🎙️Episode 8: Why "Should I Stay or Should I Go?" is the Wrong Question
- Focus Performance Systems
- Jul 15
- 33 min read
“Should I stay or should I go?”
It’s a familiar question. And if you’ve ever asked it—about a job, a relationship, a move—you know how heavy and paralyzing it can feel.
In Episode 8 of All We Know About the Stuff We Know, Dave and Ashley dive into what they call one of the most common (and most dangerous) traps in decision-making: binary thinking. That’s when we frame a decision in either/or terms—go or no-go, yes or no, stay or leave. It seems simple… but it’s actually limiting. And in some cases, it’s emotionally brutal.
Ashley opens up about a moment in her life when that binary trap nearly broke her: “It’s easy for our little pea brains to try to relieve pain by saying, ‘Should I stay or should I go?’ That’s honestly how I felt a few years ago making the biggest decision of my life—like, should I get a divorce? Yes or no? My gosh, there was so much pressure.”
That’s the problem with binary decisions: they squeeze out nuance, creativity, and possibility. You’re stuck in a false either/or when what you really need is a wider lens.
“What I had to do,” Ashley says, “was stop asking, ‘Should I stay or should I go?’ and instead say, ‘Choose Best Life for Ashley.’ That shift changed everything. It opened my heart. It brought creativity into the picture. It gave me options—and hope.”
This episode is all about how to reframe decisions in ways that expand your thinking and reduce your stress. Dave explains how comparing multiple options gives your brain the contrast it naturally craves, and why pro/con lists don’t go far enough—because not all pros and cons are created equal.
From Ashley’s deeply personal story to real-world coaching with CEOs and wine tastings gone rogue, this conversation blends honesty, humor, and science into one of the most powerful episodes yet.
🎙️ In this episode, you'll learn:
Why your brain is built for comparisons (and how to use that to your advantage)
Why pros and cons lists are inferior
How to reframe decisions for better outcomes — in your life and your work
You’ll also hear:
What raspberry jalapeño jam teaches us about option overload
How a company’s decision to enter Canada (or not) turned into a total mess
The two simple questions that can instantly broaden any decision
“The binary decision is a tiny little circle,” Dave says. “Reframing it gives your creativity a chance to show up.”
🎧 If you've ever felt stuck between two hard choices—this episode is for you. And if you haven’t yet? Just wait. Life always throws one your way.
👉 Listen to Episode 8 now and learn how to reframe your way to better, braver, and more freeing decisions.
Listen or Watch This Episode:
🍷 Bonus: You'll never look at Trader Joe’s wine the same way again.
🔗 Resources Mentioned
Curious if your DiSC style has changed? Get your profile here!
Want to be a better decision maker in 20 minutes? Our e-book packs a punch! 5 Things You Need to Know About Making Decisions
Is your team facing a complex decision? Book a workshop.
Want to learn our decision making courses on demand? Check out our Decision Focus Course Suite.
We've included the transcript for your reading pleasure below.
Episode 8 | Should I Stay or Should I Go? | 5 Things You Need to Know About Decision Making
Ashley:
Hi gang! We are on thing four. And in case you missed it, we have been recapping the top five things that you didn't know that you needed to know about decision-making. And we've got podcasts on episodes, things one, two, and three. Today is thing four.
Dave (04:46)
Yep, and now we're on number four, and here it is. Are you ready?
Ashley Martin (04:53)
Drumroll
Dave (04:54)
All right, listen carefully. If you want to be a really good decision maker, you have to be non-binary. Yep, if you want to be a really good decision maker, you have to be non-binary. There's no two ways about it. I suppose you want me to clarify.
Ashley Martin (05:19)
Yes, please, please for our listeners who are thinking one thing when you are clearly meaning another.
Dave (05:26)
I'm clearly meaning another thing. Yes, exactly. So keyword there is binary. Okay. And so I'm going to come back to this in a minute. But the way we, a lot of us think about decisions sets us up for a bad outcome. And even sometimes the way we talk about decisions with others or the way we kind of frame them in our own heads. Okay. Because a lot of us will frame decisions in get ready for it. Binary terms, okay? And so you know what a binary, right, binary, okay, yes, yes. So binary decisions are yes, no decisions, right? They're go, no-go decisions. They're should we do this or not kind of decisions, right? Where we framed them so there's really only two choices, okay?
And why do we do this? I'm not really sure, except I think in the, in kind of the quest to be, you know, efficient, we, we sort of boil things down to their simplest terms. ⁓ you know, should I do this or that? Should I, ⁓ at work, you know, should we move forward on, this project or not? Should we, you know, attempt to grow this way or not? ⁓ at home it's, know, should I, should I take, should I buy this new vehicle or not? You were doing that what last year was it?
So yeah, we've got all kinds of things going on that kind of get in the way of making good decisions. So yeah, so what we need to do is, and why is that a problem? Why are binary decision statements a problem, Ashley? Why do you think they're a problem?
