Why Smart People Make Terrible Decisions (And How to Fix It)

This show is powered by others over self. Hit that subscribe button to keep training your brain. From others over self. It's hardcore and at ease. A show about people who are keeping their edge without going over the edge. I'm host Shelly Rude and today we're tackling the exhausting cycle of making smart decisions that somehow make everything worse. We're exploring the personal values of ambitious people and what Marcus Aurelius knew about authentic judgment. You'll discover the decision filter that I use for better outcomes the first time and a 24 hour reset that you can use immediately. This is hardcore and at ease. So you heard me mention smart decisions that somehow make everything worse. And this podcast episode that you hear right now, it's a great example of one. I'll get to that in just a minute. Truly ambitious leaders are leaders who analyze everything. We have this persistent inner drive that forces us to weigh all the options and and the options of those options before we finally land on the best way to move forward. There's so much work that goes into the decision making process. How could it not work? You know what? It usually does work. We produce amazing results, truly. But the question is, at what cost? Because even if things don't blow up in your face, how often have you made a decision that technically works but leaves everyone frustrated, including you? This podcast episode is a brilliant example of how really good decisions can go south. I needed to decide the best way to present my leadership training materials so that they would be useful and light hearted without overwhelming people. I've got spreadsheets, guest interviews, co hosted episode lists. I mean, an entire robust system to carry us for a full year. I made the logically sound decision to always have a guest or a co host, but I was ignoring what I knew about the people that engaged with me professionally. They like to hear content delivered by me. Six months into recording, three of my guest interviews rescheduled in the same week, and I was on track to miss my launch deadline. After years of working with top performers, I admitted to my team I. I knew that this would happen, but I talked myself out of trusting that instinct. So if this is your daily reality, also, you're not alone. And more importantly, you're not stuck. Here's what's really happening. We're making decisions from our head instead of with our heart. Oh, that's so cringe. I know it's really hard to say also, but it's true. I was so proud and excited. Excited of my guest list. I mean, come on, I get to have conversations with People like Donald Miller, the author of storybrand, a book that is redefining the world's marketing industry, and Andy Matthews, golf professional, who is in the top 10 of the Canadian PGA. Like me, you've been trained to think that good decisions come from more analysis, better data, longer consideration. But what I'm discovering through these conversations with these really smart people is that the smartest leaders that I work with aren't getting paralyzed by information. They're gaining clarity from alignment. So the hidden cost of this pattern is that every time we override our authentic judgment for logical analysis, we're actually teaching ourselves not to trust the very instincts and the experiences that got us this far. Guest after guest, they were asking me for the leadership content that I had created. They wanted to hear recordings of me teaching. And it's been incredibly humbling. What could I possibly say to a former pro golfer that would actually improve his quality of life? The truth is, there are a lot of leadership lessons that he would benefit from. And by denying his expressed want, I was teaching the wrong lesson. I might as well have said to him, you know, Andy, you've already figured out how to be pretty awesome at life, so just keep that up. Boy, that's a really stupid thing to say. And it's like turning away fit people at the front door of the gym. You're done. Go home. Have a great day. Whether it's physical performance or mental growth, we are never done. All leaders, especially the ambitious ones, should be teaching our people that decisions are something that they're part of creating, not something that happens to them. When we engage in decision making frameworks that ignore who we actually are, our leadership advice becomes artificial intelligence. I said it. When we engage in decision making frameworks that ignore who we actually are, our leadership advice becomes artificial intelligence. We're no better than robots. We become a robot for processing inputs and outputs, and we perpetuate this myth that rational decisions are somehow superior to authentic ones. In my experience, working with leaders across industries, it's the ones who seem to make it look effortless that aren't smarter. They've just learned to make decisions from their heart. Now, stick with me here. Hardcore people like me don't like to reference fluffy words like heart and values. So I'm just going to go ahead and give it a different name. We are referring to this as your tactical center. And that is what this episode is all about. By the end in instead of ruminating over these major choices or maybe even small ones, you'll know how to make decisions from authentic Confidence. I'm going to give you the exact decision making filter that I use that eliminates the endless back and forth. And you're going to have that 24 hour reset you can use immediately when you catch yourself in that analysis. Paralysis. This is your tactical center in action. Hardcore and at ease is a complete framework for everyday excellence. Now, before we get into framework implementation, I want to show you why this problem has been around forever and what leaders throughout history have already figured out about today's modern intelligence gap. This isn't a new problem. Marcus Aurelius, who literally had the weight of the Roman Empire on his shoulders. He wrote extensively about decision making under pressure, and here's what he understood that we've forgotten. Good decisions don't come from eliminating uncertainty. They come from knowing who you are when uncertainty hits. Aurelius had a simple test for his does this align with my nature and my duty? Not what does the data say? Or am I qualified enough to be giving this person advice? But is this consistent with who I am and what I'm here to do? What I learned from my intelligence background is that in high pressure situations you don't