Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:04):
Welcome to the
Ambitious, introvert podcast,
created especially forintroverts, empaths and highly
sensitive entrepreneurs to helpyou build, grow and scale a
successful, sustainable business.
I'm your host, emma LouiseParks, business and mindset
coach for ambitious introverts.
After 17 years working as anair traffic controller the
(00:26):
ultimate fast-paced,high-stimulus, extrovert
friendly role my mission now isto show introverts that they too
can create big results andsuccess because of who they are,
not in spite of it.
I focus on introvert, friendlybusiness and marketing strategy
to help you switch overwhelm forclarity, confidence and clients
(00:47):
.
Hello, my ambitious introverts,welcome back to the podcast.
I'm Emma Louise and this is thefirst solo episode I have
recorded in quite a while.
I think it's been over sixmonths.
I really hope that you enjoyedthe spectrum of guests that I
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shared over the summer.
It was a very intentionaldecision because I knew that I
wanted to take a lot of time outof the business this summer, so
I spent much more time in Q1and Q2 batching the podcast
recording with guests.
I was doing three or four guestepisodes in a day to make sure
that we had enough to cover allthe way through until the end of
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August, and now it's the lastweek of August that I'm
recording this just before itgets released, and it's so nice
to be back with you for a littlebit of solo September podcast
action.
So I really hope that you arewell.
I hope you've had a greatsummer and I'm actually going to
do a bit of a mini seriesstarting today.
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This was inspired by a dearclient of mine and actually many
, many clients before, butsomething really hit me when I
was having the discussion theother week with this particular
client about decision fatigue.
Now, it's something that we hear, it's a term that we hear a lot
about, but how does it actuallyaffect us?
Does it affect us anydifferently?
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As intro, the answer is yes.
What is it?
What does it mean?
Is it a bad thing?
Is it a skill?
Is it something that we canlearn?
Like all of these things?
Because what I've noticed iswhen people have to make
decisions about something notthat important, they would
rather just not make thedecision, because even that can
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feel really, really heavy.
So I am in a unique position, Ithink, to discuss this.
Many of you know I was an airtraffic controller before this
for many, many years, and Ican't think of another job where
people make so many decisions.
I made literally thousands ofdecisions each shift, if not
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tens of thousands, because it'sa constant micro decision making
role with, let's just say, Ihad 10 aircraft under my control
and I had to get them going incertain places in certain
directions, keep them all safe.
There are so many ways thatcould happen and I had to decide
first of all what's the overallplan, and then I have to decide
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all kinds of things like doesthis one need to be slowed down
against this one?
If it does need to be sloweddown, what speed does it need to
be slowed down to and when do Ineed to do that?
Do I need to do that now or doI need to do that in 10 miles
time?
So that was like the dialoguein my head constantly as a
controller, and it's interestingbecause the standing joke is
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don't ever ask an air trafficcontroller where to go for
dinner because at the end of theshift, decision making
capabilities out of the windowcompletely.
So decision fatigue issomething that I have lived with
and recognised for almost 25years now and it plays out the
same way in our business and itplays out the same way in our
personal development.
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And what I will say is that yourdecision making muscle is
exactly that.
It is a muscle.
It's numerous parts of yourbrain that work together and
there's a whole algorithm aboutdecision making that I'm not
going to go into here, but thereare many books, papers around
it.
But basically our brain worksin the same way over and over
again each time it makes adecision, whether that decision
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is do I want to add fries to myorder?
Or whether that decision isshould I buy this house Like
they can be such disparity inwhat we are deciding to do.
But actually the process is thesame.
So what happens is, after anamount of decision making, this
muscle in our brain becomestired.
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It's like, yeah, I'm kind ofhad enough now, the same way
that any muscle, if you work ittoo much, would get tired.
So that is to say being good.
Quote unquote.
A decision making is not ainnate talent that you're born
with.
It's not necessarily a skillthat you can cultivate.
Get entired, and either makingbad decisions or not making a
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decision at all because it'sjust too exhausting is very,
very normal.
It's completely human and isexactly why, as an air traffic
controller, I was limited toworking for 90 minutes and then
I had to have legally a 30minute minimum break because I
couldn't sit there for, say,four hours making all those
decisions one after the other,and I remember getting to the
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end of very busy shifts,especially if it was an
afternoon shift.
I was finishing at 10pm.
You know that's late for me.
I want to be in bed andsometimes thinking I just don't
want to make another decisionhere and that's how it feels.