Ashley Martin (07:19)
For me, it's a lot of pressure. It's a lot of pressure because like you're talking about binary decisions and I'm thinking about, you know, a few years ago, the biggest binary decision of my life.
Dave:
We're back!
Ashley Martin (01:08)
We're back. Take 2. So from, what I remember, you asked me like how I felt about binary decisions. And you were like, you're freezing. And I'm like, that's exactly how I feel about binary decisions. I freeze.
Dave (01:12)
I said, said, I said, yeah, do you like binary decisions? Yes or no? ⁓ ha ha ha ha.
Ashley Martin (01:34)
Is this a Decision Focus joke? my gosh.
Dave (01:36)
Yeah, there's not too many of them, but that's one of them.
Ashley Martin (01:41)
Lord help us, Lord help us this morning in our issues, our decision making issues. No, I don't like binary decisions, but it's easy. It's easy for our little pea brains to automatically try to relieve our pain by saying, should I stay or should I go? And that's honestly how I felt like a few years ago making like the biggest decision of my life. Like, should I get a divorce? Should I leave? Yes or no? And it's like, my gosh, there's so much. So much pressure.
Dave (02:12)
There's so much pressure and part of the reason why your brain hurts is because you're forced into only two options, right? And in life, there's some decisions like that where maybe there's just two options, but our experience over the last kajillion years is that no, the way we frame our decisions will force us into only two options if we frame them in binary terms, but there's lots of other ways to approach decisions that will free us up to look at many more options to broaden the scope of the decision. So that brings me back to the fact that yeah, we gotta be non-binary, right? We have to figure out a way to frame our decisions to give ourselves more options. And we'll talk about that in a second. And one of the reasons why we do this is because this is kind of brain science stuff, but our brains are wired for comparisons, we're really good. Our brains are really good at comparisons, but they're not so good if we only have one thing to compare, like a go-no-go, excuse me, a go-no-go decision is kind of like, all right, I'm looking at this one thing, should I do it or not? But I can't compare that to other options I have because I'm only looking at one thing, okay? So here's an example, here's a personal example. So, we like to drink wine at home, red wine with dinner. Yeah, know it. Yeah, go figure, right? And we like to drink French wine because that was our first wine tasting experience was in France a million years ago because Mary's sister was over there studying for several years and we went to visit and we had dinner with her one night and she served this ordinary French wine and we tasted it. It was like, ooh, this is really good. yeah.
Ashley Martin (03:38)
What part of France was it in?
Dave (04:01)
She was in, actually she was in two parts. She was in a town called Saint-Etienne, which is kind of in the middle of the country, more towards like Grenoble, the Alps. So it's kind of on halfway between Paris and there. And then the last half she was in Paris. And so when she was over there, we hopped on a plane, drove, you know, went to Paris and did a lap around France and it was amazing. And so every place we went, we sampled the local food, which was amazing and sampled.
Ashley Martin (04:18)
Mm. Wonderful.
Dave (04:31)
the local wine which is amazing too. So fast forward to today. The other day I went over to Trader Joe's, second favorite, our favorite or second favorite place to buy food and picked up some French wine, a couple of bottles of French wine. And so the first bottle that, so I said honey we're gonna do a taste test tonight. So I opened up bottle number one, this one right here, okay.
Ashley Martin (04:56)
He's got his wine bottle sitting right next to him at the bar next to his laptop.
Dave (05:02)
They're never more than six feet away. Just in case. In case I need to drink wine to make you more interesting.
Ashley Martin (05:12)
Don't make me bring up that story! I will!
Dave (05:16)
That's right. Why do I drink wine? I drink wine to make you more interesting. Yeah So anyway Yeah, so back to this so I open up this one and pour glass and she doesn't know how many choices she's got She only knows that I've opened up this wine poured her glass and said okay taste this one. What do you think? She goes? it's good And I go That's it. She says yeah, it's good. I said, okay Yeah, yeah, that's good
Ashley Martin (05:22)
Better than, it's, nevermind, I won't say it. That's a very Mary response, by the way. Short and to the point. Yeah.
Dave (05:46)
Yep, so then I said, all right, let's do another one. So I opened up this bottle of wine. So first one was this one, second one was this one. And I opened up that one. Again, she doesn't know the wines, we're doing this blind. And so I give her the second glass and she tasted it she goes, ⁓ this one's better. And I said, I thought you had said that one was good. She says, yes, that one was good, but this one is better. Well, the reason she could do that so quickly was that her mind and all her senses were firing on comparison mode right away. And so she could immediately say, this one's good, this one's better. And the brain really helps you to figure that stuff out. so, like there's a book written many, years ago called the Paradox of Choice. can't remember the guy's name, who wrote it, Barry Schwartz was the guy's name. Anyway.
He talked about comparisons and about brain science and the fact that we're wired to make comparisons. And so he talked about a woman who made homemade jams and jellies and jams, brought them to the county fair. And the first time she had just her one favorite jam, and I forget what it was, raspberry or something like that. And she had people taste test it. And if they liked it, they could buy a jar. And she sold a few.
