Decide Audio

Hello VIPs and welcome to this month’s VIP video lesson. The topic this month is very
important, it’s a leadership topic. The topic is decisiveness, or to put it more simply,
action.

I want to start with a short paragraph from Tom Peters, his book called Leadership. I
really like Tom Peters, I think he’s a great business writer, but he talks a lot about
leadership in general.

This is not just about business it’s about any kind of leadership in your family, in your
job; in any situation. I just want to read this then I’m going to talk about it.

Leaders do, they do. If you don’t know what the hell is going on, if you don’t know what’s
happening, then don’t just stand there do something.

It’s a common phrase, don’t just stand there, do something.

If you don’t know what’s happening stop thinking, because it won’t do too much good.
Try something. Try anything. See what happens.

That’s simple, it’s just a short quote from Tom Peters, but it really captures I feel the
essence, the core of leadership. Here’s the secret; see a lot of us have this idea that the
person who is the leader knows everything, they know everything that’s going on and
they make all the best decisions.

This paralyzes people. To be paralyzed means you can’t move, you can’t move your
body. We also use it in a general way. When we say someone is paralyzed, it means
they can’t move or they can’t take action.

What happens is that a lot of people get paralyzed in their life. They get paralyzed
because they are afraid of making mistakes. They take no action at all.

There’s some situation happening in your family, at your job, in your business, whatever,
it doesn’t matter – playing a sport – any situation at all. Something happens and you
don’t know what’s going on, maybe you’re a little confused, maybe you’re a little afraid,
maybe it’s a new situation or an old situation that has been a big problem for you in the
past.

You kind of get paralyzed. You freeze, oh my God I don’t know what to do, and you start
thinking and thinking and thinking, and thinking and thinking and thinking. In business
especially you’ll get together with your partners or your team or your boss, and
everybody starts talking about the problem – talking, talking, talking, thinking, thinking
and thinking.
Everybody is always worried. Someone will say – why don’t we do this? Someone else
will say no, but if we do that maybe it will be a mistake, maybe it will cause a bigger
problem. Another person will suggest a different action, why don’t we do this? Someone
else will say no, if we do that then that problem could also happen and maybe this will
happen.

Everybody is debating and arguing and worrying and thinking. That’s not leadership.
The simplest way to be a leader is to make a decision and do something, because most
people don’t. They might do little things, but most people are waiting around for
someone to either tell them what to do or for someone to do something so they can then
follow them or see what happens.

Most people are so afraid of making a mistake, they’re afraid of doing the wrong thing,
and so they don’t do anything at all. They take little super safe actions instead of trying
something big.

Tom Peters is right; when you’re confused a lot of times we just want to stop. That’s
okay for a short time, its okay to stop and try to learn and try to figure out what’s
happening. That’s normal, but you can’t do it too long.

Sometimes you might learn more information and have more information to make a
better decision, and that’s great. Sometimes it’s too confusing or too new, and you really
don’t know what to do.

You’ve tried to learn, you’ve tried to figure it out, and you’re still not sure. At that point
you’ve just got to take an action, just do something. Decide, make a decision.

Tim Ferriss talks about this too. Tim Ferriss wrote the book The Four Hour Work Week.
He’s also a successful business person, a successful leader, and a successful writer.

He talks about two types of mistakes. I wrote about this on my personal blog,
HoboPoet.com. I wrote a little article about this but I want to talk about it more to you,
my special VIPs.

Tim Ferriss talks about two types of mistakes; there are mistakes of action, and there
are mistakes of inaction, or he calls them mistakes of sloth, mistakes of doing nothing.
What Tim Ferriss says is mistakes of sloth, mistakes of doing nothing, mistakes of
inaction; they’re the worst ones, they’re the terrible ones. That’s what destroys your life,
or your business, or your health, or whatever.

Mistakes of action, you do something and oh no, something bad happens, those you
want to have. Those mistakes are fine. When you take an action and then something
happens that you didn’t want to happen that’s okay, you learn and then you continue.
Mistakes of inaction, the mistake of not doing something when something needs to be
done, that is horrible.

He gives the example, if you’re in a relationship and it’s not a very good relationship, not
healthy or not happy, the other person isn’t happy, you can just sit and sit in that
relationship for months, and then even years doing nothing, making no decision, doing
nothing, taking no action.

That’s how relationships or even marriages can become just horrible, where the people
almost hate each other. Finally when they get divorced many years later, or not, they
really truly don’t like each other. They hate each other. They can’t talk to each other.

This happened with my own parents. My own parents can’t talk to each other now. They
got divorced when I was 22 years old, I was already an adult. It was fine, it didn’t
traumatize me, it didn’t really affect me emotionally strongly – I was sad – but with them,
they waited too long.

They waited until they were so unhappy, and they didn’t communicate and they didn’t
make good decisions, so now they can’t even talk to each other. It’s a terrible situation,
it’s really bad. I’ve seen it in other relationships too.

It happens in business too. Something is not going right, something isn't good, but
people will just ignore the problem. No one wants to make a decision and maybe make
a mistake and make it worse, and so people don’t do anything.

The business just gets worse and worse and this problem just starts growing and
growing. It can really cause huge problems in a business.

Any organization is the same. What I’m saying is that if you want to be a leader you
don’t need to know all the facts, you don’t need to be a big super expert. If you want to
be a leader, different than most people, all you need to do is be decisive. Decisiveness
is the number one trait of true leaders.

True leaders make decisions, even when they don’t have all the facts – especially when
they don’t have all the facts. Anyone can make a decision when it’s super clear – if I do
this I die, if I do this everything is great – that’s an easy decision.

Most people have trouble when the decision is not so clear. Of course we know in life
often the decisions are not so clear, we don’t have enough information, we don’t know
what’s going to happen.

