The Long and The Short Of It

Episode 148 - Go Faster

Transcript:

Jen: Hello, Peter.

Pete: Hey, Jen.

Jen: Do I sound a little funky to you?

Pete: I mean, you sound a little like you're underwater.

Jen: Well, a devil ate my computer and I borrowed my eleven year-old's almost eleven year-old Macbook. So none of my technology plugs in, so we're just going to have to deal with me using AirPods as a mic today.

Pete: I think it's fine. I think it's fine. We're just living in this, you know, hybrid remote world where you've got to pivot, just like you.

Jen: That's right. Living in the moment. I had to make a fast decision there, which is a segue into what I want to talk to you about today, a concept I am challenging myself to embrace. (And I might add, I am failing miserably at it.) And I'd like some help from you. How do I go faster when the thing I'm trying to do is not such a big deal? That is the topic of today's conversation.

Pete: Okay. Alright, alright. I'll get straight into it. Let's go faster. This is The Long and The Short Of It.

Jen: Okay, so I recently finished reading Annie Duke's amazing book, How to Decide. It's so good. Everybody run, don't walk, to buy a copy.

Pete: We love Annie. We love Annie.

Jen: Excellent. And in it, she talks about challenging yourself to go faster when you're working with choices that are all pretty equal in weight, and would all be an acceptable outcome. And I am, by Gretchen Reubens definition in her Four Tendencies framework, a Questioner. Which means I weigh too many things. I mean, that's not the definition of a Questioner, but this is my problem with my tendency. I weigh too many things. I consider too many things. And it really slows me down. So one of the challenges Annie Duke puts out in her book is like even when you're ordering from a menu, if you would be happy with a choice if that choice was the only option on the menu, then just decide. Like, there's no great loss here. So I've been observing my own behavior, and how I tend to go slow when I need to go fast. And ironically (maybe we'll get to this later), I can go pretty fast when I maybe should go slower. And so today, I went to Sweet Greens. Did you ever go to Sweet Greens while you were in New York?

Pete: I did. Delicious. Delicious place.

Jen: Okay...delicious...to buy a salad. And every option is delicious. And it took me probably five minutes of staring at the menu until I finally was like, "Oh my gosh. I'm failing. Go fast. Pick the first thing your eyes land on." And so, I did. But I was like, "Wow. This really is a problem." Like, this decision is not going to make or break my happiness. If you asked me tomorrow, "Are you happier because of your salad choice," I'm not sure that, you know, I'll even remember.

Pete: Right. This is juicy. I have like so many swirling thoughts already. One of which is just an observation...an observation and a question, I guess. My observation is, I've seen you go really fast-

Jen: Yeah.

Pete: -in certain contexts. Like you and I tend to move quite fast with decisions around the podcast, or the workshops that we're running, or the people we're coaching, or whatever, and building stuff out. You and I have done that actually really fast. So I'm like, my first question (and again, observation) is that. And like, have you got clear in what's the common denominator in the things where questioning is coming up too much? What's the type of decision that makes you slow down? Do you know what I'm saying, like...?

Jen: Yeah. It's funny. The higher the stakes, for me, the faster I can go, because I have a very specific set of values and criteria that something either meets or doesn't meet. So, it lets me speed up. Like, here's an example. Prior to the salad incident, I went to go view the new potential spaces for my business.

Pete: Yes.

Jen: And after seeing them, I was able to make a split-second decision and say to the broker, "Pull the trigger. I'm ready to go. Let's start negotiating. I know exactly which one I want. I know exactly what I want it to be. Let's go." And then we walked to the salad place, and I spent five minutes deciding between sweet potatoes and roasted beets.

Pete: Yeah. I mean, my follow up observation in that is, I wonder if it's...it's probably not this simple. But I wonder if it's something like when other people are impacted or when it's a collaboration, you're really good at just being like, "Boom, let's make the decision. Let's go." Whereas something absurd like a salad, it only impacts you. And so you can (I guess, in air quotes) "afford" to really slow down, and overthink it, and over analyze it. There's no one holding you accountable to be like, "Jen, come on. Let's make a decision."

Jen: Woah. I never considered that angle. That's really interesting. And it's actually pretty true. I'm laughing at myself, because that seems really true.

Pete: Because the other thing I've seen you do is actually help others move fast, as a coach or a workshop facilitator. Like you've done this to me, but I've definitely seen you do this to people that we work with. Where they're like lamenting a decision, and they're over analyzing it, and you're like, "Oh, you've just got to do this. Just go. Like, what are you waiting for?"