⁓ but not as many as she thought she could sell. And so the next year, but she sold enough that it was like, okay, I got to do more of this. So the next year she had three different jellies and jams brought into the state fair. And now people could taste three jellies and, sales like tripled the second year. And part of the reason this guy explains is because people then could have something to compare and they could go good, better, best, let's get this one. But when you have nothing to compare, it's harder to make a judgment or at least make an action based on a judgment if you only have one thing to compare. So in decision making, we wanna set up decisions so that we can let your brain do what it does best and that's compare things, compare options. Yep, so.
Ashley Martin (08:03)
Right. And not just two options, not just comparing my current mode of operating and my potential mode of operating. Okay.
Dave (08:15)
Right, right.
So I was talking to, you know, our friend Van Holmgren, or you've heard of our friend Van. Anyway, we were talking a while back about he's a professional golfer and he was talking about relocating to a city that would be good for professional golf. And he was in Fort Myers at the time, Fort Myers, Florida. And his
We were talking one day and he said, I'm not sure if I should stay in Fort Myers, Florida, as I begin my professional golf career or move. And so I'm really wrestling with, should I stay or should I go? What you said earlier, should I stay or should I go? So we talked about it. And so a lot of people when faced with a decision like that would go into like pros and cons. Well, it's, you know, the weather's nice here or traffic's, you know, the traffic is kind of, you know, harsh here, especially in the winter time when there's snowbirds.
Ashley Martin (08:52)
Yep. Yep.
Dave (09:11)
But if I went somewhere else, you know, then I might not have as good a weather. And so your brain is, you know, tossing all this stuff around without a kind of a measuring stick to measure different options against, because again, he framed it only should I stay or should I go? Yeah.
Ashley Martin (09:29)
So you're saying that, excuse me, you're saying that doing pros and cons lists is not the way to go.
Dave (09:37)
It's you know what? It's okay. It's good, but there's better ways to do it. Yeah, because the problem with the pros and cons list, like should I, maybe he would have said, hey, what about Fort Myers versus Phoenix? Okay, well let's do the pros and cons of each. Well, Fort Myers has got these pros and cons and Phoenix has got these pros and cons. But when it's all said and done, then how do you just add up the number of pros and cons? Like, okay, this one's got 17 pros and 10 cons, this one's got 12 pros and eight cons. Well, how can you make heads or tails out of that? Because not all pros and cons are created equal. Some are more important than others. yeah, not pros and cons, they're not all created equal, okay? Because some are gonna be more important to the decision maker than others. So you gotta figure out a way to acknowledge that.
Ashley Martin (10:17)
Ooh, ooh, say that again, say that again.
Dave (10:33)
and still give yourself a way to make comparisons. So yeah, we don't like pros and cons. I mean, it's better than nothing, but there's better ways to do things. talking to Van about Fort Myers, should I say or should I go? I said, Van, what you're really trying to do here is you're trying to select the best place for you to live as a professional golfer. Choose best place to live for me, okay? And right now you're looking at one option and trying to figure out if it's any good.
⁓ so what we really need to do is reframe the decision, restate the decision to give yourself more options. And so I just said it a second ago. said, how about we do this? How about we start with, let's find the best place for me to park, you know, to live, ⁓ as a professional golfer. so choose best location for me or choose best place to live for me in the, in this part of my life, when I'm playing golf professionally. And so then now all of a we got the current place.
Fort Myers and I said, what are some other options that you might have? You know that you might look at it well. Yeah, I like Phoenix. You know I've got friends there and I've got some other buddies that play professionally there, so that'd be good. Dallas is good because Frankie lives there. You know Frankie Frankie is one of my best friends. He lives there, so maybe Dallas. And you know Knoxville is is a good choice because my girlfriends there. OK, alright, yeah. Yep.
Ashley Martin (11:55)
Yeah. Hey, perks. Let's weigh that pro a little bit heavier.
Dave (12:01)
Let's, exactly, exactly. So what we did then was we set it up so that we could have him compare several different locations. But the way that you compare those locations then is you have to compare them against a yardstick of criteria, right? Must and, the language we use is musts and wants. But that's a topic for another episode, musts and wants. Right now we're just trying to figure out.
How do we give ourselves the best chance as a starting point to come up with the best quality decision for what it is we're truly seeking? Yeah, yeah. So remember your, did we talk last time or the time before about your friend who was considered leaving his job? Yeah. Well, you came, you described it as he was struggling with whether to stay in his job or leave, right? What's that?
Ashley Martin (12:39)
Right, right, right. Yes, yes, yes. What about him?
Dave (12:58)
binary decision, right? Should I stay or should I go? And he was really struggling with it because again, there's pros and cons of each. There's risks of staying, risks of going and all that. And so if we were in a coaching session, what I might say is first I might ask him, well, why are you considering this in the first place? And is it the present job situation has changed? Why is this an issue? Why is this a problem? Why do you need to make a decision?