So I get it.
And the feedback from thisclient the other week was oh, I
really want to make EFT tap in apart of my regular practice,
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but I go on to YouTube and thereare so many videos that I'm
overwhelmed, so I end up doingnone of them.
And luckily I had an answer forthat because I have a hack.
I have many hacks in my lifewhere I don't have to make as
many decisions, which I'll besharing over the next few weeks.
But it made me think you know,if this client is struggled with
it and I've seen previousclients struggle with it as well
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let's bring it to the podcast,talk about it here and see if it
can help you guys listening to.
So I looked in my research forthis.
Many places like, I say, somemedical papers.
There are books that I've readin the past that I skimmed back
through the notes of, but Iactually saw this great
description on Wikipedia and itsays Decision fatigue is thought
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to be a result of unconsciouspsychobiological processes and
is a reaction to sustainedcognitive, emotional and
decisional load, as opposed to atrait or a deficiency, which
basically means when you makelots of decisions all through
the day, those processes gettired and sustaining that level
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of decision making is notpossible.
So I have talked about thisbefore with health coaches where
they say when people pre-plantheir meals, they stick to their
diets way better and it'ssimply because of that, because
if they're out at work all day,they're making these decisions
and they come home and the nextdecision is what do I want to
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eat?
And that muscle is tired, thatmuscle is going to go, you want
take away, you want pizza, youwant whatever.
If the meal's already there,it's already prepped, it's
already ordered whatever andthere's no decision to be made,
they are way more likely to makethe healthy choice.
So let me say this can play outin a lot of different ways, but
it definitely plays out in ourbusiness.
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Now the reason that it mattersis when it comes to our self
mastery, our self leadership,all of the I'm going to say the
skills that we do want tocultivate in order to have
successful businesses that aresustainable.
It's really important that wehave processes in place to
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support us so that we are notspiraling out because we
literally can't make a simpledecision Now at.
Energy, as introverts, is themost important currency.
I would say, even above time.
Many productivity experts andmany business coaches out there
will be like times, the onlything you'll never get back.
Yes, but if your energy is sodepleted, can you do anything
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constructive with that time?
Is it valuable?
Time is equality?
Are you going to do your bestwork?
Probably not.
So for me, as an introvert, Iknow that it's energy first,
because when I have the energythe time is insignificant I can
get so much done.
So this intentional use of ourenergy is really key, really
really key to our long termsuccess, and if we're making
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multiple minor, unimportantdecisions that will drain our
energy, it's as simple as that.
The other thing that I see is,as I alluded to with this client
at the start, we end up notdoing things just because making
that first decision feelsimpossible.
So, whether it is look, I'mhere, I'm sat, I'm ready to do
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some EFT, but I just don't knowwhich video to choose, or I've
opened my journal, but I justdon't know where to start and
it's too hard to come up withsomething, so I'm not going to
do it.
On the more strategic side ofbusiness, I see this play out a
lot in software or tech.
So a client may know that theyneed to start an email list, but
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they Google and they come upwith a blog post.
That's like the 39 top emailsoftware providers, and I mean,
even the title of that wouldjust have me exhausted.
And then they feel like, oh mygosh, I've got to look through
these 39 providers and I've gotto make a decision, and there's
the one, perfect one, and how amI ever going to find it?
And of course, they just don'tdo it.
So what I found in thatinstance, and like in the
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ambitious introvert academy, ismuch easier for me to say.
Here are three options and hereare the pros and cons.
Just choose, just choose fromthese three, because if you
start researching and looking atmore and looking at more, the
decision is just going to feelso heavy.
So, like I say, it's thiscultivation of the quality of
our energy and knowing that many, many decisions, whatever the
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severity of them, even like oh,do I get iced coffee or hot
coffee?
Like, will we make in thesedecisions all day, every day, it
has an impact.
It has a massive, massiveimpact.
So, like I said earlier as anair traffic controller, there
are things to mitigate this.
That's the reason that airtraffic controllers have legally
enforced breaks of very regularintervals.
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It's the reason why there'salways someone else nearby them.
It's the reason that a lot ofsystems have been developed and
they'll be different in allkinds of environments.
So, whether it's like airtraffic control in one part of
the world to another, they willhave systems and procedures that
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just work because you don'thave to make too many decisions.
So when you give someone a bigpiece of airspace and a lot of
airplanes, technically theworlds that are oyster, they can
put them anywhere, but theissue with that is it means a
lot more decisions.
