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THE DECISION YOU KEEP DODGING What You Refuse to Decide Is Already Deciding Your Future. · The Black Sheep Leadership Podcast

• 0:28
  SPEAKER_00: Hey everybody, I want to welcome to the Black Sheep Leadership Podcast.
• 0:31
  SPEAKER_00: I'm Athena Renee, and this is where the underdogs, the Misfits, and the Black Sheets come to turn pain into power so that they could build a life by design and leave a legacy behind.
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_00: Now, if this is your first time tapping in, welcome family.
• 0:43
  SPEAKER_00: I'm glad you're here.
• 0:44
  SPEAKER_00: And if you're back again, welcome back, fam.
• 0:47
  SPEAKER_00: It's good to see you again.
• 0:48
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you so much for trusting me with your time.
• 0:50
  SPEAKER_00: I don't take that lightly.
• 0:52
  SPEAKER_00: Now let's do this quick vibe chat.
• 0:54
  SPEAKER_00: Because if you're easily offended, super sensitive, entitled, waiting on somebody to come save you or allergic to accountability, get your ass up out of here.
• 1:01
  SPEAKER_00: This ain't your safe space.
• 1:03
  SPEAKER_00: Alright?
• 1:03
  SPEAKER_00: Go ahead and tap out now.
• 1:05
  SPEAKER_00: But if you're ready to think bigger, move smarter, and you refuse to live beneath your potential, stay locked in.
• 1:11
  SPEAKER_00: Because by the end of this episode, you'll walk away with something you can execute immediately or a resource to take you even further.
• 1:18
  SPEAKER_00: Alright, so let's get to work.
• 1:20
  SPEAKER_00: Now, on our previous episode, we talked about borrowed opinions.
• 1:24
  SPEAKER_00: We talked about making sure that your life that you're building it actually belongs to you, not the opinions of your family, society, somebody else's fears, or their expectations.
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 1:35
  SPEAKER_00: But once you separated their voice from yours, you eventually have to decide.
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_00: Decide what, you may ask.
• 1:41
  SPEAKER_00: Well, you have to decide what am I actually going to do?
• 1:45
  SPEAKER_00: And that's where today's briefing begins.
• 1:47
  SPEAKER_00: So our Black Sheep operating system is the OAE that's observer, analyze, and execute.
• 1:53
  SPEAKER_00: We've spent a lot of time over the last few weeks talking about observing and analyzing, but today we're firmly in execute.
• 2:00
  SPEAKER_00: Because intelligence that never changes your behavior eventually becomes entertainment.
• 2:06
  SPEAKER_00: Some decisions are hard because you don't know what to do.
• 2:09
  SPEAKER_00: But then there's another kind of decision.
• 2:12
  SPEAKER_00: And it's hard because you already know what to do.
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_00: You know the relationships has changed.
• 2:18
  SPEAKER_00: You know the job is run its course, the habit is costing you.
• 2:21
  SPEAKER_00: You already know that you need to have the conversation, right?
• 2:25
  SPEAKER_00: You know the thing you need to start and stop.
• 2:27
  SPEAKER_00: But knowing and doing are two completely different things.
• 2:30
  SPEAKER_00: And sometimes we keep asking for more clarity because we're hoping clarity will eventually give us an easier answer.
• 2:37
  SPEAKER_00: But black sheep, sometimes it won't.
• 2:39
  SPEAKER_00: And that's why today's briefing is called the decision you keep dodging.
• 2:45
  SPEAKER_00: Because what you refuse to decide is already deciding for your future.
• 2:49
  SPEAKER_00: Let's unpack it.
• 2:50
  SPEAKER_00: Because there are three truths you need to understand when you already know that something needs to change, but making that decision is a completely different story.
• 2:58
  SPEAKER_00: And it's finally time to move, right?
• 3:00
  SPEAKER_00: So, truth number one not every right decision feels good.
• 3:05
  SPEAKER_00: I'm jumping right into it, family, because if you've been here before, you already know we're coming with that information is everywhere, but execution is rare energy because we are in an information age where people know everything.
• 3:19
  SPEAKER_00: People know more than a PhD, right?
• 3:21
  SPEAKER_00: But are they doing anything?
• 3:23
  SPEAKER_00: And that is what separates the talkers from the doers.
