Confidence and Faster Decision-Making with Paul Epstein
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“Show me the quality of your decisions, and I'll show you the quality of your life, period, full stop.” — Paul Epstein
Setting The Tone
- Leaders are responsible for their own 'temperature', setting the tone and climate within their team.
- The culture consists of infinite micro-climates, influenced by locations and individual behaviors.
- A positive 'temperature' by every leader fosters a welcoming environment that shapes the organization's culture.
Working With A Sports Team vs. Fortune 500 Company
- Success in the sports industry comes from enjoying the day-to-day operations, not just the glamorous exterior.
- The allure of sports is like a "sexy book cover," but long-term fulfillment requires loving the job's minutiae.
- Every job, including those in the sports industry, requires dedication to details for true satisfaction.
Your Real Problem Is Your Confidence
- Confidence is a competitive advantage rooted in authenticity rather than ego.
- It is defined by the alignment of identity, values, and actions.
- Confidence formula: Confidence = Values x Action.
- Consistent action based on personal values builds sustainable confidence.
How To Find Your Values
- Use online resources to choose a top personal core value.
- Commit to living this value through specific actions for a week.
- A four-week commitment to a value-driven journal fosters permanent change through habit formation.
The Good & Bad Yellow
- Good yellow: Heart committed, head uncertain temporarily.
- Bad yellow: Head overrules heart, ignoring emotional instincts.
- Overcome mental barriers by seeking advice from trusted sources for authentic decision-making.
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Paul Epstein: Paul Epstein is on a mission to help individuals and organizations make better decisions faster as the leading speaker on confidence and decision making. He brings an always on offense mindset to a world that's increasingly playing defense. His insights were gathered over a
Mike Goldman: 15 year run as a professional sports executive, where Paul successfully steered business teams that executed billion dollar NFL campaigns, broke Super Bowl revenue records, and generated lead leading sales results for seller dwelling NBA clubs. His proudest moment in the industry was when he was internally known as the why coach for the San Francisco 49ers.
His message and game changing perspective on stage made Paul an award winning keynote speaker. He's also provided leadership development and culture transformation programs for companies and teams including Amazon, Disney, Johnson & Johnson, the LA Lakers, and the Dallas Cowboys. He's no schlub. Paul, welcome to the show.
Paul Epstein: Hey, Mike fired up to be here.
Mike Goldman: Awesome stuff. Can't wait to talk. Paul and I met at an event a number of months ago, and ever since I've been psyched to kind of get into it and you know, learn about the sports career and all that. But Paul, the first question I always ask my guests, this is the Better Leadership Team Show. So we like to tie everything back.
I like to tie everything back to the leadership team. From your experience, what's the one most important characteristic of a great leadership team?
Paul Epstein: Well, you always hear setting the tone as something that whether we're talking leadership or culture. So let me take that a step further. Owning your temperature is the responsibility of every leader and every leadership team. And here's exactly what I mean by that. So years back post sports career, which I know we're going to jam out on, I was doing consulting for one of the top airlines in the world.
They've got 120,000 employees. They've got 6,000 positional leaders. And so I did training workshops over the course of years with all 6,000 people in my network asked me, so what's the culture of the airline like to which I responded. Who's the leader? What location? What department? What floor of the building?
That's the culture. Because, Mike, when I would visit them, floor five, they were high fiving. Floor six, shh, watch out. Boss is around the corner. Which proved to me that in a world that considers culture this top down thing or this macro thing, I believe within a greater culture, within a greater climate, there's infinite micro climates down to the floor of the building and down to the person.
So you asked me what the greatest leadership teams do when every single leader. Within that team owns their temperature because when we walk in a room or we hop on a zoom meeting or whatever we do, we could either warm it up or we could cool it off. The question is, are we aware of our own temperature?
And when every leader on a leadership team owns their temperature, they own the warmth. They are a warm light, a warm beacon that steps into every room. That is the culture that I would bet on, and it's because of the temperature of every leader in that leadership team.
Mike Goldman: Love it. That's beautiful. And, you know, we've heard over and over again that people don't leave companies, they leave managers. Right and that's a part of what you're talking about.
Right so I love that now, Paul, you spent 15 years as a sports executive and in fact, one of my wife's cousins who's about 19 years old is going to college and him and like 10 other people I know are like, what are you going to college for a sports management?
They go to sports management and 98 percent of them never go anywhere near a sports team when that's done, but it's everybody's dream. So how did you actually make that happen?