Here’s why decisiveness works better; because if you do nothing, the situation doesn’t
change, it just stays the same. If you do nothing, you learn nothing. If you’re just doing
the same thing again and again or avoiding a decision, or doing little small things that
are safe, you’re not learning. Things can just get worse very slowly, sometimes very
quickly.

When you make a decision, when you decide and do something, then something is
going to change. Because you made the decision something will change. It might get
better, it might get worse; we don’t know, but something will change.

When you make a decision, you do something and then something happens, you learn.
You’re in a business and you try a new marketing technique – well if the sales go up,
you learn something. You learn hey, this marketing technique is good. If the sales drop
you also learn something – hey this does not very well.

You can get in there and you can make another quick decision to solve that problem.
That’s the thing, when you’re decisive you’re not stuck. If you make a decision and the
result is not good it’s okay, you just make a new decision and try to correct that. You just
keep making decisions and getting results and learning, and this gets very fast and
that’s how you grow.

This is what I did with Effortless English. When I started Effortless English I didn’t know
anything about business. Of course I read books, but still I was thinking and there were
so many decisions and I didn’t know what to do, so I just decided to do something. I
decided, and some of my decisions were good and they worked and hey that’s great, I
learned something and continued to do those things.

Some of the decisions I made were not successful. I also learned something from those,
and I continued. I didn’t stop, I didn’t cry because I made a mistake, no; I just learned
and made more decisions. I was very, very decisive. I took a lot of action.

I have another friend who started a business, I’m not going to say his name but he
started a business, and he had another problem – he could not be decisive. Every time
he needed to make a decision he would think about it and think about it, he’d call me
and talk to me about it – should I do this?

I would give my advice I’d say I think you should try this. He’d say yes, but if I try that
something bad might happen. Maybe it won’t work maybe I should do something else. I
would say okay fine, do the other thing – just try it and see what happens. He would say
oh, but if I try the other choice then something else bad could happen.

In this way he would just always be thinking if I do this, something bad will happen. If I

do another thing something bad will happen. He could never make decisions. His
business slowly died.
It’s such a simple point, but this is the thing; make decisions. We all get stuck, we all get
afraid, we all worry – oh I don’t know what to do – if you don’t know what to do, just do
something. Make a decision, be decisive.

Make mistakes, but make mistakes of action not of inaction. The mistakes of inaction
are the ones that will destroy you and your life, because they prevent you from learning.
When you don’t take action, when you don’t make decisions, you don’t learn.

When you’re decisive, when you just do something, just jump in and do anything – then
you learn. Something happens, you learn. You decide again. This like all other skills is
something you need to practice, and you get better and better at it. Now I’m very good
at making decisions.

In the beginning I worried more. It’s the same when I was a teacher. In the beginning I
didn’t know what I was doing, but I just tried stuff. I just got a textbook and started
teaching with it. Then I realized oh, this textbook is terrible it doesn’t work, so I started
reading and found another technique, and I just tried it.

Sometimes my technique was successful and my students loved it, and they learned,
and everything was great. Sometimes it was terrible. Some of the techniques I tried in
the past were horrible, my students hated them, they were bored, and I had a very
uncomfortable class because I was trying something new and the students didn’t like it
and it was a terrible class.

That’s okay, I learned by doing that. Remember going outside our comfort zone. The
reason people avoid making decisions usually is because they want to be comfortable
still. They want everything to stay comfortable so they don’t make big decisions.
Sometimes they don’t make small decisions.

All I want you to think about in terms of leadership this month is decide. Do something.
Think of some decisions you have been avoiding. We all have them. What are things in
your life, your family life, your work life, in Effortless English, learning, studying –
anything – think about it, what decisions have you avoided? What problem are you
avoiding because you don’t know what to do?

I want you to think about that problem and just choose an action and do it. Make it a
bold action, a strong action, do something bold, do something strong. If it’s a big
disaster and mistake, oh well, you learned something. Make a new decision and solve
that new mistake too.

Believe me, usually, you’ll make a good decision. In fact, usually just doing something
will solve most problems. Everyone else is sitting around saying I don’t know what to do,
you make a decision and you do something and it makes you different.
When you make decisions people respect you. This is why it’s important, in being a
leader. This is how it makes you a leader. Since most people hesitate to make
decisions, if you are decisive and you are consistently decisive, you make decisions and
you do it again, when a situation comes you learn what you can, you decide and you
take action. It works or it doesn’t work, it doesn’t matter.

When you do that, people will begin to look to you. They will begin to ask you your
opinion. They will want you to make the decision because they’re afraid to make the
decision. They will look to you and they will follow your decision.

This is how you become a leader. I have become a leader in business. I can’t believe it
in fact. It seems so strange to me because I’m an English teacher and a Bohemian a
little bit, I like to travel, and a little more like an artist, a poet, a teacher or a philosopher
and not a business person, and yet I have become a business leader. I have people in
my life now who look to me and ask advice; A.J. what should I do?

My own father now asks me for business advice. All my life he was the business man
working at IBM and I was the crazy guy traveling around and doing all this artistic stuff
and writing.

Now because I’ve been so decisive with my own business, now he’s trying to learn how
to make a business and he’s asking me for advice. I became a leader in business not by
being perfect, but just by making decisions again and again, being very decisive.

By being decisive I’ve learned so much. That’s how my business grew. Other people in
my life saw me making these strong decisions and learning and growing and
succeeding eventually, so now people come to me and they ask me advice about
business.

In my own life, with my friends and family, I am a business leader. I never thought I
would be that. I certainly have become a leader in terms of teaching. This is very
general all over the world now; I get emails and constantly people contacting my
assistant about wanting advice, wanting help, about teaching or wanting me to train
them to be a better teacher, or wanting me to come to their school and train all their
teachers.

I’ve become this big international leader of English teaching. How did I do that? Was I
born perfect? Was I born this incredible teacher? No, when I started teaching I was
terrible. I did the same thing that everybody else did, but I made decisions to try new
things.

