In this episode, Mitch Parkins joins Terry to decode and dismantle the biggest money misnomer money: that conditions must change before progress can occur.
The most powerful gift you have to create the life you want isn't outside of you. It is within you. Your decisions shape your reality, but indecision only leads to a life of misery.
In this episode, Mitch and Terry share everything they've learned combatting the 'miserable maybe' in their own lives. Plus what they've seen and understood helping hundreds do the same. If you've ever found yourself paralysed by decisions that have the power to move the needle in your life, this episode is for you.
Also in this episode:
Join the Private Podcast Community
Click here to access free courses and trainings, build new habits, and connect with us and others on the journey to financial self reliance.
Other links 👇
Money mentorship:
Click here to start putting what you've been learning into practice.
Corporate program:
Click here to find out more about our workplace program
Follow us on Instagram:
Click here to see behind the scenes of our business and learn more about personal finance in bite-sized chunks.
In this episode, Mitch Parkins joins Terry to decode and dismantle the biggest money misnomer money: that conditions must change before progress can occur.
The most powerful gift you have to create the life you want isn't outside of you. It is within you. Your decisions shape your reality, but indecision only leads to a life of misery.
In this episode, Mitch and Terry share everything they've learned combatting the 'miserable maybe' in their own lives. Plus what they've seen and understood helping hundreds do the same. If you've ever found yourself paralysed by decisions that have the power to move the needle in your life, this episode is for you.
Also in this episode:
Join the Private Podcast Community
Click here to access free courses and trainings, build new habits, and connect with us and others on the journey to financial self reliance.
Other links 👇
Money mentorship:
Click here to start putting what you've been learning into practice.
Corporate program:
Click here to find out more about our workplace program
Follow us on Instagram:
Click here to see behind the scenes of our business and learn more about personal finance in bite-sized chunks.
Welcome back to the passive income project. I'm back with Mitch Parkins from our last episode. Welcome, mate.
Mitchell:Hey, terry, thanks for having us mate Minutes away from the arrival of number two, this is pretty exciting time for us.
Terry:You just said that and I said, well, should we actually be doing this right now? Well, they are at the beach, mate, so it's all good. Okay, very good. Well, if you need to jump off. No, we're good, we're good. It's exciting, mate. I got you back on because I wanted to talk about one of the biggest blockers that we see when it comes to financial progress. Seen it for myself. We've seen a lot in others and we've been having a lot of chats about this since our last episode, haven't we?
Mitchell:We have lots and lots of discussion. So many folks. I really want to understand actually how we've actually gone about doing this. What has actually happened? That's the question that we're continually being asked.
Mitchell:It's interesting because a lot of people do feel like everything about our conditions has actually changed, and there was this kind of rapid trick or rapid acceleration that has actually changed our conditions and made this all possible? The reality is, it's actually come down to decisions. Our conditions haven't fundamentally changed, but how they're configured has changed, and that has allowed us ultimately to make decisions.
Terry:I reckon that's the biggest, I'd say misanimate about what we're doing.
Mitchell:No doubt. Honestly, everything that you guys do, and that I have the great privilege of also doing, is empowering people to make decisions. It's ultimately like the confidence is built through making small decisions and they just gradually get bigger and bigger and bigger. And now, coming on board as a coach, I do feel like you have been training me for nine months, ultimately to guide people through decisions. It's really about mastering one thing, and that is decisions.
Terry:People think it's lip service, but we've said this before in the podcast the power of decision is the power of creation. It's not lip service, it's 100% the core of everything we're doing, isn't it?
Mitchell:Decisions are everything they truly are ultimately your capacity to create the life you want. It's taken me a long time to realize that, but I'm very, very thankful that I have.
Terry:It's huge, derek. The weight of unmade decisions, I reckon, is the biggest blocker to financial progress. Everybody is thinking there's going to be some kind of change, some kind of shift that has to happen for my conditions, my reality is going to change. But it's actually not that that has to change. It's you that has to change. That's essentially. It isn't it. You've gone through. You thought in the beginning I want to change all my conditions, but what actually ends up happening is the way you look at your situation changes and then the way you change the situation happens after that.
Mitchell:Correct. It's really interesting because it is context specific. So in my life and in my career I've had no problem making decisions at all. $50 million sponsorship deals yes, we should do that. I can see why I can demonstrate the ROI. I have no problem mapping out the plan. I actually see it as a bigger risk not to do it. But in my personal life I've just seen myself constantly throw rocks in my path. For us with the trip when we have the car, then we'd be good. When we have the caravan, then we would be good.
Mitchell:When the duplexes were built, then actually we would be safe and then it would make sense to do it. When we had enough money to actually handle this, then we'd be sweet and I can tell you that handle it goalpost of how much money we needed. Just kept moving, and moving, and moving, and even the mentorship. When we've done the mentorship then we must be ready. Just crazy how we do this to ourselves.
Terry:I mean, it's pretty normal, though it's exactly the same for me. I used to make huge calls on athletes to have that power to shape their careers Massive, massive implications for some of these decisions. And I would be able to walk into that room and I would speak directly to a coach and I'd say here's how I see it, this is what you need to know, here's my recommendation, this is what we should do. And then I come to my life, and here I am, when I know bloody everything about every. Then I'm going to figure it out, then I'm going to go and get the words you used before were perfect. I'm going to throw rocks in my own part. And I want to come back to this point. Right, I don't think I can overstate it.
Terry:The power of decision is the power of creation. It's actually power of creative destruction when you think about it, and this is what we're going to delve into in this episode, because the creative part and the destruction part and I think the creative part for me, that is the gift. It's a gift because every time you make a decision, you pave a new pathway of possibilities into the future, but at the same time, you kill off numerous other futures, and I think we can get paralyzed by what we're killing off Instead of actually realizing that decision is moving me by, creating a whole new situation for me, a whole new pathway of possibilities, as I said, and it's exciting. But it's where you focus, and I think a lot of us focus too much on what's been killed off and not enough on where we're actually going and what it's doing for us. So I'm super pumped to delve into this with you, mate. We've been having conversations about this, in depth conversations about this, for probably the last two months, I reckon, haven't we? Well, yeah, and they've been pretty deep.
Mitchell:They have been pretty deep. There's a lot of self reflection and a lot of understanding how folks are actually paralyzing themselves and why, and this should be a real powerful episode for folks.
Terry:And it's so much clearer when you're thinking about someone else's situation, isn't it? I think that's the gift and so, obviously, the role you're playing now helping coaches, coach folks through this and I've been coaching you on how to help people through these decisions, and we've been talking about this and like what gets in the way of people. So what we want to do in this episode is really just kind of break down everything we've learned figuring this out or working our way through this ourselves, and everything we see that gets in our way, because, again, we see this happen for others. So much simpler to see it in other people, but we actually have to see it in ourselves too. And that's actually the conversation we've been having, isn't it? We've been saying let's own our own shit and let's get out of our own way and let's look at the decisions we're not making in our own life so that we can help other people better make decisions in theirs, and I reckon that's the biggest unlock, isn't it? Oh, it is.
