Some decisions feel huge while others reveal their impact later

We talk about the decisions that change your life and why some moments feel like a clear line between before and after. We connect real turning points to neuroscience, gut instinct, and personal accountability so you can make cleaner choices under pressure.
• why some decisions feel huge while others only reveal their impact later
• how the amygdala drives fight flight freeze and locks in emotional memories
• Sharon’s immigration interview in Lisbon and the shock of waiting on a yes or no
• moving countries for love and the career ripple effects that follow
• job hunting realities and the moment you discover what you truly want
• gut instinct in business pricing and why ignoring it can cost you
• saying no to work that is under-valued and protecting your standards
• fast decision makers versus vacillators and what that looks like in teams
• why humans hate randomness and create stories to feel in control
• the blunt takeaway: own your choices and stop outsourcing responsibility
If you want to suggest some content for a podcast, you can go to the website beabetteryou.ca. There's a link called podcast on there. Click on it, send us your ideas.

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Podcast thoughtfully produced by https://www.isleofsound.ca/

Transcript

Welcome To Straight Up Talk

SPEAKER_00 0:00

This is Straight Up Talk with Sharon and Peter. We are both Proud Brits and Canadians. This is a no-nonsense weekly podcast about people, life, leadership, and all sorts of stuff. We don't always agree. This is Sharon and Pete with episode six of Straight Up

A Decision That Changes Everything

SPEAKER_00 0:24

Talk. A topic this week for us is a decision that changed the course of your life. Ooh, indeed, yeah. When we think about decisions, some of them you know are going to change your life, and others you make not knowing the impact they're going to have on your future. Some decisions we have the final say, and others we've committed to something else, but another person is involved and they're in control.

How Emotion Shapes Memory

SPEAKER_00 0:51

The decisions that we make are heavily influenced by our emotional states, the amygdala and emotional centers help decide what gets remembered. And emotionally intense moments get encoded more deeply. So the brain encodes that this matters. So some examples of when we weren't in the final decision-making seat, but you knew how we were going to, or you knew that this next thing was going to change your

The Canada Interview Moment

SPEAKER_00 1:20

life. I'll give you an example and I'll come over to you, Pete, see what you think. When I decided to emigrate to Canada, it was 1996. Went through the process, had to go through all the paperwork. Application was lodged through the Canadian Embassy in Lisbon. They decided that they wanted to do an interview with us. They did that. We flew over to Lisbon and were sitting outside the Canadian Embassy, and it suddenly hit me. In the next 30 minutes, whatever decision comes out of this is going to change my life drastically. So it was in a very weird sensation to be sitting there knowing that whatever happens next, my life's never going to be the same. Because if we hadn't have gotten in Yes or no. It was yes or no.

SPEAKER_01 2:10

Yes or no time.

SPEAKER_00 2:11

If we hadn't have gotten into Canada, then I wouldn't have stayed doing what I was doing. So that decision would have prompted something else.

SPEAKER_01 2:20

So I've got two questions.

SPEAKER_00 2:22

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 2:23

What's the amygdala? Is that an island in Greece? And why Lisbon? Why did you have to go to Lisbon?

SPEAKER_00 2:31

Great questions, thank you for that. Yeah, sorry, I get so caught up in my own world sometimes that I forget not everybody knows what I'm talking

Amygdala Explained Without The Jargon

SPEAKER_00 2:40

about. The amygdala is a tiny almond-shaped thing inside your brain. It's in two halves and it's the emotional reaction centre in your brain. It sits there, it's like a chimp in a cage. Right now, when you're calm, your chimp is sitting there eating bananas, not care in the world.

SPEAKER_01 2:59

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 2:59

If recognises danger, if a saber-toothed tiger walked in the room, so the prefrontal cortex part of the brain here is always sensing the environment. And it sends messages to the amygdala. So if a saber-toothed tiger walked in here right now, it would send a message to the amygdala. It would immediately trigger the fight, flight or freeze system, which would then happen is your heart rate would increase, your pulse rate would go through the roof, your thinking gets tunnel visioned, your heart rate goes mad, palms sweaty, getting ready to fight, flight or freeze. That happened as we evolved and it hasn't gone away. So there's many things that that trigger is fascinating. It well, it is, and that's actually a whole other different topic. Second question that you asked, why Lisbon? Back in 2000 uh 1996, we there wasn't the internet. Can you believe that? Um so we had to work with a Canadian immigration person to help us do the paperwork. And they said, you can decide which visa office you can put your application through. If we put it through London, it could take up to two years. We could put it through South Africa, but it might take six weeks. And the challenge is always they might need to South Africa to go for interview. So if we go for a Lisbon, then it's uh it's like up to 12 months.