Jen: Right. Well, isn't it the great irony that the thing that we are so good at doing for other people we're so not good at doing for ourselves? And it's true. I'm constantly encouraging people to go faster, because they're slowing themselves down for no reason. That being said, if you were, you know, making a choice like, "Should I move to London, or should I move to Australia," slow down. Do the research.

Pete: Come to Australia.

Jen: You know, figure it out. So last week, I think it was, you and I ran a decision making workshop for one of the corporate clients. And we talked, in that decision making workshop, about a concept that Amazon uses of one-way door decisions and two-way door decisions. And I've been really trying to apply this to myself. Because I find that to be the great mechanism in my mind that lets me know if I need to go fast or slow.

Pete: Yeah.

Jen: That a two-way door decision, meaning you can go through the door and you can also go out of the door, you're not stuck in the room...go fast. Go in, look around, and either stay or go out. With a one-way door decision, take a breath, take a pause, do the research, slow down, and walk in. Because once you walk in, you're there.

Pete: Yeah.

Jen: You're there to stay. And so, I've been trying to use that framework. But you would think with finding a new space for my studio, that would be a slow down. It's like, I knew immediately and I didn't need to slow down. So, that's interesting.

Pete: Hmm. Okay, I have a story. I can't remember if I told you this. I wonder if it will help, but let's try it out. So it was a few months ago now, I was having some back and forward with Seth Godin about some projects I was working on. One of them was about my writing practice. And I was kind of asking him for some thoughts. And he was asking me questions as he does, as opposed to necessarily just giving me answers. So he was like...we were going back and forward, and then eventually, he said, "Let's hop on Zoom, and we'll have a chat." So I'm having a chat to Seth, and I'm sort of like, "Oh, I'm trying to get clear on this particular part of a project I'm working on with a corporate. I've got this particular project I'm working on with Jen and I. And I've got this particular thing, this book that I'm thinking about with me." And he very matter of factly was like, "Okay. So, here's what you need to do. Figure out what you stand for, and then go faster."

Jen: Mmm.

Pete: And I wrote it down on a sticky note when he said it, and I was like, "Oh, it seems so obvious. And, of course Seth would say that." And then I started thinking about it, and I started thinking about it, and I started thinking about it. And I was like, "Actually, that's...I think that's quite profound."

Jen: Yes.

Pete: Because the simple throwaway line of, "Figure out what you stand for," that takes a bit of time, and a bit of reflection.

Jen: Yep.

Pete: And clarity in that makes (in my experience) going faster, making decisions through the lens of "What do I stand for," so much easier. So since that, I actually sent him an update a few weeks ago and was like, "Seth, since we had that conversation, I figured out what I stood for. I'm going faster. These are the things that have happened." And I was like, "Jen and I are doing a workshop next week. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. This is happening. I've got this project going. We've got some more clarity in the book that we're doing," and like all of these updates. And he was just like, "Great update. Keep going," kind of thing. But I realized it was the clarity in what I stood for which made going faster, easier. And I share that because I feel like you have really good clarity in what you stand for with your business, and maybe less clarity, what you stand for when you go to buy a salad.

Jen: Well, as funny as that is, it is deeply and profoundly true. And what it's making me realize is when I can't make a decision, when I'm feeling inundated with too many choices, the question I should be asking myself is not the one I'm currently asking myself. So the question I was asking myself in the salad line was, "Would I rather have sweet potatoes, or would I rather have beets? Or should I customize a salad so I can have both?" Now, maybe salad's not the best example (unless I was going vegan or vegetarian, in which case it would be really easy to make the decision about which salad to pick). But I think that's a cue to myself, "I'm not sure what I stand for right now." The question I need to ask is, "What do I stand for?" And then, "Which of these decisions that I could make aligns with what I stand for? Run in that direction."

Pete: Yeah.

Jen: So that's really interesting to me, because I can think of other times where I've gotten really bogged down in details. For example, picking material...performance material for a client.

Pete: Mmm.

Jen: Where I could look at twenty different songs before telling them the one. And, you know, I'm trying to highlight, "You know, well, I like the melodic line of this one measure better than in the other." I could say, "What does this client stand for? And which of these songs best represents what they stand for? That's the one." And it would be so much faster. So much faster.

