a question. Have you ever wondered how to elevate your team's negotiation game and how you can help the folks on your team have better, difficult conversations? At the American Negotiation Institute, we offer transformative keynotes and workshops tailored to empower professionals with top tier negotiation and conversations conflict resolution skills. Whether it's a keynote for your next event or hands on training for your team, we've got you covered. Don't just negotiate. Master the art with the American Negotiation Institute. Click the link in the description to find out more. Elevate, negotiate and succeed.

Precisely. And you know, it's funny, I'm glad that you resonated with you because when I first started talking about, I mean, I've been doing Ask the Watch since I was a freshman in college. So it's just something that I, it's been like a life hack that I found really powerful. But then as I told people about it, they seem to resonate. And so when I started writing about it, I remember thinking like, you know, people aren't going to take me seriously because this just seems like so simple that it's almost like it just looks like, well, it doesn't take, you know, a PhD to come up with that one, sonny boy.

Right.

But the thing is that it's, it's one that people love the most because we can, you can try it out in an hour and you can see it works for you. And the thing is, I've never gone against the Watch in my entire. Because I never asked. I don't ask the Watch like, you know, you know, should I, you know, who should I vote for? Like, it's not, not going to do that. That would be not a good idea. But I, when it comes to these little things, the getting a decision and getting and moving on with your life is way more important. And you know, you just, you just move on.

Absolutely. So let's talk then about the high stakes decisions when we're actually having those bigger decisions. Who am I going to vote for? Who am I going to marry? In negotiation context, should I accept this deal or should I go with something else? What are some things that we could utilize to improve our ability to make good decisions?

Yeah, and it's Such a good, I love that. Of course, this is a show about negotiation. And so, you know, you can have, if you think about FOMO and FOMO negotiation, it's like FOMO is like I want to have, like I want every bell and whistle. This is going to be a 90,000 page document because I'm going to, my lawyers cover everything, right? We've all, we all know those people, the counterparties. And on the FOMO side, it's like, I won't ever settle, ever. Like nothing is good enough for me. I'm just going to hold out until basically you give me the keys to the castle, which is, you know, we all know is some people do that and it's not, it's not fun to deal with them and it's not a productive way to live your life. You just end up alienating everybody. So let's take these. You know, whereas these earlier with the no stakes and low stakes decisions, FOMO and fomo, you treat them the same. Here we have specific strategies for each one. So FOMO is the first one. And as you recall when I gave you the definition, FOMO is about this aspiration. It's this thing that you perceive to be better and it's about this fear of being excluded, left out of the hurt. And so you basically have to sort of attack each of those in order to come up with a solution. So when we talk about this aspirational perception thing that's all about, you have to do the homework and figure out what is my criteria and do these options actually match up and what is really going on? Like, yeah, it looks great from the outside, but let me do the research and figure out is this going to sort of live up to what I think I see? You know, it's like for example, the example of moving to a new city. It's like I'm thinking about moving out of New York City and do I want to move to Atlanta or Denver or San Francisco? Well, they all look really beautiful on social media. But I would go to the community, I would see if I could afford to live there. I'd take a look at the housing stock. You know, just build up a base of knowledge so that I'm not making decisions based out of anxiety. I'm making decisions based out of fact based thinking. Once you get through that point and you sort of gotten, you've replaced fear with facts and you sort of got good information, the second thing you need to do is think about your motivations. Like, am I doing this because I, you know, I'M afraid of being left out of something. Am I doing it because I don't want to let somebody down? Am I doing it because, you know, what is the motivation? And if it's, if the motivation for it, is it truly something you want to do, then great, then you know that you're doing it for the right reasons. If your motivation is based on external factors and pressures that you feel from outside, then you know that you're dealing with fomo. And so that's the process. I really lay it out in the book, but those are the, those are the building blocks of how it works now with fomo. So remember that is, you know, the idea. You, you're waiting for the perfect thing to come along and you're collecting options. And until you get there. So here, what's interesting is, and the research shows that it's actually the problem here isn't that your desire to maximize, it's the way you go about doing it, right? So like, there are plenty of very decisive people who want the best, and so they figured out how to do this. But for the rest of us who struggle with this, the process that I describe is really, it's a process designed to force you to eliminate from the pile. Because the problem happens when you, when you keep going back to the same set of options, you never eliminate any of them. And so the whole process is about letting go of what you can have, being thankful you had it sort of like Marie Kondo style, but then letting go with it, eliminating it permanently until you get down to that final option that you choose. And so you'll do the same kind of work to like, understand what the options are and remove sort of the speculation and get as much facts as possible. But then you will use that to vet them and then eliminate them and choose a winner.

