907: Building Unwavering Confidence with Paul Epstein

Pete Mockaitis
Paul, welcome to How to be Awesome at Your Job.

Paul Epstein
Yeah, Pete, fired up to be here.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, me, too. I’m excited to get into some of the wisdom of your book, Better Decisions Faster: Unshakable Confidence When You Need It Most. But, first, I think we need to hear a fun story involving you and a famous athlete. How would you kick us off?

Paul Epstein
Ah, me and a famous athlete. Actually, you know what, let me give this a little spin, but if you want to talk athlete, let’s keep it in the NFL. Let’s go to one of the more powerful and influential people in the entire sports business, none other than the NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell. So, can I dive down this story of me and Roger?

Pete Mockaitis
Take it away.

Paul Epstein
Okay, good. All right. So, I’m in the NFL League office, 345 Park Ave. I’m in New York, running a national sales campaign for Super Bowl 48, which was over a handful of years ago, and it was a mega, mega Super Bowl. It was the biggest ever because it was the first time that it was in New York. So, you had these massive expectations, massive pressures, massive everything, and my boss, who’s the head of revenue for the NFL, he always served as kind of the buffer. It’s like NFL Commission, Roger’s down the hall, and Paul, “I got this.”

So, whenever Roger was close, my boss’ name is Brian, he now runs business for the LA Olympics, wonderful, wonderful guy, but he always kind of serves as that buffer. So, anyways, one day Brian is not around, he’s in a meeting. Commish walks down the hall, and he sees this pinboard that has all of the inventory for the Super Bowl mapped out, and there’s three colors of pins – green, yellow, and red. So, green is sold, yellow is in conversation with a prospect, and red is no action.

Well, this is really early in the campaign, we’re in like month two out of ten, so let’s just say the board had a lot of red pins. So, Commish comes over, and he says, “Tell me about the board.” And I’m like, “Oh, my gosh, oh, my gosh, where the hell is Brian when I need him?” But needless to say, it was just me and the Commish. And I said, “All right. Roger, yes, green is sold, yellow is in conversations,” so far so true, and I’m like, “Oh, my gosh, oh, my gosh, oh, my gosh, I can’t practically reveal what the red is.”

I’m like, “Red is red hot prospect.” And he made eye contact, and he says, “Well, looks like we’ve got a pretty hot market,” and went off. And so, my career was saved. Thankfully, I’m around to tell this story with a smile on my face, but you want to talk about thinking on your feet in a high-stakes situation. You talk about unshakeable confidence when you need it most, well, let’s just say I wish I had a book like Better Decisions Faster before that moment because I was just kind of winging it on impulse, but there you go.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. And is it your perception that had you say, “Oh, well, Roger, those are the seats that are unsold, and no action have yet been taken,” that he would lose it?

Paul Epstein
Yes.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay.

Paul Epstein
Yeah, look, NFL, it’s a high-pressure, people get what they want. There’s no mistake that it’s one of the more powerful businesses in the world, and I loved every moment of it, but, yeah, I’m just happy that I didn’t quite have to reveal what the reds truly were.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. Well, so let’s talk about Better Decisions Faster. Any particularly surprising or counterintuitive   discoveries you made about decision-making and confidence when researching and putting this together?

Paul Epstein
Yeah, it was massive. Well, there’s a huge statistic that just blew me away. To this day, it’s almost hard for me to even fathom, even though I fact-checked it and we do the research on the research on the research. You really make sure that everything checks out, and here is the stat. The average adult makes 35,000 decisions in a day. So, think about that.

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah, I’ve heard something like that.

Paul Epstein
If you’re listening to this right now, 35,000 decisions, which is absolutely, it’s part mind-blowing, it’s part mind-numbing, I don’t even know which one it is, but that’s a lot. And so, of course, I think a lot of them are going to be on autopilot – turn left in the driveway, brush your teeth – but then there’s those critical few that can really make or break quality of life, quality of business, quality of career, quality of health, quality of relationships.

So, I wrote the book more for those. I call them MVDs, so the sports metaphor. MVP is the most valuable player. I wrote it for our most valuable decisions but still, to know that we have the expectation and the weight of 35,000 of anything in a day, I don’t know about you, but that kind of scared the crap out of me the first time I heard it. And, thankfully, I figured, “Hey, might as well write a playbook on how we can navigate and conquer those decisions with more confidence.”