Ashley Martin (12:59)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Dave (13:28)
⁓ is, is the present situation, situation deteriorated or changed to the point where it's no longer feels attractive or are you seeking is something new popping up on the horizon? That's kind of like, Ooh, here's a shiny object. I should go check this out. and both of those things are important, but they will both help us down the road to figure out a criteria list for that decision. So if we were coaching him.
Ashley Martin (13:54)
Right.
Dave (13:55)
we'd probably say, let's reframe this decision to give yourself more options. Because should I stay or should I go feels kind of, you know, it's uncomfortable, right? Yeah.
Ashley Martin (14:03)
Right, right. And you talked about that last time, like growth versus comfort, like growth, comfort is the enemy of growth. Yeah, yeah.
Dave (14:08)
Mm-hmm. Right, yep. And so now we can take that concept and we can build it into the decision by starting out the decision in a way that gives us multiple options. Okay, and so what I would say is instead of should I stay in the job or go, I would say something like, let's reframe that to choose best job scenario for me.
Ashley Martin (14:37)
Mm-hmm.
Dave (14:38)
Now we can create a lot of options. Well, current job scenarios, one. And then there might be some other job scenarios. Maybe he's had an offer from somebody else and he's weighing that offer. Or maybe he's always thought about a career change for some reason. And so...
Ashley Martin (14:51)
Mm-hmm. Yeah. Or maybe he's going out on his own as an entrepreneur. That's another option.
Dave (14:59)
Yeah, yeah, maybe he's going on his own as an entrepreneur. So now all of sudden we've got multiple things to look at and we don't, he doesn't feel kind of penned in by one, you know, an either or decision. And so starting that, you know, think about how, how narrow a decision is, how, you know, a little of a circle you're looking at versus a wide circle. The binary decision is a tiny little circle, right? You're, you're, you're either.
Ashley Martin (15:22)
Mm-hmm.
Dave (15:28)
you know, it's either go or no go or yes or no. By reframing a decision to give yourself options, you've widened that circle, you've created more opportunity and options, you've given your creativity a chance to show up in the decision, right? Yeah.
Ashley Martin (15:42)
That's what I really noticed about myself, you know, after, you know, being embedded with you guys for so long and knowing the process. I had to say to myself back then, it wasn't should I stay or should I go? I had to say, choose best life for Ashy. And it took a very like negative, hard trying situation and opened up possibilities. I mean, it opened my heart, because we had creativity at play then, right? I could choose whatever I wanted that was going to fit for me rather than just this eh or eh, which is scary and hard.
Dave (16:21)
Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Scary and hard because, ⁓ you know, the one was a situation that was not acceptable. And the other one was kind of this unknown that had a whole bunch of kind of risks that are floating around that, you know, what if my new situation isn't any better than my current one, but I hadn't figured that out in the beginning. So by reframing the decision of choose best, whatever it is life for me, now you can start opening yourself up to the possibilities. And then, ⁓
Ashley Martin (16:31)
Yes!
Mm-hmm.
Mm.
Dave (16:50)
Again, this is probably more for next episode, but then you can create a list of things, a list of factors that are really important. Okay, some are gonna be more important than others. Some might be like mandatory, right? If I, yeah, like the terms we use of course are musts, but there's some things that are musts and other things that are more like wants. And again, we'll kind of dive into that in a future episode. But in the beginning, If you don't give yourself a chance to look at those options ever, you've shut yourself out to the possibility of something really good that you weren't able look at because you stated your decision in binary terms rather than non-binary terms, right? Yeah, so.
Ashley Martin (17:39)
And isn't that the regret of life? Like people on their deathbed, they regret not taking those risks, not doing the uncomfortable thing and living a little bit bigger, I guess.
Dave (17:51)
Yeah, and I'm guessing a lot of people will probably say also, I regret not listening to all the episodes of All We Know About the Stuff We Know.
Ashley Martin (17:58)
I mean, I'm already living in that regret. Daily. I'm crying myself to sleep from the pressure and sadness and the weight of it all.
Dave (18:01)
Yeah! I know exactly, exactly. So yeah, I think, so this is one thing that, you know, we've been talking about decisions in your personal life versus decisions at work, or if you're not, you know, work related decisions from my, whatever it is I'm doing. This is one thing that is equally prevalent in both places, work decisions and personal decisions. So here's an example of a work decision. I did some work many years ago with a company that was in the advertising and marketing space. And they had a very cool niche in that. And I won't go into the details of it, but it was a startup that had grown and continued to grow and continued to grow. And all of a they were like, hey, this is a big company, a bigger company now. And so I was brought in by the board to kind of help the board of directors and the CEO of the company to collaborate better, especially on big decisions, because there were a lot of decisions that the company was facing in their growth. And they were all, you know, kind of fun decisions. Whenever you're growing, the decisions are a lot more fun than when you're going the other way. So.
Ashley Martin (19:22)
Sure.