Paul Epstein: A little bit of luck and, but also some preparation. So we all know the famous, and if we don't, then this is a phenomenal quote to grab onto from the ancient philosopher Seneca. He said, luck is when preparation meets opportunity, right? So here's my preparation and opportunity story. So unlike a lot of the folks you just described that are all geeked up about this potential of getting into sports and going to school for something called sports management nowadays.
It's a pretty big deal. So circa here we are recording this late 23. We'll probably launch this thing in 2024. Nowadays, so many universities have sports business management programs back in the day. I don't want to date myself, but decades ago, it wasn't that big of a deal. It wasn't very well known. And so I had no freaking clue.
Here I am. I'm in undergrad. I'm an LA kid. I'm at USC. And there was no sports management program. So I just did the traditional path and I ended up getting this really cool internship and I'm working for a fortune 10 company and I happen to be a business major and emphasis in sales. I always knew that that was going to be my path.
And so I'm an outside territory sales manager for a fortune 10 company. I'm driving a very cool dodge caravan. So yes, it's as if I was a soccer parent in advance. So I've got this Dodge caravan and I'm driving from one retail account to another wholesale account and on and on it goes. Well, of course, in my cool caravan, I've got it on ESPN radio.
And for those of us listening in that are sports fans, the name Mel Kiper might ring a bell. Mel Kiper is known as the NFL draft guru. And if you think I've got energy right now, Mel's on a different level. Like, man, he's just fired up, like on all cylinders. So the first commercial that comes on ESPN radio, Mel jumps in and says, have you ever wanted to work in sports?
Have you ever dreamed of working for your favorite NFL NBA? And I'm speeding down the highway. Like, yes, yes, yes. He says, call 1 800 SMWW now. SMWW stands for Sports Management Worldwide. I made the call. I took the eight week online course. I impressed the instructors. They said, where do you want to be? I said LA, they said awesome, we know folks at the Staples Center.
This was Circa, Kobe and Shaq winning championships with the Lakers, I'm like, oh my gosh, these guys are gonna introduce me to be in sales for the championship Lakers, and they did make the call. But I never worked for the Lakers. I worked for the other guys, the LA Clippers, and ESPN called us the worst brand in sports at that time.
My second week on the job as an entry level sales guy, the front cover of Sports Illustrated said, worst franchise in sports history. And so you try to talk about selling the unsellable and working for the underdog. And this was just my first test of how do you play offense in a defensive environment.
Because every single person listening in deals with defense all day, every day. There's adversity, there's hurdles, there's setbacks, there's challenges. It's all the stuff that gets in between us and winning. It's all the stuff that makes business and life hard, but we still got a job to do. We still got to produce, we still got to perform.
We have to work our tails off. We have to stay positive. We have to be coachable. And this was part of the DNA that I had to figure out because Mike, I started one of 12 people in a single class. I almost thought it was like a fraternity, like 12 people start on the same day. I was the only one of the 12
to make it to month three on the job. So you want to talk about the survival and this ability to really harness and control the controllables and then the rest of the journey. Yeah, sure. It was 15 years and there were a lot of trophies and breaking all time Superbowl revenue records, opening up billion dollar stadiums and the list goes on and on, but what I'm most stoked about, what I'm most proud about is like.
Dude, nobody did me any favors for 15 years. I was selling a losing team on the field or the court 14 out of the 15 years and yet we still crushed goals, crushed numbers, made people in culture and leadership are competitive advantage. I am accustomed to being in negative environments and making the most out of them and that's really what's been my calling.
Mike Goldman: So you said the LA Clippers, I know you did work with the 49ers, who were the other teams that you worked with over that period?
Paul Epstein: Yeah, for sure. So three NBA teams, I started LA and again, I usually confuse people and they're like, oh, awesome Lakers. Well, I already explained that, that cat out of the bag. Then it was new Orleans working for the Hornets. Now they're the Pelicans, then Sacramento and the Kings. Then I joined a global agency that was owned by the Jones and Steinbrenner family.
So Yankees and Cowboys ties there. And that's what lands me in the NFL league office. Get in that Superbowl leadership role. And then the Niners were kind of the grand finale.
Mike Goldman: Awesome. So now that you've spent some time in business before, then you go into the business side of sports now back working with leaders and you know, companies. what's the difference in your mind? You know, cause
when you think of working with a sports team, it almost seems like this mythical, you know, this mythical kind of, you know, organization up on a hill. What was it like? How different was it or how similar was it to, you know, to a fortune 500 company?
Paul Epstein: Great question. And I actually think that this is where a lot of folks, especially those that do want to get into sports or they are in sports. I think this is what gets people in a lot of trouble. And here's what I mean by that. I call it the, the supermodel principle. And sometimes you think of, oh, it's this very sexy exterior.