have time for endless analysis. Yes, you do that work up front, but you have to make decisions with incomplete information. We do it all the time. And the leaders who are resilient, who make the most impact, are the ones who've done the foundational work of knowing their authentic center before that pressure hits. Here's why this ancient insight seems impossible today. We've been conditioned to believe that more information equals better decisions. And that's not a false truth. I truly believe I was born for this day. Because we've got analytics for everything, endless data streams, the ability to research every possible angle. So when we naturally think that good leadership means gathering more input, it feels so good. But when you stop there, here's what's actually happening. You're drowning in information or and starving for wisdom. You're asking what should I do or recommend? When the real question is who am I in this situation? Modern leaders tend to think that they have to choose between analytical and human, between being rational and being intuitive. And that's the false choice that keeps you stuck. This is exactly what hardcore and at ease means in practice. You stay hardcore, committed to excellent outcomes, refusing to lower your standards. But you become at ease, confident in the knowledge that great things are happening in the big picture. Even when individual decisions feel uncertain and the others over self mindset, well it transforms this completely. Because when your decisions serve the mission and the people you lead, not just your need to be right. The choices that you make become clear. You're not trying to make perfect decisions anymore. You're making authentic decisions that you can stand behind a hundred percent even when looking back. And yes, even when those decisions lead to failure. This is what building your tactical center is all about. Okay, so we've established that this isn't a new problem and we've seen how ancient wisdom applies. Let's get into the practical mechanics of how this actually works in your day to day leadership. Before we dive into your tactical center. Specifically, let me paint a picture of how this all fits together. The hardcore and addies framework is built around the acronym target. What else? And I want you to visualize an actual shooting target. For those of you that are geeking out with me, a.22 small bore competitive target will do nicely. So picture those rings one inside of another with the smallest circle in the center. That's your bullseye. And the bullseye is T, your tactical center. It's your personal values and your authentic foundation. This is your operational core. It's where everything starts. The next ring out is A. It's for ambition, alignment. And this is where your whole self then goes out into the world and your personal drive has the chance to connect with opportunity that's only available with external organizations. That next ring is R resourceful action where you maximize what you've been given. G is for generate momentum. And this is where individual excellence becomes team excellence, which of course brings us to E. And what else would that stand for but excellence? But no, it's about expecting excellence. Where you set standards that inspire instead of intimidate. And the final T in target stands for trust. The process. It's your faith in positive futures that makes you magnetic to other ambitious people. Here's what's crucial. When you hit that bullseye, when you operate from your heart. Oh, that phrase is so hard to say. When you operate from your tactical center, every other ring is behind it, so they've already been hit. But when you miss the center, you end up working two or three times as hard on those outer rings, making just a sliver of the impact that you could have made had you just hit that bullseye. And that's why we're starting here. Your tactical center needs to be clarified so thoroughly that those choices become obvious. When you know that your values aren't just words on a wall, but lived out principles. When you understand that your mission isn't what you do, but why you exist, decisions stop feeling like intellectual puzzles and they start to become alignment checks. Most leaders skip this foundational work and we, we tend to want to jump straight into decision making techniques. But that's like shooting ARR even knowing where your target is. From the military to the civilian world, no matter what industry that you're in, the most successful initiatives weren't built on the most data. They were built on the clearest sense of purpose. I worked with a CEO, we'll call him Dave, and he was struggling to decide whether or not he should break into a new market. After months of analysis and consultant reports, financial projections, I mean, it really looked like a solid move, but he was still paralyzed to do it. We spent one session revisiting his tactical center. What does success actually look like to him? What kind of leader does he want to be to both his company and his family and expand that even to his community? What kind of impact did he want to create with the next phase of his life? Once he had that clarity, the decision was practically made for him. The expansion did not align with his vision for the company's impact. And he could see that he was chasing growth for growth's sake, not growth for purpose. He passed on the opportunity and he doubled down on serving his existing market at a deeper level. And not only did he gain more time to be at ease, his revenue actually increased nearly 30% that year because his team finally understood what they were building. I've seen brilliant leaders make smart decisions that destroy their culture because they optimized for metrics instead of the missions. They hire for skills instead of alignment. They chase revenue instead of impact. And they make changes that would look really, really good on paper, but they just feel wrong in practice. And here's what they miss. It's not good enough to just be qualified. You have to be fit. Qualified checks the boxes of our logical minds. Love those checklists, but fit means that you actually belong in the process. We're not running the Starship Enterprise. And even if we were, pure Spock level logic without considering the human element, we'll get you technically correct decisions that completely miss the point. And I see this every day. We spend hours and hours planning event details and then 10 minutes to invite people and they can't make it because you didn't invite them early enough and their schedules are