In this 13‑part “Act and Grow Rich” series, Paul H. Flowers Jr. delivers the seventh lesson, focusing on the principle of Decision as described in Napoleon Hill’s Think and Grow Rich. He defines a decision as the deliberate act of eliminating all alternative routes of retreat, likening it to a colonists’ captain who burns his own boat to force commitment. Flowers stresses that a true decision is binary – you either do something or you don’t; there is no “try.” He illustrates this with a pen‑taking experiment and a Yoda quote, reinforcing that indecisiveness is a form of procrastination. The speaker explains that making a decision also means accepting whatever outcomes follow, whether you act or abstain, and that successful people make rapid, firm decisions after a brief, focused consideration of likely consequences. He warns against allowing external opinions to dominate the decision‑making process, urging listeners to own their choices, especially when family, friends, or employees depend on them. Practical examples include choosing a career path, selecting a college major, and leadership decisions that affect others. The segment concludes by summarizing the prior six steps (Desire, Faith, Auto‑Suggestion, Specialized Knowledge, Imagination, Organized Planning) and previewing the next lesson on Persistence, which builds on the decision made.
Chapters
Good evening. You decided to take a look thus far, might as well stick around. This is the 7 Steps Towards Riches, Act and Grow Rich. My name is Paul H. Flowers Jr. and this week we're gonna take a look at decision. So again, you've decided to click on and watch thus far. You might as well go ahead and continue. So in the 7th step on decision, and let me back up just a second and recap. We've talked about desire, faith, having autosuggestion as a tool to acquire more faith. There's specialized knowledge that one must has in order to attain any goal. Then there's also the imagination that you have to have to think bigger, right? Can't just think small, you gotta think bigger. And when you think bigger, you also use the 6th step, which is organized planning. And then that 7th step, decide, is such an important step that we're gonna spend just a few minutes on it today because it's brief but powerful at the same time. So what happens when you actually decide to do something? Realize that the word decide sounds very familiar, like other words that you've heard, like homicide, suicide, pesticide. It always deals with killing off something, and that's something that you're killing off in the mindset of having to make a decision or deciding on a course of action is that you're cutting off the other options of retreat. So it reminds me of a story that the author talked about where a colony, they were getting ready to go and colonize a particular area. So they hop on the boat, they take this boat, they get off on land, and the captain of the ship turns around, lights a flame, and throws it on the boat, right? Basically torching the entire boat. So at that point, the captain made a decision that there was no retreat. They were either going to win this battle or they were going to die. And that's one of those portions that you have to be willing to take on, is that your decision is going to, A, look at the cutting off of all other options or areas of retreat, meaning you're actually killing off or you're causing to die this thought of going back. This thought of not having the thing that you want, this thought of retreating and going back to a comfortable way of living, so to speak, right? It shows itself in different fashions. And again, this is out of Think and Grow Rich, the 7th step towards riches, which is to again decide. So to decide or to make those decisions is the death of all other options, right? The death of retreat— excuse me, the death of retreating. And these are the things that you are going to either do or not do. So when it comes to taking or making a decision, you're gonna do two things. Either you're going to do it or you're not going to do it. There is no trying, there is no thinking about it. Yes, that was a Star Wars reference, but as Yoda says, "Do or not do, there is no try." It's one or the other. I often tell people, I would hold a pen out and I would say, "Try to take this pen from my hand." So they would walk up to me and they'd take the pen. I said, "No, I said try to take the pen from my hand." So then they come back and they take the pen. And I said, "No, no, no, wait a second. Try to take this pen from my hand." So then they would say, "Oh, I get it." And then they would just kind of hold it or wiggle it or hold it or wiggle it and I would pull it back. And I ask them at that moment, because whenever you pull it back, people for some reason get offended. They're like, "Wait a second, I was trying." I said, "No, I said take the pen. So did you take the pen from me?" Yes or no? The answer was no. So in that instance, you did not take the pen, right? It's not a try, that's a weak verbiage or technology to say that, oh, you didn't accomplish something. So let's just keep it where it is. And that's how decisions can be grounded and made very firm when you decide to either do it or not do it, right? Not to play around with it and not to think that it might be a good idea but not quite act on it just yet, that's called procrastination, right? When you decide to do it, it's the thing that you just go ahead and do. Now when you do make decisions or you decide to take a certain step or course of action, you're also accepting the outcome from that course of action. Now, and this is a big one, when it comes to making a decision, you're deciding on the outcome or the course of act— of the course of action and the possibilities that lie there within. And this is where you have to stop and think for a second because you've got a path to the left and a pass to the right, right? Now, there are outcomes either way. However, you don't exactly know all of the things that will come, okay? No one's exactly a clairvoyant that can tell every single thing that's gonna come once a decision is made, but there are some likely decisions that you can forecast if you take a moment to think about it. So with that, when you're deciding to do something, you're deciding to do something and accept the outcomes that come along with it, just as much as you are when you decide not to do something. You're also accepting the outcomes that come along with that. So when you take the time to make decisions, though decisions can be made quickly, and most of the most successful people, so we've learned, have a habit of making decisions quickly, and they're slow to change them, if ever at all. But when they do make that decision, it's not a snap decision. In a passionate moment of thought. It's a snap decision that's made after a very brief process of thinking about the outcomes that come down the road on the— after making the decision to either do a thing or to not do a thing. So think about that in terms of job choice, right? Where are you gonna go with this job? Okay, you may decide to take a position somewhere, but when you take that position, where is it going to lead to? Is it a place that you've actually looked at and said, hey, this is where I want to be 3, 5, 7 years from now? Or when a person goes to