Pete Mockaitis
Absolutely. And, Paul, I love that you were shaken and wanted to triple-check what is up with this huge number. So, let’s get your hot take. So, if we’re awake for, like, a thousand-ish minutes in a day, and there’s 35,000 decisions, we’re talking about 35 decisions a minute, or a decision every one or two seconds. So, I’m imagining the weight or gravity of most of these decisions might be along the lines of, “Should I have another sip of water?”

Paul Epstein
Oh, no, you’re so right.

Pete Mockaitis
“And I will.”

Paul Epstein
Like, “Should I look this person in the eye?” “Oh, hey, I got to scratch the itch.” Like, whatever it is. Yeah, most of them are kind of in this autopilot inconsequential, but, still, that’s kind of a crazy thing. It’s almost like taking a breath. Is that a decision? Like, you think about kind of those moment-to-moment things.

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah, and you’re right. That would be fun just because I am similarly curious in such a way. I guess that there are some things that, like taking a breath, I think that’s right on the border because it can be automatic or not, versus your heart beating, it just does, decided. Heart beat now or heart beat faster or slower.

Well, before we get into the particulars of how we make these most valuable decisions most excellently, could you share with us a story of someone who started kind of unconfident and indecisive, and then did some things to make the leap, the transformation to confident and decisive?

Paul Epstein
Yeah, so part of this is really, I’ll look in the mirror when I tell you this story. This was what turns out to be this Jerry Maguire leap from sports, and I’ll tell you that I had a coaching conversation along the way that, fundamentally, changed my life. Her name is Sue Ann, and I’ll share this story of Sue Ann in a second, but Sue Ann gave me this gift of unshakeable confidence when I needed it most.

Because before that, and maybe this resonates with everyone listening in, my life, I could describe in two chapters: pre-confidence and post-confidence. And by pre-confidence, I don’t mean that I didn’t have confidence but it was inconsistent at best. I had moments where I did show up with unshakeable confidence, but I had others where I played pretty small.

And that was a byproduct of stress, or anxiety, or maybe I wasn’t happy or fulfilled, or whatever the case was, but it was just this weight of decision fatigue, decision overwhelm, and then you get paralyzed, and then you make the worst decision of them all, which is indecision. So, I suffered just like the majority of us. I think we all suffer from those things.

Now, a decade later, you write a playbook on it, and that’s kind of the happy ending of this story, and it’s going to be a lifelong journey. But I’ll tell you the story where prior, and I think this connects with a lot of folks out there, the way that we’re raised, and I don’t just mean by parents, I mean more in society, especially here in the US, it’s so success-driven, it’s so goals and metrics and outcomes, and we chase these things, and, “Where did you go to school?” and “What’s the first company you worked for?” and “What does the resume look like?” “What does your LinkedIn profile look like?” and it’s all this external stuff.

And when you’re in the NFL and NBA, and you’re achieving all these things, and you’re supposedly getting all the things that matter in life, but then you don’t always feel like you’re winning on the inside. So, you’re winning on the outside but not winning on the inside. And what’s that gap about? And I would’ve told you that my entire career, I was going to hang out in the sports industry because it was a total dream come true. It was a kid in the candy store type of experience.

But then when I realized that you consistently reach these peaks, and these summits, and these places that are supposed to feel so amazing, and sometimes they do, but then it expires really quick. Like, within a day or two you kind of have this crash because I think there’s this reality check of, “Is this it?” Like, I spent months or years or the better part of the decade to get to this summit and this peak, and then, poof, it’s gone in like a day or two.

And that’s where I found myself, I’m heading up revenue for the San Francisco 49ers, and I go to this retreat where I started to tap into my why, and my values, a lot of personal discovery work. I started to figure out who I am. But then I was this crazy guy in the retreat that wasn’t happy with leaving those things as a distant north star. So, I got obsessed with, “How do I apply them on Monday morning? How do I connect these things that feel like a distant north star, like your why and values? How do I connect them to my decisions, to my actions, to the way I show up?”

And that process is what leads me to make big decisions, like doing things I said I would never do, “I’m never going to go back to school.” Well, growth mindset, growth is one of my core values, so I go back to school. I meet this wonderful woman named Sue Ann, my executive coach, first time I ever had an executive coach. And, Pete, what was really cool about this is this was the first time in my entire life, professionally speaking, that I felt comfortable going there, meaning, like, 100 out of 100, raw truth, vulnerability, authenticity.