This is great. And let's go over those two things and get a little bit deeper. One of the things that I really liked with your approach to addressing FOMO was figuring out your criteria. And I really like the fact that you highlighted the word my criteria. Because a lot of times we're making decisions based on other people's criteria. And here's the thing that's really interesting that I've seen with people making decisions and struggling to make those decisions in the past is that they're not able to distinguish between what it is that they want for themselves and what it is that other people want for. For them. And so what are some things that you would suggest people can do to increase their level of self awareness? So they can start to distinguish between what truly they want on the inside versus what's coming from the outside.

It's such a good question. And one of the things that I think is very powerful, that I recommend and that I do myself is I always put it to paper. I always, you know, when we're thinking in our heads, you know, you go for that walk and you run around thinking, that's great, and it's necessary, but it's unstructured. And you would never, for example, go into a meeting at work and just blurt out a bunch of ideas. No, you come in with a PowerPoint deck or the memo, right? And so, similarly, you have to hold yourself accountable when it comes to figuring out what you want. And what's incredible about paper and writing, you know, doesn't have to be printed up, but, you know, on screen, is that when you put something, you commit something to writing, it's very hard to sell a bad argument, right? It's just like, you read it, you're like, this is completely illogical. And so I encourage people, right? And so I. Because it's kind of like when you read, I imagine it's like when you're a high school teacher and you get all the essays from the students, you're like, well, this is. Boy, this makes zero sense. Like. And so it's just hard to be. To be a comp. To make a compelling argument if you don't have your facts and ducks in a row. And so that, I think, is a very simple way to do that. And the second part is show it to people. So take what you've written and send it to somebody and say, what do you think? Do you think this makes sense? Do you think that I am being honest with myself? Does this square with what you know about me in my life? And in doing that, of course, you then, you know, expose your ideas to even more sunlight. And of course, we all know that sunlight is the best disinfectant, right?

You know, it's always easier to call somebody else on their nonsense than it is for us to call ourselves on our nonsense, too. So I think that's a great way to get a more objective perspective, especially when you're talking to people that you trust who are willing to really let you know what they see. I think that's great. And then when it comes to fobo, the process of elimination, I think that's a powerful way to do it. And so one of the things that potentially could happen is that people say, all right, Patrick, I see what you're saying. All right, so what I'm going to do is I'm going to eliminate options and eventually make the right one. But then maybe what ends up happening is they still try to cling on to that FOBO by doing this very, very slowly in the hopes that something comes up and like some divine inspiration or something happens. And so for those people who try to follow your advice but do it slowly, do you have any specific tips for them?

Yeah, well, those people, then we really need to help them out. I think it comes down to some of the same stuff. So again, I encourage you to commit it to paper. And then if you are having trouble. So one of the reasons why you have FOBO is because this is something that you. It's a learned behavior, right? And so you may get stuck. And so again, you got to call in the calvary, you got to get help. But this is where it's kind of interesting. So you could actually self sabotage by asking 50 people, right? And then it's like you get a million different perspectives and that gets you in trouble. So what I tell people is five people maximum, five or three, odd number, they can break the tie. You just bring in other people. Because think about, I mean, I think about my decision making processes in business. I've worked in private equity firms and venture capital firms making investments. We have committees and committees are great because you bring in. Sometimes people say stupid things and it's annoying and you're like, you know, like, where is your head at? Did you read the memo I wrote? Right? There's, there's those people. But in general it's like, oh, wow, what a great idea. Your perspective, you push back on me. Oh, you saw a different angle that I missed. And so therefore you get a better sort of outcome. And so I encourage people to do the same thing. Go to people. Don't just go to anybody. Go to people who you think are particularly, you know, well versed. So for example, if I were choosing college, you know, like in high school, I knew where I wanted to go. I didn't struggle. I was like, I'm going to Georgetown, nothing. But had I, had I not gone in and was choosing other schools, you know, I would have the right thing to do. Of course, and this is obvious is like, go talk to people who went to the school, right? And so that can be applied that same sort of, sort of thinking. You know, it's great to just have advice from people who know you and care about you, but if they don't have Domain expertise, like they're not the best people. You want people who are dispassionate but are knowledge based.