SPEAKER_01 4:26

So that's announced, I've announced it already at the same time.

SPEAKER_00 4:29

Well, we actually did. We we and anyway, going completely off the topic, pack to you about decisions that change the course of our lives.

Career Pivots And A Yes Call

SPEAKER_01 4:39

Um decisions, decisions. Uh I I think the uh again, me coming to Canada was deciding that yeah, I've definitely got to make the move. Obviously, if I want to be with you. So that was a big turning point for me. Um There's been other decisions I made when I was younger, which maybe not always been the right decision. Uh but yeah, I think the most recent one is the coming to Canada, definitely.

SPEAKER_00 5:08

Because that was a life-changing Oh yeah. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 5:12

You sold the country to me. You said it was always sunny over here.

SPEAKER_00 5:15

It is above the clouds.

SPEAKER_01 5:16

Yeah. You said it's nice and warm in the winter.

SPEAKER_00 5:20

In in Florida.

SPEAKER_01 5:22

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 5:23

Yeah. No, you you're right, and it's an another actual decision, thinking back to that time, I remember we moved back to the U or I came moved back to the UK to be with you then. In March of 2013, I remember because we were looking for I was looking for a job, thinking I'm gonna have to go get a job in in um Costa Coffee. Uh, and then I got an an email from a client in Canada who wanted uh me to deliver an emotional intelligence session for their people. So I flew back, we flew back to Canada. Do you remember?

SPEAKER_01 5:59

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 5:59

Uh we flew back here, we delivered the session in 2013. 2013, yeah. And then we we flew back. That was when we were doing the packing up of my apartment.

SPEAKER_01 6:09

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 6:10

So when we got back, I'd be I applied, this was ridiculous. I applied for something like 200 jobs when we were in the UK because I wasn't going to set up another business. And previously, when I'd been in the UK, I was in the ad business. Now I was into training. I had no qualifications, UK qualifications, or in fact any. I'd just been very successful at it. At that time, it was an employer's market, kind of like how it is now. All these jobs I applied for, I went for four interviews. If you rem and what's interesting about this, I think, is always I decided to go for these the first three jobs, got called for interview, and then when I was told I didn't get it, was how you know how you really felt about it. Because those first three, I was like, Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 7:01

Yeah, I remember when you went for, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 7:03

Yeah, I was glad I didn't get those jobs. But then Thomas in the UK, uh, I went for the job interview, and I remember thinking, I really, really want this, and I got the call in July. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 7:15

I was with you actually.

SPEAKER_00 7:16

Yeah, and and so here was a decision that was going to change my life because she said, Well, I've got some news for you, and my heart sank because of how she said it. And this was Julia Jones. She said, So my heart sunk, and then she said, You've got the job. It's like, whoa! I was absolutely beyond thrilled.

SPEAKER_01 7:36

I remember.

SPEAKER_00 7:36

So I worked in the UK for Thomas for two years, and then when we moved to Canada, they uh good old Martin, wonderful Martin Reed, made a uh connection to Merle, who back then was was uh the president of Thomas North America. So they helped me transition not as a not as an employee, because I'm not a good employee, really.

SPEAKER_01 8:02

That's a different story altogether, but as a contract facilitator for everybody everybody out there's got examples of one decision that they made that changed the course of their life.

SPEAKER_00 8:13

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 8:13

No.

SPEAKER_00 8:14

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 8:15

Like in relationships or professionally?

SPEAKER_00 8:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 8:19

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 8:19

And and again, what you don't know is whether or not that was the right decision.

SPEAKER_01 8:25

Or I always say go with your gut feeling.

Gut Feelings In Work Decisions

SPEAKER_01 8:27

Tell me about a time when you didn't Yeah, well, um when I used to price up jobs for removals, you know, the bigger we got, we started getting lots of inquiries from off you know, companies that had offices, might have two or three floors of offices, and and they're they're a lot trickier to do than than house moves because there's a lot a lot more involved. And uh, you know, I didn't like to do too many big moves, but on the odd occasion I'd get a big company call us in and we'd go out. I'd have to go out, because I did all the quotes, I did everything. I'd go out and you you go in the building and you can just look around, you think, Oh, that's tricky, oh that's gotta go, and you know, you think to yourself that's this is gonna be messy, this is gonna take a while, and you're telling yourself not to do it and not to give the price or give a really whacking great big price and hope you don't get it, you know.

SPEAKER_00 9:18

Right.