How much money should we spend at our work party?
Dave (19:27)
Exactly, yes. So we're getting ready for a board meeting. They had board meetings every quarter, I think. And so the CEO would create the agenda, send it to the chairman of the board, they'd review it and they'd say, okay, that's a great agenda for the meeting. So as the CEO is creating the agenda, he sent it to me, the same time he sent it to the chairman of the board. And I saw, you know, the typical things on board meeting agendas are like, financial overview and forecast and, you know, investment related stuff that they have investors in the company. So all that was like one, two and three. And then number four was just one word with a question mark. And number four was Canada question mark. And that was it. Yeah. And so, and so I thought, well, this is going to be interesting. Let's see what happens. ⁓ because it was super vague and
Ashley Martin (20:10)
No. That's the answer.
Dave (20:21)
You know, maybe they had some inside information. I didn't, but I didn't know what the heck he was talking about. So we get to the board meeting. I'm there. And we go through item one, two, three, and then we get to item number four. And it was the term, you know, Canada. And so the CEO goes, boy, I'm really glad that we're all here because we got a really big decision and a really big opportunity. And that's opportunities to expand what we do into Canada.
And so I'm really struggling with the decision and I'd love to have your support and help trying to figure out should we expand to Canada or not? Okay. So immediately in my head, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, right?
Ashley Martin (21:00)
DING DING DING DING! BINARY! BINARY! BINARY!
Dave (21:17)
Yep. So, so I, so, you know, I thought, okay, let's just see what happens. So he says that and immediately one of the board members pipes in and says, boy, that's a, that's a great opportunity Canada. Oh my gosh, we're these folks were located in Minnesota. So there are next door neighbors and now we can just scoot up there. And you know, this is a long time ago before the current Canada situation, but you know what great market. Yeah. Great market. We're practically Canadians living in Minnesota anyway. So let's yeah, why don't we do that? It'd be an awesome opportunity. And another guy across the table goes, I think it's a terrible idea. Canada. What are you talking about? Canada? You got this giant country. There's only X million of them.
Ashley Martin (21:29)
yeah, you betcha! Let's go!
Dave (21:46)
You know, California is bigger than Canada. Why don't we focus on California where we're not doing all that much right now and forget Canada, new regulations, new, you know, oversight, new this, new that. That's a dumb idea. And so now all of a sudden you've got this conversation of these people are now you got, you know, the, you know, the debate going on. Should we or shouldn't we? And it turned into kind of a mess because these folks were forced into picking one or the other option should we expand or not?
Ashley Martin (22:20)
Right, and they're shouting out their pros and their cons for it, which is good, but you've stated it's not the best way to make a decision.
Dave (22:28)
No, no, not in this case, clearly not the best way to just make a decision. So, ⁓ and they got nowhere. I mean, they ended up in an impasse. so, ⁓ the chairman, ⁓ asked, asked me, Dave, what do you, what do you think about this? And I said, well, I don't know about the, you know, the quality of, of whether or not to expand into Canada, cause I don't know your business. But what I do know is the way you've stated this decision has set you up for this argument. And they go away really why? And I said, because.
Ashley Martin (22:36)
Yeah, yeah.
Dave (22:59)
It's a binary decision. You've got one option. You got go or no go. Should we go to Canada or not? And I said, you know, maybe we ought look at this a little differently and figure out how to broaden the scope of the decision. So we only don't only have one option. Okay. Because what are we really talking about here? And the guy goes, well, growth opportunities. And I said, okay, so what you're trying to figure out is whether Canada represents a really good growth opportunity for you or not. Right.
And they go, yep, I said, how about we do this? Try this out. Choose best growth opportunity. Now Canada might be one option, right? It clearly was. But yeah, you betcha. But as one of the other guys says, California might be another really viable option because they didn't have a large presence in California. So now you're talking about choose best way to grow geographically. So now when geography is there, now you might say, ⁓ what about Mexico? ⁓ what about Europe? What about Asia? Would those be viable alternatives to look at? So now they've kind of expanded from Canada to other geographic growth opportunities. But then another guy said, well, that's just growing geographically. What about new products? That's a way to grow, right? Yeah. Have you looked at that?
Ashley Martin (24:18)
so here we went from here and then to here and now we're even thinking here. Like this decision has gotten bigger and more creative.
Dave (24:24)
Yeah, right. Yes, exactly. So now I said, OK, what you just said is choose best growth strategy. One strategy is to grow geographically. Another strategy might be to grow with new products. And I said, would there be other growth strategies? And one of the board members says, yeah, acquisitions. We can grow through acquisitions. OK. So that's another growth strategy.
