213 | Fear in a Cute Blazer. Why More Research Won't Make Decision Making Easier | Leadership, Delegation & Systems with AI Frameworks

You asked two people you trust.

They told you opposite things.

Both of them were right, in their own way.

And you have been reading one more article since, waiting for the moment you finally feel sure enough to move.

That moment is not coming, and that is not a failure on your part. It is the job changing underneath you without sending a new job description.

Being right got you here. It got you promoted, trusted, into bigger rooms, because for most of your career the transaction was simple. Somebody asked a question, you had the answer. Then you rose high enough that the problems in front of you stopped having one correct answer, and the exact instinct that built your career started working against you.

So you do what has always worked. You go find more information. You book another call. You loop back to the same smart people, hoping this time one of them finally hands you the certainty that makes the discomfort go away. Dawn calls it what it actually is. Sometimes it is just fear in a really cute blazer.

In this episode:

• Why the confidence that built your career stops being available, and stops being useful, the higher you rise
• The reframe that replaces "what's the right answer" when you can’t find certainty
• Five questions to run a decision through when smart people disagree with each other, and how to know the exact moment more research stops helping

The five questions, so you can screenshot this part:

1. What are we actually optimizing for? Name one thing, not everything.
2. What information would materially change this decision? Not everything you could possibly know. Just what would actually move the needle.
3. Is it reversible? The more reversible a decision is, the less certainty you need to make it.
4. What is the cost of waiting? Indecision is still a decision. It just feels safer because nobody has to watch you make it.
5. What will tell you quickly if you are wrong? Build the feedback into the choice itself so you are not flying blind for six months.

Try this this week

Pick the one decision you keep researching instead of making. Run it through the five questions out loud, on a walk if that is how your brain works. Then notice who is waiting on the other side of you actually moving. Your team. Your clients. The women watching how you lead.

If you are circling instead of choosing somewhere in your business right now, come sit with us. The AI for Founders community on LinkedIn is free, and full of women testing this stuff out loud instead of white-knuckling it alone. Link in the show notes.

Chapters

• [00:01:00] Two Smart Friends, Two Opposite Answers
• [00:03:00] When Being Right Stops Being the Job
• [00:05:00] The Filter That Replaced Proof
• [00:07:00] Five Questions for Deciding Without Certainty
• [00:08:00] How a Pharma Company Lost Its Lead by Waiting

Founder relevance: join the free AI for Founders community on LinkedIn.

"Sometimes it's just fear in a really cute blazer."

Related Episodes

• 190 | REPLAY: Stop Asking AI to Be Your Business Therapist 
• 199 | REPLAY: The CEO Trap: How AI Ends Your Decision Fatigue and Frees You to Lead
• 201 | Why Teaching AI Your Voice First Might Be the Wrong Strategy 

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