.png)
The Practice Ground | A Self-Improvement Podcast with Ken Li and Kari Watterson
Most of us don't need more information -- we need more experience.
Join confidence coach, Ken Li, and mindset and habits coach, Kari Watterson, for conversations that challenge how you think, encourage courageous experimentation, and inspire you to gather experiences that deepen your confidence—and your participation in your own life.
The Practice Ground | A Self-Improvement Podcast with Ken Li and Kari Watterson
Ep. 1 - Making Decisions
Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.
Why can making a decision feel so difficult — even when we know there may not be one “right” answer?
In our first episode of The Practice Ground, we explore why decision-making can feel so complicated — especially when uncertainty, competing priorities, values, and the desire to make the “perfect” choice all enter the equation.
We talk about analysis paralysis, the temptation to keep gathering information, and what can change when we stop treating every decision as something we have to get “right.”
Along the way, we explore:
- why getting clear about what you actually want can simplify a decision
- how uncertainty can keep us searching for more information instead of choosing
- the difference between reversible and more consequential decisions
- why choosing not to decide is still a decision
- what Cate Osborn calls the “Dr. Strange-ian quandary”: the awareness that choosing one path means letting go of other possible versions of our lives
- how making decisions — including imperfect ones — can become something we practice
- the Gary Parker Rule
- what changes when we consider the possibility that there may be no “wrong” decision
Part of our conversation was inspired by Cate Osborn’s interview with decision scientist Dr. Mark Shrime on the Sorry, I Missed This podcast. We were particularly struck by their conversation about uncertainty, values, and the “Dr. Strange-ian quandary” — and Dr. Shrime’s reframing of what it means to choose one path when we know other possible paths exist.
Cited in this episode:
Sorry, I Missed This Podcast Episode: Decisions, Decisions: ADHD and the Trap of Analysis Paralysis with Cate Osborn and Dr. Mark Shrime
TEDx Talk | Putting Purpose Over Path by Dr. Mark Shrime
Find Ken Li on LinkedIn
Find Kari Watterson at Instagram (@theadhdhabittrainer)
Welcome to the Practice Ground, the self-improvement podcast where theory meets practice.
SPEAKER_00If you're like us, you're tired of simply consuming content. You want to put ideas into action so they make a real difference in your life.
SPEAKER_01We all know we're made for more. On this podcast, we want to help you start going after it.
SPEAKER_00Thanks for being here.
SPEAKER_01Hi, my name is Ken Lee. I am a husband, father of three, and a life coach. Welcome to our inaugural podcast called The Practice Ground.
SPEAKER_00Hi, my name is Carrie Watterson. I also am a life coach and I specialize in mindset and habits coaching. I also have two adult children and a husband. And we are both excited for you to join us in this journey on the practice ground.
SPEAKER_01Thank you. I didn't even realize if I even said what I was. I'm a confidence coach. So thank you for prompting me, Carrie. Um, yeah, this being our first podcast, what is the practice ground? First of all, actually, before we came up with the name, we came up with the idea to collaborate together on this podcast. Do you want to share that story, Carrie, on how this podcast collaboration came to be?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, absolutely. So I have a separate podcast that I have been doing solo for about five or six years. And it's gotten to a point where I really recognized some of the things that I wanted to be able to do. And as I looked around my circle, I recognized Ken, who I had on the podcast a couple different times, had some strengths that I felt would be such an asset for delivering some of the messages that we wanted to both send out to the world to help people make life easier for themselves and easier to go after some of the goals and the dreams that they have. So I reached out to you. I know that you had been thinking about talking about collaborating together on various aspects. And I think it was back in, no, it was just a couple of months ago. Ever since we met Carrie a couple of months ago, I think I reached out to you and said, Hey, Ken, would you be interested in doing a joint podcast together where we have two brains that can take our combined passion to help people, you know, move forward in their lives in whichever direction they'd like, and do it in a way that'd be fun, collaborative, and hopefully really practical and useful for people.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, and then you immediately came up with the name The Practice Ground, which I gravitated to. I run a self-improvement book club. And the reason I do that is because I got tired of reading books, putting them down, and actually not applying them to my life. So I created this book club where we first met two years ago, reading the book Essentialism by Greg McEwen. And the idea of that is to read a book, discuss it, and even before I talk about it in book club is to apply it in my own life so I can share the lessons that I actually internalized from that book. And to me, this podcast is an embodiment of that. Uh, it's an embodiment of my coaching practice, what I see coaching clients, what reframes, what ways to just look at life and then take that to the everyday people so that they can improve their lives in much the same way. So, from your perspective, what do you see? You know, you came up with the name, the practice ground. Why did you come up with that name and how do you see it benefiting your audience?
