Aug. 4, 2026

The Jeremy Hanson Podcast Choices finish_mixdown

Show Notes
Transcript

Life almost never asks you to choose between something obviously right and something obviously wrong. The decisions that actually shape a business, a marriage, a bank account, and a legacy are the ones where both doors cost you something you don't want to give up. In this solo episode, Jeremy Hanson opens at a kitchen table at four-thirty in the morning with a legal pad and two columns drawn down the middle, and both columns bad, and builds out a complete framework for making hard decisions when none of the options look good.Jeremy starts with the reframe that changes everything: there are no perfect decisions, only prices you're willing to pay. Growing a business costs time. Not growing it costs opportunity. Financial discipline costs today's comfort. Skipping it costs tomorrow's freedom. The work is never finding the option with no bill attached. The work is deciding which bill you can live with, and then writing that cost down in specific language instead of vague language, because vague costs are terrifying and specific costs are just math.From there he takes on the most expensive lie in business: I don't have a choice. Most of the time that sentence isn't true. You have choices. You just don't like the options. Waiting is a choice. Ignoring a problem is a choice. Avoiding a conflict is a choice. And when you refuse to decide, life decides for you, and life is a worse decision-maker than you are because it doesn't know your values, your family, or the thing you were trying to build.Chapter four delivers the single most useful piece of advice Jeremy has ever been handed, and the one he has used more than almost anything else he's been told. If you don't have a good option, you do the next best thing. It sounds simple, and it does something powerful: it takes perfect off the table. Once you accept there is no good option, you stop hunting for one, and the question gets smaller and far more answerable. You're no longer asking what's right. You're asking what's next best. And you can almost always answer that. A lot of people are frozen right now not because they don't know what the next best thing is, but because they're still holding out for a best thing that was never on the menu.Jeremy then walks through the two lenses he runs every difficult decision through before he commits. Perspective, which is simply where you're standing when you look at the thing, and the honest question of whether you're seeing this through fear or through faith. And a fresh point of view, which is not the same thing, because sometimes you don't need different choices, you need different eyes. He shares the test he uses to catch fear wearing his gut's clothes, and four practical ways to manufacture a new point of view on purpose instead of waiting around for one to show up, including the handwriting exercise that has talked him out of two significant mistakes.The heart of the episode is the three guides. Your gut, which means quiet conviction built over years and not the loud emotion that shows up at eleven at night. Your mentors, who are not there to make your decision but to expand your perspective, and the one question to ask them that gets gold every time. And new eyes, which sometimes means stepping away, talking honestly with your spouse, or praying for wisdom instead of praying for an outcome. Jeremy makes the case that most people who stay stuck are using one of the three, and lays out the specific failure mode of each.The back half turns to consequences. Every yes automatically creates a thousand no's, which sounds like restriction and is actually the opposite, because freedom isn't having unlimited choices, freedom is making the right choices consistently. And then the quiet mechanism underneath every life that gets built or lost: nobody becomes successful because of one decision, and nobody wrecks their life in an afternoon. Tiny choices become habits, habits become character, and character becomes destiny. Compounding is boring right up until it isn't, and it does not care which direction you point it.If you are sitting in front of a hard decision right now, one where every option carries pain and you have been circling it for weeks, this episode is a working framework, not a pep talk. Check your perspective. Find the third door. Trust the wisdom you've earned. Lean on your mentors. Ask for new eyes. Then decide, move, and adjust as you learn more, because your future is not built by one giant moment. It's built by thousands of choices made one day at a time.QUESTIONS THIS EPISODE ANSWERSWhy do hard decisions almost always come down to hard versus harder instead of right versus wrong? Because the decisions with an obviously correct answer aren't the ones that keep you up at night. Jeremy explains that facing a hard-versus-harder decision is not evidence that you took a wrong turn somewhere. It's the tax on ambition, and it's what it costs to be someone who's actually building