Long story short is we left the meeting and they picked a broader decision statement to go to work on rather than Canada or not. And they picked the growth strategy. said, we really need to do is figure out, you know, where we want to put our eggs in terms of a growth strategy. So they sent the CEO back and to start working that decision with some options and some recommendations. And then they went through musts and wants, and they ended up having a much more planful discussion at the next board meeting about growth strategies. So here's something, again, if you rewind, they got in trouble. They got into a pickle because they were looking at growth in a very, very, very narrow way. And again, some of it was time sensitive. The CEO said, you know what, we've got some opportunities that may not last, so we may need to act quick, know, faster rather than slower. Okay, well, we can build that in. So.
Ashley Martin (25:29)
Sure.
Dave (25:53)
Yeah, starting with the binary decision statement was clearly not the way to go for those guys.
Ashley Martin (26:01)
Right, right. So not only did you hopefully avoid making the wrong decision, you potentially avoided limiting yourself to making the wrong decision, right? Because you went from here to here to here. You you got really, really big and broad with the best opportunity for this company, rather than automatically saying, you know, what you said about the guy, you said he was the problem. Essentially, it's me. Hi, I'm the problem. It's me. Like the way that you frame this decision is why they're arguing right now.
Dave (26:11)
yeah, yep, right. But again, in the heat of the moment, it's funny, your brain also wants to react to something. And so if someone asks you that question, should we stay or should we go, you'll probably have a kind of an initial quick gut level response. Yep.
Ashley Martin (26:46)
You have a gut reaction, absolutely. And that's the great thing about choices is like, I don't, what's for dinner? I don't know. Hey, do you want Chinese or pizza? Pizza, right? It helps us make these decisions. Yeah.
Dave (26:56)
Mm-hmm. Yep. It helps you make decisions. Yes. So most of the time, if we make a mistake, in fact, almost all the time, if we make a mistake, we start our decisions with a little circle, way too narrow. And the challenge is then to broaden them to the of the Goldilocks approach, not too narrow, not too big, but kind of just right, right? And so finding a decision statement or level or scope that gives you, ⁓ you know, kind of the right number of options is kind of the way to go. And when we, when we're in coaching mode, that's where we're, helping people to try and find that. Yeah. Yeah. ⁓ so interestingly enough, you can also have too many options, right? You can frame a decision where you have too many options. So back to the jams and jelly story.
Okay, so, you know, the person went the second year with three jams. First year, one jam, low sales. Second year, three jams, big sales. Third year, she goes, well, I'm going to knock it out of the park. I'm going to create a dozen different jams and bring them to the fair. Now, I mean, you know, we're ready to go big. Third year, dozen different jams, all the spoons, you know, for trials, sales went down.
Ashley Martin (28:08)
Do it all.
Dave (28:23)
Sales went down from the second year to the third year. And the author of the book describes this, sometimes when you have too many options, your brain kind of shuts down. Like, well, the raspberry was good, but you know what? The blueberry was pretty good too. the strawberry was fine and the pomegranate, I really liked that. But I only want to spend so much. I don't have much to do, I'm frozen.
Ashley Martin (28:35)
I know what you do. You go with the raspberry jalapeno every time.
Dave (28:53)
Raspberry jalapeno. Yeah. Now I don't know where it was, but if it was Minnesota, that jalapeno is almost like a dirty word, right? Spice? Forget it. Exactly. So yeah, sometimes too many options causes people to kind of shut down. And again, that doesn't happen very often, but if I see someone with a decision and I say, what are your choices? What are your options? Well, I could do this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, or that. I'm thinking, okay, we got too big of a circle here. We got to kind of tighten that up a little bit. And so we'll try to reframe the decision so that there's kind of the right number of options, whatever that is. Yeah.
Ashley Martin (29:37)
Right, right, For our YouTube viewers, you'll notice that Ash and Dave decided, choose best color hoodie to put on this morning.
Dave (29:41)
Yeah, that's right.
Yeah. That's right. Well, there's it. Yeah. And for me, it's either blue or blue. I think those are my options pretty much. Yeah, exactly. So yeah, too many options is just as bad, but it doesn't happen that often in decision making. And the other bad thing about too many options or too many decisions is this concept
Ashley Martin (29:57)
We are twinning and winning. I love it.
Dave (30:16)
called Decision Fatigue, which we've written about before. But again, that's a conversation for another episode. But that's a very real thing, too. Yeah.
Ashley Martin (30:24)
Right, right, Real quick, isn't that why Steve Jobs decided to like eliminate his wardrobe down to the bare minimum because he had so many decisions going throughout the day and he's like, I need to make this easy.
Dave (30:38)
Yeah, so the concept there, the theory, which is not a theory, it's really true, and that is we only have, no matter how, where you sit in an organization or what your job is or where you are in life, we all have a limited amount of each day to make decisions. It's almost like the battery in your phone. We only have so much power, decision-making power, in a day. And so...if we're constantly making lots of decisions and then the important decisions take more power, they suck your battery down faster than the little decisions, but they all drain your battery. And so if you're in the kind of a job or a place in life where you're having to make a lot of decisions, you might find yourself exhausted by the end of the day mentally because you're having to make all these choices and each choice takes a little toll on that bandwidth. And so...
Ashley Martin (31:25)
Mmm.