Mitchell:When you understand how you are keeping yourself stuck and your kind of process of walking through decisions, then you have the power to help others see what they're not seeing.
Terry:Yeah, and every month we're having conversations. There's like one or two people that come through and they're talking to us and they just give the power of decision away. We call it the miserable. Maybe don't we? Yeah.
Mitchell:Why we do this, ultimately not deciding to decide. It's so punishing when that holiday is over or when certain conditions change then I will be ready. It's so frustrating for folks because the decision is right there they just can't see that they've just thrown another rock in front of what they actually want.
Terry:And to be clear, it's not that the decision has to be yes or you have to do the thing. You can decide. I'm not going to do the thing, of course. The thing that we're talking about is not deciding. It's just like oh, I just don't know what to do, so I'm going to do nothing. Newsflash that is a decision. The decision to do nothing is to decide to be a passenger and to never unwrap the gift. That is the decision. And experience Christmas, because that is honestly what's on the other side of your decisions.
Terry:Who doesn't want more Christmases in their life? Yeah, this is what I'm so pumped about, because there's probably a few topics where I'd be like man. This is an unlock. This is one of the biggest unlocks in your life, and it's not even just when it comes to money. It's in all areas of your life. You can understand this. It's huge. Did anyone ever sit you down and say, hey, mitch, the number one power, the number one gift. You have to get the life you want and to build it is decision. Now here's how decisions work.
Mitchell:Did that ever happen? We only make them all the time and we often don't make the most important ones, and no one has ever actually sat me down and said OK, this is how you make a decision. It's madness.
Terry:The parallels with money are crazy, right, because I've said the exact same thing with money. Hey, this is money. You're going to use it every day. And guess what you have to do with money? Make decisions with it. So, the two things that we have to use all of the time we have to use it, we have to have it, we have to experience them and interact with them. They're the least things we ever get taught about. That is fucking ludicrous. Yeah, it's madness.
Mitchell:It's madness you like the education system Terry.
Terry:You a big fan? No, I think you probably picked up. I'm not like, don't get me wrong, I am a product of my education. I mean, I run an education business, so I think education by itself as well. I think the way we practice it needs to be called in the question.
Mitchell:Yeah, and finding the holes like this one where really the unlock is right here.
Terry:Absolutely so. Look, in this episode, we're going to talk about what have we learned for ourselves working through our own shit. What have we helped helping guide other people through important decisions that are going to help them get closer to what they want. So that's big decisions like whether to invest in themselves, get involved with what they're doing, whether to declare what they want and then actually go after it. Right Decisions about changing directions, dropping things that no longer make sense, and also whether to have the hard conversations that have to be had along the way, because when you change your priorities now, that has impacts on people. So these are all the kind of things we're talking about, isn't it?
Mitchell:Oh, absolutely, and ultimately, what you'll learn here is why we decide not to decide, how we face fear and dysfunction that comes from decisions and how we think about decisions, and how many questions will we leave folks through Terry?
Terry:We're going to talk through these seven questions that we use to make decisions without worrying about getting it wrong and I think that's the key right, but they're worrying about getting it wrong. So there's seven really specific questions that we use for ourselves and that we help guide people through as well. Use these seven questions to be able to make sure that you are moving in the direction of what you want and you're not making the decision to be a passion in your life. You want to be stepping up, being the captain.
Mitchell:Pick up the controller. Ultimately, this is about picking up that controller and starting to play life.
Terry:And I reckon the best thing to do to get the most out of this episode is just to think about one important financial decision that you're not making right now, whatever it be, whatever it is, it doesn't really matter and even maybe a decision you're making in another part of your life as well, just a decision that's been left unsaid, the miserable maybe, that's sitting on the edge of your consciousness, that's making you feel overwhelmed and distracted. You know it's there, but you haven't handled it. Think about that decision as we go through this and I reckon you'll get most out of this episode. So let's talk about the first part. Mate, why do we decide not to decide? Alright, it's school.
Mitchell:Yeah, we're back on education. Well, I think it's school. We're truly conditioned to think that making a bad decision, or a decision generally that goes wrong, is a mark against your name. It's saying something about your intelligence, and it's ultimately a sign that your future prospects are bleak, which just creates so much fear.
Terry:Have you heard about this concept of learned helplessness? Oh, I guess I have. Okay, so everything you just said there it's a mark against your name says something about your intelligence and it's a sign of future prospects. You know what? Learned helplessness? The symptoms of that are it's personal, it's permanent and it's pervasive. So it's personal. It says something about me. It's going to be this way always and it's about all aspects of my life. So let's really think about that for a second. We have been set up Because the frame is what is school other than a series of tests?
Terry:and every tests, you get assessed against other people, and that test Takes you down different pathways, and those pathways all about your future and your prospects and what's possible for you. So all these associations are coming up, but the inverse of that is, hey, get it wrong. It's personal, it's permanent and it's pervasive. And so you can see why we get into this kind of learned helplessness when it comes to decisions, can't you?
Terry:know it sounds scary, right. We talk about frame of reference all the time, like how you see something really matters. You can see that that sort of conditioning, that way of growing up and the way we sort of have those associations with decisions Sort of conditions us to see decisions like they're a curse, oh yeah, like this is a test, this is an assessment, but actually they're a gift and that's what we want to get across in this episode. Your decisions are a gift and you're leaving it unwrapped under the Christmas tree. I'm gonna keep saying that. I'm gonna keep saying it until it sinks in your decisions are a gift.
Mitchell:Yeah, ultimately, it's the fear that paralyzes us, right yeah, and it is the fear that makes us put off these decisions and, ultimately, to decide, not to decide. I have been there, it's just that learn helplessness.
Mitchell:Oh, totally learn helplessness, and it just always plays out with the when then pattern. We constantly busy ourselves with other inconsequential decisions, yeah, and we really make them bigger than they need to be. Do you want to talk through some? Yeah, oh, definitely. I just had a conversation with a couple that have a series of unmade financial decisions. The stress that they are causing is rather significant, and I asked them what have you been up to? And they said, oh, we took a holiday last week and Immediately just thought well, so when the holidays sorted, then we'll sort out this financial mess, and all the holidays done is actually make them more stressed. Yeah, when, then, delaying the decision stress we say it with all kinds of stuff like TV. What kind of TV should we get? Should we get Netflix or Stan? What kind of laptop should I get?
Terry:Seriously, what should I eat this morning? Should I go to the gym? What should I do at the gym? What clothes should I wear? What'll that say about me if I wear those clothes? Where should I make that dentist appointment? What are we gonna eat tonight? What time we're gonna eat? Who we're gonna eat? With all of these decisions, completely inconsequential decisions Just stack up and it's like, oh man, I'm completely overwhelmed. I just got so much going on on my mind because we're making all these stupid, silly decisions when we should be making the important ones.
Mitchell:Hey oh yeah, that is overwhelming, and that's what we do, because we just don't actually address the decision that needs to be made.