rather than watching. What does it mean that every choice has a price? It means the search for a perfect decision is a search that ends nowhere, because every path carries a bill and the real work is deciding which bill you're willing to receive rather than hunting for the option that costs nothing. How do you make that price concrete enough to act on? You write it in specific language. Not "it'll be a big investment," but the actual dollar figure and the actual number of evenings it will take, because vague costs paralyze people and specific costs can be evaluated.Is doing nothing really a decision? Yes, and it's usually the most expensive one available. Jeremy explains that "I don't have a choice" is a story we tell so we can feel like a passenger instead of a driver, and he offers a one-sentence rewrite that puts you back behind the wheel: say instead, I don't like my options. What do you do when there is genuinely no good option? You do the next best thing. Jeremy shares the advice he was given years ago and has used ever since, and explains why it works: it removes perfect from the equation, which shrinks the question down to something you can actually answer. Next best is still a direction, and next best still moves you. What does leadership look like when every option is painful? Leadership isn't having good options. Leadership is having the courage to choose when every option carries pain, and then adjusting as you learn more, because most decisions are steering rather than destination. How should you handle a painful decision once you've made it? Jeremy argues the manner matters as much as the choice, because the decision lives for a day and the way you handled it lives for years.What is the difference between perspective and a fresh point of view? Perspective is where you're standing when you look at a situation, and it determines whether the same facts read as danger or as growth. A fresh point of view is an entirely different set of eyes, and it's what produces the third door you didn't know existed. How do you tell whether your instinct is real conviction or just fear? Jeremy shares the test he uses: if you imagine someone you respect bringing you the exact same situation and your advice to them differs from your advice to yourself, that gap is information about where you're standing, not information about the decision. What are the three guides for decisions with no good options? Your gut, meaning quiet conviction built over years rather than late-night emotion. Your mentors, who expand your perspective rather than making your call. And new eyes, which means stepping away, talking with your spouse, reading outside your field, and praying for wisdom instead of for a specific outcome.Why does every yes create a thousand no's? Because every commitment claims time, attention, and energy that a thousand other possibilities can no longer have, and if you can't name what a yes is costing you, you'll feel that yes as resentment about three weeks later. What actually builds a successful life? Not one decision. Thousands of ordinary ones nobody witnesses, which become habits, which become character, which becomes destiny, in a compounding process that is invisible in the short run and decisive in the long one.CHAPTERS00:00 Cold Open: Four-Thirty in the Morning and Both Columns Are Bad 02:16 Introduction 04:12 Chapter 1: Hard Versus Harder 06:56 Chapter 2: Every Choice Has a Price 10:00 Sponsor Break 11:55 Chapter 3: Doing Nothing Is Still a Choice 14:20 Chapter 4: When None of the Choices Are Great 18:46 Chapter 5: The First Lens, Perspective 21:17 Chapter 6: The Second Lens, A Fresh Point of View 24:51 Sponsor Break 26:46 Chapter 7: The Three Guides 31:04 Chapter 8: Every Yes Creates a Thousand No's 33:31 Chapter 9: Small Choices Become Your Future 36:01 Chapter 10: The Final Thought 37:40 OutroKEYWORDShow to make hard decisions, decision making for entrepreneurs, hard versus harder choices, every choice has a price, decision making framework, business decision making, leadership decision making, how to decide when there are no good options, do the next best thing, if you don't have a good option do the next best thing, next best thing principle, doing nothing is a choice, refusing to decide, perspective versus point of view, fear versus faith in decision making, trusting your gut in business, gut instinct versus emotion, finding a mentor, what to ask a mentor, getting a fresh perspective, seeing a problem differently, every yes creates a no, opportunity cost, freedom and discipline, small choices compound, habits become character, character becomes destiny, discipline when nobody is watching, entrepreneur mindset, small business owner decisions, courage in leadership, hard conversations in business, laying someone off, raising your prices, ending a business partnership, faith and business, praying for wisdom, Jeremy Hanson, The Jeremy Hanson Podcast, Built Different newsletter, business podcast, entrepreneurship podcast, solo episode, deci

