Eliminate Decision Debt To Operate Stress-Free | Ep 226
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What's up guys, welcome back to Build, and today I want to talk about decision debt. So going into 2025, I like to think about like, what are the themes of my years, right? And like the themes of how do I want to kick off the year? How do I want this year to feel? What do I want to do differently than last year? And something I was thinking about a lot is just what big decisions do I need to make? Or what decisions in general do I need to make? Or do I want to get off my plate? I definitely ended 2024 making some decisions that were really tough for me to make. And

though they were tough and though they haven't completely panned out yet, I'm still really glad I made them because I just was like, waiting any longer is not gonna make anything better. It really got me thinking about this concept of making decisions quickly and how the faster you make decisions, really the more progress you make. And so I really started thinking about it and I was really thinking like, you know what it is?

a lot of what I was doing in Q4 was paying off some decision debt from like Q3. I think a lot of people have heard of financial debt. They've heard of tech debt. There's like multiple different kinds of debt in business, but I actually think this one is the most

treacherous type of debt, right? Because really what it is, is it's the cost of like an unmade or delayed decision. What happens is it just continues to build. Like you have big decision after big decision after big decision that you're confronted with or things that are constraints or things that are going wrong or things that are problems. And you just put those things off. And what you do is when you put those things off, you continue to accumulate decision debt.

And I was thinking about that and I was thinking about how I want to start off 2025 with zero decision debt. I stacked a lot of stuff for Q1. I really did. Some stuff that I don't want to do, some stuff that's scary for me, some decisions that

I didn't want to have to make transparently, you know, I let go of some big people in the company that was really hard decisions to make. I am hiring for some very big roles that are really scary for me to bring in, you know, higher level roles than I've ever brought in before. I've decided to do some things personally that I've been putting off because they scare me as well. And I just said, like, I don't want to go into 2025 with any decision debt. I just want to know that I've cleared the way for myself so I can make bigger, better decisions as they come to me within the next year.

And so if we really look at what decision debt is, it's really when we avoid making a decision. And what happens is that like every unmade decision just piles up in the back of our minds, draining our mental energy. And it creates this like general sense of anxiety. Like,

Like a lot of people tell me like, I have like general, I generally like kind of anxious. I'm like, I've been there. But like a lot of the times it's actually just because you haven't been making decisions. It's because you've been avoiding things rather than confronting things. And I know this is somebody who's like perpetually stressed or anxious. If I don't make decisions, if I don't make decisions, it steals my energy. And what I think about is I think about it like a credit card, right? When you defer a payment, interest compounds.

And in the same way, when you put off decisions, that can lead to stress, that can lead to resentment, that can lead to loss of confidence, right? And so it just continues to compound on itself. With every decision that you put off, you accrue more interest and you start to feel worse and worse, right?

And some people are walking around with tens and hundreds of unmade decisions, unmade decisions about their career, about their life, about their business, about their spouse. Like there's so many decisions that people put off. I was really just thinking I want to make this podcast because I don't want you to be one of those people. I don't want you to be that person that has unmade decisions going in 2025.

And I don't want to be that person either. Let's look at some common examples. I was thinking about this with one of my portfolio companies, right? Say you're running a business and you've been holding off hiring a new teammate because it feels like a big commitment, right? Meanwhile, your workload continues to grow. Deadlines are slipping. You're feeling overwhelmed. You're thinking, I can't do this for long. And you start to get more and more stressed.

The longer you wait, the worse it gets. I say this like I'm telling you guys this, but I'm also telling it to myself because like I just said, I'm making a really big hire. That scares me, but I'm also like, hey, I don't have any bandwidth. So like, I don't really have a choice. I've got to do something. I don't want to accumulate more debt. And so this concept really became real to me. I want to say it was, oh my gosh, I'm showing my age. It was almost a decade ago now. And it was when I first met Alex and we both had a lot of unmade decisions.

when we met, he had multiple businesses and he could not decide, was he going to get rid of those businesses? Was he going to keep those businesses? You know, was he just gonna be partnered with me? Was he gonna be partnered with these other people? Like, what was he gonna do?