• 3:27
  SPEAKER_00: And I even get it sometimes when you're a doer.
• 3:30
  SPEAKER_00: Um, maybe you've done things, you're a risk taker, you've done things, and things didn't work out.
• 3:35
  SPEAKER_00: Listen, I get that too, right?
• 3:38
  SPEAKER_00: But one thing I want you to understand, this is why this episode is so important.
• 3:41
  SPEAKER_00: Not every right decision feels good.
• 3:43
  SPEAKER_00: We have to get rid of this idea that a good decision will automatically bring immediate peace.
• 3:48
  SPEAKER_00: Because most of the time it don't.
• 3:50
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes it do, but sometimes, oh my gosh, the right decision it hurts.
• 3:56
  SPEAKER_00: It hurts, right?
• 3:58
  SPEAKER_00: You can love somebody and know the relationship isn't healthy.
• 4:00
  SPEAKER_00: You can appreciate an employer and you know you've outgrown the position.
• 4:04
  SPEAKER_00: You can love your family and you know you need boundaries.
• 4:08
  SPEAKER_00: You can love a friend.
• 4:10
  SPEAKER_00: Back, they've known you since the third, fourth grade, but you know they're toxic and you know you need to cut their ass off.
• 4:15
  SPEAKER_00: So you can be grateful for an opportunity and know it's no longer aligned with where you're going.
• 4:20
  SPEAKER_00: Two things can be true.
• 4:22
  SPEAKER_00: That's maturity.
• 4:23
  SPEAKER_00: And black sheep especially struggle here because many of us have spent years being the person who accommodates everybody else.
• 4:31
  SPEAKER_00: We understand, forgive, we make excuses, we give all these chances, and eventually we start confusing compassion with obligation.
• 4:40
  SPEAKER_00: But understanding why somebody behaves a certain way doesn't require you to keep volunteering for the consequences.
• 4:47
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, you can understand them, but that don't mean that you need to be in their proximity and in their immediate life to have to keep dealing with the consequences of the way they're acting.
• 4:58
  SPEAKER_00: And that's a hard decision because it could be a family member that's acting that way or a hard friend that's acting that way, right?
• 5:05
  SPEAKER_00: The cost of staying, this is what you need to understand.
• 5:08
  SPEAKER_00: The cost of staying has to enter the equation, right?
• 5:10
  SPEAKER_00: When we're afraid to make a decision, we usually obsess over what will it cost me if I leave?
• 5:15
  SPEAKER_00: And guess what, fam?
• 5:16
  SPEAKER_00: That's a fair question.
• 5:18
  SPEAKER_00: But ask the other one, what will it cost me if I stay?
• 5:22
  SPEAKER_00: What does another year cost you at that toxic job?
• 5:24
  SPEAKER_00: Another five years cost you in that relationship, another decade staying in that city that you know is not growing or doing anything for the person that you're becoming, right?
• 5:34
  SPEAKER_00: What does staying cost?
• 5:35
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes you can look at it how much is it going to cost your confidence, your finances, your opportunities, peace, development, your future.
• 5:41
  SPEAKER_00: See, we calculate the pain of change, right?
• 5:44
  SPEAKER_00: We always calculate that while pretending the pain of staying is free.
• 5:48
  SPEAKER_00: Family, I want to tell you that it's not free.
• 5:50
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes staying is the absolute correct decision, right?
• 5:55
  SPEAKER_00: But make it intentional, don't remain somewhere simply because leaving has a visible price.
• 6:00
  SPEAKER_00: Staying has a price too.
• 6:02
  SPEAKER_00: All right, remember that family.
• 6:03
  SPEAKER_00: Staying has a price too, and I get it.
• 6:06
  SPEAKER_00: You know, a lot of these things, this is why we're talking about decisions because they're always easier said than done.
• 6:11
  SPEAKER_00: But we still need to understand that, and and we need to understand the anatomy of decisions, whether we're making them or not, right?
• 6:20
  SPEAKER_00: Because we got people that believe I'm not gonna do anything, and that's still a decision, all right.
• 6:25
  SPEAKER_00: Truth number two, you rarely get a hundred percent certainty.
• 6:28
  SPEAKER_00: Man, listen, family.