Pete: Yeah. I feel like there's another slightly comical but relevant example, with the fact that I always wear a black or a blue t-shirt.

Jen: To the point that people dress up as you for Halloween.

Pete: Right. But it's an intentional decision I made a while ago. I guess it was once I left the corporate world, and I had to wear suit a lot of the time. And I kind of went like, "Okay, I'm going to do the extreme opposite." I stand for wearing clothes that make me comfortable and allow me to just then focus on my work, my energy, everything else I want to actually spend time focusing on. Not on, "I have to put a suit on. I'm really uncomfortable. What color suit, what color shirt, what color tie," all that. So at some point, I decided that I was going to stand for simplicity and ease of the clothes I choose to wear. And it makes that decision of going faster each morning. Like, it's not even a decision. I just open up the cupboard and go, "Oh, there's a black t-shirt." And I just put it on. And I've found it to be just one less thing for me to worry about, which has made going faster in other things also easier.

Jen: So in previous episodes, we've talked about clearing clutter from our lives, both literally and figuratively. And right now I'm imagining myself, based on what you just shared, standing in front of my closet and trying to get rid of some things (which needs to happen). And I realize that I could stand there and analyze all of the possible scenarios in which I would need the green silk shirt that I've never worn, but I might need. And I'm wondering, again, if...as a person who's very driven by naming values and standing in alignment with them, if I were to actually say about my wardrobe, "What do I need my wardrobe to stand for," I think it would be a lot easier for me to go through the closet and get rid of things. And faster. Much, much faster.

Pete: I like that. The green shirt might not be there anymore.

Jen: Mm-hmm. I think the danger is in deciding that faster is better. So, there's like a balance to be struck. Values-based decisions are better. Having your values in place allows you the luxury of moving faster. But without having that in place, faster is not better.

Pete: Right.

Jen: So I think it's just like making sure you're tending...or, I'll say I...making sure I am tending to the values.

Pete: Yeah.

Jen: And that moving faster isn't actually the value that I hold.

Pete: Right. And I think this is why the mental model of one-way doors and two-way doors, I certainly find so helpful. I guess the reason that's helpful is, one of the fears I have when making a decision is the fear that it's permanent. So the fear that, "Once I make this decision, I am stuck with this for the rest of my life. Once I decide to eat this salad, that's the thing I have to be stuck with for the rest of my life." Like, there's some weird fear of permanence. (That was a bad example.) But if I decide something, like, "I'm going to apply for this job," or, "I'm going to quit this job," or, "I'm going to start this podcast," that's the thing I have to do for the rest of my life, this permanent nature and this fear of permanence. So the reason I like the one-way door, two-way door mental model is it breaks that open for you to realize, most of the decisions we make aren't permanent and are reversible, i.e. they're two-way doors.

Jen: Yeah.

Pete: So, it's okay to move fast. In fact, it's encouraged to move fast, because you can come back. If and when you realize you're out of alignment with your values, if and when you realize that the result on the other side of that door is not entirely what you were hoping for, come back. Try something else. Experiment. Do something different. And if you recognize there's a one-way door, then yes, please, slow down. Talk to the people you need to talk to. Do the analysis that you need to do. Check out, you know, London and Melbourne, both options. And really analyze which one is going to help you do the things you want to do or live the life you want to live. So actually, one is a way of intentionally slowing down because it's a more permanent decision, and one is the recognition and the navigation of that fear of permanence, which then enables me to move faster. So, that's why I like that model so much.

Jen: I really love that. You know, I'm reflecting right now on the self-awareness, and the journey, and the process of naming one's values. And that process is not actually fast. That process is...I wouldn't say it's a lifetime. But it's slow and deliberate. It's intentional and cared for. And I guess the irony is that you've got to slow down to figure out what you are about, where you stand, what you stand for. Then once you get your toes up to the starting line, and that starting line represents all the things that you stand for and care about, you can run a pretty fast race.

Pete: Yeah. I think it was Abraham Lincoln who said, "If you gave me one hour to chop down a tree, I'd spend forty-five minutes sharpening the axe."

Jen: Hmm. Yes. Yes, yes, yes.

Pete: Like, I feel like that's very relevant here. Is like, you can slow down and spend the time on the things that require you spending that time, but then once it's go time, once you're at the start line, once you've got the axe sharp enough, go. Like, go fast.

Jen: And that is The Long and The Short Of It.