already booked. This disconnect shows up differently across different industries, but the pattern is always the same. Tech leaders who optimize for user acquisition but lose sight of the user value. Healthcare leaders who focus on efficiency metrics, but they forget the patient experience. Nonprofit leaders chasing grant requirements and drifting from the core mission. It's heartbreaking to watch, and yet it's so wonderful to see it turn back in the other direction. Dave was a highly accomplished businessman and he was even a first responder on the side. And I'm so, so proud of him for making that tough decision to focus instead of dissipate his efforts. Now that you understand the full hardcore Inatti's framework through that target model, here's how your tactical center connects to every other element. When you hit that bullseye of knowing who you are, it becomes easier to align your ambition with opportunities that actually serve your mission and your ego. But here's what most leaders miss. Having this clear sight of personal values gives your team and those who watch you a profound sense of confidence in your leadership. They know what to expect from you. They can predict how you'll respond because your decisions flow from consistent principles, not shifting moods or external pressures or all of the emotion that we can put into our day. This predictability, it's not boring, but it's also not explosive. It's streamlined power. Your team stops ignoring you or walking on eggshells and they actually start taking ownership because they trust that the foundation that you're operating from is legit, resourceful action. It flows naturally because you're not wasting your time and your energy on decisions that don't matter. Generating momentum becomes possible because your team can see the consistent thread and in your choices, both they and you learn to expect excellence because your standards are rooted in purpose, not perfectionism. And finally, being able to trust the process that actually becomes real because you've done that foundational work.

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You're listening to Hardcore and at ease.

With certified business and life coach Shelly Rood.

Now back to the show. Leaders with a tactical center don't just make better decisions, they make faster decisions. And that's a good thing. We're no longer paralyzed by complexity because we have that filter that most situations, they don't even require it, we just run it through yes or no. Unfortunately though, I have seen countless leaders get stuck in trying to figure out their values because they're trying to do it in really tough, uncertain situations under really high pressure or worse, they experience this deep sense of moral injury because something happens to them that doesn't align with their core beliefs. This is foundation work. This foundation has to be poured in the happening of these really stable moments, not in times of crisis. Because when a tactical center is missing, people get stuck in really, really bad ways. We get stuck in bad habits that become self sabotaging lifestyle choices and they can actually lead to our destruction. I don't say this lightly. I've seen it across public service, corporate and entrepreneurial environments. I can name all of these names in these specific situations. They're real, they're moral, they're spiritual, they're existential challenges that high performers are facing, from survival guilt and hyper vigilance to the stigma around seeking help when you're supposed to be the strong one. We start to touch on this in next week's episode because truly, this is the entire point of this podcast. Having deep conversations to shape our understanding that authentic leadership requires addressing the whole person, not just business tactics. The tough truth is that if you don't address the messiness of people work, then you're doing more harm than good. First, in the next 24 hours, do a personal values audit. Reflect back over the past month and record five decisions that you're proud of. And we're not stopping there. The next part is to record five decisions that you wish you could redo. What values were you honoring versus ignoring? Look for the patterns because these are your actual values in action, not your aspirational ones. And what I've found is most people can identify their regrettable decisions much quicker than the ones that they're proud of. This next exercise will take you some time, but try to knock it out before the start of next week's episode. Start your personal mission statement. Use this formula your name wants to overcome and then state the resistance in order to accomplish. State your ambition so that and then state the good thing that will happen. This exercise of creating a personal mission statement comes from my half day workshop using Donald Miller's Hero on a Mission framework. We'll dive deeper into this exercise in a future episode, but start thinking through those three components. What you want to overcome, what you want to accomplish, and what good thing will happen once you have this drafted you have created your mission filter and we're going to test every decision this week against it. Does this choice serve that mission or distract from it? Don't get too caught up in this just yet. Just pick one area of life like your family, your career, your health and then just knock it out. On to number three. Over the next month, I want you to practice values based action. This exercise is rooted in the art of mentorship. Before making decisions, ask what would someone with my values do here? Pause. Identify which core value that the decision would honor and then act from that place. And when you do this effectively, you'll finally understand what it means to feel at ease. By doing these three things. You'll start to notice that decisions that used to take days will take minutes because you have a clear filter. And when you do seek others opinions, which you should, what you'll find is that you'll ask better questions because you know what you're trying to accomplish. And your team will bring problems to you with more context and potential solutions because they understand your decision making framework. Now, once you've got those immediate actions rolling, here's how to build this into a systematic approach. I want you to start rating your major decisions on two simple scales, alignment and confidence. Alignment. Does this serve my authentic mission and confidence? Can I stand behind this choice completely? Track this for 30 days. You'll