college, and that's one of the most interesting things, to have an undecided major. Think about it, an undecided major. You are taking $3,000, $5,000, $7,000, $10,000 per semester to be undecided on a major. It should almost be ban for any person to go into the college environment without having made a decision on where it is that they would like for their lives to go. Because again, think about it, when you're talking thousands of dollars per semester, to have an undecided major seems a little silly. So this is one of those things where you need to take time, think, plan out that path, which was looked at last week, uh, in Organized Planning. And make the decision and accept the outcomes that are gonna come either way. But to have an undecided major, just on that college thing, it's kind of silly. So, hm, when you think about decisions also, look at who's counting on that decision. See, a lot of people fear making decisions because they may not just involve themselves, and that's understandable. People have families, you've got friends that you're taking care of, and there are all sorts of things that a person may have that weighs in on their decisions. However, you have to be careful not to include all the opinions of other people in making a decision, because that can either slow down the decision-making process, or it can cause a decision to not be made in the first place. It can also cause a decision to be made that is not yours, and the last thing that a person would wanna do is live a life as the result of someone else's decision that was made that wasn't even theirs? Think about that one for a moment. How many people have taken jobs on the recommendation of somebody else, but it wasn't a place that you would wanna go? How many times have you heard of the person that went to school because that's what their parent wanted them to do, right? You have to consider who's actually making the decision and the input and influence that's going into it, and is it always your own? Now, again, thinking about the people that are counting on you to make this decision, that's why it's even more important for, again, that aren't just for themselves, that are— that have family, that have friends, that have spouses or children or whatever, that count on their depend— excuse me, on their decision, or even employees that count on their decision. If you're in a leadership position and you have people that count on the decisions that you make, if you're at the head of the company or department and you can quite literally move the course of another person's life or livelihood by the decision you make, it takes for you to think about the outcome of the decision that you'll make and be okay with accepting that outcome. Again, a part of decision is accepting the thing that you're going to do or not do and what happens, as in the outcome, when you do it or you don't do it. It's really that simple. So again, who's counting on you to make a decision? Is it family? Is it friends? I don't know for you. Again, I know for me, but think about that for yourself. When you wanna slow down on a decision to take another step in life, think about who's counting on that decision. Alright, for the person that doesn't know if they should enter med school, right, they're not really passionate about it. Well, think about what happens if you're an impassionate, or a doctor that lacks passion in what they do. Alright, you're not probably gonna be too successful, let alone the mistakes that can be made. So when you're going to do the thing, make sure it's a thing that it's your decision, that you're passionate about, so that you can be putting your best foot forward once you've made that decision. You've cut off the other options of retreat, You said that this is the way that I'm going to go, this is the thing that I wanna do, the direction that I wanna travel, and I'm not looking back. I'm not looking in any other direction, right? It's only forward from here. So keep that in mind again when it comes to decision, and realize that every decision has an impact on you in the present and someone else in the future. See, we don't think about that Currently, it's usually just a decision that you make, and at the time that you're making a decision, you may only think about yourself when you've made that decision. Well, think about who also may be affected, maybe in your inner circle, or maybe in that next level of influence, or maybe in that next, next level. And that's a good or a bad thing, right? So when you make those decisions, consider all the people involved once you've made the decision to do, right, to act. And that's not saying take their opinions into the decision-making process, But just consider that any decision that you usually will make will involve some sort of interaction with people, and it'll also have an effect on people. And again, that can affect— that effect can be good or bad, which is why whenever you come to that decision-making process, think forward at least a few steps out in terms of what that decision will actually mean to your life and to the lives of whom you may be interacting with, right, to the lives of others. And then if you're okay with that outcome, act. And as you start practicing this more and more, you'll actually be able to do it faster and faster without any of the outside noise of the world coming in to cause any sort of internal dialogue that causes you to slow down or procrastinate, right? Which is usually done from things like fear, worry, self-doubt, lack of confidence, all those things. There are, in the previous videos, formulas for increasing self-confidence, learning to get over doubt, moving past the worries of fear and old age and death and all those things. That was actually covered in the very first Act and Grow Rich video. So if you want some insight on getting past those things, I'd say go back to the very first Act and Grow Rich video and just listen in, right? Get a nice cup of tea or something, grab a pen and paper, take some notes. So just to recap, Week 7, Desire— excuse me, Decision was the 7th step. We started off with Desire, we moved into Faith, next up was Auto-Suggestion, and then Specialized Knowledge. We took a look at Imagination and Organized Planning, and this week we looked at Decision, to decide, to cut off all other options of retreat, and then being okay with the outcomes of the decision once you've made it, making sure that it was actually your decision and not the decision of outside influence, because it's only your life, again, ultimately, that you're in control of. So making sure that your decisions are yours and yours alone is a powerful thing. And again, to wrap up with Week 7 on decision, do it, right? Make the decision, do it quickly, and when you've made the decision, stick with your decision and be okay with whatever comes afterwards. Now next week we're gonna take a look at persistence, which is again, once you've made that decision, it's how you're going to keep up that decision. So we'll be able to bring in some tools and conversations surrounding that. Uh, but for now, it's been an absolute wonderful Wednesday. Thank you for tuning in to Wednesday's Words of Wisdom. Again, my name is Paul H. Flowers Jr., and it was an absolute pleasure. Look forward to speaking with you next week. Bye for now.