That's great. Oh, I really like that approach. I really like that approach. And so when it comes to flipping this so we have FOMO and FOBO now, we can make better decisions. Now from the perspective of a negotiation or a persuasive process, how can we use those same terms for persuasive purposes?

Yeah, and it's such a. This is the part that I never thought about when I was a student writing about this. Right. Because, you know, I just thought it was a kind of a satirical article. But then as you get into the world and you're doing, you know, negotiating like a business transaction, for example, and I consider, I always say that venture capital is like a game of foes because, you know, the company wants to create fomo, so the investor wants to invest in the company. And then the investor always wants a little more information, like, oh, send me, you know, next month's results. They want, because they want to like de risk the investment by having more info. So it's this very funny dance that they do. And in fact, of course, in our broader world, like brands try to create FOMO so we spend money on their products, right? And then, and then other, you know, people try to create FOBO by, for example, exploding offers are. That's all about creating fobo. It's like, you know, you have, you have five days and then it's gone forever, right? So you're like, oh my God, if, you know, how will I, you know, you are incented to make a decision. And so as I think about creating fomo, it's really about. So there's a bunch of different ways to do this, but one of the ways to do it and one of the ways that brands actually kind of get us is to create social proof. So for example, you know, when you think about like consumer brands, they always get the celebrity in there to make it look amazing, you know, to like highlight the product. You can do that with the things you do. If you can get people to talk about it and endorse your product. If you can get your product placed somewhere, you know, it's like the minute people see something in the grocery store, everybody thinks, you know, all of a sudden that you're like a global corporation. And so thinking about a negotiation, how you can enhance the product, you know, in that information asymmetry, you can use that to your advantage to make your sort of position look better or more tenable, then you'll be at an advantage. Now, when it comes to fobo, what you need to do is you need to create a set of conditions where people don't just try to hold out forever. And so let me give you a great example. I was investing in a company and they said, listen, here's the deal. The valuation of this company that you're investing in is $6 million for the next month and then for the month after that it's going to be 6.5 and then it goes up to 7. And so everybody invests on the last day of the month because they want to get the valuation. So it really creates an incentive for, for people to move. And so I think that's a helpful thing to do, is create boundaries for people. And you have to be willing to stick by those boundaries. Of course you can't say, oh, we said it was going to go to seven, but we're not going to stick to that. Of course you have to stand by them. But it's a very powerful way to keep people from just hoarding options.

Oh, that's great. I like that example. And so one of the things on our end, let's use that exact same example because I want to go deeper. So we put those boundaries and then what if they say, but Patrick, I want to be a nice person person. They I could, I could potentially say, listen, I said it was going to go up to 6.5. But listen, for you, out of a courtesy for you, I'm going to go ahead and keep it at six for you. Can you articulate to the listeners why not standing firm on that boundary is so important?

Yeah, because what happens is people who have phobo, I mean, maybe there could be a condition where you say, or an example where you say, well, listen, the reason the guys Internet was down and he couldn't send the money or whatever. And there are always special situations. But what I have found in my lived experience and in my research is that people who have phobo, it's a condition, it's chronic, Their inability commit is inside of their DNA and therefore you cannot show them mercy because you're just feeding into that behavior. And when they take you seriously, they won't do that to you again. And so you've just got to create that culture.

I'm so excited. Yes, because you're spot on. You're spot on. Because here's the thing, we have to recognize that the game is not just a single shot deal. This is an iterative game. We're going to come back to the table and have these similar discussions with the same people. And even if we don't have the same discussion with the same person, we're going to have a similar discussion with a similar person who might be in contact with that person as well. We have to think about the impact persuasively that our, the moves that we make at the table are going to have at our subsequent negotiations.