I didn't know, was I going to give up my personal training business and go all in on this business that he wanted to start and that I had met him and he had given me the idea like we could do this together? Are we going to be married? Are we not going to be married? Like we both had exes that were not too far off. Like, are we going to live together? Are we not? Where are we going to live? Are we going to have a company? Are we not? Are we going to do this affiliate model? Are we going to keep launching gyms? There's so, so, so, so many unmade decisions. And

we had somebody at the time who I would consider like a coach of sorts who gave us this analogy that I thought was really, really helpful. And I honestly, I use it visually all the time now.

it was really like he said listen you guys have a lot of unmade decisions and you have to think of your attention like a jar of marbles right so you've got this jar of marbles and every time you have an unmade decision it steals a certain amount of those marbles and so if you haven't made a decision about your relationship there's five marbles if you haven't made one about your business ten marbles

if you haven't made one about your family, 15 marbles. And you've only got 100 marbles. And so then what happens is you only have so many marbles in your jar to tackle really big, important stuff. So what it does is unmade decisions steal power from you. They steal your power and ability to execute because your attention is spread thin.

and you continue to accumulate this debt because you haven't been paying your dues. You haven't been collecting those marbles back. And then you're trying to tackle all these other big problems, having like no marbles left, and you're thinking to yourself, why can't I get anything done? Why can't I do anything right? Why can't I accomplish my goals? Guys, when I can't accomplish my goals, it's not because I'm not trying hard enough. It's because I don't have enough attention.

I don't have enough marbles. And then what I have to tell myself is, how do I get back enough marbles that I can tackle this other thing in front of me? And so a lot of times when we're setting goals for the new year, right? I think we set a lot of goals that are like, I wanna do this, I wanna start this, I wanna change this, I wanna get this, right? But the question for me is, how do you get the attention back to do those things?

it's really easy to say, I'm gonna go start doing all those things. I'm gonna start doing these things. Okay, but with what time? With what energy? Where is it coming from? It has to pull from somewhere. And so I actually think that the best way to go into 2025 is to take back all your marbles by getting rid of all these unmade decisions that you've been accumulating.

And then you'll have all this energy going into the new year to say like, what do I want to tackle next? And you'll actually have the amount of marbles needed to do it. So here's the thing. I think it's really easy to accumulate decision debt. Often it hides in like three areas, right? One is that we postpone a decision because we want to feel extra, extra sure, extra, extra certain before we make it.

So it's like, okay, well, I feel uncertain. Therefore, that means I should not make a decision. If you felt certain, it would be common sense. It would not be a decision. Decisions, when they are most important to make, are usually when we feel the most uncertain. And here's the other thing to it, is like, you're never gonna gain the skills and you're never gonna make progress unless you try something. That's the first place I see is people postpone decision because they wanna feel extra sure it's the right choice, right? But then that makes it common sense, not a decision.

The second is that people don't want to get rid of their options. They're so worried they're going to make the wrong call. They're so worried that they're going to get rid of something or make a decision to end something, stop something, take their marbles back, and then it's going to be gone forever. They're never going to get the opportunity again. It's going to be so hard to get back. What if it's the wrong call? What if...

that business was actually gonna take off? What if that person was gonna be the one to marry? What if that was the right way to grow your career? There's so many what ifs, and it's really fear of losing something, right?

And so people instead keep all these open loops open because they're just afraid they're gonna make the wrong call. And then the last one is that people avoid conflict by saying like, I'm gonna deal with it later. Don't get me wrong, I don't think there's anything wrong with dealing with some stuff later. I know myself when I'm like, no really, like I gotta deal with that later. Like I got too many other things going on. Like I truly need to deal with that at a different time because it's not the most important thing right now. It's not taking the most amount of attention points from me.

A lot of people just always say, oh, I'll deal with that later. And then their life becomes an accumulation of deferred decisions. And over time, those deferrals add up. And you might not even recognize it, but there are areas where maybe you haven't addressed things. And it's just like, you need to take the time to reflect. Think about it. You've got your career. Are you in a role that aligns with your goal? Do you have a business that aligns with where you want to go? Have you even thought about that?

Does this give you what you want in life? Or do you wake up every day constantly dreading both of those things or either of those things, depending on if you are in a career or own a business? Relationships, right? Do you have all the relationships you want? Do you love the relationships you're in? Do you love your spouse or your significant other? Do you love your friendships? Do you love the family relationships you have?

Or have you been avoiding ending things? Have you been avoiding difficult conversations? Have you been avoiding progress? What about health? It's like, have you been delaying lifestyle changes? Do you feel good about your body? Do you feel good when you wake up? Do you feel healthy? Do you feel energized or do you not? And if you don't, then what have you been putting off? And so why do we delay these things? Usually because we're fearing failure.

We feel like we need to be perfect and we don't know what to get clear about for priorities. You cannot make progress without making decisions. The faster you make decisions, the faster you make progress. And the worst case, you learn more failing than you do avoiding. Right? And that's what I always ask myself, which is like, well, in which situation do I learn the most? And usually it's the one where I have to take action, right? Which is scary and it's uncomfortable, but also like that's the only way I'm going to evolve.

And here's the thing, if we don't make decisions, it shows up in our life in so many ways that we don't want it to. Every unresolved choice takes up cognitive space. There are studies done on this, that not having made decisions impacts productivity, it impacts creativity, and the more decisions that you leave unresolved, the harder it is to focus on what you want to do.