When something didn’t work I made a decision, I didn’t just keep doing the same thing. I
wasn’t stuck or paralyzed with inaction. Oh I don’t know what to do, everybody is using
the same textbook and it’s not working very well, but everybody is doing it so I’ll just
continue doing the same thing too.
That’s what most teachers do, that’s what most people do. All I did differently was,
decide. I decided I’m going to try different things. This old method is not working, so I’m
going to try new things.

I tried something new and it was successful or not, and I learned something. I tried
something else, then I made another decision, and I just kept making decisions. I’m
going to try this, now I’m going to try this – this was good, this was bad – I was just
deciding, lots of decisions, lots and lots of action, lots and lots of trying new things.

By doing that I became a leader internationally in the field of teaching English as a

foreign language. You can do this too. I don’t care if your skill level is low, I don’t care
what your situation is or what field you’re in, whether it’s business or personal it doesn’t
matter.

If you just keep being decisive, keep taking actions and of course learning from them,
but don’t stop if you make a mistake and something bad happens. You don’t stop you
just decide again – okay that didn’t work, I learned something let’s keep trying. Just
keep taking action – action, action, action, decisions, decisions, decisions – very quickly.

In less than a year you will become a leader in your field, at least to your family, friends,
and co-workers. In a few years you could become an international leader in your field
simply by being decisive.

That’s what I want you to think about this month. I’ll talk about it more in the audio
commentary, but this month your job is to make decisions quickly. Make fast decisions
and take action immediately.

All right, good luck. I know you’re going to be a great leader because I know to be a
great leader it’s actually very simple. You just make decisions, take action, and learn.
You repeat that as fast as possible. That’s the big secret. Just do it. I’ll see you again.

Decide Mini-Story Text

Hello this is A.J., welcome to the mini story for ‘Decide’. Let’s start immediately.

*****

There was a monkey named Marcie; Marcie, the monkey. Marcie the monkey had a
difficult problem. Marcie the monkey was very indecisive. In fact, she was super
indecisive. She could never make decisions about anything.
Who was indecisive?

Marcie the monkey. Marcie was indecisive.

Was she decisive, or was she indecisive?

She was indecisive.

What was Marcie?

Marcie was a monkey.

What was the monkey’s name?

Marcie. The monkey’s name was Marcie.

What kind of monkey was Marcie?

Super indecisive. She was super indecisive.

Marcie was especially indecisive about eating.

What was she especially indecisive about?

Eating. She was especially indecisive about eating.

She could never decide what to eat. She would think; should I eat broccoli or
should I eat a banana? Maybe broccoli – no- no, a banana – maybe both, maybe
neither one she never could decide. She constantly hemmed and hawed, but
never decided.

To hem and haw – that’s a little bit of slang. To hem and haw means to talk indecisively.
Maybe this, I don’t know maybe this, I don’t know I’m not sure, maybe…that kind of
speaking; we call it hemming and hawing. It’s this idea that you’re not making a strong
decision. You’re talking about both sides, but you never decide something direct. We call
that hemming and hawing. To hem and haw.

Who always hemmed and hawed about eating?

Marcie did, Marcie always hemmed and hawed about her eating decisions. Maybe I
should eat broccoli, maybe I should eat a banana.

Did she make strong statements about what she wanted?

No, she did not make strong statements about what she wanted. She wasn’t decisive.

What did she do instead?

She hemmed and hawed; maybe this, oh no maybe that. She hemmed and hawed and
never made a clear decision. She hemmed and hawed and never said anything direct.

Who hemmed and hawed a lot?

Marcie, Marcie the monkey hemmed and hawed a lot.

About what?

Especially about eating. She could never decide what to eat.

Was Marcie a fat monkey? No she was super skinny. Why was she super skinny?
Because she was so indecisive about eating. She was so indecisive about eating
that she ended up eating very little. She could never decide what to eat, so
sometimes she didn’t eat anything.

Was she a big monkey or a little monkey?

She was a little monkey, a skinny little monkey.

Why was she skinny?

Because she was indecisive about eating.

Who was indecisive about eating?

Marcie was. Marcie was indecisive about eating.

She became super, super skinny and realized this was a problem. She went to find
help. First she went to Dr. Phil, famous Dr. Phil, the TV psychologist.

Who did she go to see first?

Dr. Phil.

Who went to see Dr. Phil?

Marcie. Marcie went to see Dr. Phil.

Why did she go to see Dr. Phil?

Because she wanted help with her indecisiveness.

Did she want help with her marriage?

No, she didn’t want help with her marriage she wanted help with her indecisiveness.

Who was she married to? She was married to George Clooney. She was George
Clooney’s secret wife.

Did anybody know about Marcie?

No, nobody knew that George Clooney was married to Marcie.

Was George Clooney indecisive? No, he was very decisive. He was a very
decisive man.

Which one was indecisive?

Marcie. Marcie was super indecisive.

Which one hemmed and hawed all the time?

Also Marcie. Marcie always hemmed and hawed, she could never make a strong
decision.

Did George Clooney hem and haw all the time?

No, he spoke very directly and always made strong decisions.

Who hemmed and hawed all the time?

Marcie.

Where did Marcie go?

To see Dr. Phil. She went to see Dr. Phil.

What did Dr. Phil say to her? He said, “What’s your problem monkey girl? Just
decide!”
Oh no, was Dr. Phil kind and gentle to Marcie? Oh no he wasn’t. Dr. Phil was not
kind and gentle to Marcie. Dr. Phil was loud and angry and mean to Marcie.

Did he speak quietly to Marcie?

No, he did not. He yelled at Marcie. He said, “What’s your problem monkey girl, just
decide!”

Did this help Marcie? No, no it did not. In fact, it made her even more nervous and
indecisive.