SPEAKER_00Uh yes, and I love the self-improvement book club that you had just exactly for that reason. I was worried that I was becoming a passive consumer of everything self-help and productivity and you know, fix it mentality. And yet I felt like I was constantly kind of spinning in circles, trying to solve the same circular problems for myself and spending more time in my head thinking about thinking versus actually moving life forward in ways that felt exciting and rewarding to me. And so your book club was a way to not only talk about the book, number one, it was the book that I was excited about. I had already read it, and then to actually discuss it and then apply things into our lives. That to me was one of, I think, the first reasons why you and I started connecting even offline, because I recognized a kindred spirit. We're seeing where people get stuck, we see where we ourselves we get stuck, and we know that there is a huge gap where people want to actually be moving forward in significant ways. The reason why I came up with the practice ground and I thought about that as I was imagining ways I could help my clients and or people who also wanted to stop consuming so much and actually start implementing, is I was running into a common theme where clients and myself were like, why which of these tools do I use when I when I need it? Like in the moment, you're like, what do I, what do I reach for? And what I realized was I went on this journey of trying to say what would be like the one or two things that if we just remember those two things, no matter where we are, what stage of life we're in, that if we remember those two things, we know how to find a path forward rather than ruminating or spiraling in overwhelm or confusion or just feeling like kind of like helpless. And that was so long as we can remember that we have a mind that we can use for thinking and solving problems, then we can use that mind to remember we have choices and to figure out next steps. In order to do that, though, it almost needs to be a habit. You have to almost practice remembering that you have the ability to use your mind to direct your life, not just use your mind to firefight whatever is coming up throughout the day. What ends up happening otherwise is we spend so much of our time, energy, and capacity trying to just get through the day, life admin, managing family demands, et cetera. We have very, very little energy and capacity and even cognitive space left to think about big picture dreams and what skills we might need to develop now to walk ourselves towards that dream. And so the practice ground became a place where I'm like, if I can help somebody with anything, it would be just developing the skill of using your mind to decide what you want and develop the skills that are standing between you and what you want. And just keep practicing that and practicing that, not unlike football or soccer or basketball fundamentals, life gets so much more fun when there are very basic things that you are very, very skilled at and it becomes second nature. And to me, and I, in a sense, part of that for you is recognizing that at the forefront of everything that happens in our lives is that we have a mind and we can use it to chart a trajectory that feels more in alignment with who we are and how we'd like to live our lives.
SPEAKER_01And we're gonna talk a lot about that in today's episode on decision making. We're gonna bring both of our uh unique perspectives. You you're a mindset and habits coach, and you're gonna bring that into this conversation. I'm a confidence coach, which really is in large part about mindset, but you talk about choices and making choices, and that's what decision making is. We are going to talk about a podcast on decision making called Sorry, I missed this: The Everything Guide to ADHD and relationships with Kate Osborne. That is the name of the episode, very, very long. But uh, Kate is a podcaster, lives with ADHD, and talks about it. And she's gonna be interviewing Mark Schreim. He earned a PhD in health policy with a concentration in decision science, I believe, both from Harvard, and he is, did you know, a decision scientist? So, you know, Carrie, you you sent this to me. This is the podcast we're gonna talk about. Who knows in the future how we're gonna do these kinds of episodes? We did want to take a topic that we're both interested in, and that was decision making. We'll talk about why decisions can be so dang difficult. And I'm gonna be talking about it from how do we make more confident decisions, because I don't believe there's a right or wrong decision. And I was wondering maybe, you know, where you were hoping to share your perspective on decision making. What slant did you want to take?
SPEAKER_00Uh yes. Um, first of all, yes. Let's talk about really quickly the podcast episode that we are going to be kind of going through today because we've both found it interesting and um had valuable information on the topic of decision making that I think is a little bit new, novel, but also I think will be really useful for listeners. Sorry I missed this. Number one, what a great podcast title. Because I don't know how many times I've said, hey, I'm so sorry I missed this, right? And so I think that's fantastic. Kate Osborne is a podcast host, but she does specialize in helping people with ADHD navigate their symptoms to live a thriving, successful life. Dr. Mark Schreim, who was her guest on the podcast, is a surgeon, but he has a fantastic history with uh incredible credentials and life experience. And he has an incredible TED talk that we will also list in the show notes that I think will be a perfect complement to this episode. But as far as what I hope that our audience gets, Ken, with this inaugural episode, on my side, I would love people, if they take anything away from this, is to really simplify the entire process by inviting people to really think that there's only two things or two areas that they actually need to focus on in order to make decisions, the big and small decisions that drive your everyday life, but also shape the trajectory of long-term goals and aspirations beyond what you might think is possible. And the only two places or two things, the areas that you really need to gain some skill, understanding, and mastery in is your mind and how that impacts everything and your body and how that informs decision making, maybe without your your knowledge. And we'll explore both of those and especially through the lens of yours, confidence, coaching as well.
SPEAKER_01Okay, excellent. So I think it's always good to start with the basics. So, first question is what are decisions?