Terry:Yeah, it's funny I've actually you and I were talking about this a week or so ago, but I've actually made a list of decisions I'm no longer making yeah and this is kind of the inverse right, because you've heard us say before Don't automate everything, and it's a hundred percent right with money.
Terry:Don't automate everything. Think about it, because you want to be actually building the confidence to make these decisions. But with everything else, all these inconsequential things we talked about, absolutely make rules for it, because these things ain't gonna move the needle. Make rules for these things. So for me, I actually have a list where I'm like these are decisions that I'm eliminating and I'm either eliminating and stopping making them or I'm creating rules where it's just an algorithm. I was like if it's a Tuesday, then I'm doing this, so I don't decide when I go to the gym. I don't decide what I do at the gym. I don't decide what I'm going to eat in the morning.
Mitchell:Those are decisions I don't want to make anymore because I can see now the cost of those decisions kind of decisions are you able to make now that you've eliminated the process of all of those inconsequential decisions?
Terry:Bigger, bigger business decisions, like the things that are going to move the needle for us, the directions we need to go. You and I've been having conversations about personal visions, where we want to take our lives, that sort of stuff. Yeah, I think people don't give themselves permission to even have that conversation and do that thinking because Our mind is stacked full of this junk. That just means nothing.
Mitchell:Oh yeah.
Terry:So that first one. I reckon that when then pattern, it's this pattern of like learned helplessness, the internal dialogue there is, when I don't feel so overwhelmed, then I'll make the important decisions that I haven't been making. That's the first one. Let's talk about the second one as well, which is pushing out, which is pushing out the timeline. How do you see this one play out?
Mitchell:Yeah, this one does play out a little bit when things settle down After we get married.
Terry:I've seen that play out a few times. I actually had a conversation with a couple and they were like, yeah, we're gonna do this, we're gonna make this happen, we're gonna do this, we're gonna get married. And then, after we get married, and then we're gonna settle down, we're gonna make all these decisions. And I'm like, okay, are you actually gonna do that? Surprise, surprise, no, not gonna do that. So like we actually lie to ourselves with this stuff right when things settle down, is just a symptom of that fear, that sense of learned helplessness.
Mitchell:The other classic one is role changes. When things settle down in my new role, then I'll be ready to get on top of my finances. And the reality is you might not need to actually have taken that crappy role that you don't really want to be, and if you actually got on top of your finances, yeah, I mean, it's not crazy. We've all done it. It's when we do it.
Terry:Yeah, we do it, but I mean, when you think about the cost of this, it's a lie that we're telling ourselves that we're going to do it. We know we're not gonna do it. We're actually just Pushing that painful sort of thing out because we're worried about making a mistake. That second one for me is big one. You know, we've just talked about the first one, which is the. When then I'm just gonna make all these bunch of little decisions, I create overwhelm and I feel too overwhelmed. So when I'm not overwhelmed, then I'll do it. Second one when things get back to normal, that's normal and normal doesn't exist.
Terry:There is no normal. You are gonna continue to create Situations that make you feel like things aren't normal. So, yep, that's the second one. Do you want to talk to the third one? Actually, let me talk through this one, because this is me, this is absolutely me. When I know everything, then I'll do something.
Mitchell:Yeah, how many books did you read before you invested?
Terry:I told you right before I came to talk to Ryan, I'm like I've read more books than any financial advisor would frigate read. And it wasn't about the knowledge, it was about the decision at not wanting to make that decision. And so I get into those conversations and I would find reasons why I couldn't trust this first one. All this person didn't know as much as me, or whatever. And I'm telling myself all this Lies because I'm worried about the decision. I'm scared of the decision. Yeah, and that what it says about me and what it might mean. Sorry, yeah, the classic symptoms. I'm just gonna read another book. I'm gonna listen another podcast. I love the people that read reviews, but I've seen a few reviews where it's like I love this podcast, I'm gonna keep listening so I can build my confidence and then I'm gonna start doing some stuff and I'm like, oh, You're making the same mistake as me.
Terry:Don't do it. It's important to make that point because I mean, we have a podcast as financial education. Clearly, we believe in information, of course, but there is a real difference between theoretical learning versus practical learning. Theoretical learning, for me, is like just in case learning. I'm gonna read another book just in case. I need to know a, b and c so that I didn't get tripped up when it comes to x, y and z. Right, that's just in case learning. That's coming from a place of fear.
Terry:Practical learning is just in time learning, which is I want to achieve this. What do I need to know now in order to be able to take the next step, make that next decision and keep moving in the direction I need to? They're two very different things, so don't get me wrong. When I see that reading another book isn't a good idea, what I'm saying is ask yourself why you're reading the book. Are you reading it because you're thinking I need to know more, just in case, or is it a just in time thing and you're actually Gathering information to inform an important decision? They're two very different things.
Mitchell:I'm like oh, massive, massive, the end of the day. What was actually going on for you when you were reading all of those books and continuing to go through that process of loan, loan, loan, loan. What was that?
Terry:It's just fear. This is a huge thing. I can't fuck it up. I can't make a mistake. I need to make sure and If I put my mind to something I get obsessive, like it just didn't stop. I'm just continuing to read and when I got to the point where I had sort of caught up with Ryan, I honestly I was just exhausted. I'm exhausted by myself here. I just continue to punish myself and tell myself and like you said before, same thing move the goalposts, read that book, read that book, read that book. And I track these books. If I'd stack them up, they're taller than I am and I'm not sure what am I miss?
Mitchell:No, you are not a short person.
Terry:It's never gonna stop. That stack of books is going to keep piling up. The internal dialogue is when I have all the information. Then I'll make a decision. So these, for me, are the three kind of clear when, then patterns right, which is when I'm not overwhelmed, when things get back to normal, when I have all the information. These are the when, then, and if you're not doing one of those three, you're probably doing something else. I am.
Mitchell:Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. More often than not numbing ourselves, it's ultimately numbing ourselves from that discomfort that we are feeling, from the weight of unmade decisions, and I have been there.
Terry:This is probably why that couple was taken. The holiday is when you think about it, wasn't it when you talk about it was yeah, absolutely was. This is need to numb ourselves. We don't really want to think about it, so we're gonna spend money and, by the way we're gonna come back, we're gonna have a money problem.
Mitchell:Yeah, correct. We're actually gonna make the problem that we're trying to escape worse. Yeah, and that's all.
Terry:I'm just gonna binge entertainment stuff, I'm just gonna sit out and just veg out of the couch or I'm just gonna scape down social media wormholes. What are we doing here where it's all mood repair? I'm feeling unhappy, I'm feeling stressed about this situation, so I'm gonna go to something that prepares my mood right now. That just makes me feel good in the moment. We know, we know deep down that longer term this is gonna hurt us more, but we're actually not thinking about that. We're thinking about how we repair our mood right now. So if you're not doing one of those three, when then patterns it's going to be some kind of numbing to be able to just seek that mood repair, isn't it Correct?
Mitchell:It's the most nice place to be, it does perpetuate and the numbing it's just another symptom.