Yeah. And you know what happens, of course is, and I've actually tried this out myself because. And you don't have to have the leverage. There was a very well known podcast host who, I'm not going to say who it is, but somebody who really annoyed me who said, oh, we want you to come on our show. And I was very excited. And then they kept canceling and delaying and you know, that I wanted to say to them, oh, you know, I, you know, I send those polite follow up and never getting any response to the emails I would send. And so one day I just said, you know what? I wrote back and I said, because of all the delays, I won't be coming on your show. And that was it. And you know, then they came back and we're like, oh, we're so sorry. And. But they never, they never, you know, they said they might reschedule and they never did. But I had decided, I was like, forget it. And so the reality is this person does it to everybody. I've heard now stories from all these people in the industry. And so it's like, you know what? I don't want to deal with you because you, even if it would be nice to have been on your show, you created so much toxicity and frustration for me and distracted me from the other shows that I could, I could have done 10 more podcasts with the time I spent trying to deal with your show. I moved to vacation for this person. You know what I mean? So I know it was, it was really an extreme case, but I'm just happy to know. And when I book, second book came out, you know what I didn't do? I didn't go pitch that show because I knew it was a waste of my time.

Right. And see, this is what's really interesting too, because it's not just about the objective outcomes as it relates to the particular deal. It's also about the psychological benefits that you get from being more decisive. And what I found in my life is that once I make a decision, the benefits, the emotional and psychological benefits I get from the closure are so significant that I Say to myself, man, I'm glad I made this decision hypothetically. Even if this was a bad decision, I'm glad I'm done with this process. Right? And there's a benefit there that I think people often miss. And then when it comes to from the outside looking in, people follow decisive leaders. And even if a person is decisive and they make the wrong decision, I feel like that willingness to commit garners so much respect from the followers that they're willing to forgive it and still follow because they say, wow, this is one of the few people that. That's actually going to take the step of committing and moving us in the right direction 100%.

And to what you say there, you're absolutely right. And one of the things we forget is that when you make a decision, you then move on to the next decision and the next decision, so you actually open doors for yourself. And if you don't, then you never have. You're sort of stuck there. So that's really critical. And the second thing about being decisive, and let's think about what's happened in 2020, the people who were decisive. Think about the governor of Ohio, Mike DeWine or Andrew Cuomo or Gavin Newsom, these governors who put a very specific line out there. Even though it was probably like a lot of people didn't want to do what they were saying, but because they laid down a decisive, clear message, people flocked to them. So we never, you know, it takes so little in this day and age to be a leader, but it's incredible how few people do it. And so when people do it, you see the response right away that it's extremely well received. And so, you know, obviously the basic point here is nobody ever said, like, of a great leader, like, wow, you're such a great leader. You're so indecisive. Of course not. Right. So it's about whether it's in our families or in our businesses or the political spectrum being decisive, obviously, having used a process. And it's not just being decisive and just picking things out of the air, but being a thoughtfully decisive person is so powerful.

Yeah, absolutely. And again, thinking about it as persuasive leadership, like you said, people flock to them, which is a. It's a critical part of being a leader. You can't just lead nobody. So that's a big part. But then I really liked what you said about once you make a decision, it leads to another decision. And I think about, for instance, Kobe Bryant's game, where he scored, I think, 81 points and people are like, wow, he scored so many points. And I stop and I say to myself, how many times did he have to shoot to score that many times. And you're going to accumulate more points the more good decisions you make. And you have to be willing to accept the reality that sometimes you're going to have to make bad decisions along the way. But if you get to a point where you're making being more decisive, that puts you in a position to make more good decisions and accumulate more momentum and accumulate more wins over the course of your career.

Yeah, I think it's. So if you think about entrepreneurs, right. How many times they, the decisions that they make in a day, if they can't do this quickly. And that's why, that's why entrepreneurs come and beat big companies, because big companies, they get stuck and there's like too much process and too many people. And so then the pure play startup comes in and eats their lunch. Precisely because what you're saying.