SPEAKER_00Ken, I feel like I've done a lot of talking so far. Oh, okay. Would you like to give, would you like to give an example? And then I certainly will also um chime in after you.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I mean, I think you said it best in terms of mindset, being aware we have choices. And a decision is simply a choice between one or two actions. And I think what trips us up when we make those choices is we have concerns. Am I making the wrong decision? Will things work out? If I choose this one thing, will I miss out on the other thing? Am I making the best decisions? And for me, uh as a confidence coach, how that shows up is for early people graduating from college, what career should I choose? And should I stay in this career in life out there of coach people in terms of should I stay in this relationship? Right? These are decisions with big outcomes, and there's a lot at stake. So decision is a choice between one or two uh events that you'd like to take. How about you?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, Ken, this is why we're doing this podcast together. Your definition was so so clear, so concise and actionable and practical. I love that. If you're gonna ask me, so this is where my mind went.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah, go for it.
SPEAKER_00Okay. So I always like to bring things down to making sure that I understand the words that I'm using. So decision, like the Latin root or the etymology of the word decision, as you may already know, but for the listeners, it's it comes from, and I'm gonna butcher this, but it comes from the Latin root word, I think it's decadere. Decadere. So de refers to like down or off or away. And then is it cadere, cadera means to cut off or to strike off. So basically you're cutting down, striking away certain things. So when if you talk about bringing it back to the word decision, we're basically coming to a resolution in the mind as a result of some consideration, but we're making a decision which requires cutting off or striking away or pruning other options so that we can then focus on specific neuropaths in front of us, which is great news because then that allows us to focus on certain things, but then also we can see quickly, and we'll talk about this, where sometimes things have been pruned for us ahead of time, or we're not even aware that we're making decisions from a already pruned path. And we can use that awareness to then kind of fill that back in so that we can decide for ourselves. Wait a second, which parts were cut off to me that weren't of my own volition? And I get to like start from the ground up and decide what to prune away. Maybe um others have pruned away from for us before, and we those are maybe paths we would actually like to consider.
SPEAKER_01I think you're getting ready for the next topic. I was thinking about this story that I read recently in, I think it's called Defier Defiance, and it tells a story of Rosa Parks. She was the person who was asked by the bus driver in 1955 to move aside for a white person to sit down, and she would not budge. I guess the story is she was too tired, but that is not the reason she did not budge. What led up to that decision was years of activism and feeling that the system of segregation was not fair. And where am I going with this, Carrie? Is I want to come back to, you know, there's the decision in the present moment, but then there's the whole stuff that comes before Rosa Parks actually decide not to move and change her seats. And so I wanted you maybe to talk a little bit about identity habits and how that plays into actually decision making, because it's not something we think about, but I think it is something we should at least consider that when we make decisions, there's a whole bunch of history that has led up to that point. Hopefully that was a good lead-in for you if you know where I'm going with this.
SPEAKER_00Um Hey listeners, this is us trying our best.
SPEAKER_01Exactly, exactly. So did that tell me, tell me if you know where to go with that, Carrie.
SPEAKER_00You know, um, I do. And one thing I'm trying to be very cognizant of is not taking us down too many stray paths just because they're on my mind. So let's try to um let's me let me try to constrain my focus to one of the topics that we discuss. If we go back to what we talked about at the beginning of the podcast episode, which was our decision to take an episode of the Sorry I Miss This podcast with Kate Osborne and her guest, Dr. Mark Schreim. One of the things we recognize as we not only listen to the episode, but then review the transcript was we talked about how Dr. Mark Schreim works at the intersection of when he talks about decision making, that you you make decisions from a combined place. Your mind, basically, your body, nervous state activation, etc., energetics, but also your values. And your values can mean anything from, for example, Rosa Park and her social justice values, but also can mean just the things that you find important, the things that you have decided are valuable at any given moment. And those values, also unexpressed values, values that you don't even know that you would like to actually have informing your decision making, are all things to keep in mind when you think about the daily decisions that you make, but also when you think about lifelong decisions that you make that will impact a journey that you're going to be taking on for an extended period of time to achieve a goal, to allow yourself certain experiences, etc. So when you talk about identity, it's as James James Claire says, it's who are you repeatedly being? What are you repeatedly thinking? What are you repeatedly believing? What are you repeatedly doing? And in response to that, like with all of those things, how are you moving through your life? A lot of times our identity is something that we're not even aware that is something that we can actually change or shape. We just often are just moving through the days, informed by the way that we grew up, by maybe the community or society, programming or conditioning that we've kind of just internalized. And I think a great part of accepting responsibility and getting to accept responsibility for the direction of our lives is this awareness that who we've been repeatedly being and and what we've been repeatedly doing may not match up with actually who we'd like to truly be and what we'd like to truly do, which allow invites us to ask the question, okay, from this point forward, let me revisit things, let me revisit my values, let me revisit the life that I would like to lead for myself and my loved ones, et cetera. And what is important to me? How would I like to live? What traits would I like to be defined at, or what traits would I like to cultivate? What traits and skills are going to be needed to live the life that I would like to live, to allow myself to be fortified for the journey that I'm going to take myself on. Is that what you're referring to, Ken?