Because before Sue Ann, I had mentors in the sports industry. The problem was they probably knew my boss better than they knew me. So, put yourself in this scenario if you’re listening in here. Have you ever been asked, “How’s it going? How’s it going?” and your default answer is, “Great. Great” even if you’re not great?

Pete Mockaitis
Sure.

Paul Epstein
And I think a lot of us have been there where you’re like, “Yeah, yeah, yeah, like it’s totally great.” And you say that because you don’t want to reveal if you’re 60% good, you don’t want to talk about the 40%, or you don’t know how this person is going to react, you don’t know if a negative domino follows. So, that was my mindset for a lot of my career as I’m growing and climbing and succeeding and winning on the outside. But then I talked to Sue Ann, and this was the conversation that changed my life.

She said, “Paul, I know what you do. You’re head of sales for an NFL team. What do you love about it? What do you hate about it? And what do you tolerate?” So, love, hate, tolerate. Great questions for all of us to evaluate – love, hate, tolerate. And I answered all three, and then she said, “Go deeper on the love bucket.” I’m like, “Okay, Sue Ann. Well, I love the people side of business, I love the culture side, I love being a coach just like you.”

And she said, “Awesome. On a good day, what percentage of your time do you do that?” So, now I’m slouching down in my chair, kind of the embarrassed at the answers, so I plopped it up a little bit. I said, “Sue Ann, 20%.” The truth is probably five or ten, but I’m like, “Sue Ann, 20%.” “All right. Paul, I wave a wand, you become your boss tomorrow. Does that number 20% go up, down, or sideways?”

And I thought about my boss, they were almost all strategy and nothing coaching people, so I said, “You know, Sue Ann, it’d probably go down.” And this was it, Pete. This was the question she asked, “So, what are you after?” Such a simple question but it has such profound meaning because I hadn’t asked myself that question in a very long time. I was just busy climbing, and winning, and succeeding what I thought was growing, but I forgot what I was after. And then she made me realize I don’t even want what’s next. I’m climbing this ladder, and I don’t even want what’s next.

So, to put this all together, when you want to talk about decision-making, when you want to talk about playing from a place of confidence, here’s why she gave me the gift of confidence, here’s how it went down. She cemented this belief that if I can connect my values to my decisions and actions, then I will become the most confident version of myself, beaming with strength and authenticity and purpose. So, the next decision I made after I talked to her, I asked myself, “What’s my strongest core value?” And its impact.

And I define impact as making a difference and leaving people in places better than I found them. That’s it. So, I then go back to the drawing board, and I asked myself, “Can I create more impact inside of the walls of the sports industry or beyond the walls?” And that, Pete, was the question that leads to the moment, and the aha, and eventual transformation, and eventual Jerry Macguire leap. That’s the moment I knew I was going to leave sports after 15 years of thinking that everything was perfect, and Sue Ann shining a light on this gap that I had, why I was showing up as a work Paul and a personal Paul.

And, really, you want to talk about making better decisions faster and being confident, I think that it is simply the consistency by which we act on our values, and that’s the backstory of how I came upon that transformation. And ever since then, I’ve been coaching others, and I implement it in my speaking, in my training, in my consulting, all of that, but that’s how decision-making became my competitive advantage.

Pete Mockaitis
That makes a lot of sense in terms of when you’re connected with the values, and those are guiding your decisions, you’re not wishy-washy waffly, like, “Hey, sorry to bother you. I hope this isn’t too inconvenient but I was…” as opposed to, like, “Yeah, this is just sort of how it is, and I believe that in my inner core that this is what is optimal, what needs to happen, what is good, proper, right, and just. And, thus, I’m going to feel like I can go forth and march on that.”

So, Paul, I’m imagining the hard part is getting that crystal clarity on “What are your values? And how can those connect to the decision or action that’s right in front of you in the next moment, the next hour?” So, any pro tips on how you illuminate these things?

Paul Epstein
Yup. So, I’ve got an old-school and a new-school way, and I’ll give you the fast pass because here we are in a podcast, so I want to give folks something they can do immediately. So, I’m talking to everybody out there. To find a value, the old-school way is, hey, you bring in a guy like me, and you go through some life-reflection exercises, and we unpack the peaks and the valleys, and we look for themes. And then those themes become your values. That takes time and energy and process. Let me give you the fast-pass way, and this works ten out of ten times. It’s just not as deep of a process.