And let's say if I was giving the metaphor of a book, like, oh, it's a really sexy book cover. But you got to enjoy the read, you got to enjoy flipping the pages, you got to enjoy the content in the supermodel example. If you don't have good quality conversations at the dinner table, they ain't going to be so hot after a while, right?
It eventually wears off. And the thing with the sports industry is. I was not the player. I was not the GM or the coach. I was in the front office. I was on the business side and it was awesome. But you know why I crushed it? You know why I killed it? It was not because of the sexiness of the outside.
It's because I love the day to day job. I love the bad days. I love the grind. I love to sell. And then eventually I love to lead sales teams. And I grew my career in the sales and business development vertical. But it's not that different from any other industry. There are departments. It's a fully functioning company, give or take two, three, 400 person organization.
You could call it a midsize organization. Awesome. I've got my finance people over there. I got my operations people over there. I've got sales. I've got marketing. I got all the stuff. And that's the part of it that if that doesn't light you up, eventually the industry will, if anything, Mike, the really interesting part about it is.
There's two factors, you know, I fully believe that the, every job, just like every person, there's a honeymoon period, right? We have this, oh, they could do no wrong and it's perfect. Like red flag is like when a month into a job and you're like, how is it if I already found the flaws, dude, that's a very short, very, very, very short, piece there.
But for me, the honeymoon period, it lasted years, but then eventually I realized. Oh, this is still a job and I still have to build a natural organic career. And if I don't find the beauty in the details of the day to day, then I'm going to work in a very sexy industry, but not necessarily love what I do.
And so, you know, I think that's kind of a cool perspective. If anything, I always share with folks, if you want to stay a sports fan, sometimes the ticket is not to always work in it because now I know how the sausage is made. Now I almost have too much of a backstage pass and don't get me wrong.
Being on the field during the super bowl, having the confetti fall on you priceless moments, priceless memories. It opened up doors from my mom, for my wife, for all the most important people in my life to give them those priceless memories. We even got so fun, quick story. We got married on the field of Levi's stadium a month after Levi's stadium hosted Superbowl 50.
So we were right there smack dab on midfield and you could still see some faded paint of the 5 O and the venue, Mike was my wife's idea. I swear, I swear.
Mike Goldman: Yeah, I don't believe you, but that's okay.
Paul Epstein: So you think about... hey, I'm happy to off camera. I'll share the real backstory, but no, no, no. But here's the reality. Those are amazing moments and memories.
But I keep going back to the fact that you still have to love the day to day. And I think it's like a relationship too. I don't care if you marry the hottest person in the world. That's great. But I go back to the dinner table. I go back to how do you handle adversity? How do you handle your first argument?
How do you handle conflict? How do you handle the boring stuff of the day to day that the life will never see on social media? That's the real relationship. And that's the relationship that lasts and that wins and that you would bet on. And sports was really no different. So I kind of just learned this philosophy of embracing the day to day and not focusing on the sexy exterior.
Mike Goldman: So why the leap then? So you're in sports for 15 years. Tell me a little bit about the leap back into the business world, speaking, writing, you know, workshops, that kind of stuff. When did you do that? And why that leap?
Paul Epstein: Everybody always asks me, why'd you leave sports? And I respond, I didn't leave sports. I found myself. So it was a handful of months after that magical day on the field getting married. This is circa March, 2016. So this retreat, I believe is like summer, fall of 2016. And it was a two day offsite. My boss, who was the team president, took all of his reports to a beautiful resort, two days on self discovery.
I walked away from that retreat knowing my why I finally was able to articulate my core values. And then on the drive home, when I had this really magical feeling, like I felt Mike like something special had happened, I couldn't quite articulate it, but I didn't want this to become another sugar high because I'll tell you, even as a speaker, one of my pet peeves is like, you know, you leave an event and you feel like you're going to shoot out of a cannon and you're super inspired and fired up and I'm going to go change the world and then Monday morning hits.
And you get back to your inbox, you get back to family, you get distracted, one or two weeks go by and you reflect back on the event and poof, it's a sugar high. And for me, I refused to allow this retreat to be a sugar high. I wanted to capture and maintain and keep that special feeling. So what that meant for me was I said, If a why and values are kind of like a north star, then that's going to serve me in blue skies.
That's going to serve me in good times, but what am I going to do differently on Monday morning? So I put pen to paper through my own processes and I said, if I cannot connect these things that right now look like a north star and they feel like a north star, I need to connect them to my daily decisions and actions.