SPEAKER_01I I think I was referring to whatever you wherever you went is what I was too, which is perfect. So um, you know, Mark Schreim talks about uh bouncing between different levels when people are trying to make a decision, which leads to analysis paralysis. I think he gave the example of, you know, maybe I want to be a doctor, but then you know, how do I go do that? Do I have to, you know, what's the way do I attend this school? Do I really want to be a doctor? And then if I go to this school, like you know, I'm not sure I can get it. It's it's it's bouncing between the how and the why and the who. And so I think what you were just referencing there, this identity and touching base with your values is a clear way in what Dr. Mark Schrime called about the top-level decision-making layer. And that is if you want to cut through all the bouncing between different levels, which leads to analysis paralysis, ask yourself, what do you want to do and why? And I think the answer you just said, Carrie, is touching base with your values with Rosa Parks. It was justice. I'll give a quick example here. My daughter just graduated or graduated with graphic design and landed a potential job with a company that would give her graphic design experience eventually. She's having a hard time between that job and a cake design job. You're like a cake design job, you know, like what that doesn't have anything to do with graphic design. What she ultimately figured out was what the cake design job gave her, was something that struck to the core of her values, and that was flexibility. That was not a full-time job, and she wanted the flexibility and the freedom to do, you know, money was less important than flexibility. So, yeah, values is a good way to kind of cut the chase in terms of why you do something, why I chose to collaborate with you, because my three values are growth, connection, and fun. And this is all, well, supposedly going to be all three of those things, as long as we have fun, Carrie. Supposedly. But you know, a lot of these things that I'm talking about, values, a lot of people don't explore. The other thing besides not examining them is our values can shift. Do you want to talk a little bit about that? Making sure that our values are key to who we are.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_01No, and I think not when we were like 16 years old, plus.
SPEAKER_00Right, right, right. Just to go back to your example of your daughter, man, is that not such a common experience and series of decisions that people, especially younger people, are making? They're recognizing that the way that things were done in the past and seeing maybe the fallout or some of the maybe the more negative experiences they've seen from pre previous generations, they are now taking some of that and then asking themselves, how do I want to live my life? What's going to be important to me? And and weighing those competing, Dr. Mark Schreim calls them, I believe, competing, balancing competing like demands or, or like you said, values, and then coming up with their own decision in their own path in life, giving themselves new experiences. And from there, they can learn and make new decisions.
SPEAKER_01Our values can change over time. What matters most to us when we were kids is where most of the time our values were first laid out. You talk about in terms of identity, right? Those are kind of how we were nurtured from our parents, if we went to church, our schools, our peers, and our interests. But it kind of reminds me of when, you know, in kindergarten where everybody went, got everyone got invited to the party. We were all friends, right? And then as we get older, it's like, huh, I'm not being invited to those parties anymore because we start differentiating ourselves. And the same way, we as we start becoming more mature, our values change over time. So I use my values as kind of a North Star, but every so often, maybe every two to three years, it's good to check into your values because those things change. In fact, I I've been thinking about that lately. I it's been about five years since I've checked into my values. And I think one for me at least is just being more open and curious, is becoming a value that I think maybe being a coach. Maybe seeing a lot of other perspectives as we do, Carrie, work with a lot of people. That's something I'm really leaning into a little bit more. But another difficult challenge with decision making, Mark Schreim says, analysis paralysis comes. We want perfect information to make a perfect decision. Is that possible to have perfect information?