A Fuzzy Life Entertainent Production

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Welcome to the Jeremy Hansen podcast The Weight of Choice,

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How every decision shapes our future. Now, there is a

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specific kind of quiet that only exists at four point

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thirty in the morning. Not a peaceful quiet, but it's

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another kind, the kind where you can hear the refrigerator

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running in the next room, and your own heartbeat and

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your own ears and every single thing that you've been

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avoiding for the last six weeks. I've had a handful

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of mornings like that, you know, in twenty five years

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of running my businesses, sitting at a kitchen table with

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a legal pad in front of me and two columns

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drawn right down the middle, and I remember some things.

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I remember them very clearly. You see. Both columns were bad.

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And I guess that's what I was never prepared for. See,

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when you're young and your dreaming about being your own

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boss and having your business, so you picture the decisions

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like it's a menu. Click, click the good option, click

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the bad option, you know, the smart move, and then

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the stupid move. And you know, you tell yourself, obviously,

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I'm just going to pick the smart one, the good one.

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How hard could that be?

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And then you actually build something and you find out

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that the decisions that shape your life almost never come

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in the well, good or bad. They don't come in

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those shapes. They come as two doors, and both of

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those doors cost you something that you don't want to

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give up. Now, that morning, at the kitchen table, I

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wasn't choosing between right and wrong. I was choosing between

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horror and harder. And I sat there long enough for

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the some to come up, which, I'll be honest, that's

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its own kind.

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Of decision, you see, because the clock doesn't.

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Wait for you to be ready, the world doesn't just

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pause while you make up your mind. And now I

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believe that the single biggest difference between the people who

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actually build something great that lasts and the people who

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spend thirty years almost building something it's not talent and

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it isn't luck. It's not who they knew or where

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they started. It's what they were willing to do at

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the kitchen table at four point thirty in the morning,

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when both decisions could be bad. And that's what we're

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talking about today, the weight of choice. Welcome to the

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Jeremy Hanson Podcast. Welcome back to the Jeremy Hanson Podcast.

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I'm Jeremy Hanson. This is the show where we talk

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about the real mechanics of building a business and building

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a life without you know, that manufactured highlight reel that

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we see all over social media. Today's episode is one

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I've been carrying around trying to think about, trying to

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make it perfect for this because I get asked a

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version of this same question constantly. Somebody will message me,

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or you know, maybe they corner me if they see

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me at the gas station or at the store something. Hey, Jeremy,

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I don't know what to do. See, I've got a decision,

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and I just don't know what to do. And you know,

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when we start poking around and I start asking questions,

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I almost always find the same thing underneath all that

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anxiety and you know, apprehension. You see. The thing is

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they're not confused about the facts. There's no fact finding

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mission in this. You see. They know the numbers, they

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know their situation, they know the people and relationships involved.

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But what's actually happening is they don't like any of

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the options. I've been there. So they've just been sitting

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here circling the wagon for weeks, months, sometimes years, And

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what they're doing is they're waiting for a better choice

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to miraculously show up. Now, let me be as kind

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as I can here. The truth is, the better choice

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is usually not coming down the road. Okay, So today

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I want to give you a framework, something you can

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actually use the next time you're sitting at your own

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kitchen table with two columns drawn right down the middle,

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we'll talk about why every choice has a price, why

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doing nothing?

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If you do nothing, that's still a decision.

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And what do you do when none of the options

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look good? You know, the two lenses that I run

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every decision through, the three guides that I lean on

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when I genuinely don't know, And those types of times

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do happen. And then how the small stuff, the ordinary

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daily stuff that nobody's watching quietly becomes the life that

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you end up living. So let's get into this now,

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Chapter one.

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This is hard versus harder.

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You'll notice this the older you get, that life rarely

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asks us to choose between something that's so obviously right

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and good and something that's so obviously wrong.