And that was this first realization that life is a game of decisions and actions. And with that, I just wanted to pay this gift of purpose forward because I feel like this retreat changed my life and I used to have a work Paul and a personal Paul and now I became convinced that for me to be my best, most authentic and confident self, to marry who I am, to what I stand for, to how I show up, for me to have full alignment in those areas.
Which is what the retreat inspired me to do, then I truly had to become one version of Paul and that process there of me getting true to my own purpose and then sharing it in the front office That's what eventually leads to be being known as the why coach. So you could look up my bio look at my website paulepsteinspeaks.com. You'll see there why coach of the San Francisco 49ers what that was it was me harnessing what happened at the retreat.
And then telling folks about it, just super fired up about it. And then people from my team said, I want to find my why. And then the water cooler buzz started. And then some of the coaches on the football side approached me. And then some of the players approached me and then HR approached me and said, let's recruit, let's onboard folks.
And Paul, can you help people find their why? And that's when I became known as the why coach. And then Mike to put a bow on this. And maybe a lot of folks listening in have gone through this, but I truly, genuinely believe that it was the greatest graduation of my life. From career to calling. When I was coaching the why.
I felt called to do it, and I had never felt called in anything that I had ever done. I love the sports industry. I don't regret a step of the journey, but I never felt called to do it. And the why coach chapter of my time really reinforced that this is what I'm supposed to be doing the rest of my life. Now fast forward here we are five six seven eight years later and now I'm speaking and writing books and doing all the stuff that revolves around this thought leadership space. But the true like the heartbeat and the the real ammunition that started it was that feeling that I had at the retreat then the feeling that I had coaching the why and it was a passion project, but eventually my passion project took over and I ended up loving it more than my day job. And at that point I had to take the leap because I had already found myself.
Mike Goldman: Beautiful. And what was your why? I know you help other people with their why. What was your why that got you so pumped up?
Paul Epstein: Yeah, I'll share the words, but let me also preface this. It's not about the words. It's the spirit of the words. And I know this because I've wordsmithed this so many times. And now I just shorten it, condense it. But what it is now, what it is now, I am on this planet to ignite impact. And my measurement of impact is.
Am I leaving people in places better than I found them? And Mike, I'll share this. That sounds cool. It sounds like a bumper sticker and that's fine. Like I get like people hearing that might be like, oh, okay, well that's inspirational. That's awesome. There has to be a meaning underneath the why otherwise.
Just like a company has values and just like you get off the elevator and you look at the wall in the lobby and some companies actually do it and then so many companies sadly do not do it. And you're like, man, just take them off the wall. Right? Like that's just a classic thing for me. The reason that I would fall on the sword for impact.
The reason it's my core value. And the question that led me to leave sports was can I create more impact inside of these four walls of the sports industry or beyond? And when I realized that me staying in sports, I'd be leaving impact on the table, that's when I mentally knew that I was going to leave sports.
And then it took me a couple months to figure out the who, what, when, where, why, how, but here's the backstory. The reason impact is my strongest core value is because of my hero. My hero is my dad, and I lost my hero at 19 years old. By trade, he was a continuation high school teacher. So for those listening in, if you're not familiar with a continuation school, it's a kid's last chance.
They've been kicked out of traditional school, time and time again, they landed a continuation, and the hope and prayer is that they don't go on to become a statistic on the street. And my dad chose that environment intentionally after teaching in traditional schools. He realized he could make a greater impact
in continuations, so fast forward a few years after he passes, I'm at a barber shop a few blocks away from the school that he taught at and in walks in a seven foot tall man, bulging body tattoos on his face like a scary looking dude, like somebody that if you saw in a dark alley, you would run the other way and he and I lock eyes and he's coming right at me and I see his hand go up and Mike, I was totally expecting to see a fist. But instead, I saw a finger, a finger that was pointing right at me, and he asked, are you Mr. Epstein's son? Yeah, I thought it was you. You look familiar. You were like this tall on the side of the stage that I graduated from years ago, and anyways, I just wanted to come over and say thank you. Thank you, because your dad was the first person that ever believed in me. Thank you, your dad gave me a reason to think that tomorrow is worth it. And Mike, I never knew until this point that there's people around us every day that don't feel that tomorrow's worth it. And this is when I first realized the real definition of leadership. How personal it gets. What's possible
when you leave people better than you found them. And that's why it's my definition of impact. And it's all in the spirit of my late hero. And if I could have 1/10th of the impact that my dad had, then it'll be a great life because he may have chosen a classroom. I may have chosen a boardroom and now I choose a stage, but the impact is all the same.