• 6:29
  SPEAKER_00: This is one I was listening to a young lady on YouTube, and Adrian knows I'm a follower of Christ, and um, y'all, those life principles of following Christ, you know, it's a beautiful thing, but it comes with a cost, it's a lot that goes along with it.
• 6:47
  SPEAKER_00: It's just like if you want to be a good person and you say, you know what, I'm gonna be super positive and all of that.
• 6:52
  SPEAKER_00: Did you know that it costs you to be a positive person?
• 6:55
  SPEAKER_00: And some people might say, Well, why not be negative?
• 6:58
  SPEAKER_00: Because number one, it costs you just as much energy, if not more, to be negative.
• 7:02
  SPEAKER_00: Furthermore, you don't feel good, like you can say, I'm just being real, yeah, but um, that's real in your mind, right?
• 7:10
  SPEAKER_00: That doesn't mean it feels good.
• 7:13
  SPEAKER_00: That doesn't mean not even just feel about feeling good because we're talking about decisions, okay?
• 7:19
  SPEAKER_00: But that doesn't mean that it's valid, that doesn't mean that it's helping.
• 7:24
  SPEAKER_00: And what I want you to understand is, guys, you will never, you will rarely get, I don't want to say never, you will rarely get 100% certainty.
• 7:31
  SPEAKER_00: And so let me get back.
• 7:32
  SPEAKER_00: So, what I was saying is I was watching a YouTube video, and um, I brought up the follower of Christ because you know, in this day and age, we get a lot of people talking about they're a prophet, they this, they that.
• 7:42
  SPEAKER_00: And listen, guys, I'm not taking that away from them if they are.
• 7:45
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe they are, I don't know.
• 7:47
  SPEAKER_00: But what I do know is a lot of people will make hearing a divine decision that they got like it is like you know, you're just gonna get an audible answer from heaven.
• 8:01
  SPEAKER_00: And she was talking about how God told her to move, they were moving from Maryland to Texas and didn't know anybody, so you know, I listened to it a little bit, I didn't go too much into it because she was taking it from an angle of really just encouraging people to go ahead and move when you move if you don't have the courage, right?
• 8:21
  SPEAKER_00: And I got that, but because I had already made those moves before, I didn't necessarily need that part, but I was listening to see what was the certainty that she got to say, uproot your life from Maryland and go to Texas.
• 8:35
  SPEAKER_00: And she didn't have a certainty, and she was saying, you know, basically, you rarely will get 100% certainty.
• 8:44
  SPEAKER_00: She said, You won't know, you don't know 100%, you know.
• 8:48
  SPEAKER_00: And she was like, This is why a lot of times when you feel like God has impressed something on your heart, and if you're not a believer or anything, sometimes things are pressed upon our hearts and it stays there, it's pressed upon our hearts.
• 8:59
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, no matter what's going on, you might be upset, pissed off, happy, sad, confused.
• 9:05
  SPEAKER_00: That particular thing, it stays with you.
• 9:08
  SPEAKER_00: That's another, that's another way of understanding what you are meant to do.
• 9:12
  SPEAKER_00: If it's something that you're doing and you're going through hell and hot water and you still want to do it, that's a good sign.
• 9:18
  SPEAKER_00: But I'm here to tell you guys that you will not get 100% verification.
• 9:23
  SPEAKER_00: That's what God said.
• 9:25
  SPEAKER_00: And some of you might say, Well, I'm not a believer anyway.
• 9:27
  SPEAKER_00: Well, whoever you believe in, your universe, whatever it is, right?
• 9:31
  SPEAKER_00: But what I want you to understand is you will rarely get 100% certainty.
• 9:34
  SPEAKER_00: See, black sheep, if your requirement for action is absolute certainty, you're gonna be waiting for a long damn time because you can research, pray, ask questions, study the patterns, think five moves ahead, prepare, save, get wise counsel.
• 9:45
  SPEAKER_00: Family, you can do all of that and still reach a point where you don't know exactly what happens next.
• 9:50
  SPEAKER_00: Because you're making a decision, you're not reading tomorrow's newspaper.
• 9:54
  SPEAKER_00: There's a risk, there's life.
• 9:55
  SPEAKER_00: Execution begins when you have enough intelligence to make a responsible decision.