Terry:And let's talk through the logic here for a sec. Right, you might be doing any of these, when then patterns or you might be numbing, but essentially creating clutter in your life. And If we look at the logic and we unravel it, it's basically I feel busy because of the way I'm approaching things, but I don't want to change the way I'm approaching things because I feel too busy.
Mitchell:It's a bit like the decision is you're riding a bike, the bike has square wheels, right, the decision comes past you on a brand new shiny bike with round wheels and you're saying no, no, no, no, I'm too busy on this bike with square wheels to get on that one. That's like literally it.
Terry:Let me keep pedaling real hard. I'll just keep pedaling to get nowhere near as far. I don't need the round wheel, I'm good.
Mitchell:It doesn't work, the logic doesn't stack up.
Terry:And here's the thing, right. Do we actually believe that we can only be successful if we're never busy? If you think about the people that you Think are successful right now, ask yourself this question Are they more or less busy than me? I'm betting they're probably more busy than you.
Mitchell:Yeah, look, I'm a big fan of the Rock, is pretty busy, mate. Yeah if he can get this stuff done. I think we can too.
Terry:So we correlate calmness with your ability to be successful. They're just not, they don't go together. You actually want to become bigger than the conditions of your life and not have the conditions of your life dictate what you do and where you go. And that is the difference between being a passenger and being the driver of your experience, being that creator, using the power of those decisions so that process of making your aspirations bigger.
Mitchell:We see that play out all the time. It actually comes off the back of it.
Terry:It's probably actually a really good point because if you think about it, like what you can do in these scenarios is you can get like sucked into this very short term myopic kind of view of yourself and reality and you just can't see beyond that, and so your ability to sort of step out of that and expand actually see what's really important to you, what you really want to accomplish that is probably a big part of getting getting out of this.
Mitchell:It does help you actually see the impact and all of those small decisions that you are clouding your future with and you can see the real decisions. It's fundamental.
Terry:I guess we've understood the symptoms here of when this is going wrong and when we're kind of falling prey to this, when then thinking we're creating. I guess, in your words, we're throwing rocks in our own path when it comes to decisions. Let's talk about how we fix it and how we've been dealing with, how we think through our situation. I reckon there's three steps. Let's talk through the first one, which is understanding fear.
Mitchell:Yeah, fear. It's massive. Ultimately, fear is the training ground for courage. So without fear, there can be no courage, and feeling fear is not a signal to stop. It's a signal that you are actually expanding your comfort zone.
Terry:Can't understate that point Right. I reckon we have been conditioned to let our emotions tell us what to do, when actually the signal that we're getting, what we think the signal is, is wrong. The signal is stop, stop, stop. But that is primitive thinking. That's primitive thinking the signal really needs to be. If I'm feeling like this because I'm pushing into a decision, it's not because there's a saber tooth tiger there I need to freeze. It is because I'm pushing my comfort zone and I'm making and I'm expanding myself, making myself bigger. That is a good thing, and it's becoming more comfortable with that feeling of discomfort is the trick. We've got to this point now where it feels like anything that's quote unquote negative equals bad, and that's actually not true.
Mitchell:It's not true and ultimately, that's what we need to work through Struggle always builds strength.
Terry:I reckon that facing fear and trusting yourself to make a decision, that is training. That is training for the mind, like I think about physical training. What do you do that for? You put yourself in positions of discomfort to get your body to adapt. It is the exact same thing If you learn how to lean into that discomfort, become more comfortable with that discomfort. And what you're doing is you're training your brain to move out of that limbic system, get out of the primitive, animalistic part of you and move up into that executive function. And you cannot do it any other way than doing it. You don't get stronger by not going to the gym. You got to go to the gym.
Mitchell:And, importantly, when you go to the gym you don't start with 300 kilo deadlift, you start small. I think we kind of kid ourselves that the process is just the big thing. We actually have to flex this muscle and use it time, time, time, time, time reps.
Terry:For me, this is the superpower of money mapping right, because what is money mapping other than training you to make small decisions over time, building your awareness of your situation so that you can actually look at it differently? And that is always the way it goes. Anyone that's ever come on and talked about their story, that is always the same pattern, which is I was afraid of making decisions. I started making small ones. As I started making the small ones, I started to get a bigger, better awareness of my situation. Now I realized I could configure it differently and as I made the decisions to reconfigure it, then all of the conditions that I wanted to happen they changed and I could actually get to experience that thing.
Mitchell:I remember the moment when I sat down with the mat and started to imagine what was possible. I actually confronted the fact that I was scared that we wouldn't be okay if we did it. That was the fear that I was on addressing. I didn't realize it at the time until I actually punched in the 12 months, looked at it. That's the fear, that's it. That's the fear staring at me. That's the one that I haven't actually tackled. And the money mapping actually did it in a way that I didn't realize that that's what was happening. But I tell you what, when I realized that that was actually what I was scared of fuck it's like oh we can do this.
Mitchell:We can do this.
Terry:And that's why we talk about that power of forecasting, because it allows you to game things out and actually simulate those scenarios. So if you haven't already listened to episode 70, how to spend guilt-free and smash your long-term goals I would highly encourage you to listen to that episode, because what Mitch is talking about here is actually the ability to kind of zoom out, look forward, game it out and actually understand, like step into where that fear is coming from and realize whether it's unfounded, on how unfounded it possibly is. But I'm really glad you said that, mate, because when we're talking about understanding fear, we've made a study of this and it actually all fear, all fear, literally every fear has one source and it is the idea that whatever happens, I can't handle it. It all traces back to this one single idea. And do you know what's so funny about this idea?
Mitchell:You would not be listening to this right now if you couldn't handle it. You'd not be walking along the beach, you'd not be looking at your phone. You would not be with us right now, sitting on the lounge, wherever it is that you're consuming this. You wouldn't be here if you hadn't handled it to this point.
Terry:That's exactly right, like every other challenge you've ever faced in your life. You have handled, and what you've just said is 100% true. If you hadn't, you would not be listening to these words right now. So there is absolutely zero evidence that you can't handle any of it. But for some reason we don't live like that.
Mitchell:We don't. We just look at the fear as this false evidence that's appearing real.
Terry:That's why I reckon they say it, because it is false evidence and it does appear real. And it's because it's our primitive wiring hacking our nervous system. That's that animalistic brain, and I've said this and I keep saying it your brain doesn't give a shit about your goals. What it cares about is whether humans in the aggregate survive. So you've got to transcend that, get beyond it, because it doesn't help you. It actually hurts you staying in that kind of fear space. You don't have to live in the animal part of your brain, you can live in the human part of your brain.
Terry:But the longer you let that false evidence appear real, then of course you're going to live in a place of learned helplessness. Of course you're going to lean out of decisions, you're going to put them off, you're going to avoid them, you're going to distract yourself, you're going to create some kind of when then pattern that helps you in the moment but hurts you in the long run. Key point, and I would highly encourage you just to, if you haven't let that sink in, just stop that. What we just said about fear, rewind it, listen to it again. Listen to it as many times as you need to to let it sink in. There is zero evidence that you can't handle it. But when you put off a decision, it's because you fear that you can't handle it, and there's no evidence in your life that that's the case.