You can, literally, Google top core values personally. And if you look at a list of 50 or 100, ask yourself, “Which one jumps off the page? Which one resonates?” I love this perspective. The Latin definition of inspire, which your value should inspire you, the Latin definition of inspire is to breathe life into. When you look at a list of 20, 50, 100 words, which one breathes life into you? And then just pick that value.

And then here’s the process that you do on the backend. So, now let’s say you lock in. Like, my core five: growth, belief, impact, courage, authenticity. Those are my five. Everyone has their own. There’s no better/worse, there’s no right/wrong. It’s just you do you. But here’s where we go. There’s a journaling exercise that I introduce to all of my coaching clients, and it works ten out of ten times if you do the work. And here is the process.

Now that you picked your value, once a week, this takes two minutes, so busyness cannot be an excuse, we all have two minutes in a week. We sit down, and we say, “For the week ahead, I will live my value of blank by blank.” The first blank is the value you chose. The second blank is an action, a single action that you connect to that value. So, I’ll give you two examples.

Let’s say that you choose the value of joy. Awesome. Okay. So, sit down, you journal, “For the week ahead, I will live my value of joy by cooking my favorite meal.” Cool. Super simple, super accessible, very easy, like joy. Hey, for me, I’m cooking bacon, I’m a happy camper. All good. That would be me. What is your favorite meal that brings you joy? That’s your one action.

Okay, let’s pivot. Instead of joy, what if your core value is courage? So, we’re raising the stakes. We’re getting a little feistier here. All right, journal, “For the week ahead, I will live my value of courage by having that challenging conversation that I’ve been putting off.” You’re not having that conversation because Paul said. You’re having that conversation because courage is a core value. So, those are just two quick-hit examples.

And then the last piece that I’ll say is, if that was your first journaling sit down, the reason why this works, and the reason why New Year’s resolutions don’t is a couple of things that are pitfalls that I’m about to coach through. So, the reason New Year’s resolutions don’t work, a couple things. One is we lack process and system. So, if we had a journaling exercise, or some sort of process and system, we would be much better at achieving our New Year’s resolutions.

The other reason why a lot of New Year’s resolutions, for myself included, don’t work is because we don’t stick with them long enough. We think we’re going to do something once or twice, and we’re like, “Oh, voila.” That’s just not how we’re wired. So, if you study habit formation, what the average research will tell you is that habit formation takes between three and four weeks. So, if you have a consistent process or system, and you do it for, in this case, I’m going to advise, do it for four weeks so you pass the threshold of habit formation, so you know where I’m going with this.

Do this journaling exercise four consecutive weeks. Two minutes a week, less than 10 minutes in a month, you can develop muscle memory, and you can internalize for four journaling sit-downs, do joy. For four journaling sit-downs, do courage. Do whatever your core value is. And here’s the beauty, and I want to share a gift with everyone listening in as well, if you were to go to my website, PaulEpsteinSpeaks.com, and take the confidence quiz, which, in less than five minutes, it gives you a confidence score of one to 100.

In the resource that you’ll be emailed after, I have a template for this values journal, so it’s just a free gift from me to everybody listening in because I believe, like this is something I implement with pro athletes, with Olympians, with high-growth founders, with Fortune 100 CEOs. It works ten out of ten times for those that do it for four consecutive weeks. So, that’s the process.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Very cool. And I dug how, when you mentioned impact, you had a particular Paul-definition of it, “This is what I mean by impact.” Likewise, could you give us some examples of courage or joy? And do you recommend that in the process of you find the value that breathes life into you, and then you expand upon it with some specific definitional verbiage?

Paul Epstein
Yeah, I love where you’re bringing this, Pete. So, when I was introduced to this back in 2016 when I had that life-changing retreat, the process that was shared with me, I did not have that journaling exercise as teed up as the way I just described it. But what the facilitator did tell me to do, and I followed it to a tee, they said, “Screw what the Webster Dictionary thinks. What’s your definition of your core values?”

And so, I was like, “Okay, cool. Like, that’s an interesting exercise. Let me totally go down this rabbit hole.” So, I’ll give you my five, and I’ll give you my five quick definitions, this is all muscle memory at this point. So, growth was my first value. Growth is the mindset that I’ll attack each day with. That’s it. That’s Paul’s definition.