SPEAKER_00Uh yeah, yeah. Um, I think that obviously I think you know the answer is um, you know, of course, we want the information that we think will click with our brain and give us ease and say, yes, that's the right path. Thank goodness, right? But as we know, what that leads to is uh exactly there's two parts of it, thinking, and then like you're frozen and you're you're not taking any action. And so, of course, how do then we move forward? Well, we at some point we're gonna come to the realization that there is no necessarily perfect information. There's only information that's going to allow us to feel like, okay, let's we want information that's going to be enough that will help us move even in some tiny small step toward the direction that we want. So at least we're on the right trajectory, or at least a trajectory that will get us closer to the lifestyle that we are looking for or the experiences that we wanted to have during our lifetime.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I I think this is called, well, just enough information is one way to put it. And I think that is when you become really good at being a decision maker, that's all you need is just enough. There is also a rule called the 70% rule. If you have 70% of the information, go on that information. Steve Bartlett, in fact, brings it down to 51% because he's very decisive, he takes action, and I think that is an advantage of going with 51% information. You make decisions quicker, so you save time, but also on the back end, you're collecting data, right? If you don't make a decision, that's a decision. And it's also a decision not to collect data because the real information is the information you're gonna collect to make a better decision, and then you can continue making better decisions, but you can't do that unless you act. I I'm gonna go back to my daughter one more time. I mentioned she was thinking about taking this graphic design position. It was it's really a printer position, front clerk position. And when she was thinking about graphic design, I said, you know, what what percentage chance do you think you would end up not getting the graphic design experience you need? And she said 70%. No, I didn't know the 70% rule. Oh she was 70% certain and came to the conclusion, yeah, if it's I'm 70% certain I'm not gonna get that experience, why am I gonna take this job? Now that was before she knew she wasn't gonna do graphic design, but that's an example of the 70% rule at work. So I think the the other challenge with uncertainty is brought up by Kate Osborne. She thinks of the Doctor Strange multiverse. And if you open one door, you close the door on other doors, and that's opening up many, many more doors. And so this can really, really cause a person not to decide because of this kind of approach. Can you maybe tell me a little bit about the this Doctor Strange alternate realities and and and you can elaborate on this more, but perhaps opening one door, the challenge with that is the regret of closing so many other doors.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah. I love the way that Kate Osborne in the podcast episode, sorry I missed this with Dr. Mark Schreim, talked about the Doctor Strange example. Um, she did it so beautifully. I'm actually what I'm gonna do, I highlighted, I'm just gonna actually read that part of the transcript because I couldn't have said it better. But to set to lay the context for this example, obviously in decision making, there's micro decisions and there's macro decisions, right? Micro decisions, I believe, are like little things in everyday life, the little things of like how do our lives run, right? We get up, we you know, we eat, we have to decide what we're gonna eat, decide how much we sleep, we have other people that we're responsible for. And all of those require decisions, including like, do they have everything they need when they go to school, or should we be setting up money for a college fund? Or, you know, do I take this promotion or is it time to leave my job? All of those things. There's like a combination of micro decisions that we make every day that take up cognitive energy. And then there's the macro decisions that if we're not careful, we're so overwhelmed by just firefighting the micro decisions of day-to-day living that we don't even years pass and we're like, wait, are we even the living the lives that we wanted? You know? And um, maybe we would have loved to have asked ourselves this question earlier, right? The Doctor Strange example, I think, is a great way for listeners to wherever, whatever stage of life they're at, to be able to zoom out for a bit, pause, zoom out, and imagine what it could be like when you are looking at your life from a macro level, um, looking at it from the big picture level of like, you know, you're 80 or you pass away and you you you you look back before you do and hope that you've lived it in some semblance of the way that you most desired. What happens often though is right now in the present moment, we get a little bit panicked. Which is the right path? What do we do? And so she she she has an honest reflection about this. And let me just re-read the transcript. So here's Kate. I remember thinking about this very specifically when I was choosing where I went to college, is that I often feel like Doctor Strange from Marvel, where I see before me like a thousand different potential realities in which I could live, in which I could exist. And it's like, do I choose the reality where I go to the college in Iowa or the college in New York or the college in Florida or the college in England? And all of those are going to then create new things because I'm going to meet new people and have different opportunities, and different things happen to me in each of those places that is then going to inform the rest of my life. And that is how I've always thought about decisions. Do I go for the PhD? And even if I do get the PhD, maybe I'll get another one down the line because I also think art history is very interesting and very cool. And I would like to know more about that. So she asks Dr. Schrime, how do you navigate that Doctor Strange? Uh, I think she meant like um conundrum. And she's just gonna say, I'm just gonna call it the Dr. Strangean quandary of really feeling like no matter what I do, there is like an entire lived existence that I'm letting go of whenever I make the choice. Because I could be an art historian, but I could also keep working in neurodivergence and sexuality. And both of them are fulfilling and fantastic. But there's a part of me that just wonders about Kate, the art historian. Do you know what I mean? And I love Dr. Schrime's uh answer. And I think it's because the question was really actually so honest and in part what many of us experience. Dr. Mart says, I 100% know what you mean by this. And yes, I would love for it to be true that we have multiple lives, because there are multiple lives that I want to live. It's 100% true that the minute you make a decision, you are killing off a life that could have existed, and you are choosing not to go down that path. You are closing an infinite number of doors so you can leave one door open that you're going to walk through. That is 100% true, and there's really no getting around that. I do think what where that paralyzes us, though, is that we're like, well, dang it, maybe I should have gone to art history, or maybe I shouldn't, shouldn't make this decision and then go get my PhD in art history. And then we don't actually close the doors and we don't actually walk through the door, and that is a decision. Choosing not to decide, as you said, Ken, is a decision. And Dr. Schreim closes off by saying, So you're still closing off doors. Basically, instead of framing it as, oh God, I have to close off all these doors, you're going to close off some of them anyway. It's your choice which ones you close off. It's kind of a reclaiming of the agency of who gets to decide which doors I close. Because if I just stay on the path I'm on, randomness gets to decide which doors I close. Whereas I get to decide if I make the decision myself. And then he goes on to talk about you know, more in decision signs that there's concept in decision theory about type one and type two decisions, you know, permanent versus really not permanent, and how most of them are actually impermanent decisions that are easily reversible, but we most of them we treat most decisions as if they're absolutely permanent. What struck you with that Doctor Strange scenario?