Mitchell:Fear false evidence appearing real. F E A R, Burn it in your brain, and I reckon as well.
Terry:Think about it and now ask yourself how much that lie has cost you in the past. What paths remain untrotten that you never went down? What opportunities did you walk past? And if you're not sure how to find those opportunities and those paths that you haven't walked past, just think about the things you regret most in your life, and then you can trace every single one of them back to a decision that you didn't make, every single one. And what's that key insight from the people that are on their deathbeds? What is it?
Mitchell:We regret not living a life true to ourself. That is the number one fear of the dying.
Terry:Yeah, number one regret of the dying. And it is always the acts of omission that we die with on our minds, the things we didn't do to me. That is everything. That is everything.
Mitchell:It was that insight that was very easy to them future pace for us and realize if I died tomorrow and I hadn't made this decision, I would have the biggest regret imaginable.
Terry:I think that's the inside here, because what we're essentially talking about is you want to use your own wiring against yourself, because if you walk forward in your life and you walk forward to the end of your life and you feel the regret, then that loss aversion, that pain, we're much more motivated by that loss aversion, that pain, than we are pleasure, and so if you're not doing something, the best way for you to actually get off your ass and do it is to walk forward in your life. Imagine a time in the future where you have to look backwards and see two parallel universes one in which you made the decision and moved in the direction of your dreams or whatever it was, and another one where you actually have that awareness that you have to actually realize I didn't make that decision. Now I have to live with the regret. Classic example of this, one of the most important decisions that an individual ever made for their wealth Jeff Bezos. Jeff Bezos, investment banker making a shit ton of money on Wall Street, going to be fine, going to live a rich life, going to have, please, some money Comes across this one little bit of data, which is the growth, the size and the speed of the growth of the internet and he realizes that there is a once in a generation opportunity and I'm going to jump on that wave.
Terry:I have no idea how it's going to play out, but I'm going to move in that direction. And you know what's so cool about this? When he started Amazon, he says to his wife just could go wrong. And he talks to his mentor and his mentor says listen, you're going to do really well doing what you're doing, so you should be really sure. And he goes I'm not sure, but I actually need to know, because the framework that he uses he calls it the regret minimization framework, and I love how people use big words for little things All he did was exactly what I just said.
Terry:He said if I'm 80 and I look back and I'm only trying to minimize regrets, what pathway would I regret the least? And he said it's the one where I have a crack. And that their thinking, that thought experiment, led to Amazon. Now, he wasn't naive about this either, because when he was actually taking on funding and investment from family, he said look, the odds of this succeeding are actually pretty damn low. So whatever money that you give me for this, just prepare to never see it again. So he's not naive, he's not like hubris Dick thinking, boy, I'm going to make it happen. He was like I'm going to have a guy huge, I think, just to kind of reframe and understand what success actually is, because it isn't dying with everything. What it is is dying with the least regrets, not dying with the most of anything, it's dying with the least regrets.
Mitchell:Regrets hurt, mate. We've all had them and we all know we're holding onto something right now. But if we don't get it done, we'll be the greatest regret we die with.
Terry:Yeah, Look, this is the first step right Learning how to face down that fear, reframe it and sort of looking at it differently Now. I think the second step is we want to reframe decisions. We've been able to move through fear. Now we've got to reframe how we're looking at decisions to be able to make better decisions. So for me, I think the first part is we've just got to see the decisions are not a test of assessment. What they are is a tool of actualization.
Mitchell:Yeah, at the end of the day, you can't lose here. Decisions are either win now or win later. Either way, one's a strawberry or one's a blueberry. Talk me through that.
Terry:What do you mean by one's a strawberry, one's a blueberry?
Mitchell:Well, at the end of the day, one's sweet now and one is sweet later. So the process of the decision is do I win now or do I end up winning later? Okay, by making the decision, we get closer to either the strawberry or the blueberry. You can't actually lose.
Terry:Well, the way I think about it is like a decision that pays off straight away as a strawberry, and a decision that doesn't necessarily work out straight away is usually a blueberry, because what it teaches you you use in the future decisions to make better decisions.
Mitchell:Which you experienced right. You've actually had that with the edge.
Terry:Yeah, I've been talking about this on the phone. This is actually one of the reasons why I started to get interested in investing, and it must have been like five years before meeting Ryan. So this is when money and investing started to sort of get into my consciousness in some way. And it's kind of a funny story, but like I had sort of saved enough to know, oh yeah, I've got enough money, I know I need to be doing something with it. I've heard this word investing. That's about the level of education that I had. I'm like, yeah, I should be doing this investing thing. What did that?
Terry:investing look like here yeah, this is funny as hell. So I got involved in this, ultimately what turned out to be one of the biggest Ponzi schemes that ever happened in Australian history, and it's so funny how it happened. It happened because one of my brothers was connected to this kind of money scene because he was doing more with broken at the time, and he's like, oh, I've got this opportunity and it's exclusive thing and only a few people you have to be invited in to get it, and blah, blah, blah, blah, and I was like sounds pretty fishy, sounds kind of fishy. And I was like no, I don't think that's for me. So I sort of went you do what you're going to do, whatever. And anyway. So he starts doing it and he starts talking about how much money he's making or whatever. And so then one of my other brothers gets involved and they're like let's start like wow, like this is actually. This thing is going really good, this thing is going really good. Then the third brother gets involved, same thing. And then every time I sort of catch up with it talking about how much money they're making.
Terry:Then my dad gets involved and this was a creature for me. So he gets involved and I'm like what's going on here and he's like look, I would never usually say this, but you should probably have a look at what's going on, and you know. And at that time I'm like I have to be honest, this does sound real fishy, but I'm just going to put in enough money that I would put in for a call. I actually just thought about it like that. I'm like you know, it's five grand, it's not going to kill me. I've paid way more for a course than I would for this. So I put five grand in and I had it turned out.
Terry:I actually think I was the last person to put money before it all blew up, because what the edge was was a massive Ponzi scheme. This bloke claimed to have this epic algorithm where he could pick all the horses and make it all work for him, and then he would actually just create this newsletter every month where he talked through and he itemized everyone's gains. It's all complete bullshit, but every Ponzi scheme is the same. It's basically oh, that's looking really, really good. And if it looks good, then more people want to sort of put in and you keep telling the story. You keep telling the story. But if more people start taking out money than more people are putting in. Then it all falls over, and it fell over the week after I put my money in. So how on earth does that end up? A blueberry? So this is where it gets really interesting, right? What do we talk about now, other than the psychology of money? Nothing else.