Hmm?
Dave (31:33)
Some people take that to the extreme and that was the story of Steve Jobs that he always wore the, know, what was it, the mock turtleneck and jeans every day because that allowed him not to have to make a clothing choice every day. You know, one or two less decisions every day. Now, is that a big deal? Well, I don't know. For him it was. It just freed him up to focus on the more important decisions. So yeah, yep.
Ashley Martin (31:58)
Right. Have we talked about before how much energy we're spending on weighing options that don't matter? And I'm asking this because I was talking to my friend about his job situation, same friend, and he's like, really? Like part of my thing that I'm doing during the day is like, I'm trying to decide which route I want to take to work and which route I want to take home. And do I want to go this way and do I want to go that way? And I'm not quite sure. And like, you're weighing all of this out. And I'm like, really? Just drive. Like what are we doing?
Dave (32:35)
Well, there's kind of two parts to that story because what you're describing is somebody who might be so uncomfortable in kind of their mode that they're questioning a lot of stuff each day. Like, you know what, if I don't have a lot of decision-making authority at work, maybe I use my bandwidth to make smaller decisions during the day, like the route to work or…you know, what to have for dinner or whatever. And I spend more time than I should on those because I've got the bandwidth because I'm maybe not using that decision-making power at work or other parts of my life. So that might be part of it. So that's, you know.
Ashley Martin (33:16)
Yeah, he had mentioned that it's easier to make decisions at work. He's like, I have that kind of gut check. I know what I want. I'm very direct and I like can make things happen. But when I'm alone, I'm like, I don't know. What if I get it wrong? What if I do this? What if I do that?
Dave (33:27)
Hmm. Oh, well, remember it. Yeah.
Yeah. Well, that's a good point. Yeah. Or he might be one way at work. might be a member in one of our earlier episodes. We were talking about satisfizers versus optimizers at work. If he's making fast decisions, he might be a satisfaction. It's good enough. It's good enough. Let's go. Versus at home or in his personal life, he might say, you know what? I've got the ability to really make this the best thing I can make it. And so I choose to spend more time and energy on it to optimize those decisions. Something as silly as a route home, of course you could rely on Google Maps or you could rely on your own intuition. Hey, I wonder if I went around the corner here and down this street if I could get home faster. Let's try it and see what happens.
Ashley Martin (34:02)
Yeah. We want to enjoy our journey. We want to have the right music on. We want to not hit traffic. We don't want to get angry about the people in front of us. We want like the smoothest way so that we can transition from work to home and vice versa.
Dave (34:32)
Exactly, exactly. So a couple more comments on being non-binary in your decisions. So if we're coaching somebody or talking to somebody who's framing a decision in binary terms, the first question that you should ask, and for our viewers out there, the first question you should ask yourself if you're facing a decision in binary terms is, why am I making this decision?
Dave (35:02)
What's driving this decision? And so like the job situation, what's driving this decision? Well, I'm unsatisfied with my job at work. ⁓ okay. So that's really driving the decision. So then if that's really driving it, then that will become a very important factor in whatever you do. And he probably knew this, but rather than figuring out, hey, do I bail out and find another job?
Maybe the challenge is or the decision is choose best way to have more satisfaction at my current job or explore alternatives that will scratch that itch without having to make a giant change.
Ashley Martin (35:46)
I love that. I love that because you're right. I don't have to uproot my life, but I can think about the decisions that I could do currently in my situation that can help. And try that and then move on to phase two.
Dave (35:55)
Mm-hmm. Yep. Yeah. Right. So it's almost like the question is, why you even facing this decision in the first place? OK. And so whatever that reason is, then the next question is, are there other ways to achieve that than this decision scenario you're putting in front of yourself right now? And a lot of times there are, especially if the decision is in response to a problem.
I got a problem at work and so I'm thinking about bailing out. Okay, so what's the problem? It's this, this and that. All right, so leaving is one way to solve that problem. Are there other ways you can solve that problem in your current scenario? And again, you're open that person up to creativity and other problem solving in their brain that they might not have considered. Yeah, so there's lots of different ways to reframe binary decisions. It's just a matter of knowing that and really you know, facing it upfront before you do all the hard work and the decision making. Yeah, and so in our decision focus classes, we talk about this and we talk about it mainly with work decisions, but the same principles apply with personal decisions. And that is there's a couple of different ways you can really help avoid that binary decision statement pitfall. And one of them is this.
Usually when we are making binary decisions, we're asking questions. Should I stay or should I go? Should I live here in Fort Myers or should I go somewhere else? Should I buy this new vehicle or not? So when you state things in question form, it's kind of pushing you towards that binary decision statement.
Ashley Martin (37:51)
Okay.
Dave (37:52)
So yeah, so instead of asking a question, we'll want you to make a statement. OK? And that statement will begin with a decision verb like choose or select. Yeah.
Ashley Martin (38:14)
⁓ the statement I was thinking of is I hate my life. I don't like my job. So that's not what we should do, right?