And so when you ask why leave sports, how do you possibly take such a gigantic leap and big career decision because of a word? Because of impact? No, it's because of my hero. And when I think of him, I think about impact and that's why his legacy has become my purpose and making decisions like that to leave sports. For me, it was just a decision of impact on a big stage.
Mike Goldman: The other word I hear you use a lot is confidence. And I've heard you talk about, you know, we think the problem is A, B, C, D, but it's not, it's confidence. And I want to transition into talking about your new book as well, of course, and I think this will probably transition us. But, tell me a little bit about that word confidence, how you define it, and why it's so important in a leader.
Paul Epstein: Confidence is our competitive advantage. And I don't mean big, bold, audacious confidence. I don't mean ego. I mean, when I got back to those moments of self discovery, that retreat experience, and I call it authentic confidence, because before that retreat, what I realized is I had two chapters, even now reflecting back on my life, I've had two chapters of life.
Pre confidence and post confidence and pre doesn't mean I wasn't confident. It means I was inconsistently confident, but now it's just superpower. Now I consider it the through line of every day and now I show up with full clarity and full confidence because with that retreat and when I bring this message to a stage, what I realize is it's this marriage and alignment of who you are.
Connected to what you stand for, connected to how you show up. So at its core, there are these values. I, even more than a why, I believe my values have been a bigger life changer for me because they can get more behavioral in an easier way. Then a why is like a statement and I struggled to apply it on Monday morning.
Values are one level removed from behaviors and actions. And that's kind of the, how you show up, how do I make decisions? How do I take actions, etcetera. So my formula for all of this is confidence equals values times action. So I'll repeat that everyone listening. And this is your formula for how you build and sustain unshakable confidence.
Confidence equals values times action. The multiplication is how consistently you do it. In other words, show me a person that takes consistent action on their values. I will show you a confident person and the same applies for teams, leaders, cultures, organizations. Show me an organization that consistently acts on their values.
I will show you a confident organization, period, point blank, full stop. And when I realized this, Mike, like, man, this truly is like, let's just simplify this, man. I don't like making things complex. I don't like confusing people. I'm all about clarity because without clarity, I don't believe that we can be confident.
And for me, if you tell me to lock in on this formula and you're like, what are your values and are you taking consistent actions against those values? I can do that. The hard part is you got to figure out your values and like all good, but let me just give everybody a fast pass to finding a value and also another quick minute on a process on how you can implement this in your life effective immediately.
So this is an immediate tactical action item for everyone listening in. You could literally Google top personal values, top personal core values. It's going to give you a list of 50, 75, a hundred. Just choose one. Choose one and I'm going to give you an exercise on how to apply it into action. So it's a journaling exercise and it takes about two minutes to do in a whole week.
So, time is not an excuse. We can easily plug into this. So, let's say that you would have chosen a value of joy. Here's the exercise. Here's the journal. For the week ahead, I will live my value of blank by blank. The first blank is a value that you just chose, in this case joy. The second is an action that you connect to that value.
So, for this one, for the week ahead, I will live my value of joy by cooking my favorite meal. Awesome. Anybody could do it. Super simple. Super small. For me, I'm throwing bacon on a pan. What are you doing? Whatever brings you joy. That's a small action. But now let's pivot. Let's get a little bit more risque here.
Let's get off of joy and let's say that you choose a value like courage. So my journal would go something like for the week ahead. I will live my value of courage by having that challenging conversation that I've been putting off. You're not having that conversation because Paul said. You're having that conversation because courage is a core value. And that's the journal, and here's my last tidbit on it. It's the same reason New Year's resolutions don't work, but this is gonna work. Because New Year's resolutions, we lack process and system, so we don't have something like a journal, like the one I just laid out. And also, it violates a rule of science that ensures that you will have no permanent, positive, lasting change.
And that is, habit formation. What the science will tell us about habits is it typically takes three to four weeks for habits to form. So in other words, if you dedicate yourself to any process and you stop before you pass the habit threshold, there will be no permanent change, no transformation.
So you doing this journal once, good luck. You doing this journal twice, you'd be lucky if it's stuck. But once you get to the third week, and by the way, for Mike and everyone listening in, I've done this with Olympians, NFL athletes, Fortune 50 CEOs, high growth founders, and the list goes on. And it works 100 percent of the time if you can get to the fourth week
of journaling and you stick with one value for the whole four weeks. So if you chose joy, four consecutive weeks of joy. If you chose courage, four consecutive weeks of courage, and what you see is in this fourth week of journaling, you're doing six, seven, eight, nine, 10 actions connected to that word, and now it's internalized.