SPEAKER_01I I mean, I think what's struck me is the idea if I become this person, then you're always wondering what would have happened if I became this, if I had chosen this other door. And that's what's caused you not to open any doors, as uh Dr. Mark Schrein talks about. I like his idea of, but you have the agency to choose the door, and if you choose the door, I think you strengthen that agency, you strengthen the skill of decision making. I I wanted to get to of all the possible doors in these multiverse that we all live in, you brought up a rule because you listened to the TED Talk with Dr.
SPEAKER_00That's a fantastic TED Talk, yes.
SPEAKER_01And he ended with his mentor, Gary Parker, calling it the Gary Parker rule. And I wanted you to share that with the audience because I think it's a very powerful way of making a decision that's most aligned with your values and what you really want out of life. Can you share that with us?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, absolutely. And I think you and I found both found this powerful after we watched the TED Talk. Um, it's a TED Talk called Putting Purpose Over Path. And again, we'll link that uh TED Talk in the show notes. And again, he has an incredible life history. But with the Gary Parker rule, he talks about, to set really brief context, ultimately, Dr. Schreim chose to follow his values. And he ended up becoming, I think it's a head-neck surgeon on a boat that is stationed somewhere, I think, off the coast of Africa. And they provide surgeries to people who don't have access to those types of surgeries. And that was part of his, once he decided to go down that path, he he's been doing it for years, but he recognized, okay, wow, that was me cutting off other options, but actually choosing an option that I that I deeply desired. He had talked to his mentor, Gary Parker, who's also a surgeon on that boat and had been doing it for decades. He said, How do you make big decisions like this? Right. I mean, that's obviously a very unique path that he followed, both of them. And what he came up with after that conversation with his mentor, Gary Parker, was what he now calls the Gary Parker rule. In decision science, there's an actual like scientific name for it. But I will summarize it by basically just stating how um Dr. Schramm describes it. Gary Parker rule basically goes like this. If you're thinking about what you want to do, think 30 years down the line and find the best possible thing that could happen with each of your two choices, or maybe three choices, right? If one of those bests just make you kind of like shrug your shoulders when you think 30 years down the line, then you know it's not the right choice for you because you'd work for 30 years in the best case scenario for just shrug shoulders. And so to me, that's an idea of looking down, you know, if it's something big that you want to go after, it's going to take time and struggle and adversity that you're overcoming to get there. You're going to be working with your mind, you're going to be working against your body and all um to try to get everything in alignment. So you stay on the path toward what you decided that you want to do. And for Gary Parker and Dr. Shrine, it was an acknowledgement that the best things do take time and skill development. And so if you go 30 years out and look back, which is an exciting journey to go on. And if one is just like, eh, not so much, then you're like, great, decision, cutting it off, right? That kind of thing. What did you think of when you saw that that part of the TED talk?
SPEAKER_01I was thinking back to when Mark Shrine was talking about bouncing between different levels. When we go between the why and the how, we get really stuck in the how. And so the Gary Parker rule, imagining 30 years in the future, what really excites us, or opposite of that, what gives us shrugged shoulders, it eliminates the how aspect. Because humans tend to be scared, how do I do this thing? And then I'm not sure if I can do that. It takes that completely out of the equation. Yeah. Imagination experiment. And I think that's really powerful for people when they make a decision in their careers, who they're going to marry. Those big decisions is to remove the fear factor. The fear factor is usually attached to the how and go to the top-level decision about what excites me going back to the values. So that's what I thought about is it's a really good way to help you filter out the how and focus on the what and why.
SPEAKER_00Um I think one of the things that Mel Robin says too is like what's going to be worthy of the struggle. Yes. Right?
SPEAKER_01Yes.
SPEAKER_00Like um, she talks about like vision boards and things like that, like where you'd like to be in the future. It could be certainly like the house you want, but also could be like the type of dream, what you're doing in life. You had pictures of that, and like how you what your career you've chosen, et cetera. Or even like a fitness goal, like the marathon, you have a picture of somebody crossing the finish line. But what she said was that that's great for a vision board. But what's even more powerful, just to make it real, is that in between where you are now and that goal is going to be a lot of struggle and self-doubt, questioning yourself, basically things that happen in your mind that then create emotions in your body, right? And she said, so what's powerful then is to have pictures of somebody running doing their training run in the rain. So somebody like in the rain pouring rain. And if you want a marathon, just have that picture on there, like, oh wait, it is raining. It's not gonna be like I'm not running because it's raining. It's like it's on my vision board, it's part of the struggle. It's a training day, I'm doing it. And it's kind of the same, I would imagine, for any long-term goals like that, you know, is what excites you knowing that there is gonna be uh an up and down journey, and what what can you get excited about going through that struggle for to have it be like a worthy endeavor for you? I think that that end in mind thinking, as you were talking about, is great. Honestly, Ken, it kind of when you're talking about it on a different angle for cutting things off and making courageous decisions, it actually reminded me of you in your choice in at the end of your PhD program. You looked at your life in the future if you pursued that route, and you're like, that is actually not the life I want. That is not how I want to be spending my time. And do you want to just touch upon that? I know we touched upon it in a different podcast episode, but I think it's actually perfect for this conversation.