start to see exactly where your tactical center is strong and where it needs development. Because the key is progressive development, don't jump start right into your biggest decisions. Let's start with some low stakes choices and work our way up. Use that values based action approach on simple things like where are we going to grab lunch? If genetically modified food is important for you, do you even know which restaurants nearby are GMO free? And stay away from certain chocolate chips. That's my tip for you. Take another look at how you prioritize emails or how you structure your morning. You're in a training phase with this because what we're doing is building muscle memory so that when those high pressure decisions do hit, this process is already ingrained in you and it's something that you don't have to think about. And you'll know that it's working when you stop asking yourself what should I do? And instead you start to formulate that as what would someone with my mission and my values do? And if you find yourself in this trap of over analyzing again, then it might be because you're trying to force a decision that doesn't actually align with your values. So step back and Ask yourself, why am I forcing this? Why am I forcing guests in every episode? Sometimes the right decision, it takes time to think it over. And it's okay. That is a decision to not decide yet. Hit that pause button and feel safe in the fact that you're trusting the process. Come back to it 24 hours later and you'll probably see things a little bit differently. You know, you've really developed your tactical center. When people start asking your advice on their decisions, it's scary. And it's wonderful to be able to help make those choices quickly without second guessing that loop or just thinking of like, one more adjustment, one more thing, and then we'll be able to move forward. Looking back on the launch of this podcast, if I had started from this place of leadership training and performance coaching, then I would not have dedicated so much time on a guest system that ultimately resulted in the loss of even more time, because we don't have that much time. And right now our decisions need to be creating forward momentum instead of things that are stopping us or requiring us to do significant damage control afterward. Once you can make those smart decisions quickly, you'll start naturally bringing your mission filter into conversations with what does this project serve and what are we actually here to do? You'll find yourself asking better questions because you know what you're aiming for and your confidence in decision making, it really becomes contagious. People, they start trusting your judgment because they know what to expect from you. You're consistent, and in this day and age, there is not a whole lot that is consistent out there right now. So let's look ahead to the long term vision for your personal leadership. When you've developed your tactical center, this decision making becomes one of your greatest strengths. It's not a source of stress. And when that happens, you actually operate with this confidence that comes with it. It's not just competence, it's authentic alignment. People will seek your counsel because they can sense that your choices come from a really solid place. And there you have it. Smart people can and do make terrible decisions. And now you have a roadmap for transformation and how to move forward. Go easy on yourself. You're going to keep making a few terrible decisions, but just the fact that you're listening to a leadership podcast puts you light years ahead of your peers. Now, if you're thinking this makes sense, but I want help specifically implementing this for my situation, then I'm here for that conversation. And if you're thinking about bringing that half day workshop on personal mission statements to your organization, I that is an amazing exercise. It's exactly the kind of foundational work that transforms entire cultures. What we've covered today is the Framework foundation for building your Tactical center. From recognizing why smart people make terrible decisions to implementing the decision making filter that eliminates that analysis paralysis. We've covered the ancient wisdom, the practical mechanics, and now you have a step by step roadmap. No one hits the bullseye every single time and that's what makes the game so fun. It's amazing how often I still catch myself overriding my gut instinct because somehow I think, oh, just a little bit more analysis will somehow make this decision better. I am an intel officer, I always will be, and old habits die hard. Even when you're teaching this framework, working through the Tactical center concept always reminds me of my time in intel work when I had all the data but I still felt unsure. And it was when the best decisions came because I trusted what I actually knew, not what I thought I should know. What if you tried this experiment with me for the next week before making any significant choice? Pause and ask yourself, what would someone with my values do here? I'm curious what you discover about this gap between who you think you are and who you actually are in action. It's easy to think that building your Tactical center is about becoming more decisive, but maybe it's actually about becoming more honest with ourselves about what we truly value. Also, that Marcus Aurelius translation that I mentioned, it's the Gregory Hayes version, not that flowery Victorian one. So if you're researching it and it comes out weird, that's why. And Donald Miller's Hero on a Mission book is where that mission statement formula comes from. All the links are in the show notes with my honest reviews and an affiliate disclosure. If this episode helped you think differently about your situation, then I want you to screenshot this and tag it in your stories. I'm othersoverself and use hardcore and at ease because I really love to see how you're focusing on defining your personal values. And if you haven't subscribed yet, please do because it helps other frustrated leaders find these helpful frameworks. This week I want you to sit with this if your decisions over the past month were the only evidence of your true values, what story would they tell? That's all for now. I'm Shelley Rood and you can count on me returning next Tuesday with a co host for an episode on excellence versus Progress, perfectionism, and why getting this wrong might be sabotaging everything you're trying to build. Until then, stay hardcore, be at ease and trust the process.