Now it's muscle memory and that is how you can build and sustain unshakable confidence through one simple journal.
Mike Goldman: What I love, I love so much about what you just said, the one biggest thing that hits me is you're taking for me the way I would typically define confidence and you're meshing it together with authenticity. It's not just being confident, it's taking action on your values.
And to me, that's what being authentic is all about. And when you say you were able to be the same Paul at work, outside of work, because you know your why, you know, it's about impact, you know who you are. That's as authentic as it gets. So I love that exercise. And I can see people doing that for their personal values.
And man, I can see leaders doing that, setting the stage, doing it for a company's values. So the company's values are not some BS up on a plaque on the wall or a website because it sounds good. They're making commitments for how they're going to live those values each and every week. So I love that.
I want to make sure we hit on your newest book. So I know you're on a mission to help people make better decisions faster. Why that focus? What caused you to focus on decision making?
Paul Epstein: Yeah, well, I know the reason we're all congregating here together is we've got a lot of leaders listening in. And so if I was to dovetail, even going back to my first book, the power of playing offense, a leader's playbook for personal and team transformation, that was the leadership playbook that I never had.
And so that launches in early 21 and it did tremendously well. And that's really what spearheaded a lot of my speaking success and a ton of other things in the thought leadership space. But here's the reality. When you write a book like the power of playing offense, which if you're a sports fan, you get it.
I think you kind of understand the spirit of where I'm going, but then the natural follow on question is all right, Paul, now that you've been talking about this book all over the world, playing offense, answer me this, what do people that play offense do differently? What's the separator? What's the differentiator between those that play defense?
And I can now answer that with full clarity and confidence in terms of whether you're an individual, you're a team, you're a culture, you're an organization. I now can delineate offense versus defense and here's where we landed after years of being back in the lab and doing the research and really socializing this in our practice.
Those that play offense, are highly decisive, highly. They're not worried about the outcome. They're worried about taking action and they realize they're either going to succeed or grow. They will succeed or learn. They will succeed or they will evolve. So it's this embracing of imperfect action. Beyond that.
They don't fall prisoner to paralysis. And indecision the way that so many people do and they step in every day with awareness ownership and intention and I could keep going but if I really distilled it down this ability to be decisive and not fall prisoner to paralysis and indecision that is the offensive game plan and so when I really understood this I thought to myself life is a game of decisions and actions so for you Mike for me everybody listening in show me the quality of your decisions I'll show you the quality of your life, period, full stop. So nobody ever really questions that.
statement.
Mike Goldman: let me, let me, hold on, let me jump in though, because I want to make sure I'm taking what you said in the right way. When you say it's the quality of your decisions, I think of two things, and I want to make sure we're on the same page. One is yes, have you made a good decision?
And I almost said what I don't want to say, have you made the right decision? In my mind we don't always know what the right decision is, but one is like, have you made a good decision? The other is, have you made a decision, right? The reason I jumped in is I think people can take that
I need to make a quality decision and use that as an excuse to not make a decision. So I loved what you, I wrote down something you said, which is you got to embrace imperfect action. And I love that phrase. And I just want you to run with that for a little bit. It's not about making the right decision.
Sometimes it's just about making a decision.
Paul Epstein: It's making a decision. So yes, it's locking in on this ability to be a decisive human being. Are you a decisive person? Yes or no? You can answer that in a simple yes or no. I am decisive. I am not. I'm not questioning the outcome. I'm not questioning whether it was a successful journey. I'm questioning, did you pull the trigger?
Did you make the decision? And then if you embrace a growth mindset, then you're going to realize that failure is not a word in the vocabulary. That's where I say you succeed or you grow, you succeed or you learn, you succeed or you evolve. So I'm just like, I'm either going to get a happy ending to this decision, or if not, then I'm going to say
all right, Paul, how would you make this decision differently in the future, but I cannot make the worst decision in that audit, which is indecision. As long as I stay decisive, I'm going to continue to bet on myself to realize over time I can make decisions better for my quality of life, quality of business, etcetera.
But here's what I also want to double click on. And now let's get to the book because me sharing with the world that you need to make better decisions faster. Says Captain Obvious. Of course you do. Like, oh my gosh, Paul, you're so enlightening. Oh, but thank you, brother. Make better decisions faster. Okay, it would not be a very successful venture or book if I left it at conceptual or theoretical.
So what I did was I wrote a book on the how to, on the application, how do you make better decisions faster? And let's get really formulaic here. So the how to inside of the book, I call it the head heart hands equation. The equation is head plus heart equals hands by definition. Head is mindset, heart is authenticity, hands are action.