Okay, not to mention one, the stress and anxiety. I don't know about you guys, but the longer I put something off, the more it feels scary to tackle it later. And so I constantly am asking myself, am I making tomorrow easier or harder for myself? Right? Like, am I setting my future self up for success? And if I'm not, then I'm like, damn, I need to tackle this now. The second is that it's just unproductive. Think about how many unproductive conversations that you have with yourself because you're spending all this time debating if you should make this decision.

Really, like really think about it. Like how many unproductive conversations are you having with yourself right now because you're just going back and forth about the same thing that you've not taken action on for years? I know all that can seem overwhelming and it can feel bad, but the risk of making the wrong decision is better than the confidence lost by making no decision.

I am certain about that one because I don't know about you guys, but like literally if I don't make a decision that I know I need to make it, it haunts me. It's like in every like moment that I have available in my life, I'll just like, it'll pop in my brain. It's like, oh wait, you didn't do that. Oh wait, you didn't make that decision. Oh wait, you still got to figure that out. And I'm like, God, I don't have peace of mind. Right. And so it's like, for me, I know how important it is for me to have peace of mind. And so I'm like, okay, if I want to have peace of mind,

I need to tackle hard decisions early on so that I feel good later. I can get my power back and I can tackle things that matter to me in life rather than decisions that I've been putting off out of fear. If that resonates with you, I want to talk about how we can pay off some of this decision debt. Because as I was thinking of going into 2025, I actually, this sounds silly, but I say to myself this little phrase, which is like, I've done it before in different years of my life, but I was like, it's the year of fear.

What's the year of fear? It's the year that I want to tackle some fears that have accumulated over the last few months, right? You know, for me, that's, I have some big hires I want to make. And honestly, my team told me I should have hired these people six months ago, and I didn't. And that is something that scares me, but I need to do it. And I'm committed to doing it.

because I'm more committed to growth than I am to comfort. Personally, I have some things that I'm going to be doing that also scare me, but there are things that I know are going to set me up for success in my future. And I want to make that commitment to myself and I want to get the confidence gained by making those decisions. And so I had this little phrase in my head, which is like 2025 year of fear, like anything that scares you, let's overcome it. Let's just make it the theme of the year. And so if you're having a hard time, one, I would say, borrow my theme.

Because like here's the thing, how can we make it fun to overcome our fears? How can we make it fun to make decisions that freak us out? And for me, it's like if I make it a thing, if I'm like I'm purposely doing this, it makes things 10 times easier for me. I don't even know how to explain this, but it's like if I intentionally am like, you know what, I'm going to go ahead and be scared, then like everything actually gets less scary. If I'm like, oh, you know what, I'm going to go ahead and I'm going to make all these decisions that are going to be really hard. Suddenly it starts to feel easier.

I don't know what that is, but I think there's something to it. And so like, first I would just say like, make a mental shift from avoiding fear into like, this is gonna be the year of fear. That's the first thing is like switching the frame. It doesn't have to be this thing that you dread. It can be something like amazing because here's the thing. If you actually tackle all the things and make all the decisions that scare you, you're gonna be a way better person in 2026. If you're gonna do it eventually, you might as well do it now.

Practically speaking, some of the stuff that I do when I am trying to make hard decisions, I would say like make decisions that scare me is the first thing that I do is I put constraints on it.

So when I say I put constraints, like I put deadlines on my decisions and I put deadlines on the things that I'm avoiding. I treat it like it's a project with a clear timeline. If I have a decision to make, then I'm not going to just say, oh, I'll make it at some point. I'm like, okay, when, by what day, at what time? Like there's no reason not to make it other than your brain wanting to procrastinate it.

And so for me, I often, I actually use a project management tool, which nobody has access to except for me. And the reason I like using it is because I actually put decisions on there that I need to make. And I give myself a deadline. And then I know just every day when I go and I see that, I'm like, all right, I got to make that decision. I've got two more days or three more days. Like the decision has to be made by this day though.

And it's such a small thing, but it does really help hold me accountable because every time I log into my project board and I see that, if I don't do the thing, what happens? I just like lose confidence with myself. There's nothing that feels worse than losing confidence and trust in myself. My relationship with me is the most important relationship in my life. And so I never want that to be the case. And so if I know that I need to be making a decision, then I will tackle it because I made the commitment to me.

And that should not be treated any less than a commitment to somebody else. Okay, so that's the first thing I do. The second thing I do is I focus on the decisions that drive the most impact. Okay, usually if you like go down your whole list, like there's all these things, there's one that's like the hardest, right? I would say like it's in all the things that you're avoiding. It's like the number one thing. That's also the one that's going to give you the most attention back.