Did she get worse or did she get better?

She got worse, Marcie got worse. She became even more indecisive.

Who got worse?

Marcie got worse.

Did George Clooney get worse?

No, George Clooney didn’t get worse. He was okay from the beginning, he was fine.

How did Marcie get worse?

Well, she became even more indecisive.

Did she make decisions easily after seeing Dr. Phil?

No, she did not make decisions easily after seeing Dr. Phil. In fact, she had more
difficulty making decisions. It was even harder.

It became even harder for her to decide what to eat. It became really bad, so
George Clooney called Dr. Laura, a famous radio psychologist, and he got an
appointment for his wife, Marcie the monkey. George Clooney likes monkeys, by
the way.

Marcie went to see who?

Dr. Laura. Marcie went to see Dr. Laura.

Why did she go see Dr. Laura?

She went for help with her indecisiveness.

What did she need help with?

She needed help with her indecisiveness.

She went where?

She went to see Dr. Laura.

What did Dr. Laura say to her? Dr. Laura said, “You stupid, idiotic monkey, what’s
wrong with you?”

Was Dr. Laura kind and gentle to Marcie? No, she wasn’t. What was Dr. Laura like?
Dr. Laura was a bitch, she was a total bitch to Marcie.

Bitch is a nice little slang word, and of course bitch is a very mean unfriendly, not nice
woman. If it’s a man we say asshole, but Dr. Laura is a woman so we say Dr. Laura was
a bitch. We can say she was a bitch to Marcie.

She was mean and unfriendly to Marcie.

Who was a bitch to Marcie?

Dr. Laura was a bitch to Marcie.

Was Marcie a bitch?

No, Marcie was not a bitch. Marcie was a sweet, kind monkey.

What was Marcie’s problem?

Marcie’s problem was that she was super indecisive.

Which person was a bitch?

Dr. Laura. Dr. Laura was a bitch.

Was Dr. Laura sweet and friendly, or was Dr. Laura a bitch?

Dr. Laura was a total bitch.

Was Dr. Laura an asshole?

Not really, usually we use asshole for men. It’s more common to say asshole for men, an
unfriendly rude man, we say he’s an asshole, he’s mean, and he’s a jerk. For a woman
it’s more common to say bitch.

Was Dr. Laura a bitch or an asshole?

Dr. Laura was a bitch. She was a total bitch.

To whom?

To Marcie. She was a total bitch to Marcie the monkey.

How did Marcie feel after seeing Dr. Laura? Marcie felt terrible. She cried and
cried. She lost more weight, she became even more indecisive. In fact, she could
never decide what to eat.

She was so nervous, so indecisive she could not decide to eat anything. She
became anorexic.

Did she become nice and fat?

No, the opposite. She became anorexic. Anorexic is super, super, super thin, like very
unhealthy. It’s actually a bad condition some people have. You can die from this. She
became so skinny, so super, super, super skinny that she was anorexic, she stopped
eating.

Did Dr. Laura become anorexic?

No, Dr. Laura didn’t become anorexic, Dr. Laura was quite fat. She was a fat bitch, but
Marcie became anorexic. Poor Marcie.

Who became anorexic?

Marcie did. Marcie became anorexic.

Did Marcie eat?

No she didn’t. She never ate.

What did she become?

She became anorexic.

Now George Clooney became very, very, very worried. He was very worried. He
realized that his wife, Marcie the monkey, really needed some serious help. Finally
he called Tony Robbins, our friend our buddy, Tony Robbins.

He called Tony Robbins and said, “Tony, you must help my wife. She won’t eat,
she’s anorexic. Please Tony, help her!”

Tony said, “Okay.”

Where did Marcie the monkey go next?

To see Tony Robbins.

Did she go back to Dr. Laura?

No, no, no.

Did she return to see Dr. Phil?

No, no, no.

Where did she go?

To see Tony Robbins.

Why did she go to see Tony Robbins?

To get help with her anorexia and of course to get help with her indecisiveness.

What did Tony say to her? Did Tony yell at her? No, Tony was very positive. Tony
said, “Marcie, you can do it. I’ll teach you how to be decisive. Don’t worry, you can
do it!”

Tony was very encouraging and empowering towards Marcie. Empowering means
to give another person power. To empower someone, you can use it as a verb; if
you empower another person it means you help them feel more powerful. Maybe
they feel weak, you empower them and it means you give them some power. You
help them feel more powerful.

We can also use it as an adjective. We can say that was an empowering speech. It
means the speech gave everyone some power. The speech gave everyone some
power.
Tony was very empowering for Marcie. He made her feel more powerful. He
empowered her.

Who did Tony Robbins empower?

Marcie, Marcie the monkey. He made her feel more powerful, more encouraged and
strong.

Did Tony Robbins scream and yell at her?

Of course he didn’t. He did not scream and yell at her, he empowered her.

Who did he empower?

He empowered Marcie the monkey.

Did she get better? Yes she did. Every day she became a little more powerful.
Every day she started to make first small little decisions, and then later bigger
decisions, and then later bigger decisions and she started to eat again.

Did she become indecisive?

No, she was already indecisive. She became decisive and strong.

Who became decisive?

Marcie the monkey became decisive.

Who empowered her to be decisive?

Tony Robbins did. Tony Robbins empowered Marcie to be decisive.

She did it. At every meal she immediately decided what to eat.

How was she at her meals?

She was decisive. She was very decisive at every meal.

Did she hesitate before eating?

No, she didn’t.

Did she hem and haw, oh I don’t know, maybe – did she hem and haw before eating?
No, she did not. She stopped hemming and hawing. She decided immediately what she
wanted to eat, and she immediately started to eat.

Did she remain anorexic?

No, she did not remain super, super, super skinny; she gained weight. She gained
weight and ate a lot of healthy food.

Who gained weight?

Marcie of course is the one who gained weight.