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And bad, because we're kind.

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Of fulled, because those decisions don't exist, Okay, at least

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not very often. They're very very few and far between.

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You know, those decisions are easy, but they're not the

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ones that keep you up at night. See, if somebody

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asks you to do something unethical, well that's not a

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hard decision. That's maybe maybe it's a hard conversation maybe,

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but the decision is really easy. You See. The decisions

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that actually torture most people are the ones where both

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answers are defensible. Should I invest in the business or

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should I protect my savings?

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Should I hire somebody else? Or should I.

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Keep working all these hours myself for another quarter? You know?

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Should I have that conversation that could save whatever relationship

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it is, or do I let it just sit there

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and then hope it works out for itself? See? Should

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I leave the paycheck and then go build something that

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I dream about building? Now, I want you to notice

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something about what I said. There's no villain in any

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of those sentences that I just said. None. There's no

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obviously correct answer just sitting there waiting for you to

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be brave enough to actually see it. There's literally just

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hard and harder and hardest. Now. I think a lot

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of people feel like something has gone wrong in their life,

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you know, when they hit a decision like that, like

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they must have taken a wrong turn somewhere, and because

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of that wrong turn, they ended up in a spot

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where all the roads look rough. And you're in a

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sports car, So let me put you in a different

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reframe for that. You see, hitting decisions like that is

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not evidence that you messed up. It's evidence that you're

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actually playing the game. You know, my father always had

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really good wisdom, and he always says, you know, sometimes

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life just gets in the way. This is what That's

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what he's talking about. You see, people who never face

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a hard versus harder decision are usually the people who've

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arranged their entire life so they never have to. It

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is what it is. That arrangement has its own price.

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But if you're sitting there right now with something genuinely

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I'm talking real difficult in front of you, please hear this.

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You see your difficulty that you're going through right now,

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that's not a sign of failure. You see, what you're

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doing is you're paying the tax on your own ambition.

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It's what it costs to be somebody who's actually doing

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something great instead of just something that somebody else did.

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The truth is, your life today, right now, right now,

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is the sum of every single choice that you've made

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in your life to this point. Think about it. Your business,

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your marriage, your finances, your health, your friendships, your faith.

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You see, none of those things accidents. All of those

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things are downstream of decisions that you've made over weeks

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and months and years. And you know what.

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Some of them are big, and some of them are obvious.

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Most of them are small enough that you don't even

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remember making them. You see, every choice moves you somewhere.

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A choice is a rudder on a ship, and that

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choice and where it moves you, The question is where

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is it moving you?

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Chapter two? Every choice has a price.

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You know. People spend an enormous amount of energy trying

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to find the perfect decision. You know, they research and

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they ask around, they make spreadsheets, they wait for a sign. Okay,

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you'll learn a few things along the hard roads. Okay,

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I've learned a lot that people never told me anything

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about by the time I was twenty five. There really

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are not perfect decisions, you see. There's only prices that

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you're willing to pay. And that's it. If you want

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to wrap your whole head around this, that's the whole thing.

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You see, Every path, no matter where that rudder takes

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you has a bill attached to it and see the work.

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A lot of people try to do this, But the

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work isn't finding the path with no bill. The work

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is deciding which bill that you can live with. You

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don't grow in your business costs time, and that time

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you never get back, and it's time that you never

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get back from the people who actually matter to you.

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You go. If you don't grow, okay, well, then it's

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going to cost you opportunity, and it's going to cost

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you momentum. It costs you.

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The version of your company that could have been.

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You know, being financially disciplined costs today's comfort. It costs

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the truck you want, and it costs you the trip

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that you'd like to take. Living without discipline costs you

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tomorrow's freedom. It costs options that you wish that you

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will have at fifty five. You see a healthy marriage, well,

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that costs you intentional effort. It costs the energy that

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you'd rather spend on your business or your hobbies are

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just crashing out on the couch. Now if you ignore

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your marriage, okay, well, then it costs intimacy and it

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doesn't cost it all at once. It costs it slowly

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in a way that you barely notice until you look

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up one day and you don't really have a spouse anymore.