• 10:00
  SPEAKER_00: Not what you not when you eliminated every unknown, right?
• 10:04
  SPEAKER_00: Execution begins when you have enough intelligence to make a responsible decision.
• 10:10
  SPEAKER_00: See, family, it's always going to be that feeling of uncertainty, specifically when you're going through a new door.
• 10:19
  SPEAKER_00: You're going through a new doorway.
• 10:20
  SPEAKER_00: So think about standing in a doorway.
• 10:22
  SPEAKER_00: Behind you is familiar.
• 10:24
  SPEAKER_00: That's family, your hometown, everything you came from.
• 10:26
  SPEAKER_00: You know the room, you know the furniture, you know where everything is.
• 10:29
  SPEAKER_00: But on the other side of the door, there's a different room, different possibilities, different risks.
• 10:33
  SPEAKER_00: And some people spend years standing in the doorway, one foot there, one foot here, never leaving, right?
• 10:40
  SPEAKER_00: Never fully arriving.
• 10:42
  SPEAKER_00: They just stand in the door.
• 10:44
  SPEAKER_00: And eventually, have you ever heard a parent that say, Are you gonna come in or are you gonna go out?
• 10:48
  SPEAKER_00: Because the kid is hanging in the doorway.
• 10:51
  SPEAKER_00: And eventually, indecision becomes its own decision.
• 10:54
  SPEAKER_00: That's the part that most people forget.
• 10:56
  SPEAKER_00: Not choosing, right?
• 10:57
  SPEAKER_00: Not making a decision still produces consequences.
• 11:00
  SPEAKER_00: You didn't decide whether to apply.
• 11:02
  SPEAKER_00: Well, the deadline passed, right?
• 11:04
  SPEAKER_00: That was a consequence, the decision was made.
• 11:06
  SPEAKER_00: You didn't decide whether to have the conversation, the conversation that you know you need to have.
• 11:10
  SPEAKER_00: Well, guess what?
• 11:10
  SPEAKER_00: The relationship went down.
• 11:12
  SPEAKER_00: You made the decision.
• 11:14
  SPEAKER_00: The decision was made.
• 11:15
  SPEAKER_00: You didn't decide whether to prepare financially, emergency happened, the decision was made.
• 11:20
  SPEAKER_00: Life doesn't always wait for you to become comfortable.
• 11:22
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes the window closes and makes the decisions for you.
• 11:25
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, I'm serious, family.
• 11:27
  SPEAKER_00: This is why sometimes when you're thinking about something, that's why they say if you study long, you study wrong.
• 11:32
  SPEAKER_00: And don't get me wrong, family.
• 11:34
  SPEAKER_00: One of the most important things I want you to hear is execution happens when you have enough intelligence, you have enough in information to make a responsible decision.
• 11:45
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 11:46
  SPEAKER_00: All right, because you're not gonna have everything, but when you got enough information to make a responsible, enough intel to make a responsible decision, man, go ahead and go forward.
• 11:56
  SPEAKER_00: Go go ahead and go for it.
• 11:59
  SPEAKER_00: Seriously.
• 12:00
  SPEAKER_00: One thing I've noticed sometimes in life, and really all the time, is when you step out, even if you fall and bump your head, life will pick you back up.
• 12:14
  SPEAKER_00: Life really will.
• 12:16
  SPEAKER_00: It'll pick you back up.
• 12:19
  SPEAKER_00: And this is why sometimes making that first initial decision on certain things, it becomes so hard because you want that certainty.
• 12:28
  SPEAKER_00: You want that hundred percent certainty that everything will be fine, everything will be perfect.
• 12:33
  SPEAKER_00: But my darling, I'm so sorry to tell you, but the universe, God, they're usually normally don't offer the full amount of certainty.
• 12:51
  SPEAKER_00: There's no guarantees except dying in taxes, as they say, in the States, right?
• 12:56
  SPEAKER_00: So you gotta decide to move when you get that information that allows you to make a responsible decision.
• 13:04
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, let's get into truth number three.
• 13:06
  SPEAKER_00: Hard decisions require the capacity to disappoint people.
• 13:10
  SPEAKER_00: Woo wee.