Yeah. And so let's say if we're in a company that has started to slow down, so let's say we have a situation where there's a lot of bureaucracy and it's really tough for people to make a decision, make change and those type of things. If you're trying to persuade from within and make changes, what can you do to help move that decision making process forward?

Yeah. So I think one of the biggest things that happens that really impedes thinking is there's two things. Number one is we get back to that sort of perception, deception, information asymmetry thing is that people start to use their cognitive biases instead of actually looking at the set of facts. And so I had a friend who wrote a book called Everybody Lies, Seth Stevens Davidowitz, and his book is about big data. But he's an expert in big data. But he's like, yeah, I do all these big data analyses, but the reality is that anybody in the room who knows what's going on could ask me a question that would, if they were, if they had the confidence to ask me a smart question, they could probably prove me wrong. But I'm hiding. A lot of people hide behind data. And so his job is to help people not to do that. And so I think one thing is to solving this issue is, number one, just like common sense, looking at the right data, not waiting for more data, more data, more data. We have lots of data these days and asking the right questions. And the second is I think having diverse teams. So one thing that really just early in my Career. I worked on Wall street. And you walk in a room and like, not only does everybody look the same, they dress the same. It's like blue button downs all over the room. And these are people who usually went to the same schools as each other, lived down the street from each other, and they are. There's never any dissent. And as we know, like, that leads to decisions that are so narrow and so, like, fill the room with people who are different than you, have them challenge you. You know what I mean? And that is something that, like, it sounds so obvious, but like, look at the boards of America's leading companies, like, how much diversity of thinking and lived experiences they're there. Not enough. And so I think it's something that like, all of us need to just like, recognize is just major room for improvement. Because not only is it just the right thing to do, but also because we make better decisions when we have people around us who are different than us.

Absolutely. Yeah. And when I talk to some of the companies that I've consulted with in the past, obviously most of the time is negotiation and conflict resolution. Then when they hear, oh, you had a background in civil rights, can you talk about implicit bias? I'm like, okay, I mean, yeah, I'll do it. Okay. But when I talk to them about the process, hey, just let's be self aware here. Yeah, we're talking about implicit bias and whatnot, but we also have to, to talk about decision making and how we're making these decisions. If you're in a room and everybody agrees all the time, that might be indicative of a bit of a problem here because you're not seeing diverse perspectives. And the decisions that we make become better when we have multiple data points that come from different angles. And what I really like about this is that we're saying, yes, there's going to be an information asymmetry when we, we make these decisions. But a lot of times we put ourselves in a position where not only is there an information asymmetry, but there's a significant bias that comes from confirmation bias and different biases that inhibits the quality of information that we're getting in the first place because we're getting those minuscule data points all from the same person or the same kind of person, which makes it even harder to make good decisions.

Yeah, there's this really interesting quote or story that I heard recently about Alfred Sloan, who was the, you know, the founder of gm, and he was making some decision, and he consulted his, his team and he said, well, are we all in agreement here. And they said, yep, we all agree. And he said, well, then let's postpone the decision because I want to hear a disagreement before I decide, which I thought was pretty, pretty cool.

That's awesome. I love that story. Yeah, that is great. Well, hey, this has been fantastic. I really appreciate you coming on the show. But before you go again, I want you to let people know about the book, let people know about the podcast and if they want to reach out to you, the best way to do it.

Yeah, I was going to grab the book. I don't know where it is. The book is somewhere. If you're watching this, you'll see I have a lot of books behind me. The book is called Fear of Missing Practical Decision Making in a World of Overwhelming Choice. You can get it at any bookseller, including Amazon, of course, and it's also available in Kindle. And the book, the podcast is called FOMO Sapiens, and you can find that anywhere you get your podcasts. And my website is Patrick McGinnis.com There you'll find tons of resources on this and also on entrepreneurship. My first book was called the 10% entrepreneur, and you'll find all my social links. So definitely check it out and listen to the podcast.

Patrick, thank you so much for coming on the show, my friend. I appreciate it.

Thanks so much. This is a blast.

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