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You have a live in roommate that takes care of

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kids with you. You see, everything worthwhile has a price.

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The question is not whether you're going to have to

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pay the bill, because you always do.

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The question is which bill.

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You're willing to get. Now, people will get themselves in trouble.

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They try to find out, well, what can I do

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without the cost, And what happens is they find out

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that that's simply it's a unicorn. It doesn't exist. So

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they just sit there and they don't move. They stall out.

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They keep looking over and over and over, and they'll

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keep gathering information, they keep asking more and more people

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for advice.

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And what they're really doing is they're just searching.

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For permission to not have to pay anything for their

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decisions or lack of a decision, which is a decision.

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I've done it. I've absolutely done it now. I once

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spent the better part of a year evaluating a decision

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that I already knew the answer to. You see, I

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just didn't want to write the check. I didn't want

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to do it emotionally, I didn't want to do it. Financially,

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I didn't want to do it. Relationally, I just didn't

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want to do it, so I just kept evaluating it,

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making myself. It's almost like giving yourself itself an excuse

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not to do whatever you're going to do. And I'm

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telling you right now that that year of constant evaluating,

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just waiting to make the decision, and that costs me

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more than the decision would any way that I looked.

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So here's some practical advice.

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The next time that you're stuck somewhere, stop asking which

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option is right you see, ask which price you're actually

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willing to pay, and then do this, actually write them down.

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I know some people think that I'm being funny when

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I say that, I'm absolutely not. It does something to

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your brain. I don't want you to be vague about

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it either. You've got to be sharp and to the point,

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not something like it'll be a big investment. Okay, right,

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This cost me eighteen thousand dollars in about nine months

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of being at home with the wife, nine months of

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maybe missing some birthdays with kids, not something you know

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really generally well, you might strain things at home, you

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think right. This means I'm gone three nights a week

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through the fall, and then Maya has to carry more

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of the stuff that I'm supposed to do. She's going

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to have to do that. You see, when you start

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making the prices specific, the decision usually kind of makes itself.

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When you're vague, costs become very very terrifying because it's, oh,

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the what if or the what if that? Or what

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if you could what if yourself to death? Literally, And

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when you start getting very specific about the cost you're

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going to pay, like I said, emotionally monetarily, you know,

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in your relationships, what happens is the cost become math. Okay,

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so they're not scary and you don't what if you'reself

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to death. We're gonna take a quick break and I

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want to tell you about something a little bit different

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today from One Skin. Now, you've heard me talk about

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One Skin before, about their best selling skin care, and

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that's how a lot of you found them. But they've

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taken that same longevity science and brought it to a

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scalp serum. It's called OBS One Hair, And I'm gonna

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be honest with you, this one hits closer to home

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00:16:57.039 --> 00:17:01.799
for me. Than the original skincare did. Because the truth

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is hair changes. I know mine has. Okay, quit laughing.

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Anybody who's been watching this show for a couple of

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years can pull up an old episode and see it

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for themselves. Okay, it's not one thing that causes it. It's

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stress and it's hormones. It's just getting older and being

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a human being who's been under some pressure, making moves,

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living life. See it happens to men, it happens to women,

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and most people don't talk about it much. And that's

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exactly why One Skin built os on hair. It's a

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daily serum powered by their proprietary, proprietary os O one peptide.

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And what I think is smart about it is where

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it works. It works on the scalp, which is where

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hair health actually begins. You see, it nourishes it from

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the root, so your hair looks and feels better over time.

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00:17:59.240 --> 00:18:01.279
And they didn't just say that and put it on

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00:18:01.319 --> 00:18:05.079
a bottle. They ran clinical studies on this serum to

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00:18:05.200 --> 00:18:11.160
validate their own science, and the results are incredible. Six

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00:18:11.200 --> 00:18:15.160
months in people saw a forty three percent increase in

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hair thickness and a forty percent increase in hair density.