Why did she gain weight?

Because she became decisive about eating.

Now Marcie is very healthy and very happy, and so is George Clooney.

*****

And that is the end of our mini story. As always with these crazy stories, listen to them
every day, pause and answer each question. Make this a game. Try to answer the
questions faster and faster each day, so that after seven days you should be answering
these questions very, very fast.

Eventually answer fast enough so you can answer without pausing your iPod or without
pausing your computer. Make it a game, answer faster, faster, faster; listen, listen, and
listen every day. There’s a lot of grammar and a lot of good vocabulary in here. Just do
it, don’t think about it.

Alright, I’ll see you again my special VIP. Bye.

Decide POV Text
Hello, this is A.J. Hello my special VIP member. I’m so happy to teach you. I love telling
these crazy stories, but these stories have a purpose. When you listen to the mini story
for example and answer the questions, you’re training your brain to understand and
respond in English, and eventually to think in English.

I know the mini stories seem crazy and funny, and sometimes they might seem quite
simple, but that’s on purpose. There’s a reason for that. If it’s too difficult, your brain
can’t learn it automatically, you’ll be thinking about it too much.

It’s the same with these point of view stories. If they’re too difficult, too complex, then
you have to think about it too much. You’ll be thinking about the grammar instead of
learning it automatically, using it automatically, understanding it automatically.

We keep them simple and there’s a lot of repetition, and we tell the story from different
points of view, different times, and that’s how you get a feeling for correct grammar. You
don’t want to think about correct grammar, you want to feel it automatically.

All you need to do is listen to these stories every single day, that’s all. Listen to them and
enjoy the crazy stories. Let’s go back to Marcie the monkey. First story, let’s tell this
story as if it’s happening now, we are with Marcie and George Clooney as it’s
happening.

*****

There is a monkey named Marcie. Marcie is a super indecisive monkey. She’s super
indecisive. She can never make decisions about anything. The worst thing is eating.
She’s really, really, really indecisive about eating.

Every time she begins to eat, she starts to hem and haw. She hems and haws, hems
and haws; should I eat the broccoli? Oh no. Should I eat the banana? I don’t know,
maybe broccoli. Yes, no – wait, I mean banana – she hems and haws, she hems and
haws all the time before eating.

Because she’s always hemming and hawing, she doesn’t make decisions very often.
Because she’s so indecisive about food, she becomes super, super skinny. Very, very
thin. It becomes so bad that she finally goes to see Dr. Phil for help.

She goes to see Dr. Phil and she says, “Dr. Phil, please help me. I’m so indecisive.”

Is Dr. Phil gentle to her and nice and sweet? No, he’s an asshole, he’s a total asshole.
He yells at her. He says, “What’s your problem monkey girl? Just decide.”
Dr. Phil is a very big asshole to Marcie. He’s a jerk to her; he’s not nice to her. He’s quite
mean. Does Dr. Phil help her? No he doesn’t, he does not help her. In fact, after getting
yelled at by Dr. Phil she becomes even more nervous and indecisive, especially about
food.

This problem gets worse and so her husband – who’s her husband? George Clooney.
She is his secret wife, Marcie the monkey. George Clooney really likes monkeys, I just
want to get these facts correct, and everybody knows this.

Anyway, I guess everybody doesn’t know this – its secret knowledge. Now you know;
George Clooney is secretly married to Marcie the monkey.

Anyway he calls Dr. Laura and he says please help my wife Marcie, she’s indecisive and
she won’t eat. Marcie goes to see Dr. Laura.

Dr. Laura is a total bitch. She yells at Marcie, she says, “You stupid idiotic monkey,
what’s wrong with you?”

Dr. Laura is a total bitch to Marcie. Marcie cries, she cries and cries and she loses even
more weight. She loses so much weight that she becomes anorexic, she totally stops
eating. Marcie becomes anorexic.

Of course George Clooney gets very worried about this. He loves Marcie the monkey.
He calls his buddy Tony Robbins, our friend Tony Robbins, our buddy Tony Robbins –we
love Tony.

George Clooney calls Tony and says, “Tony, please help my wife. She’s anorexic. She
might die because she’s so indecisive about food.”

Marcie goes to see Tony Robbins. Tony Robbins is not an asshole. He’s a great guy, and
he says, “Marcie, you can do it. I’ll teach you how to be decisive.” He’s very encouraging
and empowering to Marcie.

He empowers her to make decisions. He empowers her to feel stronger and stronger.
Day by day she does become stronger and stronger. She makes more and more
decisions, she becomes more decisive.

Soon she’s eating at every meal. Even later she makes great decisions every time,
always choosing healthy wonderful food, she chooses very fast, she’s very decisive, and
she starts eating immediately.

She gains weight and becomes very healthy and very happy. Of course George
Clooney is very happy too.
*****

Let’s go back and let’s begin our story with since she was a teenager. Teenager means
15 years old, 16, or 17.

*****

Since she was a teenager, Marcie the monkey has been very indecisive. She has been
super indecisive, starting when she was a teenager, until recently. Who has been very
indecisive? Marcie has been very indecisive.

Since when? Since she was a teenager. Since she was a teenager, she has been very,
very indecisive. Starting then in the past, continuing until recently. What has she been
indecisive about?

She has been very indecisive about eating. Every time she has eaten, she has been
indecisive. Since when has she been indecisive about eating? Since she was a
teenager. Every time she has eaten, starting when she was a teenager until recently,
she has been indecisive. She has not been able to decide.

In fact, she has hemmed and hawed, hemmed and hawed. She has hemmed and
hawed every time before eating. Should I eat broccoli? Oh I don’t know. Should I eat
spinach? Oh I don’t know, maybe I should eat a banana. I don’t know I’m not sure.