If you can figure out what that thing is, like what's that one decision that's going to get you 80% of your attention back and make that the priority. I think sometimes we think, oh, you know what? I'm going to start tackling the easy ones first and all that. And like that can work sometimes, but if you're going to do it eventually, you might as well do it now. And I think that we gain so much confidence in ourselves when we tackle the biggest thing, not to mention we get so much more attention back when we tackle the biggest thing.

that we wouldn't get if we were tackling stuff that's smaller, right? And so you're gonna get a bigger reward earlier on. And now here's the next thing to that when I say focus on the 80/20, like maybe there's some decisions that you're like, I'm not going to make these. I'm not gonna make these decisions because I realize that there are

two decisions I need to make that are the most impactful decisions. I'm just going to reserve all my energy for that. And then you know what? You can keep the others in the backlog and maybe come back to them later. There's nothing wrong with that, right? Use the 80/20 so you can focus on the choices that have the most impact on your life. Funny, the first time that I used this was that me and Alex, we launched our company, Allen, and

When we launched it, there was months of just development and you're just bleeding money at that point, right? And so we're bleeding money. And it got to a point where I was like, hey, I don't know how well this is going to work. I don't know how profitable it's going to be. I don't know if this is a great business because the way we built it, we know so much more now, we would have done it differently. And we ended up coming to an agreement where I said, okay, if it doesn't make money by X date, then we kill it.

And it was really easy because, you know, when we got to that date, we said, is it hitting the metrics we needed to make? And it was. And so we didn't kill it. Right. But it was really, it made things so much easier because I made the decision ahead of time as to like what was going to constitute continuing or stopping something. And I also knew that I need to focus on, there's a million things I could have said, but it was just like, is it profitable or not? Right. I wasn't focusing on like tech debt that we had or the cashflow cycle or how many customers it's just like, is it profitable or is it not?

And so I was focusing on the 80/20. And then the last piece to how we can pay off that decision debt is really limiting our options.

Okay, so when I made this framework for figuring out what we're going to do with the company, I didn't say, oh, we could, you know, get funding, we could do this, because I didn't give myself five choices, I gave myself two. It was like, we're in or we're out. I will say that in many scenarios, I do think that the more absolute answer, the better when they are bigger decisions, bigger decisions. Because it's kind of like, if it's not a hell yes, then why are you doing it with your life?

If you're not hell yes about the relationship, you're not hell yes about the business, you're not hell yes about the career, then why are you doing it?

And so I do think that that tends to work best with big decisions. I hope that's helpful for you guys if you are having trouble making big decisions so you can pay off some of that decision debt. If you are somebody who you're listening to this and you're like, you know what? I am still terrified, Layla, and that sounds scary. I want to walk you through what I ask myself, the series of questions to kind of get myself the courage to do something. The first question I ask myself is what is the worst case scenario, right? Like when I was quitting my job,

and gonna go do this whole gym launch thing with Alex, I was like, what's the worst case scenario that happens? The worst case scenario is that I get rid of all my clients, I go join this random guy to start this business, and it fails and I have no clients and no business. Okay, but if it fails, what happens? I don't have money, right? I can't pay rent. Okay, what do I do? I'll just move in with my parents. Okay, so I move in with my parents or I go to one of my friend's houses and I start over and get another dog. And I was like, could I live with that? And I was like, yeah, I'm 23.

It's not the end of the world. Is it embarrassing? Yes. Is it like, does it make me look like I like lost, you know, status or are you sure? But like, is it the end of the world? No, it's not the end of the world. And it's certainly not the end of my life. And so I was like, I could deal with that, right? Which is the next question I asked myself, which is, he goes, what's the worst case scenario? And then the next question is, could I live with it?

And how would I handle it? A lot of the times we just think about the worst case scenario and we're like, oh my God, it's going to be awful. And then this happens and then this. And I'm like, okay, but here's the thing. Then you wake up the next day and then what? You still eat breakfast, right? You still put food in your mouth. You still, you know, work. You still function. So like, let's think about what realistically happens after that. What happens the next day? What happens the next hours? What are you going to do? And I think there's this fear that

If something goes wrong, we're going to break. If something goes wrong, everything's going to fall apart. Studies have shown that most people are actually much more resilient than they are fragile. Humans are resilient. You can get back up. You can try again. You can figure it out. And even if it doesn't work out in your favor, worst case, you gain a lot of skills and you learn a fucking lot. Remember this, not deciding is also a decision.

So choose to act, even if it means risking imperfection or losing. I hope you guys enjoyed this episode. I hope that you take this into consideration going into 2025. I know I am, and I'm ready to tackle some decisions, to tackle some big shit, and to take my power back. And I hope you are too.