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00:18:19.400 --> 00:18:24.480
Plus less visible shedding. Okay, and at just three months

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in seventy five percent of customers saw visible new hair growth.

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Now here's what usually happens with hair products that get

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00:18:34.119 --> 00:18:38.200
results like that. They leave your scalp irritated, or they

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leave it greasy, or they require a prescription okay, which

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00:18:42.640 --> 00:18:46.240
makes them really hard to get, and even when they work,

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they can come up with some genuinely unpleasant side effects.

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All right, But os one hair is different. It's drug free,

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00:18:55.720 --> 00:18:58.400
so you can use it on its own or right

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00:18:58.480 --> 00:19:03.440
alongside anything else that you're already doing without irritation. And

269
00:19:03.480 --> 00:19:07.160
the thing in it's water based, so it actually fits

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00:19:07.200 --> 00:19:11.599
into your morning without wrecking your daily routine. Something else

271
00:19:11.680 --> 00:19:15.160
worth knowing about this company because I like knowing who

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00:19:15.200 --> 00:19:19.640
I'm buying from. One Skin was founded in twenty sixteen

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00:19:20.079 --> 00:19:23.799
by an all women team of scientists with PhDs in

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00:19:23.960 --> 00:19:32.119
skin regeneration, stem cell biology, immuneology, and bioinformatics. Their entire

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00:19:32.240 --> 00:19:36.559
research and development process is run in house. Every claim

276
00:19:36.640 --> 00:19:40.359
they make is backed by lab or clinical studies, and

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00:19:40.440 --> 00:19:44.279
that is extremely rare. That's the kind of rigor that

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00:19:44.440 --> 00:19:48.960
I respect. So here's the deal, born from over ten

279
00:19:49.119 --> 00:19:53.960
years of longevity research. One Skin's OsO one peptide is

280
00:19:54.079 --> 00:19:57.279
engineered to support your hair to look visibly fuller and

281
00:19:57.359 --> 00:20:01.839
thicker at any age. For a limited time, you can

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try one skin with fifteen percent off using code Hansen

283
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at one skin dot Co slash Hansen. That's fifteen percent

284
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off at one skin dot Co with code Hansen. And

285
00:20:15.039 --> 00:20:17.160
after you purchased, they're going to ask you where you

286
00:20:17.200 --> 00:20:20.400
heard about them. Please support the show and tell them

287
00:20:20.440 --> 00:20:24.400
that we sent you. It matters more than you'll ever know. Again,

288
00:20:24.680 --> 00:20:28.839
that's code Hansen at one Skin dot Co slash Hanson.

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00:20:30.839 --> 00:20:34.960
All right, let's get back to it now, Chapter three.

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Doing nothing. And I said this earlier. It's still a choice.

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00:20:42.240 --> 00:20:45.160
One of the biggest lies that we tell ourselves is

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00:20:45.359 --> 00:20:53.799
forwards long, I don't have choice, do we see. I've

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00:20:53.839 --> 00:20:56.000
said it, You've said it, and most of the time

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it just simply isn't true. See, we always have a

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00:20:59.799 --> 00:21:02.920
te choice. We just don't like the choices or the

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options that we have. See, I don't have a choice.

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It's a story that we tell ourselves so we can

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00:21:08.839 --> 00:21:13.759
feel like we're the passenger instead of the driver. You see,

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00:21:13.759 --> 00:21:17.599
because passengers don't get blamed for where the car ends up.

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But the truth is you're not a passenger. You See,

301
00:21:23.240 --> 00:21:25.680
if you wait, if you're just waiting, that's a choice.