SPEAKER_01Well, I I would also add it's it was life in the present. It was so painful for me that I was not getting connection, growth, anything like that in becoming a scientist. But yeah, I guess I had pressure to get a master's, and I think if we were to project, as you said, what would that actually give me? That would give me more of the same that was making me unhappy. So it was even worse than shrugged shoulders. It was what's worse than shrugged shoulders? It was crying.
SPEAKER_00Of course.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, there's there's a saying, and and I eventually became a public relations professional. There's no crying in PR, but there's certainly in my future, there's gonna be a lot of crying if had I stayed in the course. So, yes, I think there was that projection that I would still be crying.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, so if we were if you were to use the have used the Gary Parker rule back then, which you kind of almost did, you know, you looked out into the future like 30 years, and you're like, this is not the path that I want. Exactly.
SPEAKER_01Exactly. You're right, you're right. And then I because I could have gotten a master's and using the Gary Parker rule, not even what is that gonna give me? More of the same pain. Yeah. One of my goals is to leave with a takeaway that our audience can implement. And I think that Gary Parker rule is a really good way to make uh decisions with high stakes, like a career. I also just wanted to share one other frame, if I might, and that is what if there's no wrong choice? You know, Kate is talking about the uh Doctor Strange opening up a door, closing a door, and then there's a fear of am I making the right or wrong choice? Right, that's kind of underlying why you're not opening up any doors, is because it's it could be the wrong choice. And the the story I'm gonna give for if there's no wrong choice, we met because of the book Essentialism, and in chapter one, or the prologue, he talks about making a wrong decision. His wife was pregnant, I think it was her second kid, but instead of being with his wife in the hospital, he chose to be on a meeting, and he said that was not the right choice, and so it's like, Ken, wait, but I just thought there was no wrong or right choice. Well, in a later podcast, his wife said, actually, let's look at it a different way. He did not come to be with me when I gave birth, he chose to do a meeting with his company, but that decision upset him so much that it was the catalyst for the book Essentialism. Interesting. Was that the wrong choice?
SPEAKER_00Exactly. Interesting.
SPEAKER_01If that hadn't happened, he wouldn't have written the book, which has allowed all of us to benefit. So I really don't think there's a right or wrong choice, at least a couple other things. We we always are going to do the best we can with the information we had, believe in that. And Brooke Castillo of the Life Coach School has this idea called the 50-50 rule. Life is half good and half bad. And I think that really alleviates a lot of pressure on you. Whatever choice you make, there is gonna be sunshine, the 50% positive, but also, as you mentioned in the Mel Robbins, 50% rain. And so, whatever choice you make, there's gonna be some downsides, and you just work with those downsides and you figure those things out, but you don't have to ever figure out that even if you made a different choice, it's not gonna be 100% all sunshine and rainbows. There's gonna be challenges on that side too. So, those are the three frameworks I tend to share with my clients in terms of making decisions. I think we're in a good place. I'm gonna end up with a Mark Twain quote and then I'm going to turn it over to you to close out. I love this quote from Mark Twain because, in the practice ground, I think the idea here with these frameworks is to practice decision making. That is the skill to, I guess, in your to become aware of how our brain influences us. And then once you're aware, make the decisions that are best for you in terms of your values. If you can overcome any sort of uncertainty and regret in terms of making one choice over another, there is no wrong choice. The choices you make are the ones you make. And good decisions, Mark Twain says, come from experience. Experience comes from making bad decisions. And I just said there's no bad decisions. But the point there is to gain the experience and to make those decisions.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, um, I I really like that because I think it touches on what so many people are trying to do but having a hard time. They know what they need to do or what they want to do, but they can't seem to get themselves to make the decisions to take some steps in those areas, and which is then would allow them to gain experience. So whatever decision they make, I think a lot of times, like you said, they're stuck in analysis, paralysis, or you know, indecision, which means randomness, according to Dr. Mark Shrine, is then making the decision for their lives instead of them actually deciding what they want and going after it. I think the way that I would like to leave it on my end is I feel like there's a lot that we research for this and we haven't we haven't touched on, but maybe it's for other episodes down the line. I think I'd like to leave it like this. This could be definitely yet another podcast episode on decision making. But I think the vision that you and I can have for um the listeners in the future is to, like you mentioned, keep bringing it back to some practical things that they can practice and even just try as they move through their day. And the way that I would like to invite people to practice is to practice breaking things down to the most fundamental level that they can so that they're starting to make decisions from a place of true understanding of how the trajectory goes from there. And the way that I would explain it is this. This is going to sound like it is maybe too simplistic, but I think it I'm hoping it brings context for people from this point forward. If you really think about