So when we narrow it down andit's like, okay, this aircraft
that flies this route, here arethe things that we generally do
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with it.
Sometimes we'll point ittowards this place or sometimes
we'll point it towards here.
What that does is.
It means that, rather thanthinking I could put this
airplane anywhere, what should Ido?
Air traffic controllers' brainshave a way of going right.
Should I go left or right withthat?
That's a much easier decision.
It's still a decision.
It's still taking energy, butit's much easier to make because
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there are parameters around it.
That's one example.
Another example is the wholeObama, steve Jobs, mark
Zuckerberg wearing the sameoutfit or owning two different
color suits, two different colorties, two different color
shirts in the case of Obama, butthey all coordinate so they
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don't have to think about whatthey're wearing.
Now, these are people that are,in Obama's case, was making
very big decisions on a dailybasis.
In the case of Steve Jobs andMark Zuckerberg, who are in a
visionary role where theirmental bandwidth, their
creativity, their inspiration iskey to driving forward, to what
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they do.
When you can take the decisionout of that, that makes a big,
big difference.
The more things that you candeem quote, unquote unimportant.
Maybe what you wear is veryimportant to you.
If you are someone that's veryinto expressing yourself through
your style, you think that's aterrible idea.
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I'm never doing that, butthat's the whole point, right.
We can cultivate these systemsfor ourselves, based on what's
important to us and what's notFor them.
What they wore wasn't important, I know.
For me, I used to choose myclothes the night before if I
had to get up early for work,because the last thing I wanted
to do was wake up at 4.30 in themorning and have to think.
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I also always had the samebreakfast, the same coffee,
because, again, just didn't wantto have to think.
If I've got to get up at thattime, I just need to do what I
need to do and get to work in afresh mental state.
So, where we can cut thesedecisions out, it helps us no
end, and I'm going to be sharingway more of those in the next
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few episodes of how you cancreate these systems within your
business to minimize thedecision making, and also in
your life as well.
So decision fatigue is, as youcan tell, something that I feel
very strongly about.
I think it's very important forintroverts to understand the
concept.
I think it's very important torecognize that it's not
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something you're good or bad at.
It's something that happens toeveryone this deterioration and
the ability to make decisionsafter a sustained period of
doing so is human nature.
It's very, very normal.
So instead of beating ourselvesup or instead of thinking how
can I get better at this, theway to get better of it is to
take out a lot of the decisionson a day-to-day basis and have
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those parameters in place.
It makes things so much easier,so much easier.
So do tune in and join me overthe next couple of weeks when
I'm going to be sharing, like Isay, some of my own personal
examples of the things that Ihave in place to eliminate
decision fatigue whereverpossible and keep my bandwidth
up and keep my energy in a placethat I can use it for whatever
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is most important to me at thetime.
Now, before we wrap up, I justwant to share that the quiet
power mini-mind is starting atthe end of the month.
This is a very new way ofworking with me that I'm running
for eight weeks.
I will pop the link in the shownotes, but if anything I've
talked about today has resonatedwith you about yourself,
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leadership, about your energy,about understanding where you
want to use it and what'simportant to you and what isn't,
this could be the program thatcould really set you up with
solid foundations to be able tomake those decisions and to be
able to cultivate that systemjust for you.
As I say, the link will be inthe show notes and I will be
sharing a little bit more aboutit over the next few weeks, but
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for now, it's definitely one ofthe most accessible ways of
working with me that I've everoffered and I'm really, really
excited.
I love the energy of running asmall group and I'm excited to
bring programme that reallyfocuses on our self leadership
and self mastery as introvertsrather than business strategy.
(15:45):
So that sounds like it could beinteresting to you.
Do pop to the show notes andcheck it out, but for now, thank
you for tuning in.
It's so great to be back withsolo episodes and I will see you
in the next few weeks where Iwill be laying it all out and
sharing all of the differentways that I keep my decision
making to an absolute minimum.
Thank you for listening to thisepisode of the ambitious
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introvert podcast with me, emmaLouise Parks.
If you enjoy this show, please,please subscribe, rate and
leave a review on iTunes as athank you.
One lucky reviewer each monthwill win a 60 minute one on one
coaching session with me, whereyou'll get the clarity and
confidence to attract your idealclients.
And if you know someone whocould benefit from listening to
(16:31):
the show, then please do shareand help me reach as many fellow
ambitious introverts aspossible.