302
00:21:26.680 --> 00:21:31.039
If you ignore a problem, well that's a choice. If

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00:21:31.079 --> 00:21:36.680
you're avoiding a conflict, well that's a choice. See. Refusing

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00:21:36.839 --> 00:21:42.400
to decide is still a decision. It's just a decision

305
00:21:42.519 --> 00:21:45.359
that you get to make without feeling responsible for it.

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And I guess that's the only appeal, isn't it. If

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I choose and it goes badly, well that's on me.

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If I stall and it goes badly, well then I

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can just throw it on circums dances. But See, the

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00:22:03.200 --> 00:22:07.319
truth is life doesn't stop because we refuse to choose.

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See what happens if we refuse to choose, It makes

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the choice for us. I'm going to tell you something

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in my experience, in my life.

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Life is a way way worse.

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Decision maker than you are. You See, life doesn't know

316
00:22:25.759 --> 00:22:29.799
or care about your values. Life doesn't know your family.

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Life doesn't care about the thing that you were trying

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00:22:33.160 --> 00:22:36.960
to do. You See, life just moves and whatever you

319
00:22:37.119 --> 00:22:43.279
didn't decide gets decided by default. See I've watched business

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00:22:43.279 --> 00:22:47.480
owners lose good people because they wouldn't have a hard

321
00:22:47.519 --> 00:22:53.119
conversation and the common conversation, well, guess what it happened anyway,

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00:22:53.200 --> 00:22:56.359
It just happened in an exit interview or in a

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00:22:56.359 --> 00:22:59.599
big blow up argument, instead of in their office six

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00:22:59.640 --> 00:23:01.839
months or earlier, when it could have actually fixed something.

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00:23:03.359 --> 00:23:05.599
You see, I've watched marriages have the same things sit

326
00:23:05.640 --> 00:23:08.400
there and road, not because of a blow up, but

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because of a hundred conversations that nobody was willing to start. Now,

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00:23:15.440 --> 00:23:19.160
you see none of those people in those situations. Now,

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00:23:19.240 --> 00:23:21.920
they didn't really make a bad decision. And I guess

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00:23:22.000 --> 00:23:24.240
that's the point. They didn't make a decision at all.

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00:23:27.160 --> 00:23:29.079
So let me give you a rule to live by.

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If you catch yourself saying I don't have a choice,

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00:23:35.119 --> 00:23:37.319
I want you to stop, and I want you to

334
00:23:37.359 --> 00:23:43.279
rewrite the sentence say instead, I just don't like my options.

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00:23:44.680 --> 00:23:47.720
Because see, you've taken yourself out of the passenger seat

336
00:23:47.880 --> 00:23:52.440
and you put yourself back into the driver's seat. Now

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00:23:53.079 --> 00:23:56.480
it's a real situation with real trade offs, and you're

338
00:23:56.480 --> 00:24:01.400
a person who's allowed to evaluate them. Okay, that one

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00:24:01.559 --> 00:24:05.279
swap has changed more outcomes for me than almost anything

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00:24:05.279 --> 00:24:07.720
else I do. Because I used to be I don't

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00:24:07.759 --> 00:24:10.160
have any choices. No, No, I just didn't like any

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00:24:10.200 --> 00:24:15.400
of them that I had. So Chapter four, what do

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00:24:15.480 --> 00:24:20.519
we do when none of the choices are great? Okay,

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let's talk about the stretches of our life that are brutal.

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They do exist, and I'm not going to pretend otherwise.

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00:24:27.799 --> 00:24:32.880
Otherwise I'd be doing you a disservice. You see, some years,

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00:24:32.960 --> 00:24:37.039
hand you a menu where every single item on the

348
00:24:37.079 --> 00:24:40.920
menu is going to hurt. You may have to lay

349
00:24:40.960 --> 00:24:45.519
someone off to save a company, you know, maybe somebody

350
00:24:45.519 --> 00:24:48.880
that has a family, somebody that didn't do anything wrong.