SPEAKER_01 9:18

And then all of a sudden you get a phone call three days later, oh yeah, we've decided to go with you, you know, off we go. And your gut feeling is oh, I should I wish I hadn't taken this job on, and then two weeks later when you're on the job and it's all going wonky, you know, and uh you know, you're three days into a two-day job and you still want to have two days ahead of you, and you start thinking how much money you're losing, right, then you start thinking, I should have just gone with my gut.

SPEAKER_00 9:47

So I think that's very interesting, is that we all have gut responses and reactions to the decisions that we make, but you and I are both very fast decision makers.

SPEAKER_01 9:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 9:57

It doesn't mean that they're all right decisions that we make, but experience plays a part in how quickly you can make and whether that's going to turn out to be a right one. And in fact, this morning just culminated something for me very similar. I was somebody reached out to me last week on LinkedIn, they were looking for a particular set of skills. They have this manager program they wanted delivering, and I've got probably a unique set of skills with a psychometric assessment training knowledge that I have. They were looking for that. Yeah, so I had a conversation with them, checked all those boxes, I came up with a pricing for them that I felt was fair to me, given my experience. They came back with uh, would you prepared, be prepared to do these sessions? And it was like a tenth.

SPEAKER_01 10:48

They halved it and halved it again and then halved it again.

SPEAKER_00 10:51

And I had to make a decision and say no, yeah. Because it was very interesting work, but they did not value it.

SPEAKER_01 10:59

You went with your gut, you see.

SPEAKER_00 11:00

I went with my gut, and I got the I checked in today because I'd asked, is there any wiggle room with uh the budget? They came back and they said no, and I feel good. Yeah, because had I taken it in what they were offering me, just like you, I would have been resentful towards that, and I wouldn't have been able to do it the right way. Yeah, so yeah, I think you and I are both confident decision makers. There are some people who tend to take a lot of time making decisions. Um, it that frustrates me.

SPEAKER_01 11:33

I know somebody who we both know.

SPEAKER_00 11:36

Yeah, well, some people vacillate, they make a decision and they flip and they flop and they change their mind. Yeah, and I find working with people like that to be quite a challenge.

SPEAKER_01 11:46

And in business, you don't get that length of time most of the time. No, you've got to be quick.

SPEAKER_00 11:53

Absolutely. It's like, well, working with the horse events business that I worked with my coach Jen, what made it work so brilliantly is that we would make very fast decisions together and we had very different skill sets. Um the only thing that we disagreed about across all the nine shows that we put on together was whether we had we ordered these hats, you know, winters, winter hats, bobble hats. Yeah, yeah. I like bobble hats, and she likes them without the bobble.

SPEAKER_01 12:20

So what they call just hats.

SPEAKER_00 12:22

What they call just hats or tukes in Canada. So we compromised, we ordered 50 with bobbles and 50 without.

SPEAKER_01 12:30

Yeah, I remember trying to sell them. You must have had about 50 left over.

SPEAKER_00 12:36

I just love those bobble hats. Uh and Jen loves her bobbless hats. Anyway, we're wobbling on a bit

Randomness Accountability And Takeaways

SPEAKER_00 12:43

now. Um, so brutally honest takeaway of the week for me about decision making is neuroscience says that the brain actually struggles with randomness. Humans deeply dislike the idea that chance plays a role in our life, and we assign meaning and we connect the dots backwards afterwards because we think everything is random, feels terrifying, and humans can vacillate between I created this life and fate, this was meant to happen, which of course you and I do not believe in that at all. We don't believe I believe that we are predisposed through our genetics, through our environment, to make certain decisions, but I don't believe that everything happens for a reason.

SPEAKER_01 13:27

No, right, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 13:28

Things happen and we have to make reasons.

SPEAKER_01 13:30

Randomly.

SPEAKER_00 13:31

We have to make reason of them.

SPEAKER_01 13:32

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 13:33

We have to be accountable for how we show up in our own lives and embrace the decisions that that we make and not make anybody else the excuse of that. Um so these moments become psychological landmarks for us. Bottom line is be accountable for the decisions that you make, and nobody makes you do anything without your consent.

SPEAKER_01 13:57

Exactly. Well, for me, again, I'll keep it nice and short and sweet. Go with your gut when you're making a decision. If it doesn't feel right, don't do it.

SPEAKER_00 14:07

Thank you, Peter. Succinctness as ever.

Share Your Ideas And Goodnight

SPEAKER_00 14:10

Well, thank you very much for listening, everybody. If you want to suggest some content for a podcast, you can go to the website beabetteru.ca. There's a link called podcast on there. Send us your ideas. This podcast has been thoughtfully broadcast. No, present good grief, produced by the Isle of Sound. It's time to go. Good night from me.

SPEAKER_01 14:34

And it's good night from me.