Then I had courage. You mentioned courage a few moments ago. Courage is standing tallest when fear and risks are highest. That’s my definition. I already talked about impact. Making a difference. Leaving people in places better than you found them. Let’s go authenticity. This was an interesting one. Never sell out because I have and it sucked, and I’ll never do it again.

So, you could see how you can kind of dance with these. I don’t really care what the dictionary says. I hit a rock-bottom moment professionally a year or two before this when I went against my authenticity, and it served the company well but it didn’t serve me well, and my heart and all of these things. So, that pain point turned out to trigger my definition of one of my core values.

So, those are just some quick hits on how you can look at a word, and you should intentionally not look up what Google says, or what Webster says. You shouldn’t do it. What does it mean to you? Because if you struggle to find a unique definition, then it might not be a core value.

Pete Mockaitis
And when you talk about sort of the emotional resonance, it breathes life into, I imagine that can have different subtleties or flavors or nuances. Sometimes the ‘breathe life into’ feels like, “Yes, that’s awesome.” And other times it’s like, “Ahh, yes,” there’s a deep peace associated with it. And so, can you give us a few of the different styles of being inspired by the stuff?

Paul Epstein
Yeah, I love this so much. Yeah, let me pick on one of my core values, which is courage. And this is not going to be the, “Rah, take the hill and let’s go conquer.” Like, a lot of people would think of courage or bravery as this very much like we’re going to battle. And, for me, it’s not about that at all. I actually, emotionally, I tie it back to one of the worst days of my life, which is I lost my hero, my dad, at 19 years old, and I’m an only child.

And when I went home after I got that phone call that nobody wants to get, and I saw my mom, and she’s crying on the floor, and as we hugged, and I still feel the tears on my shoulder, and I saw how she showed up that day as a parent, as a concealer, as a consoler, I should say, as a healer, then as a planner, and then all these things, she breathed courage into me, and it never left.

I am convinced that courage would not be a core value had I not been through that horrible experience, had I not lost my hero, had I not seen how my parent grew into a partner, how my mom turned into a best friend. Like, it was this pain, this tragedy, that really helped color it for me. So, yeah, Pete, I agree, man. I don’t think of inspire purely as the blue skies.

One of my buddies, he has a great way of thinking about the pain that you’ve experienced in life can be tied to your purpose once you heal. So, pain can tie to purpose once you heal, and I think that quick story I just shared is an example of that.

Pete Mockaitis
That’s powerful. Thank you. I also lost my father as a teenager, and, yeah, it is tough and things sink in in that context, for sure. Well, thank you. I appreciate the depth and the heart here when talking about values and making it real. So, now, I guess I want to shift gears a little bit in terms of, let’s say you’ve done a lot of that good, reflective, soul-searching work, whether you’re Googling a list of values, and journaling, or going full bore with some assessments and some consultant coaches.

Now, I’m curious about in the heat of the moment when you’re feeling nervous, some pressure right then and there, how do you recommend we go about keeping cool and finding that unshakeable confidence right in those moments?

Paul Epstein
This is, literally, the entire playbook and the application that’s inside of the covers of Better Decisions Faster. So, I’ll give you the 60-second masterclass here. How we make better decisions faster, the application, I call it the head-heart-hands equation. So, the equation is head plus heart equals hands. To define each: head is your mindset, heart is your authenticity, and hands are action.

So, with head plus heart equals hands, another way to think about this is when deciding whether to use your hands, whether to take action, there’s two checkpoints: head and heart. The questions are, head. “Do I think it’s a good idea?” Heart. “Do I feel it’s a good idea?” And just like when you and I, when we’re driving up to an intersection, we know exactly what to do. Green is go, red is stop, yellow is assess. And that’s exactly how the head-heart-hands equation works.

So, when your head and your heart are both on board, it is a green freaking light. Ten out of ten times, go. Take action. Your head and your heart are ignited toward that action. Now, when there’s no head and no heart, that’s a red light. And so, we don’t want to run red lights. We now have the awareness and the consciousness to not run them. No head, no heart. When one of the two, either head or heart, is on board, that’s a yellow light.

So, if you ask me in simple terms, why write a book like Better Decisions Faster? Why apply the head-heart-hands equation? It’s because when the fear, and the stress, and the anxiety, and the pressures of day-to-day life, which are real, when they strike, we need a faster way to understand where we are with that decision in that moment.

