In this video, Shanli Liu, CPA, CTP, shares a personal decision‑making framework she calls the 10‑10‑10 rule, developed after years of studying how leaders make choices. The process breaks the first 30 minutes after a decision opportunity into three distinct 10‑minute windows: (1) the immediate emotional reaction, (2) a short‑term analysis of costs, resources, and ROI (typically 6‑12 months out), and (3) a long‑term alignment check that includes the decision’s fit with the leader’s vision, the reputation impact on self and valued stakeholders, and the broader strategic direction of the business. Liu illustrates the framework with a real‑world example involving a messy team conflict within a growing portfolio of companies, showing how an instinctive urge to intervene could undermine long‑term goals and her own role as an advisor. She emphasizes the importance of pausing, thinking, or “sleeping on” decisions to move from an emotional, short‑term fix to a strategic, reputation‑aware choice. The video concludes with a call to action for viewers to adopt this perspective shift to make decisions that support sustainable growth.
Chapters
Today what I want to share with you is the framework or thought process that I go through when I'm trying to make decisions. And the reason that this is something that's so top of mind for me is in the last probably 18 months, this has been primarily what I've studied. So like the books I've been reading, the articles I've been reading, the people I've been talking to, just trying to dissect how people make decisions. And the reason for that is because I think that the higher and higher you get in business, the more that you realize it's less about what you can do and and it's more about how you think. And so for me, this has been probably my number one focus is just how to think and how to make decisions that are sound because I think that probably over the last 5 years I've made, I don't know, I could say probably 2 or 3 handfuls of decisions that have cost upwards of $10 million. And so I would like to share what I have found to help me or prevent me from making those in the future and what has helped me make a lot more decisions that I feel are very aligned with where I want to go. I think that it was Jean Wickman that I found this, the first part of this from. It's called the 10x10 rule or the 10-10-10 rule. Okay, and so what this is, is it's basically talking about when you're making a decision or when you've made a decision or when a decision comes to you, right? It's an opportunity to make a decision. There's how you process the information. At least this is my interpretation of this. Okay, the first 10 minutes You primarily are focused on the feeling, right? And I think that we can all get this because like immediately when you hear something or you have a decision to make, there's a feeling that you get. It could be excitement, it could be dread, it could be frustration, it could be anger, you know what I mean? Like it's always something that's almost instinctual that comes up with us, right? That's the first 10 minutes of when you've just heard something that you need to make a decision about. The second 10 minutes you start saying, okay, you almost go into action mode, right? I need to figure out what I'm going to do about this.. And so this goes into what I would say is basically cost versus gain. And it's typically, if you, if you really sit and think about what you're doing, you're thinking about usually in the next 6 months to 1 year. At least that's what I've noticed for myself. It's like, all right, what is the resources this is going to take? Like, who on the team would have to do this? What are they going to have to not do? Like, what would I— what am I going to have to not do? What am I going to have to do? How much money is this going to cost? What's the ROI? When am I going to see the ROI, right? That's what I'm thinking in. And then there's the third window. And this is what we want to get to, and this is long-term vision alignment. This is the third 10 minutes, so you're saying 20 to 30 minutes after you've heard this, and you're thinking about making a decision. And this one is basically saying, okay, crap, I felt one way, I thought about what it could be in a year, and say it's doable, say I'm like, all right, I can make this decision, and I'm going to go to the left. But then you look and you're like, ah, going to the left works, but going to the left doesn't actually align with what I want to do. Going to the right is what I want to do. So the decision works, but it's actually not going to be good with my long-term goals. And so that's why this one is so important to get to. A third piece that I think about with it that I think is really useful for people is I think about reputation. Right? And so how my reputation with myself as well as the people around me who I value. Right? I'm not talking about reputation with some stranger on the internet who you don't know. I'm talking about like how do you think of yourself? What's your reputation with yourself? And then your reputation with those around you who care about you and whose opinions you value. Right? That's what I think of when I think of the third 10 minutes there. And so I'll give you an example of how I've used this in the recent— as some of you may know, I don't know if Alex talked about it on his channel, but essentially right now we're in a spot where we have 3 companies that we've built ourselves, and now we've been bringing on other companies and taking stake in those. Right? So now we're building portfolio companies. Because of that, how I make decisions has changed a lot. Why has it changed a lot? Because my vision and my values have changed because I know that I'm going somewhere a little bit different than I might've been going 2 years ago, right? So 2 years ago, I just had 2 businesses that I had to make decisions for. Now I have about 8 businesses that I'm assisting with, right? And so I'll give you the example that, uh, comes to mind for me. And this is when I was really thinking about using this principle is there was an issue with somebody on our team. And it was a messy people issue. This person was upset because someone said something that offended them. These are typically the issues where at some point I have to get involved because the skill that I believe I bring to the table is that of having hard conversations in a way that makes everyone feel good at the end. And I know that everyone knows that I care about them and make them feel valued. That's what I bring to the table. So I think immediately I hear this and I'm like, oh! I definitely need to jump in. I'm feeling a sense of urgency. I'm like, I've got to go in, I've got to go fix this right now. Like, I can fix this in 5 minutes and then I don't have to feel anxious about it myself. I was feeling super anxious about it because I'm like, I can't believe this person thinks that. They misinterpreted it. Like, I totally see where the communication went wrong. I can fix this in 5 minutes, right? But I'm like, don't act yet. Like, let yourself process it. So then I think in the second one, I'm like, alright, well, you know, what does this mean? And I'm like, well, what this means if I jump in is that they might lose rapport with their direct supervisor. Because I'm not giving them the chance to actually see if they can fix the situation themselves, right? So like I can do it and it'll fix the situation, but in the short term, I feel like they're actually going to lose respect for the person that they report to. So is that beneficial? I don't know, right? I mean like maybe, maybe not. Maybe it's such a big issue I should jump in. I'm at this point like kind of tossed up. But then I think of the third and I'm thinking of long-term alignment with the vision. If the vision is to have 30 or 40 portfolio companies, then what does Leila, who has 30 or 40 portfolio companies, do with her time? Does she meet with everybody doing this, or does she allow the leaders, right, that are there to learn by themselves so that she's not involved in that anymore? The interesting thing about this is it felt really bad. And so like my immediate feeling was to jump in and do something about it, and that is actually contrary to the thing that's going to get me to where I want to go. So instead, what I had to do was deal with the anxiety, right? And I think that a lot of the times what we want to do is the thing that's going to feel good to alleviate whatever feeling that we have. And that's why we make so many of these decisions in the short term, right? It's because it feels good, it alleviates the thing. But in reality, it's like, it's not going to help them, they're going to lose rapport with their direct supervisor, and then in the long term, I'm just creating myself as something that's needed into these businesses rather than someone who's advising and helping and looking over the other leaders in there. This has been extremely helpful for me in terms of thinking how I'm going to make decisions and always make sure they're aligned with the long term. And so another way that you can do this that helps a lot of people, and I am one of them, is anytime a decision is brought to me, my automatic response is, I'm going to need to think about it. And that's because I think a lot of people process in their own time. They don't actually process through verbally talking to somebody else. I am not one of those people. I can to an extent. But I need to go be by myself and think it through. And so anytime someone brings something to you, something happens, even if it feels terrible and urgent, just say, I need to think through it, or I need to sleep on it. Because I bet you what happens during that time is you go from here to here. And so I hope you find that useful. That has been tremendously helpful for me. It's just a small perspective shift, but it really can help you align with your long-term goals versus what you're doing in the immediate, uh, moment. So if you like the video, go ahead and hit subscribe. I will see you on the next one.