Dave (38:20)
Hmm? No, but that was the pain that preceded the binary decision, right? Yeah. You know, I hate my job. Next statement, should I leave or not? Okay, so that's kind of problem and decision statement all in one. So again, instead of should I leave my job or not, I would change it to a statement that starts with choose or select or pick or something like that and say, choose best job scenario for me.
Dave (38:52)
I was talking to a friend the other day and he's recently retired. And so now he's thinking about expanding his horizons and there's an online course he really wants to take, but it's expensive. And so he was like, should I, I want, should I check this online course or just pass on it? And I said, of course, ding, ding, ding, decision statement. So I asked him, says, well, why are you considering taking this online course?
Ashley Martin (39:13)
Yep. Yeah.
Dave (39:20)
He says, well, I really want to learn this. was about 3D printing and some other things. really want to learn about 3D printing. this online course looks like a really good way to do it, but it's kind of expensive and da da da. And I said, so really then is your objective to learn how to do 3D printing? He goes, yeah. I said, OK, well then maybe you rephrase the question, turn it into a statement, and that would be like choose best way to learn 3D printing, how to do 3D printing. Online class might be one, there might be multiple online classes, there might be something at the local technical college you could go to. yeah, there's lots of different, hmm.
Ashley Martin (39:58)
Right, right. You know what that does, Dave? You know what that does? It gets us on the Google. Instead of like responding to the Facebook ad that showed up in our feed about this really cool 3D printing online course, it's like, wait a second. Are there other options out there? Let me get on the Google. How do I learn about 3D printing? look at this free thing. look at that free thing. we have many options now I'm overwhelmed. ⁓ crap. I can't do that now. Now I got too many choices.
Dave (40:29)
Okay, now I got too many choices. Okay, now maybe I gotta narrow it down. Maybe it is, you know what? I just wanna look at online content. I don't wanna go somewhere and sit in a classroom with other people or in a lab somewhere. So maybe then I'll narrow it to just online content. Okay, well now we've narrowed it down and maybe it's online content that costs less than X, you know. Okay, we've narrowed it down a little bit more. Yeah, or online content that's only self-paced, not live, online classes. Narrow it down a little bit more. one of those levels is going to be the level that's right for that decision. And I can't tell you which level it is. You have to figure as a decision maker, you have to figure that part out.
Dave (41:19)
We were working with a team once whose team leader on the DiSC scale D, I, S, and C, was super high D, dominant. And we were talking about the definition of teamwork. What does teamwork mean to you? And people were talking about all these nice, flowery statements of teamwork. And it came to this guy. they said, what does teamwork mean to you? He says, that's simple. It's everyone doing what I tell them to do.
Ashley Martin (41:49)
They're being a team! Look at them go! They're shining! They're living their best lives!
Dave (41:55)
Yeah. So, yeah, no, we don't tell you what to do in decisions, but we can help you get the best chance at making a good decision for what you're trying to accomplish. Yeah. And that binary decision thing is, is, is it's a biggie. So yeah, to the viewers out there, those are the two tips. Figure out why are you making this decision in the first place? And then don't ask a question change it into a statement and start that statement with the word choose or the word select or the word pick. And if you do that, chances are you're gonna immediately broaden the scope of your decision and probably come up with a better outcome.
Ashley Martin (42:38)
Today when we get done, I'ma choose best place to go to Taco Tuesday.
Dave (42:45)
Do you want a worksheet for that? You got it?
Ashley Martin (42:48)
No, I got it. I got three options. I don't have seven. I narrowed it down to three.
Dave (42:54)
Gotcha, gotcha. So yeah, so there you go. And then, yeah, and then if you wanna take that further, of course, and you really wanna dive deep into decision making, then go check out our online decision focus courses because we get deeper into a lot of stuff in there. But these concepts right now, you can take with you and get immediate use from. Yep, yeah.
Ashley Martin (42:56)
Thanks, Dave. I'm excited. I mean if you're not excited you're not invited.
Dave (43:21)
You've been waiting to say that all day, haven't you?
Ashley Martin (43:24)
Now, let me tell you what I've been waiting to tell you since last Tuesday when you gave me that really sketchy joke about screenshotting your body. So after I...
Dave (43:34)
WHA- Is this going to make it into the bloopers or is this going to be part of the episode?
Ashley Martin (43:41)
This is a little lagniappe, a little bonus content. So after your joke last Tuesday's podcast, my dad sends a text message to our family thread and he's like, so I combined a laxative with a can of alphabet soup. I call it letter rip.
Dave (43:44)
Yeah. Now that's funny.
Ashley Martin (44:06)
As he would say, that's funny, I don't care who you are.
Dave (44:08)
I don't care who you are. That's just funny.
Ashley Martin (44:13)
Stay tuned for next week's episode where Dave's going to top that joke. You're up buster. All right. Yes.
Dave (44:18)
Yeah, I got all week to think about it. Funny, very funny.
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