So, while green, yellow, and red, it doesn’t get you to the finish line, the outcome, after the action within seconds but the equation does. So, now as I’m sometimes feeling stuck, or lost, or paralyzed at this fork in the road, I can now apply the head-heart-hands equation, and, boom, like the snap of fingers, I do a head check, I do a heart check, and almost instantly, I know, “Is this is a green? Is it a yellow? Is it a red?”

So, I write a book to attract more greens into our life. I write the book to raise awareness to stop running reds. And I write the book because yellow is the messy middle, and we need to have a playbook for how to navigate and conquer that messy middle. That’s Better Decisions Faster.

Pete Mockaitis
I hear you. That’s cool in terms of so we can eliminate a lot of second guessing in terms of the clear reds, clear greens. Like, head yes, heart yes, like, “Hey, that seems like a good idea, a good price. Heart, yeah, I really freaking want it, so, all right, let’s get it. There we go. I want to buy that thing,” or, “I want to take that course or do whatever.”

So, yeah, yellow is, indeed, the messy middle because I think a lot of times, it’s like, “Well, that sort of seems like a good idea but I’m not really sure. I’ve never done anything like this.” Heart. “I’m pretty excited about it but also kind of worried, like, this might turn out really bad.” So, when we’re in that messy middle, what do we do next?

Paul Epstein
It’s so funny, Pete. As soon as you started describing, in this case, greens and reds, I was like, “Oh, my gosh, I hope he goes to the yellow,” because that really is the meat of the conversation. Now, that everybody heard this, hey, head and heart on board, greens. No head, no heart, reds. You don’t need a book for that. Like, that’s just a matter of being aware and doing the head check and heart check, and you’re good to go. Like, you can do the green and red thing.

Here’s the interesting part about yellows. Not all yellows are created equal. I actually have a very different recommendation for when only the head is on board versus when only the heart is on board, and I actually believe that one of the two is more deadly than a red, so let’s unpack that. Pete, I’ll ask you this question. This is a good segue into it. If I asked you, Pete, which one is more likely to be able to change over the weeks, over the months, over the years? Do you think your head can change or your heart changes?

Pete Mockaitis
I think the head changes faster, easier. It’s like, “Oh, here’s a new fact I didn’t know. Cool.”

Paul Epstein
Yup, exactly. Yeah, and I think most people would agree and subscribe to that. So, you’re not going to wake up with a new heart tomorrow. Your heart is probably not going to change over the weeks, months, maybe years. But even then, there’s just no guarantee, versus a head block, sometimes there’s a self-limiting belief that we need to untangle, sometimes it’s coached, sometimes it’s our partner, sometimes it’s a therapy, sometimes it’s like…whatever it is, there’s ways to untangle pollution in our mindset. No doubt about it. Like, I am a firm, firm believer in that.

So, if we’re not going to wake up with a new heart, the bad yellow, the hard yellow, the one that can be more deadly than red is when only our head is on board because our heart is never going to join for the party. So, that’s a yellow light that’s never going to be a green. Think about that. A yellow that’s never going to be a green.

At least with a red, it’s done. You decide to stop doing it or not do it, but this bad yellow, it lingers. And so, a quick example, and this could apply to a relationship as well. I’ll use a professional example right now, but this applies to any person. All right, work context. I used to lead really big sales enterprises and sales teams. And the person that often was the top performer or top producer, so they sold a lot of widgets.

Your head, of course, loves the production, loves the performance. It made you look good to your boss. It helped you achieve your goals. So, your head said, “Keep them.” But let’s say they were a pain in the you-know-what, bad in the locker room, sometimes toxic, so your head might’ve said, “Keep them,” but your heart knew that they weren’t a keeper. Think about all these people that we might be surrounded by, that we have a head reason for them to stick around, but our heart knows that they’re not a long-term play.

And so, if you think about it from that lens, you’re like, “Man, now, all of a sudden, as a sales leader, my culture, three, four years here, it’s all wonky and screwed up. And now I’ve got engagement problems, and, oh, I’m losing some of my better people. So, now I’ve got retention problems. And maybe the marketplace heard a little bit about my culture, so I’ve got recruiting problems. I don’t have an engagement or recruiting or a retention problem. I had a yellow light problem. I hung onto the wrong yellow lights.” And that yellow light can be more deadly than a red.