She has hemmed and hawed, hemmed and hawed, hemmed and hawed. Who has
hemmed and hawed? Marcie has hemmed and hawed about eating. This started when
she was a teenager and continued until recently.

She has become super skinny. She has become super, super skinny. During this time,
starting when she was a teenager until recently, she has seen, she has visited a lot of
psychologists. She has visited a lot of doctors, but none of them have helped her.

None of the normal doctors have helped her; none of the normal psychologists have
helped her. One day she went to see Dr. Phil. One day she went to see Dr. Phil, the
famous TV psychologist who is not really a psychologist.

She went to see Dr. Phil, and Dr. Phil yelled at her. He was an asshole. He yelled at her
and said, “What’s your problem monkey girl, just decide!”

He was a total asshole and so she became even more nervous and even more
indecisive. It was really sad. She became more indecisive and so her husband George
Clooney got very worried.
He got so worried that he called Dr. Laura the radio psychologist and said, “Dr. Laura,
please see my wife Marcie and help her.”

Marcie went to see Dr. Laura, and Dr. Laura was a total bitch to her. She yelled at her.
She said, “You stupid idiotic monkey, what’s wrong with you?”

Marcie cried and cried and cried, and she lost more weight, and she became anorexic.
George Clooney was so worried that he called his (and our) buddy Tony Robbins. He
called our friend Tony Robbins and he said, “Tony, you must help her, I’m afraid she’s
going to die.”

She went to see Tony Robbins, and Tony Robbins was not an asshole. He was very
nice. He said, “You can do it Marcie, I’ll teach you how to be decisive.”

He was very encouraging and very empowering. He empowered her to make decisions.
He taught her how to make decisions and she did it. Day by day she became more
decisive, especially about eating. She chose great wonderful healthy foods and she ate
more and more and she gained weight until she became very healthy and very happy.
Of course George Clooney was also very happy.

*****

Alright, you notice that the grammar changed a little bit there when we talk about since,
there’s a time range. We use one kind of grammar when we’re talking about specific
things; we change of course to another kind.

Don’t think about the rules, you already know the rules, just listen to the story. That’s all
you need to do. You’ll begin to feel the grammar. You already know the grammar in your
head, you need to feel it to use it automatically and easily and quickly and correctly.

Let’s go to the future, our last version. We can imagine this will happen in the future;
we’re just dreaming it or imagining it.

*****

In the future there will be a monkey named Marcie. This is going to be George Clooney’s
secret wife. George Clooney is going to get married to a monkey named Marcie.

Marcie the monkey is going to be super indecisive. She’ll be super indecisive. She’ll
especially be very indecisive about eating. She’s going to be super, super indecisive
about eating. She’s going to be super indecisive about eating.
She’ll hem and haw and hem and haw before every meal. Should I eat broccoli? Should
I eat bananas? Should I eat spinach? I don’t know, I don’t know, I don’t know. She’ll hem
and haw, hem and haw, hem and haw, all the time before eating, never saying anything
directly and never making a strong decision.

Because of this she’s going to get super skinny. She’s going to get so skinny that she’ll
need help, and so she’ll go to see the famous Dr. Phil. Unfortunately Dr. Phil is going to
be an asshole when he sees her.

He’s going to yell at her. He’s going to say, “What’s your problem monkey girl? Just
decide!”

He’s going to be a jerk he’s going to be an asshole. She’ll become even more nervous
and indecisive because of this.

George Clooney is going to get worried, he’s going to get concerned and worried about
his wife. He’ll call Dr. Laura, the radio counselor.

Marcie will go to see Dr. Laura. Dr. Laura is going to be a total bitch. She’ll yell at poor
Marcie, she’ll say, “You stupid idiotic monkey, what’s wrong with you?”

Of course Marcie is going to be so upset. She’s going to cry and cry and cry, and she’ll
lose even more weight. She’ll become anorexic. Poor Marcie will become anorexic, so
thin that she might even die.

Of course George Clooney, her husband, is really going to get worried. He’s going to call
our friend Tony Robbins. He’ll call my buddy Tony Robbins and he’ll say, “Tony please
help my wife.”

Tony will say, “Okay.”

Marcie will go to see Tony Robbins. He won’t be an asshole. Luckily, he won’t be an

asshole. He will not be an asshole. He won’t be a jerk. In fact, he’ll be the opposite. He’ll
be very encouraging and very empowering.

He’ll say, “You can do it Marcie. I’ll teach you how to be decisive.”

He is going to do that, he will. He’ll teach her how to be strong and decisive. Each day
she’ll get better and better. She’ll feel stronger and stronger. She’ll become more and
more decisive, especially about food.

She’ll choose healthy foods at every meal quickly and easily. Because of this of course
she’s going to gain weight, she’s going to get a nice healthy weight, and she’s going to
be very healthy and very happy. Of course her husband, George Clooney, is also going
to be very, very happy.

*****

That’s the end of our point of view stories. Just enjoy them, don’t think too much. The
grammar is actually not too difficult, but this is the most common grammar. These three
stories give you the most common verb tenses for example, the ones we use constantly,
every single day, in probably every conversation.

You need to know them but you don’t need to know them in your head, not memorize
the rules, you already know that. I know that. You already know it in your head, but you
don’t feel it in your gut. You don’t feel it in your heart it’s not part of you.

When I speak English I don’t think about grammar rules. No American, no British
person, no Canadian and no Australian thinks about grammar when they speak, and
you should not think about it either.

You don’t need to think about grammar, you need to feel the correct grammar. To do
that, repeat these stories again and again. Repeat it every day and you will begin to feel
the grammar. After you feel it deeply you’ll begin to use it correctly, quickly and
automatically, no thinking at all.

All right, have a great day. You are my special VIP, I love teaching you.

Okay, I’ll see you next time, bye-bye.

Decide Commentary
Hello, welcome my special VIP members. This is A.J. Hoge, welcome to the
commentary for ‘Decide’, or ‘Decision’, or ‘Decisiveness’.