And again, the equation, head plus heart equals hands. In other words, when deciding whether to use your hands, whether to take action, there's two checkpoints. Head and heart. Head, do I think it's a good idea? Heart, do I feel it's a good idea? And just like when all of us, when we're in a car and we're driving, we pull up to an intersection, we know exactly what to do.
Green is go, red is stop, yellow is assess. And green, yellow, red is exactly how the head, heart, hands equation works. When you're heading your harder on board, it is a green fricking light. 10 out of 10 times. Go take that action. Green light head and heart fully ignited the opposite. No head, no heart, red light.
Don't do it or stop doing it. And then when either the head or the heart is on board, well that's the messy middle of yellow. And we gotta solve for the gap. So now, using this head heart hands equation, every single person adopting this framework has an instantaneous, regardless of strategy, A or B team
do I hire or fire? Do I make the investment or pass relationship in my in or out, career pivot or stay. All these wonderful, wonderful high stakes, high value types of decisions you now have a framework, an equation, head, heart, hands, where you can get to a green, yellow, or red within a matter of seconds. So it's faster than the alternative, which would be no head, heart, hands equation.
And it's better because some of us are very logic driven, a lot of head, but then we don't check in with a heart. Some of us like me are very emotionally driven, a lot of heart, don't always check in with a head. Well, the equation is head plus heart equals hands. In other words, it forces you to check in with head and heart.
So now you can make the more purposeful decision and action.
Mike Goldman: So what's your coaching and I'm thinking of my clients when I say this and if you're listening, you know, you know who you are, how do you coach the person who is confused in their head more often than not, not because they're not smart enough to understand, but they are almost too good at weighing all the options and thinking through all the different scenarios.
So, their heart may not be the issue, and if the heart's not there, then forget it. But if the heart's there and the head is overanalyzing, how do you coach people who feel like they need the answer to every question and overanalyze before they could say, my head is there?
Paul Epstein: Hmm good question. So in your scenario, and then I totally will jump into this head first. In your example, is the head, sorry, is the heart in
Mike Goldman: Let's, Let's assume for simplicity, the heart is in, but the head feels like it needs the answer to every question before it moves forward.
Paul Epstein: I love it. So in this case, it's a yellow light where heart is in and head is TBD for now. This is the good yellow. So the quick masterclass on yellows, there's a good yellow and a bad yellow. And it's based on out of your head and your heart, which do you think has the greater probability of changing over time?
In other words, do I think I can improve my mindset from week to week, month to month? Sure. Like I'm not saying it's easy, but of course I think I can do that. I'm not going to wake up with a new heart tomorrow. So the truth is the truth is the truth. And so the bad yellow is when our head convinces us for purely logical reasons.
Like I was a sales leader back in the day and I ran really big sales teams. And sometimes, you know, your highest producer, highest performer, they could sometimes be a little difficult to manage right? And now you pop them into a team environment and now TikTok and years go by after your head said, keep them because of their production, but your heart knows they're not a keeper.
And then years go by. And again, this is the bad yellow because years go by and now all of a sudden I've got culture problems. Then I've got engagement problems. Now I'm losing some of my better people. So I got retention problems and then the market is aware of it. So now I have recruiting problems. If I could advise the Paul of yesteryesteryear making that type of a decision where it was all head and I didn't listen to my heart. I didn't have an engagement or retention or a recruiting problem. I had a yellow light problem. I had a yellow light problem. That's why it's the bad yellow. Same with a relationship. Oh, I stay with this person for a logical reason. Or, but my heart knows that they're not the one. A lot of us have been in that situation and we're just lying to ourselves.
So, that's the bad yellow. The good yellow is what you just described. If your heart is in, I believe there's so few things in life where your heart is going to be a hell yes about. So you don't want to waste that opportunity. You want to stay in the fight. You need to tackle whatever pollution exists from the neck up.
In your case, the way you laid it out was maybe it's paralysis by analysis, right? Oh, I need all the information. I need to create, collect data for the next years before, because you're trying to like remove risk from moving forward, but that's just not reality. The reality is all that we can do is be decisive and take action and then understand that there's going to be an outcome.
And if it's a good outcome, great. If it's not, then we just need to iterate and evolve and continue to move forward. Right? So I think that's one. Another thing that exists in the head, but sometimes it gets in the way of our heart is a self limiting belief. We've all had them. You play small. You feel small.