So, my advice there, as difficult as it is, if your heart is never going to join for the party, short term, sure, you could survive a couple of these bad yellows, but, long term, you’re going to bleed out. So, the head-heart-hands equation gets you to quickly identify, like, “Dang, this is not a long-term play. Yeah, I need the paycheck but this job is soul-sucking to me.” That would be another example. I’m not telling you to bounce tomorrow. We have families. Be responsible. But if you know that’s never going to be a green, then we’ve got to make some decisions here.

And that decision, you might not pull a job trigger for 12 more months, but are you doing the work, nights and weekends? Are you doing the research? Are you doing the informational coffee meetings? Are you taking those positive steps to create potential future green lights because this yellow is never going to be a green?

And in the flip, and I won’t be as long with this one, the flip is a beautiful yellow. When your heart is on board because it’s so rare that your heart is a, “Hell, yes” for something, that yellow, you want to stay in the fight. You want to untangle whatever cobwebs or pollution you got from the neck up because, I’m telling you right now, there are so few opportunities in life that your heart is a “Hell, yes” so we don’t want to screw those up. We don’t want to waste those.

We got to figure out how to potentially transform that good yellow of the heart being on board, and if our head can eventually join for the party, that yellow to green transformation is as big of a payoff as you could ever imagine.

Pete Mockaitis
That’s beautiful and thought-provoking. Thank you. It’s really juicy. My thoughts are jumping all over in so many places.

Paul Epstein
Yeah, yellow is juicy, my friend. Yellow is very juicy.

Pete Mockaitis
I think sometimes, call it intuition, but you know your head or your heart isn’t on board, or is on board, but you don’t even know why. To what extent is that important? And how do we solve for that?

Paul Epstein
So, this is the classic gut or impulse, which, by the way, off-camera, what I’m asked all the time by a lot of folks is, “Okay, Paul, cool. I love this. All right, head, heart, hands, fully understand it. I’m going to apply it. Where does the gut fall into this?” Like, I get asked that all the time, and it’s a great question. So, my piece here is when you think about the origin of your gut, the origin of your impulse, that’s kind of you without much reaction time, just saying, “This is naturally how I’m feeling. Like, my gut feel.”

You often hear that, “My gut feel.” Okay, head is a thinking, heart is a feel game, hands are a do game. And so, while they’re not exactly alike, if I had to connect the dots, your gut and your impulse is closest to your heart.

Pete Mockaitis
True.

Paul Epstein
So, a big part of me writing Better Decisions Faster and being around these 12 green lights, which are 12 values, which I shared earlier, when we have our values in action, those are when we’re most confident. And the more confidence we have, then we can make better decisions faster. This is all one connected conversation but I share all these with you because I think we live in a world where we go, go, go, and we do, do, do. I don’t really need to convince folks to think more or to do more.

Now, are we thinking in the right way? That’s a fair conversation. Are we doing all the right things? That’s a fair conversation. But we think so much and we do so much. I think the gap in the world is the heart. And to no fault of anybody’s, I just think it’s so complex, and fast-paced, and up-tempo, and the pressure, and the stress, and the anxiety, sometimes we’re not checking in with our heart.

But when we do, and that’s the beauty of this head-plus-heart-equals-hands equation, Pete, because, like, let me just ask you, Pete, a quick question. If you had to choose a side, are you hardwired, as your default setting, more logic or emotion?

Pete Mockaitis
It’s funny that you asked. We’ll say more logic, although it’s close.

Paul Epstein
Okay, cool. Yeah, and, again, I don’t care if it’s a 51/49 but the only answer you cannot give is 50/50. So, let’s say you were to lean towards the logic. I’m quite the opposite, so I am hardwired to just be emotional. And so, here’s the beauty. It’s not head or heart equals hands. It’s not head minus heart. It’s head plus heart.

So, what that tells me is if Pete is on one side, if he leans logic, and if Paul leans emotion, well, this equation is going to force Pete to check in with his emotion. This equation is going to force Paul to check in with his logic. It’s head plus heart. So, it un-exposes our blind spots. I might not always do the head check, that’s just not how I’m always wired but now this process forces me to.

And, on the flipside, Pete, whether you’re a 51/49, or whether you’re a 90/10 on the logic side, either way it works. Now you’re going to have to do the heart check, and you’re going to have to make sure that, emotionally, you’re feeling it as well. So, that’s the beauty. It can take two opposite folks that are wired in very different ways, and it takes us through the same funnel, the same process. That’s why I’m such a massive believer in it because it’s not about how you’re wired. It is literally about getting to the best decision possible in a faster amount of time.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. Beautiful. Thanks, Paul. Anything else you want to make sure to mention before we shift gears and hear about some of your favorite things?