In the video I talked a lot about this topic of taking action, of deciding. Maybe some
people think well A.J. that’s so simple. That’s a very simple way to define a leader, and
yet you know that really is the essence of leadership. It’s what I’ve seen in my life, in
many different parts of my life, many aspects of my life.

It’s not just business, it’s my personal life and everything. I have found that for some
reason most people avoid making bigger decisions. Especially when the decision is
required for something that’s difficult or new or uncomfortable what people will tend to
do is they will just continue doing the same thing they’ve always done, because it’s
comfortable.
Even when it’s a problem, even when there’s some pain involved or some problem
involved, still people will often avoid making decisions because for most people the fear
of failure is bigger than the problem or the pain of the problem they are experiencing
right now.

That’s what really is happening. Unfortunately, in school and in work situations

depending on where you work, we have this incredible fear of making mistakes, of
getting the wrong answer. People avoid making decisions.

To be a leader it’s so simple really. In the past I never thought I would be a leader, I
never thought I was a leader. When I was younger I was very independent, so I was not
a follower either. I was in fact a big rebellious, I still am sometimes.

I like to do things my way. I just did things my way I didn’t try to convince other people to
do things my way. I didn’t try to convince other people to do anything. But what’s
interesting is that I found just by making decisions, trying new things and being very
decisive consistently again and again, making tough decisions and doing something,
learning and then doing something again, not being afraid of taking action – by doing
that I found that I kind of became a leader by default.

By default, means automatically almost. I wasn’t really trying to become a leader, but I
became a leader. I became a leader simply by being decisive in my own life.

For example, when I was younger I had no interest in business at all, but I wanted to
travel and I wanted to explore the world. I still do, but it started when I was young.

I just took off to all these different countries. I made a decision to go to Korea to teach
English. It was my first time living in another country. When I made that decision actually
my best friend got inspired by my decision, and she came along with me.

Later, another time in my life, I made the decision to travel to Thailand and live in
Thailand, and do my master’s degree in Thailand. By being decisive I got my best friend
and another good friend to go with me and live there with me and study.

I found in my life that just by charging forward and taking decisive action and doing
something, especially something interesting, that people have started to follow along
with me many times. I don’t have to say much to them, I might invite them, but I don’t
have to do a lot of leadership techniques and methods or anything like that.

This kind of leadership style might be called leading from the front. Leading from the
back is what a lot of leaders do, that’s where you sit back and try to tell people what to
do. Oh you should do this – and you’re in the back trying to push them forward.
A lot of people don’t like leaders like that. You’re pushing them and they will react by
pushing back or not doing very much.

Leading from the front means you take a decisive action and you get some kind of
result, you learn, and you take another decisive action. People will look at you differently
when you do this; they will see you as being bolder. They will of course see you as
being decisive, and that will make them feel more confident about what you’re doing.

It will inspire them to want to come along with you. What you’ll find is that the more
decisive you are the more people will look to you for advice. The more people will look
to you to make a decision.

It’s now very easy for me in certain areas of my life to just make a decision and I can get
several people to join me because I have this consistent record of being decisive. That’s
all I did, it’s such a simple thing.

I don’t use a lot of psychology leadership tricks or something on people, I don’t do it –

I’m not interested in doing it really. I try to learn about leadership principles and I read
leadership books certainly, but still fundamentally in essence, my basic leadership
philosophy is be decisive, take lots of actions, learn from them and then take more
decisive actions that’s it, that’s what I do.

That’s what I do in business, that’s what I do in my personal life, and it has allowed me
to be a leader in several areas. Because I have been decisive I also have developed my
confidence.

We talk a lot about this topic of confidence here in the VIP program. Confidence is
important. People respect confidence. People will follow a leader who is confident more
quickly than they will follow one who is competent.

In other words, people are not looking for perfection. You don’t need to be perfect at
what you’re doing. You don’t need to make perfect decisions. People are not looking for
that so much, what they’re looking for is confidence. They’re looking for decisiveness,
calm and strength, so that even when you make a mistake and things go badly –
sometimes it’s not your fault, things just happen – you’re not going to freeze or become
paralyzed and do nothing. You’re going to stay calm and strong and deal with the
problem and make more decisions and keep moving forward.

That is what makes a great leader. That is what people want. That is the kind of person
they will follow. That is the kind of person they respect.
It’s kind of a circular thing here because decisiveness and confidence are dependent on
each other. You’ve got to give yourself a little confidence or a little faith or something to
make a decision. You’ve got to be confident in yourself.

You have to be confident that whatever happens, I can handle it. If something bad
happens, its okay, I can still handle the problem. If something good happens I can
handle the success and keep moving forward.

You have to have a little faith in yourself. You have to develop that in yourself, and then
take decisive action. Make a decision, then something happens and you do handle it.
You will. It doesn’t matter what the situation is, how bad and scary it seems to be, it’s
always scariest before you make the decision.

Once you make the decision and it happens, you will find that you’re stronger than you
imagined. You will find that yes, you can handle it. Yes, you can continue to make
decisions. Yes, you can continue to move forward.

When you do that and you actually experience it – not in your mind, you actually make a
decision and deal with the situation – and you realize you can handle it, your confidence
grows. You realize hey – I can handle things.

When you’re more confident you become more decisive. Next time there’s a problem,
next time a big decision is necessary, you hesitate less. You have that past experience
you know you can handle it. You know you can handle anything, and boom you make
another decision and you go forward and good or bad, you handle it again.

You can see this is an upward spiral again. We’re always talking about upward spirals in
the VIP program. It just means when you do certain things, when you have certain
beliefs, you build momentum. You build forward motion that gets stronger and faster.
You go forward and up, forward and up, more and more and more.

This is what we want to create in our life, in all aspects of our life, so we always have
this momentum, this feeling of moving forward and up, more and more, better and
better.