351
00:24:51.039 --> 00:24:53.440
You may have to raise your prices knowing that you're

352
00:24:53.440 --> 00:24:58.079
going to lose customers that you genuinely like because the

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00:24:58.119 --> 00:25:02.920
alternative is slowly going going broke while being Oh they're awesome,

354
00:25:02.920 --> 00:25:06.640
they're everybody's famous business, favorite business, but you're going broke.

355
00:25:08.240 --> 00:25:10.880
You may have to walk away from a partnership that

356
00:25:11.000 --> 00:25:12.400
was great and used to work.

357
00:25:12.200 --> 00:25:13.559
And it just doesn't anymore.

358
00:25:15.160 --> 00:25:19.160
You see in these there's no villain, it just stopped

359
00:25:19.200 --> 00:25:23.799
fitting with your life. You hate. You may have to

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00:25:23.839 --> 00:25:27.000
move your family for an opportunity, and you know, ask

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00:25:27.039 --> 00:25:28.480
your kids about it. Now. I don't want to leave

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00:25:28.519 --> 00:25:32.480
my friends. See, none of that feels good. None of

363
00:25:32.480 --> 00:25:36.839
it truthfully should feel good. If it felt good, I'd

364
00:25:36.920 --> 00:25:41.039
really be worried about you. See, somebody gave me a

365
00:25:41.079 --> 00:25:45.279
piece of advice years ago that I've used more than

366
00:25:45.319 --> 00:25:49.240
almost anything else that I've ever been told. See, if

367
00:25:49.279 --> 00:25:50.839
you don't have a.

368
00:25:50.759 --> 00:25:54.079
Good option, then you do the next best thing.

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00:25:55.440 --> 00:26:02.480
And I know that sounds simple, simon stupid. That's why,

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00:26:02.559 --> 00:26:06.599
because it's important to know that. See, it takes perfect

371
00:26:06.759 --> 00:26:08.960
off the table. If you don't have a good option,

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00:26:09.039 --> 00:26:13.519
you do the next best thing. Once you accept that

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00:26:13.599 --> 00:26:16.680
there is no good option, you stop looking for one.

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00:26:17.519 --> 00:26:20.640
And the second that you stop looking for a good option,

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00:26:21.119 --> 00:26:25.319
the question gets a lot smaller and a lot more answerable.

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00:26:27.160 --> 00:26:30.599
So you're not asking what's right anymore, you're asking, well,

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00:26:30.640 --> 00:26:35.519
what's the next best and you can almost always answer

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00:26:35.599 --> 00:26:38.599
that one. You may not know the perfect way to

379
00:26:38.640 --> 00:26:41.720
handle a layoff, but you do know the next best

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00:26:41.720 --> 00:26:43.880
thing is to tell them the truth to their face

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00:26:44.240 --> 00:26:48.599
and give them everything that you can. You may not

382
00:26:48.720 --> 00:26:52.200
know whether to raise prices twelve percent or twenty, but

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00:26:52.319 --> 00:26:55.079
you do know the best thing is not going broke.

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00:26:56.519 --> 00:27:00.279
You See, the next best is always still a direction,

385
00:27:01.039 --> 00:27:05.559
the next best still moves you. There is a whole

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00:27:05.640 --> 00:27:09.920
lot of people that are just frozen right now. And

387
00:27:09.960 --> 00:27:12.920
it's not because they don't know what the next best

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00:27:12.960 --> 00:27:16.920
thing is, but because they're still holding out for a

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00:27:17.039 --> 00:27:21.480
best thing that was never ever even in front of them.

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Leadership is not about always having good options. As a

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00:27:26.279 --> 00:27:28.039
matter of fact, I say it's the opposite of that.

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Leadership is more about having the courage to choose when

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every single option carries pain. You see, leadership, I guess

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00:27:40.279 --> 00:27:44.480
that's it. That's the job. You see. It's so easy

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to be a leader when the path is clear and

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00:27:46.759 --> 00:27:50.440

The Jeremy Hanson Podcast Choices finish_mixdown

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