Terry:It was such an interesting sort of experiment for me where I'm like what happened there, what really went on there and what was underneath it? And was that actually investing or was that something else? Because there's a spectrum, there's gambling, there's speculating and then there's investing, and it definitely wasn't investing. And so the only way I learnt that is by just walking through that fire and actually feeling it and, to be honest, like I laughed because I'm like five grand at the time, I didn't really care. I'm like, okay, I was actually right. I should probably trust myself and my instincts. I should probably listen less to people who potentially I might look at as authority figures. But the other part of it is it just got me really interested in like the psychology side of money, because I'm like what? What actually happened there? Because it wasn't just me, there's a shit ton of people that got taken for a lot of money. And it just started to get me kind of really curious about this.
Terry:And I found it really interesting, particularly when we started talking about Bitcoin as well, because there's obviously a lot of parallels and a lot of people talk about this. It's just a big Ponzi scheme, that sort of thing, and it's why we took at least six months before we even spoke about it, because I said I'm going to learn literally everything. I'm going to go back to the start to really understand what this is and understand if there is characteristics that look the same. Is it the same or it doesn't actually just look the same? Because there's this whole concept in terms of trauma that my wife Elise talks about. She says you get burned once by a snake Use, your brain starts to look at every stick like it's a snake, and so you can kind of trick yourself by going, oh, snake, snake, snake, snake, snake, and you've got to be able to move through that.
Terry:So anyway, I found that quite interesting because it created the curiosity in me to really understand more and sort of widen the lens when it comes to money, because at that point I guess I sort of thought of money as just this numbers problem, just for like numbers, people, and I realized actually there's a lot of psychology and money and I'm really interested in psychology. It's kind of funny now that that's all I talk about Psychology and money. It doesn't make a lot of sense, though it's actually how I make a living now. So you know, it cost me $5,000 now, but now I make a living from that one decision. So how did it turn into a blueberry? That's our yeah.
Mitchell:I'll get a similar one. Australian Institute of Company Directors. I like business, I'm fascinated by them, I'm fascinated by the people that work in them and I thought right, my next step, boards. I'll work on boards. It sounds awesome, evolution great. And what I realized by doing the AICD course is that actually, I'm right where I need to be. I don't have an immediate desire to pursue board work. I love what I'm doing right now and, yeah, there's lessons that I've taken from that, but it's helped me realize that that's not the path I don't have this weight of. That's the path, that's the decision. That's where I need to go. I have literally eliminated years of wasted time.
Terry:I'm just going to sit on this for a second, because how much it costs you to do this course, it's right on the off Three and a half grand. Yeah, amazing. Right now let's say you didn't do it, yeah, right. And on your mind is this other parallel path of should I do a board thing, should I be moving that direction? And you're like half in whatever you're doing and half in that kind of like, maybe future.
Terry:Yeah do you actually succeed on the journey you're going on right now? But now you're both feet in on this pathway, are you?
Mitchell:I'm moving so much faster on this pathway. It's not even funny if I tried to straddle those two worlds without having made that decision.
Terry:Yeah.
Terry:Man, I'd be stuck in quicksand and you cannot, cannot succeed without concentrating your efforts. You can't achieve mastery, you can't get to traction. You will not be able to actually achieve your potential by Hedging your bets all the time. There's a point where you need to commit to something and you need to go feet first into it, because that's how you find out and that's what Bayesos did as well. He's just like I'm going in that direction, I'm moving from this direction. He didn't say all the internet thing could be interesting and then just spend the next 10 years an investment bank are wondering about whether he should be doing the internet, then never would have Made the money or the wealth or anything like that he could have done even in investment banking if that was the case. So that's why, like, you cannot lose, you can't lose.
Terry:Every single decision you make upgrades your software For every future decision that happens afterwards. Right, we talk about the cybernetic brain. We talk about how it uses feedback from decisions and outcomes to upgrade it's reasoning. It's called Bayesian reasoning. It's basically like, okay, information from that decision helps you kind of go Okay, update my assumptions, move more in this direction and you make better decision. The next one and you make a better decision, next one. But the key point is you've got to feed your brain with the information for it to upgrade, and if you don't act, then your brain doesn't get the information. So sitting on the sidelines Wondering what if, sitting in those miserable maybes, you actually cripple your growth? You cripple your progress.
Mitchell:It's kind of like your iPhone's telling you to upgrade and you just leave it for like four years and that it just doesn't work. You wonder why you've got viruses and there's so much going on with your phone. You've got to upgrade 100%.
Terry:It's why that guy, thomas Watson, is a founder of IBM. He was asked what's the secret to success and he said w value rate. It's not a pattern, it's a law, like if you look in any field what you'll see and I noticed this with athletes yeah, athletes do a lot of losing before they start winning a lot, like someone like Roger Federer. Just study his career and look at how many losses he made Before he became Roger Federer. You'll see a lot. Same with Andre Agassi, same with all the greats. Jordan talks about the 9,000 shots that he missed before the ones he got, and I know that in baseball, the person who has the world record in terms of home runs also has the most strikeouts. Those two things go together. Value is what creates success. It doesn't prevent it, it creates it. Crazy, isn't it?
Mitchell:I did. I mean, no one thinks about Federer and goes when he lost and had that giant run of outs. Yeah, you just see the success, yeah that's not how it works.
Terry:You actually had a good example when we're talking through this yesterday around Australian business to with Melanie Perkins. You want to talk to that?
Mitchell:bit of a crush on Mel. She's obviously a superstar founder of Canva. The level of rejection that she went through to just get her first round of funding was incredible. But again it was flexing that decision muscle. I'm going to decide to go again and again and again. She's pretty successful. She wasn't on the surface, looking at it from the perspective of what is she winning. Well, she was winning. She was making decisions to keep winning.
Terry:Every no Upgraded her decision on how to tweak her approach, her positioning, her pitch, and it's every one of those no's that led to the yes.
Mitchell:Yes, that's exactly it. That is what it looks like. That is how we compound.
Terry:Yeah, and here's what I realized when I was paralyzed by fear and I was stopping myself and constricting myself, what I realized I was doing was I was looking at my current version of myself, thinking I can't do it. But what I was discounting is it's actually not the current version of you that will do it. It's the version of you that you become in Pursuit of what you want, because if you make the first decision, you upgrade the next, which upgrades the next, which upgrades the next, and where you are and who you are when you get there just ain't the same person. And so you're right when you say I can't do it because you as you are won't do it, but if you don't act, you won't become the kind of person that does. Does that make sense?
Mitchell:Makes a whole lot of sense. That's the process. One little decision at a time. You can't, you can't.
Terry:But by not making the decisions, you're just choking the potential that you have in your life let's get into how we actually make decisions now, because what we've talked about is how we face down the fear and Actually interpret the signal correctly, see it as a sign that we're expanding. Now We've actually said how do we look at decisions and change the way we're looking at decisions to be able to make them differently and actually go to feed in and can actually move with conviction, because that's a key, important part here. So let's actually go through the seven questions that we use to actually make these decisions right.
Mitchell:Yeah, and I think it's also critical here that we set some context around. When we actually do start learning about decisions, we're often from a business context. All of the training that I've had later on in my career has all been about risk risk mitigation. How do I ensure that this doesn't go wrong? Which is robbing ourselves of the ability to create.