Maybe there's a self worth thing. Maybe there's a confidence gap. There's a lot of things that get in the way, and those are self limiting beliefs. What I have found, Mike, is great perspective and advice for when your heart is in, but you've got to kind of get out of your own head. The mind, and we know this from prehistoric days, the mind is trained.
It's wired, it's for stability, safety, security, and comfort. And so if that's just the default setting to most people's minds, if not everybody's minds, the best way to overcome those feelings is to not go at it alone. So for me, I introduce somebody to the biggest decisions in my life when it's the yellow you described.
If my heart is in, but something's getting in the way of my head, I'll talk to a coach. I'll talk to a mentor, I'll talk to a peer, a fellow leader, I'll talk to my spouse, context matters, but I know that when I try to tackle yellow lights by myself, I typically don't win. But when I try to tackle yellow lights, the hard ones, by having other people join me for that process and journey, then I'm gonna be more successful, not just in the outcome, but I'm gonna have a more authentic process.
Mike Goldman: I love this way of thinking about it. I keep going back again it goes back to the phrase that you mentioned that I kind of requoted is embracing imperfect action, right? If you're waiting for perfect action, you're going to be waiting for a very long time and the opportunity's gone. So I love that. Last thing I want to ask you about before we start to wrap up, and some folks are watching this on video, some are listening.
If you're listening, you know, you're wearing your win Monday. Shirt. I know when we first met months ago, we were talking about win Monday. Tell us about win Monday, the idea, the community. Tell us what that is.
Paul Epstein: the whole world fantasizes about Friday. I want to surround myself with people that attack Monday. Monday is where all momentum begins. And I believe that Monday being so closely associated with work, and if we're gonna work over a hundred thousand hours, I want that number to energize me, not deplete me.
I want a hundred thousand hours to give me purpose, not pull me further away from my purpose. And so I surround myself through the win Monday community, and it's a collection of leaders and sales execs and entrepreneurs and MBAs. It's all the folks that I've been a different chapters of my journey, because we believe that we are all momentum machines.
We attack personal growth. We want to get 1 percent better every single day. And we don't want to live in a world where we're wasting Mondays. We want to live in a world where we're winning Mondays. And again, I just realized that we can all win alone, but sometimes that gets lonely. And sometimes you feel isolated in this winning journey.
Of success and accolades and trophies, but then you're lacking significance and happiness and fulfillment and purpose and impact to use something that I talked about earlier today. So that's really why in 2024, the biggest thing that I'm doing outside of just continuing to blaze the keynote circuit trail is building this personal growth and professional development community.
That rallies around this spirit that all momentum starts on a Monday. So let's rally together because if we win Monday, then we'll win Tuesday. We'll win Wednesday. We'll win Thursday. And it just keeps on rolling. And then what a wonderful opportunity where we get to reset that every single week. So we're just obsessed with growth, obsessed with impact and obsessed with momentum. And that's win Monday.
Mike Goldman: And all of this will be in the show notes. But if someone wants to find out more about you, you're speaking your books, the win Monday community, where should they go?
Paul Epstein: Paulepsteinspeaks.com is the home and hub for everything and one gift that I want to offer from the heart for your entire community, Mike, and this is a free gift just from the heart. When you're on paulepsteinspeaks.com, main nav bar, you'll see confidence quiz. So if you're out there listening or watching, and if you're wondering how confident am I and how cool would it be if I knew within five minutes on a one to 100 scale where my confidence stands.
That's what's available through the confidence quiz. And my last piece on that is maybe you take the quiz and you get a 94. Awesome. Maybe you get an 82. Very good. Maybe you get a 70, maybe you get a 48, regardless of where your confidence stands today. One insight that I've learned about confidence is this.
Confidence is not a light switch, it's a dimmer switch. Here's what I mean. Your confidence, like a light switch, is not on or off. You're not either a confident person or an unconfident person. It's a dimmer switch. So wherever this quiz tells you your data point is as of today, your confidence score, what are you going to do to go plus one, plus two, plus three?
Like, this is just this evolution that like a dimmer switch, you can raise your confidence. And it won't just happen by luck. So what we've done after you take the quiz, we hook you up with the 12 keys to not only build confidence, but sustain unshakable confidence. So you take the quiz, you get this PDF, and that's going to be my dimmer switch journey of how collectively we're going to turn confidence into our competitive action.
Mike Goldman: And if you can't decide whether you want to take the confidence quiz or not, you probably need to read his latest book and figure out how to make better decisions. So go take that quiz. Paul, thanks so much for doing this. I always say, if you want a great company, you need a great leadership team. Paul, thanks for helping us get there today.
Paul Epstein: Thanks so much, Mike. Fired up to be here.