• 13:11
  SPEAKER_00: Listen, black sheep, you know this is for the black sheep, because sometimes hard decisions require the capacity to disappoint people.
• 13:19
  SPEAKER_00: See, sometimes executing your decision means somebody isn't gonna like it.
• 13:22
  SPEAKER_00: And for recovering people pleasers, that can feel unbearable.
• 13:26
  SPEAKER_00: Your family may disagree, your co-workers may not understand, your friend may feel abandoned, your partner will challenge you, right?
• 13:32
  SPEAKER_00: Somebody may call you selfish and say you've changed, and sometimes you're right, you did change.
• 13:36
  SPEAKER_00: This isn't automatically a character flaw because somebody changed, right?
• 13:39
  SPEAKER_00: Growth changes people, growth changes priorities, experience changes your standards, information changes the decisions.
• 13:45
  SPEAKER_00: You're allowed to change your mind, family.
• 13:47
  SPEAKER_00: You're allowed to update your life when you receive better intelligence.
• 13:50
  SPEAKER_00: This is why I always tell you too, family.
• 13:51
  SPEAKER_00: If you're hating around people that act like because you made a decision at one point in time, it's set in stone and uh in the earth crust, and you can never change your mind.
• 13:59
  SPEAKER_00: Get new friends, get new friends.
• 14:02
  SPEAKER_00: People change their mind all the time.
• 14:04
  SPEAKER_00: Don't allow anybody to come into your life and act like because you changed your mind, they want you to be loyal to a lie or loyal to a decision that you made when you had a lack of information.
• 14:15
  SPEAKER_00: I don't think so.
• 14:17
  SPEAKER_00: I don't think so, right?
• 14:18
  SPEAKER_00: But that is proof that you need better friends and people in your life, okay?
• 14:24
  SPEAKER_00: Because you're allowed to update your life when you receive better intelligence.
• 14:27
  SPEAKER_00: Disappointment isn't automatically betrayal, right?
• 14:30
  SPEAKER_00: Now, listen, don't take this lesson and become reckless.
• 14:33
  SPEAKER_00: Commitments matter, responsibilities matter, people matter, your decisions affect other people.
• 14:37
  SPEAKER_00: I was just talking to someone about that, about how they must understand that their decisions affect other people, and that's also what makes them challenging, right?
• 14:45
  SPEAKER_00: Because leadership means considering those consequences, but consideration is not the same thing as surrender.
• 14:51
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, so you can listen to someone's concern and still disagree, you can care about someone's feelings and still establish the boundary, you can appreciate someone's contribution and still end the partnership, you can honor where you've been and still decide you're going somewhere else.
• 15:05
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes being responsible for your life requires accepting that someone else may be disappointed with your decision.
• 15:12
  SPEAKER_00: I hope you understand that, guys, because execution doesn't always look dramatic.
• 15:16
  SPEAKER_00: Here's something else.
• 15:17
  SPEAKER_00: Executing doesn't always mean quit today, leave today, cut everybody off.
• 15:21
  SPEAKER_00: No, sometimes execution means creating the exit plan, right?
• 15:24
  SPEAKER_00: Create your exit plan, make the appointment, open a savings account, send that application through, write one page, have that conversation, take that class, update the resume.
• 15:34
  SPEAKER_00: Execution is simply the moment you your decision becomes behavior.
• 15:38
  SPEAKER_00: And sometimes the smartest execution is quiet.
• 15:43
  SPEAKER_00: Here's the intelligence, family.
• 15:45
  SPEAKER_00: A hard decision can still be the right move to make.
• 15:48
  SPEAKER_00: Staying has a cost, just like leaving does, and absolute certainty probably isn't coming.
• 15:53
  SPEAKER_00: And somebody else's disappointment doesn't automatically mean you made the wrong choice.
• 15:56
  SPEAKER_00: Eventually, the analysis has to end, and execution has to begin.
• 16:01
  SPEAKER_00: Let's get into these three black sheep action moves.
• 16:03
  SPEAKER_00: Number one, name the decision.
• 16:04
  SPEAKER_00: What decision have you been circling?
• 16:06
  SPEAKER_00: Write it down in one sentence.
• 16:07
  SPEAKER_00: No essay, no explanation.
• 16:09
  SPEAKER_00: What are you actually deciding?