Terry:What does that do? It just triggers all those associations of school and the test and a mark against your name says something about your future. It's gonna be this way always. Just triggers all that fear, the when. Then thinking happens and you just sit back in our passenger seat and you don't want to do it.
Terry:I think that insights critical right. Anything you've ever been taught about decisions Is how do you manage risk? But we are completely ignoring the opportunity in every decision. It causes us to see decisions as a curse and Instead of seeing them as a gift. Yeah, so that's the first part.
Terry:The second part I want to talk to you here is like before you actually get to the steps you got to manage your state, because Every single decision you ever make is going to be influenced by emotion. The question isn't whether it is or it isn't. The question is how much I thought decisions were logical, all of them. Well, we can't get away from it. You know, like I might have said this before, but the irony with like Someone like Warren Buffett he's make statements like if you can't manage emotion, don't be expect to be able to make decisions, and the key word there I think a lot of people miss is manage.
Terry:He didn't say eliminate, he said manage. Because we can't eliminate the emotional part of our decisions and when you think about the most successful decision that Warren Buffett ever made, heavily influenced by emotion, buying Berkshire Hathaway Basically was a big stuff you to people to try to screw him over, pretty influenced by emotion. So the question isn't how can we get rid of emotion, it's how do we get the right mix of emotion and logic? And for me, I reckon there's three tips. Do you want to go through the first one?
Mitchell:Yeah, the first is being well slept and well fed. Huge impact on our brain, on the Chemical releases and the balance that's going on around doing those two things.
Terry:Why reason? Why is because when you're thinking logically and rationally, your brain is like Chewing through fuel. Chewing through it, the fuel of your brain and thinking is glucose, and glucose falls off a cliff very quickly. And so if you're not well slept and well fed, you don't have enough glucose. You can't make great decisions, but you're going to be relying more on emotion to make that decision, and when you do that, you go to what you know and what feels safe, instead of actually thinking through the situation in and of itself. So I don't want to skip over that. I want you to really understand well slept and well fed is critical, really important. Let's go to the second one create space. Create the space.
Mitchell:Decisions on to be rushed. Ultimately, to make good decisions, you need to allow yourself the space to be with it, to work through it. Without a space, we rush through it and we actually don't give ourselves the ability to work through the decision from start to finish.
Terry:And let's be clear about what we say. When we say don't rush, we're not saying make months to make a decision. What we're saying is, when you're actually in the place to make the decision, make sure that before and after you don't have Things pressing on you. Something to get, you have to get too quickly, have a hard stop and I have to get to here right now. That doesn't help. You're thinking, because what it does is it narrows your thinking, and when you narrow your thinking, you rely on your instincts, and those instincts are usually more heavily influenced by emotion and what you think about the past, and that's what Keeping you safe as opposed to getting you what you want.
Terry:So when you say don't rush these decisions, what you're saying is give yourself enough space to make the decision, but make it.
Mitchell:That's right, because all yeah without the space, all you do is just create more when then cycles.
Terry:Yeah, totally Totally. Last one here I want to add is there seems to be some kind of pattern and we as humans do Better when we think about starts and finishes. So if you're someone that does struggle to sort of make these decisions, one of the easiest ways for you to get better at making them it's to link your decision to a start or a finish. If you're worried that you might do a when then and you've been putting something out, then think about some kind of clean slate Usually it's like start of the month or something like that and say I'll make a decision by the start of that month and I will make that decision, make that commitment to yourself. Your brain will do better and it'll take a little bit of that kind of pressure off for you to do it that way.
Mitchell:So does the birth of a second child count for that one?
Terry:It's kind of ironic here too, because I think what we're doing with the when then is a little bit of that. We're thinking clean slate is going to happen, because when has to happen before then yeah, usually. But those two things aren't the same. So I'd say something like hey, at the start of next week or the start of next month that's the deadline for my decision, so, but don't worry about in the sand. Yeah, don't let yourself fall into a when, then that isn't that, that's not the same thing.
Mitchell:Yeah, yeah. How do we actually manage this decision process? What does that actually look like?
Terry:Yeah. So let's talk about the steps. We've talked about the state. Those three tips well slept, well fed. Creating space, linking a deadline to a fresh slate. If you're worried about procrastinating, there's three steps for me. The first one for me is like we just have to take the pressure off the decisions a lot. You know, jeff Faisos didn't expect that the first decision he made to start Amazon was going to take him to billionaire. What he expected was it was going to take him further in the direction of something that he wanted, and I think that's where we go Wrong right. So we're sort of like we've got huge risk and if I'm going to take on all that risk, then it's got to take me all the way there. That's not really fair. It's not fair on you, it's not fair on the decision and it's not fair on whatever vehicle or opportunity or pathway You're looking at. Is it certainly?
Mitchell:not, it just sets up for a lack of progress yeah.
Terry:So the two questions for me with this one is what are the benefits of even partial success?
Mitchell:Yeah.
Terry:Partial success?
Terry:I asked myself this question before we started the cash flow code, because I'm like, at this stage I kind of realized, hey, I've been doing that I wouldn't put too much pressure on this decision, and I think a lot of people do this with career direction and I've seen this actually I've seen this a lot where people go or and they overweight their next decision in their career instead of Realizing you just need to make one and keep moving, make one and keep moving, make one and keep moving, because that's how you update your operating system.
Terry:And for me, I was like I'm pretty sure that I've got something to add and we could do something special in this place. What would be the benefits of even partial success, of giving this thing a go? And I was like, well, actually a lot, because I'd find out how I work with other people, I'd find out how to actually get a business off the ground. I'd figure out all these new skills to make that happen. And all those skills, regardless of whether or not it works, I could take with me wherever I go. And that took the pressure off saying yes, being open, having a go that, to me, is one of the most critical questions you can ask what are the benefits of even partial success? Do you want to talk through the second question?
Mitchell:Yeah, will this decision ultimately get me closer to what I want? Why will it get me closer and how will I actually do it? So, for me, the decision around the traveling, another role, another duplex, whatever it wasn't actually going to get us closer to what we actually wanted. That's what it's all about. I Will this decision get me closer. Why does that matter, and how do we actually get it done?
Terry:Are we gonna be asked to solve those two questions? You can just relax a little bit. You just relax. And why does it so important to relax? Because we want to reduce the fear that comes with decisions. We want to reduce the worry that comes with getting it wrong. So that's our first step take the pressure off, and do that by asking yourself two questions what are the benefits of even partial success, and will this get me closer to what I want, and why and how? Now, second step Discriminate. Don't treat every decision equally. They're not the same at all. Not all decisions are equal. Don't treat them that way. This is so critical, isn't it?
Mitchell:Oh, they're not even close to being equal if we don't discriminate decisions, we completely get scrambled. So many of our decisions are reversible and we act as if they're not like a moving somewhere. We've got folks that think about moving all the time. I want to go and live in beautiful tropical north of Queensland. It's reversible. If you don't like it, you can come back. Career opportunities how much of our headspace is consumed about that next career step? Yeah, but you can go and try that and Come back if it doesn't work.