Paul Epstein
No, no, we’re good to go, man.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. Now, could you share with us a favorite quote, something you find inspiring?

Paul Epstein
Based on what changed my life, from Mark Twain, “The two most important days of your life are the day you were born and the day you find out why.”

Pete Mockaitis
All right. And a favorite study or experiment or bit of research?

Paul Epstein
Yeah, here’s one. This is a real-life example from one of my first sports jobs. It was a survey. I think this is very, very applicable for a lot of us. So, the question was, “One day, do you want to be the team president?” There were two sample sizes. Two groups of folks. One was frontlines and entry-level workers, the next was vice presidents.

And here’s what the study showed. Practically, 100% of entry-level folks wanted to be the team president. Of course, right, first job in sports. Of course, I want to be at the top.

The number was drastically different for the vice presidents. It dipped just below 50%. So, think about that. When you’re just starting, 100% want to get to the top of the mountain of an org chart. But 50%, once you’ve climbed five rungs up the ladder, and now you understand what it means to be at the top.

And I just think it’s a beautiful insight that, over time, different things matter, and you evolve, and you change, and you start to appreciate not just winning the outside game but also what’s the inside game that makes you happy and fulfilled, and what’s the lifestyle you want to build and have. And so, I think that’s a really cool survey that the meaning of that survey has carried my spirit ever since.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. And a favorite book?

Paul Epstein
Well, aside from The Power of Playing Offense and Better Decisions Faster, of course, I will tell you, man, there are so many, there are so many, but I’ll tell you the book that’s made the most impactful…that’s had the most impact on my life recently, Essentialism by Greg McKeown. I read it last December, I started to apply it immediately, and by any measure or metric that is important to me, by mid-April, I had already surpassed all the things I was measuring from the year before, and it’s because I truly locked in on what’s essential. And I have Greg McKeown to thank for that.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. And a favorite tool, something you use to be awesome at your job?

Paul Epstein
A microphone. But a microphone as a metaphor. I happen to use it physically as a speaker. I believe that everybody in the world deserves to have a voice. So, when I see a microphone, or speak into a microphone, I believe that everybody should feel like they deserve a seat at the table with a microphone.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. And a favorite habit, something you do that helps you be awesome at your job?

Paul Epstein
Fill my life with green lights. No joke, the head-heart-hands equation has fundamentally changed my life. I feel privileged and honored and humbled to be able to share it with the world. But when you get your head and your heart on board, and it tells you it’s a green light, that’s a life that I believe in, and that’s a life worth living.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. And is there a key nugget you share that really seems to connect and resonate with folks, and they quote it back to you often?

Paul Epstein
“Actions over outcomes.” “Actions over outcomes” is one. Another one that’s really resonating, “Standards over goals.” That might actually be the more impactful one. “Standards over goals.” The whole world tells you to care about goals. I believe that standards are more closely aligned with who you are at your core, and things that are meaningful and that matter to you. So, I’m a big subscriber of standards over goals.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. And if folks want to learn more or get in touch, where would you point them?

Paul Epstein
PaulEpsteinSpeaks.com, that’s the treasure trove, all things speaking, the confidence quiz gets you to one to a hundred within five minutes. Everything that you need is all at PaulEpsteinSpeaks.com.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. And do you have a final challenge or call to action for folks looking to be awesome at their jobs?

Paul Epstein
Use the head-heart-hands equation. I’m just going to be very blunt about this. You don’t know what the impact of your work is until people actually start to use it. So, I can write a book all day long, and if nobody ever used it, there’s no impact. What I have seen in the earliest chapter of launching “Better Decisions Faster,” a lot of people bought it because of their work. They said, “Well, I want to make better decisions in work.”

But almost every single DM that I’m getting on social, almost every text message, almost every private email, some of them are work-related, 70% are not, “You’ve helped me make better decisions in my relationship, in my health, as a parent, how I manage my time, how I set my priorities.” It’s just been a really cool holistic life play. And I believe that that’s what the head-heart-hands equation can do for everybody listening in.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. Paul, this has been a treat. Thank you. I wish you much luck and fun and many great green lights.

Paul Epstein
Yeah, likewise, buddy.