it, this is how we experience life, right? One day we're born, and then one day we die. And then in between, there's this thing that we call life. In the early stages of our development, the way that we move through life or the way that we proceed through life, what happens to us in life, is um from decisions that are made from other people's minds, basically what we hope they think is best for us during those formative years. There that comes a point, a time in natural development where, you know, we start recognizing, wait, we have the ability to use our minds to make decisions for how we do certain things or proceed through life. Sometimes, though, we don't necessarily recognize that we have those decisions. We're just living our lives, not realizing that part of the choices that we have made, including like maybe, you know, either going straight to college or not, or competing in a sport or not, or doing classical training in piano or not, whatever it is, we recognize that some of those decisions were actually, we did things based on what other people using their minds made for us. And so once we have the awareness that life consists of us using our minds to make choices for ourselves and lives, and then us living with our minds and experiencing how we're experiencing those thoughts in our bodies as we take action or not in our lives, at the end of the day, that's gonna be how we look back at our lives. What did we do? What didn't we do? What did we want to do? What did we not want to do that we did anyway? What experiences did we wish that we would let ourselves have? What did we wish that we let ourselves go for? Those are going to be things that we call regrets, right? And when you really think about what a regret is, is at the end of the day, a regret is going to be probably something related to, I wish I had not gotten in my head about something. I wish I had used my own mind to overcome my own emotional resistance or whatever, and let myself have the experience of that thing. If we know that that's going to be something that will occur in our lifetime, regrets that we may have, that's wonderful information to allow ourselves to kind of have that exercise now. Because then we will know that the only reason we would regret that is if we didn't use our minds to ask ourselves what we really want, what emotions are we willing to experience to go through that, and ask ourselves, are we willing to take the actions to get there? In that case, the decisions and the way that we experience our life really come down to how well we manage and understand our mind and how well we can overcome and be with the emotions in our body. The way that we manage our mind and the way that we manage the emotions in our body and not get taken out by either will allow us to make decisions on actions that we actually get to take versus inaction due to paralysis or fear. And if we can think about decisions in that way, all of a sudden life opens up. So wherever you are at right now, listener, with what you envision for your life or what you're imagining might be possible for you in life, if you can think about that, there's only two areas that you really need to get skilled at in understanding and knowing that you have potential to expand that could open up trajectories for you. And that would be do you know the limits of your present mind? And do you know that you can expand beyond those limits? Do you know the limits of your present body? Are you chronically stressed? Nervous system activation due to fear, basically a fear response. If you know the limits of your body and you know that's keeping you from moving forward and taking action on things that you'd like, then you have a great starting point for even decisions that you start making now. Wait, I would like to learn more about how I can use my mind to think thoughts that help me calm my body. And then from there, new decisions and possibilities open up because now I see myself differently and the possibilities in life differently. And I guess that's where I would like to maybe leave it because those are things that we can practice. And to go to confidence coaching for you, Ken, I am sure that's what you're helping your clients with, is being able to see and reframe things in ways that shift the way that they see their potential and their future in life.
SPEAKER_01Well, I don't regret doing this podcast with you, Carrie. I think that was very well put because you know it reminds me what Shirzat Shameen says success is equal to potential times mindset. We all have different potential. That's not something we can control. Our mindset for sure is something we can control. And I think it's been a really good conversation with you. And I can't wait till our next conversation.
SPEAKER_00Um you know what, Ken? Can I add just one more thing? There is this great song by AJR. If you go to Spotify, I think it's called like 100 bad days. And this is perfect for what you're saying. It's like 100 bad days make you interesting at parties because now you have a hundred stories you can tell about the different things that you went through to get to the thing that you wanted.
SPEAKER_01So uh it's I need a lot of more bad stories when it comes to regrets and you take courageous action.
SPEAKER_00Oh my god, you're gonna have so many stories that are fun to tell.
SPEAKER_01You're gonna have so many stories. I need more stories, Carrie.
SPEAKER_00They're fun to tell on the flip side, but we gotta go through them in order to be able to tell them at the dinner party. But then they'll be like, Yes, it's totally worth it. Let me tell you all the 100 things that I did. So, all right, Ken, well, thank you so much for agreeing to collaborate with me on the podcast and for going through all the back and forth, try to get this one up and running. I am so excited to continue collaborating with you. And as we grow together as podcasters, trying to figure out actionable things and useful things for our listeners that maybe help them in their lives. I'm just so glad that you're on this journey with me.
SPEAKER_01Ditto.
SPEAKER_00Ditto. All right, I'll talk to you later.