Mitchell:It's worth, but if you don't make the decision, you're stuck.
Terry:Yeah, what are the benefits of even partial success? I moved, it didn't work. Now I know for sure, exactly like your company director's decision. Now I know for sure that's not it. So I can what worry less. So I can worry less about that and I can forget about that. I can focus on where I'm going then we think Reese's massively.
Mitchell:At the end of the day, decisions are the higher low stakes. They're either reversible or the irreversible and we have to actually work out how to discriminate those.
Terry:Yep.
Terry:So we talked before earlier about the decisions that I was taking off my plate, and let's be clear about what they are. They are low stakes and reversible. I create rules for those. I don't want to make those decisions. I want to have rules and algorithms for those.
Terry:What we're talking about now and let's distinguish between the two there's high stakes, reversible decisions, and that's what we're actually talking about here. We're talking about way finding decisions. These are decisions that you make in pursuit of what you want. So when we're laying out these steps, I want you to think about it and understand. We're talking about way finding decisions. These are high stakes and reversible, and the principle is advance and adapt, because if you don't advance, you can't adapt, and if you don't adapt, you won't advance. That's the principle, but the other side of it is high stakes, irreversible decisions. These are life-changing decisions. These are the ones where you want to go slow, to go fast.
Terry:He's like buying a house yeah, buying a house. Who to marry another kid about it? Yep, exactly, that's these ones, right? So when you're sort of hearing us talk about this stuff, I want you to understand that, by and large, the decisions we're talking about, that people don't make are the way finding decisions. They're the ones that you don't give ourselves permissions to make. We give our power off and over to life. So with high stakes, irreversible decisions, absolutely go slow to go fast. But what we're talking about here advance and adapt. Advance and adapt, keep doing it. So let's talk about the two questions for this one, mate, what's the first one?
Mitchell:Yeah, the first question is is this permanent? Mmm and the second question what are the stakes of this decision?
Terry:Yep simple Helps you categorize it so you know what to do. And again, just to go back. If it's not permanent, but it is high stakes, advance and adapt. If it is permanent and it's high stakes, go slow to go fast, simple, all right. So we've done the first four questions and the first two steps. Let's get to the last step, which is actually where we start moving forward now.
Mitchell:So key point here Move forward with conviction yeah, be confident that you've done the thinking and you can now move through with the doing. Ultimately, we take some inspiration from Alex Formosi here and he talks through the process of this is my best bad guess. And the questions that we need to ask ourselves is Do I believe I can make this work how I want to do, I have the resources to make this work, or can I get them? And, and really importantly, what are the second and third order consequences of doing nothing?
Terry:I want to double click on this last one. If you're stuck, this last question so critical, because you've gone through all the other ones, and if you still feel like, oh, I'm a little bit fearful, now use the fear against yourself. And if you ask yourself this question, the follow on questions from that, one of the second and third order consequences of doing nothing. Here they are what evidence am I collecting about who I am by making or not making this decision? If I make the decision, what evidence will I collect about who I am by not making this decision, whatever it's my collecting? And then the second question from that is how will that evidence work for or against me in the long term?
Mitchell:Yeah, I mean decide yes or decide no. The miserable Maybe is again that weight of an unmade decision, and this just makes your life smaller, smaller and smaller and smaller, especially with time.
Terry:I Want to be really clear about this to deciding no is also a decision, and that is good. It's not. It always should be a yes. It's make a decision, it's don't not make a decision. So you could have gone through all the thinking and you've sort of said I believe that I can make this work the way I want to, I have the resources, but I don't think that I can do this because of a, b and C. I don't think it'll work because of a, b and C and for that reason it's going to be a no for now.
Terry:Yeah, it might be a no forever, it could be a no for now, but it's a no. Yeah, don't make it a blank blank blank, because that there Starts to turn you into a passenger in your life and the more of the blank blank blanks, the more lines you leave blank in your life, the more evidence that you stack up that you're not someone who's a doer, that you're not someone who's going after what you want, that You're not someone who gets what you want, because you won't have that evidence who wants to be a passenger in.
Mitchell:We have to realize that these decisions aren't mortal wounds, are they?
Terry:hmm, that's right, like if you get it wrong, that's. I kind of think about it like this and I go look, if I get it wrong, is it a flesh wound or a mortal wound? Flesh wound I can move through and keep going, keep moving the direction, keep moving where I want to go. Mortal wound will stop me if I don't fix it, and that helps me actually check and just go back and check hey, am I thinking about this is a permanent decision? When it's not, or is it a permanent decision, I need to go slow and go fast on. So that's a little bonus question that you can ask yourself. If you you've asked yourselves all those and you still feel Unstark, just go, hey, if I get it wrong, is it a flesh wound or a mortal wound? Because if it's a flesh wound, I can deal with that and I can keep going and I might even need a closer.
Terry:Yeah, and I might actually need the evidence and it might need the information from the wrong result to get the right result. That's it. You're closer, yeah. So look, those are the steps that we go through to make a decision. You want to take the pressure off, you want to discriminate, not treat them all equally, categorize them correctly and then manage your emotions to move forward. Right, and if we can just summarize what we've talked about here, decision is a gift to be enjoyed, not to be feared.
Terry:We fear decisions because we see them as a test and if we see them as a test, we fall into this place of learned helplessness and we become a victim and a passenger in our lives. But that fear that you feel has been pushing you back, it's been making you procrastinate. It is based on a fallacy which is whatever happens, I can't handle it, and you know that's not true, because every challenge you've ever faced you've handled. And Remember decisions are either strawberries or blueberries, are either sweet now or they're sweet later. But you've got to make them if you don't want to lose. The only way to lose is to not be making them. Anything you would add to that, mate.
Mitchell:Yeah and to decide. Well, take the pressure off, discriminate your decisions Don't treat them all equally and manage your emotions and move forward.
Terry:So hopefully this episode has been helpful. Right, and if you'll be thinking about a decision that you haven't been making, go back through this, actually go through the action steps, ask yourself the questions that we talked about and walk through that decision Using this framework, and let us know what you think. If you're in the community and this has helped you or you've got a question about it, like, drop us a comment on this. This has been an episode We've been working on for a little while and to be able to put it together has been really cool with you, mate. So thanks for coming back on to kind of talk us through it. We know there's something that we go man, this is it. It's actually it. Everything else about how much of a management expense ratio sits on that ETF or what return you're gonna get on this house no, that is all secondary to this.
Mitchell:All of it, all of it at the end of the day. I can handle it, and so can you that's exactly right.
Terry:So, look, if this episode has struck a chord with you and you know it could strike a chord with somebody else, or even start a good conversation, because you're somebody who likes to have Conversations about what you're learning as well then share this episode with someone who is stuck on a financial decision or is worried about something, or even just would have a good chat with you about it. Always good to be able to do that. So, mate, thanks again, so much for coming on. I'll see you again soon. Pleasure, mate, we'll have to go have this baby.
Mitchell:See you next time. Good man, good luck, thank you.