ERIN MARCUS LIVE: BUSINESS OWNER = CHIEF DECISION MAKER

Erin Marcus Live: Business Owner = Chief Decision Maker

Transcript by Descript

Erin Marcus: All right. Let’s try this again with technology this time. Yay. Gotta love it. All right. So, as I was saying, business owner equals decision maker. Business owner equals decision maker. I’ve said that before. You’ve heard that before. But I want to revisit this. idea because the other day I saw a reel from Gary Vee about decisions and what he was describing, I totally agree with him, is that the problem with business owners is they want to make three decisions and they want to have them all be the right decision, like be three and up.

Erin Marcus: His goal Instead, with decisions, is to be like 118 and 72, and I don’t know what numbers he used, but you get the point, right? He’s trying to be 118 good decisions and 72 bad decisions, while so many people are out there trapped trying to make three right decisions and only three decisions. Are you doing that in your business?

Erin Marcus: Are you stunting your growth by not making decisions because you’re worried about whether or not they’re the right decisions? So while you worry about decision number one, fair enough, right? While you’re worried about just making a decision, a successful business owner has already made a decision, moved forward, got data about whether that was a quote good or bad decision, and then has made their next decision.

Erin Marcus: They have decided their way forward. They learn by doing. A successful business owner learns by doing, not by thinking and waiting. I’ll give you another example on how I look at this. I said this to a client the other day. So if you’ve ever watched America Ninja Warrior, the obstacle courses, right?

Erin Marcus: Personally, I’m very upset. that that wasn’t a thing when I was younger and much more physically inclined to do things like that because that looks like the best time in the world to me, but if you’ve ever watched American Ninja Warrior, they go through these obstacles, right? And they fall. They fall all the time.

Erin Marcus: But more often than not, each time. They get a little further. They get a little further and they get a little further. If you’ve watched them over the seasons, the, the the athletes, they get a little bit further, right? Their body literally remembers how to do the next bit of the obstacle until they can just do that without thinking they commit the elite.

Erin Marcus: Move very quickly. They trust their instincts. They trust what they’ve learned from from previous mistakes from previous Decisions and well, yeah, you see them visualize at the beginning, you know, they sit there for a second What they don’t do what they don’t do is sit at the starting line dwelling about if they should start with their left foot or with their right foot.

Erin Marcus: They don’t sit at the starting line thinking and thinking and thinking about how this might work. And I know that on the surface it feels like business is more of a thinking situation than an obstacle course. But it’s not. It’s not. Business is just as much a take action sport as any Tough Mudder track out there, as any Ninja Warrior course out there.

Erin Marcus: And, well, yes, it can often feel more like that show Wipeout than Ninja Warrior, right? Small business owner is a full contact sport. It is a full contact sport, and if it has never felt that way for you, then odds are you’ve never really gotten yourself off of that starting line. It’s decision and action and decision and action and decision and action and decision and action.

Erin Marcus: And if that starts to sound exhausting to you, Then you’re getting it. Then you’re getting it. But the good news is, just like any other athlete, your capacity grows. Your ability to handle this grows. Your strength on all of this grows. So let’s take a second and talk about what can you do, what can you do, tactical takeaway, you know my favorite, give your, to give yourself that competitive edge.

Erin Marcus: when it comes to making decisions. Because it’s one thing to understand, like maybe you’re listening this, you go, okay, get it, I need to make more decisions. But we want to do as good a job as we can, right? We want to do as good a job as we can, not just go randomly throwing spaghetti at the wall and hoping we end up where we want to end up.

Erin Marcus: So some tips for you, in no particular order. To stick with our athlete metaphor here for a second, the bigger the decision, The bigger the rest needed to recover. If you look at boxers, football players, Olympians, it requires a lot of time for them to recover from their peak performances. They don’t go hard 24 7, 365.

Erin Marcus: They have seasons, and they might stay in shape in their off seasons, but they train differently. If you’re making bigger decisions and going for bigger leaps, you need to build in bigger recovery time. You need more space around you to recover from the stress. It doesn’t mean, I’m not saying you have to like do all or nothing like football season, but you do need to build in more self care, more space around you so that you don’t burn out.

Erin Marcus: So number two, make a decision and then make the decision right. I’ve heard this from a couple different places, and it popped up in my reels again the other day, and I absolutely love this. It doesn’t mean that you make one decision and never stray from it. It does mean that you have to put your full effort and actions to back up your decision.

Erin Marcus: Once you make your decision, make it right. Go all out to find out. As much data as you can about that decision time and time again. I watch things fail not because a decision was made and it was a bad one, but because people make decisions and then the follow up wasn’t there to make sure the decision was the right one.

Erin Marcus: The decision never stood a chance. The decision was made, but it never stood a chance to succeed because the follow up wasn’t really there to make that decision as right as it could be. So make your decision and then play full out in that direction so that the data you get As a result of your actions helps to make sure your next decision is as accurate as it can be.

Erin Marcus: Number three is learn how to interpret your instincts. We all get a feeling, right? Learn how to interpret your instincts. We all get a feeling when something’s a bad idea, right? Don’t take that job. Don’t date that guy. Don’t walk down that dark alley. And then we Choose to ignore that feeling. We get the feeling, and then we choose to ignore it.

Erin Marcus: Or, we justify having that feeling and not listening to it, right? We need to take the job, we need to keep the job, because we need the money. We date a person with all the red flags because, you know, underneath they’re a good person. Or, Truthfully, I think the dark alley one I think we’re good at.

Erin Marcus: Hopefully you’re trusting that instinct and not walking down the dark alley. But you know what I’m talking about. Like, we know better. So often we know better, but we do the thing anyway for the wrong reasons. We do it to save money. We do it to press an easy button. We do it to please someone else. We do it to mitigate fear.

Erin Marcus: And then we’re all shocked when it doesn’t work out. There is a difference. There’s a total difference between literally not knowing how to do something or what you really should be doing next and needing guidance. There’s a difference between legitimately needing guidance. And ignoring your instincts, you have to learn how to interpret what you’re doing and why you’re doing it so that you’re not making your decisions for the wrong underlying reasons.

Erin Marcus: For me, if you’ve heard me say this before, what I watch out for is, I call it dread, the clench in my gut. the clench in my gut. What I really want is buzzy roller coaster. I want buzzy roller coaster, that excitement in my chest that is fear at the same time, because it knows something big is coming. When I feel that, I know it’s go time.

Erin Marcus: I call it buzzy roller coaster because it’s the feeling I get right before I go on the roller. So learn how to interpret your physical response to your instinct. And truthfully, number four, The way to grow your capacity to be able to make more decisions, better decisions, faster decisions, is to make more decisions.

Erin Marcus: The only real way to get good at this is to do it more. Don’t worry about trying to be three and oh on decisions. Go for one 18 and 72. You’ll be way, way further along. And don’t try to figure out how to run that perfect, perfect obstacle course. So as a result of while you’re trying to figure out how to be perfect, you never actually get off the starting line.