Episode 76: Million Dollar Decisions

Have you ever looked back and realized that one decision changed the entire course of your life, or led to exactly where you are now? They say that you're one decision away from a completely different life. And if that's true, then I can't help but wonder what that one decision would be that could lead you to crossing that million-dollar mark, to scaling your business and your freedom to finally breaking through to the level of success that you want? And while that's a fun question to ponder, I also want to take it a step further, if just one decision could have that kind of an impact on your life. Imagine what could happen, if you start making all of your decisions, like a seven-figure CEO. What does it look like to make decisions like a seven-figure CEO? 

Well, first, seven-figure CEOs make decisions that only they need to make. And that means you need to get comfortable not making every decision in your business. You need to get comfortable with not having all of the answers. In fact, there's actually something called "decision fatigue" that plagues leaders who really tried to make all of the decisions in their business. So if you're feeling exhausted, there are different types of exhaustion. And yes, you might be tired from overworking. But you also might be overthinking you might have truly "decision fatigue". Being responsible for too many things in the business. Decision fatigue is when essentially, the more decisions you make, the lower the quality of those decisions become. 

So making millions doesn't require making all of the decisions in your business. If you want to scale your business, if you want to scale your freedom, then the first decision that I really implore you to make is to decide who else you can delegate some decisions to. Okay, so that's the first point. Seven-figure CEOs don't make all the decisions, they only make the decisions that they need to make so that means you need to figure out which decisions you need to make, and which ones you can delegate. So are you the only decision-maker in your business right now? How many decisions do you think you're making in a day? And do you ever experience decision fatigue? That's a sign that you need to shift something. 

Second, seven-figure CEOs make decisions once, and then they take those decisions, and they replicate them. So what that means is they systemize and automate decisions where possible, there's no need to choose, you know, something different every single time a similar decision comes up. So let me give you a couple of examples here. Let's say that you give out a client gift when you bring on a brand new client, you don't need to mix that up. You don't need to think every single time about what gifts to give your clients. You can make the decision once and then have your team handle it from there. There's no need to recreate the graphics in your company for every podcast episode or for every, you know, a certain type of social media post, create some templates or have your team create some templates, make the decision wants to approve it, and then let go, right? There's no need to ask for different financial reports every month, you can standardize some of this. 

So you're going to make decisions once that would essentially save you from having to make those decisions over and over and over again. And this comes down to so so many things. Customizing meeting agendas isn't necessary if you have a standard agenda that you follow every single week. So instead of making a lot of really small decisions, I want you to figure out how you can make a decision once, document it, systemize it, delegate it, okay? What decisions are you making that are similar kinds of decisions that you're making over and over again? I want you to brainstorm a list of those and figure out how you can make a decision once that applies across the board. Okay?

Point number three here is seven figures CEOs make decisions based on data. If you want to make some solid decisions, you need to understand what's working in your business and what's not working. And although you might have a gut feel for what's working or not, after working with literally hundreds of CEOs. I know that what they fill in their gut doesn't always match what's in the data. Sometimes they get it right. But often, and I would say more often, they're really off base. So if you're going by how you're feeling, then you're not making data-driven decisions. And you might reach a different conclusion, a conclusion that could send you off in a direction, far, far away from your ultimate goals. So what numbers are you tracking and measuring right now? And are you using that data to make decisions? Are there any numbers that you need to be tracking? What do you need to be looking at on a week-to-week basis? Seven-figure CEOs, they're making decisions based on data. Seven-figure CEOs are also making decisions from a place of faith and not fear. 

If you believe your success is inevitable, then your decisions are going to look very different than if you believe that your future isn't possible, it's going to look very different than when you operate out of fear. And so the decisions that you might be making from a place of fear can keep you from that feature you want. I want you to think back to some of the recent decisions you've made. What are some of the biggest decisions you've made? And I just want you to write those down. And then I want you to think about when you were making that decision? Did you make the decision that you made out of fear, fear of what people thought, fear that you couldn't reach a bigger goal fear that you weren't good enough fear that you could go on and on and on? Did you make those decisions out of fear? Or did you make them out of faith? In your belief that your success is inevitable? Did you hold yourself back? Were you kind of pressuring yourself to go in a certain direction? Or did you bet on your future? Did you go all-in on what you know is possible?

The last point that I want to make here is that seven-figure CEOs are making decisions from the future, not where they are now. And so what that means is seven-figure CEOs have a vision for where they're headed. And they're thinking about and making decisions based on how those decisions are going to impact things. Not today, not tomorrow, months from now, next quarter, next year. Because when you make decisions based on where you are today and the here and now then you outgrow those decisions way too quickly. If you make a decision, and then you've outgrown that decision before you've even really fully implemented it, that's a problem. And that's what a lot of you are doing, you're making decisions based on where things are today, based on the number of team members you have today, based on your financials today versus looking ahead, even to next month or next quarter. 

I'm not telling you to, you know, invest billions into something based on like a 20-year vision. But what I am saying is, you know, choosing a piece of software today, based on a team of, you know, just a handful of people, when you imagine that, you know, a year from now, you're going to have a much larger team. If that's part of your vision, you've mapped it out, you've been strategic, you're not just going off of your gut, you're looking at data, you see the trends, and then you're actually doing more harm than good by making decisions that just worked for today that you outgrow by next quarter or next year. Because then your entire business, you've got to regroup, reset, roll out new software, retrain team members, and you're costing yourself money, and that's just one example of software. But I see that all the time. So you need to make sure you're making decisions from the future, from that future version of your business, from that future version of you, as a leader. Okay? 

Strategic decision-making is one of the core responsibilities of a CEO, and I want to know, if you're making million-dollar decisions, are you making decisions that only you need to make? Are you making decisions once? And then systemizing and delegating them? Are you making decisions based on data? Are you making decisions from a place of faith versus fear? And are you making decisions from your vision of the future and where you're going to be and what's going to serve you for many days, months, quarters years to come? Are you making decisions based on where you are today? It's important that you start making those million-dollar decisions as the CEO of your company.