It just requires shifting, changing some beliefs or changing a few little actions. When you
take those little positive actions they begin to grow and get stronger, and then they
become bigger positive actions and bigger positive beliefs.

They keep growing bigger and bigger and stronger and stronger, because what we’re
really talking about is building your own strength and confidence. That’s what this is
about.
Being decisive really just means trusting yourself, trusting yourself to handle anything
that happens. Trusting that yes, I can handle it. Yes, if something bad happens it’s going
to be painful, but I’m strong enough to keep going.

If there’s a failure and people will see that I failed – knowing that you’re strong enough
to handle the failure and learn from it and keep going. You are strong enough to do that.
People are so worried about failing, oh my God, what will people think – screw what
other people think. Who cares?

Do you know what other people think? Other people think oh my God, I couldn’t do what
he or she just did. When you make a decisive action, even if you fail, yes other people
might criticize and say things, because that’s what other people do who are afraid, but
also I guarantee what they’re thinking is wow, I can’t believe they did that. I can’t believe
they tried that.

When you do something decisive, when you do something bold, when you take a risk
you get people’s respect, even when you fail. People will look at you differently. They
will respect you more because you tried it. You didn’t get paralyzed, you didn’t freeze,
and you didn’t let fear overcome you.

Whatever it is in your life, what I want you to do this month and continue for the rest of
your life is practice making your decisions faster, everything. Be more decisive. Make
your decisions faster, and stick with your decision and keep moving forward.

Keep moving forward, don’t get stuck thinking about things too much. Let me give you a
small example. Let’s imagine you’re going on vacation. I know a lot of people like this I
travel with friends and family.

There are some people who have to plan every little bit of the vacation. They must plan
everything, and it takes them a long time to plan it because they’re always worried.

Let’s imagine we’re going to India, to Bombay. We’re going there and if I go, I would just
go. I would just get a ticket and fly there, then when I arrived I might read a guidebook
before hand, find out where most of the hotels are, I’d arrive there and I’d get a hotel.

Maybe if I thought I was arriving late at night, I might actually make a reservation. What
a lot of people do is oh, my God, they’ll look in their guidebook where there are five or
six hotels and they all sound good, but they’re not sure. This one is a little expensive,
but the other one is in a better location but it’s even more, but this one is cheap but it’s
in a bad location oh, my God.
They will think and think and thing, and worry and worry and worry about this little
decision. It will take them days and days to just pick one hotel. Maybe they’ll call all the
hotels and ask questions, and they’re still not sure. Do you know why they’re not sure?
Because they’ve never been to the city, so they don’t really know.

They’re just imagining what it’s like, they’re imagining what might be good, they’re
imagining what might go wrong, they’re imagining what problems there might be, but
they have no idea because they’ve never been. You don’t know until you go. You don’t
know until you decide.

That’s how people get paralyzed. They’ll be this way about every single decision. This
vacation turns into this huge difficult thing, and every little decision is so slow and so
painful and so difficult. That’s not leadership. If people don’t respect it, people will not
follow you when you’re like that.

A leader looks at the guidebook quickly, reads up quickly, says oh these five hotels
sound good, and they just pick one. It doesn’t matter. You don’t know, you’ll find out
when you get there.

The leader just picks one – we’re going to stay at this place. They go there, and they go
to that hotel. Let’s imagine they go to that hotel and it’s terrible. It’s dirty and horrible and
dangerous. It’s no big deal, what do you do? You just go to another one.

You say okay, this decision didn’t work out. I had no idea, never been to this city before.
I tried to make the best decision but now that we’re here we see the situation is different
than we’d hoped, so now we have to make another decision.

What do you do? You just pick another one on that list and say now we’re going here.
You get a taxi and go to the next hotel. That’s leadership, that’s decisiveness using a
very simple and easy example.

Can you see the difference between worrying about it so much and just deciding? If
things don’t go well you decide again. People will follow that, that’s how you become a
leader. That’s leadership.

You can practice this in your life starting with small decisions. Please do this. Start with
the small decisions, start building your decisiveness.

Let me give you a small example you can use in your own life; going out to eat. Have
you ever been with friends or with your husband or wife or boyfriend or girlfriend and
been like, what do you want to eat tonight? I don’t know what do you want to eat
tonight? I don’t know.
Well we could eat Mexican food – I don’t know. What about Italian food? I don’t know.
What about Chinese?

You have this long debate about what should we eat and what restaurant should we go
to, and I don’t know – should we eat at home? It’s this long thing. Just decide – just pick
one, it doesn’t matter.

Next time you’re in that situation just say strongly and confidently – let’s eat Mexican
food, or whatever it is. Let’s do this. Just make a decision. Then the other person can
say no, I don’t want that and you can say okay let’s eat Chinese.

You don’t keep debating and debating forever. Certainly you want to hear their input, but
if they don’t have any input, if they aren’t being decisive, if they’re being indecisive, then
you decide – just make a decision. You decide, make a decision.

It’s the same thing in all parts of your life. I want you little and big to just start making
decisions faster. Where are you going to eat? Make a decision. What you’re going to eat
when you’re looking at the menu? Don’t take 20-30 minutes looking at the menu, just
look at it quickly and pick one. You’re not going to know until you eat it if it’s good or not
so just pick one. Then you’ll know.

Next time you go to that restaurant you can get something else or get the same thing, it
doesn’t matter. Just decide. Most of these decisions are really not so important and we
make our lives more difficult than necessary by worrying about them instead of just
taking quick action and moving forward.

Keep moving forward. That’s the whole point of this commentary, of this topic, keep
moving forward. Don’t stop. It’s when you stop that your life starts feeling difficult and
complicated and oh my God. When you stop nobody is going to follow you. Leaders
keep moving forward.

Okay, do you have it? I hope you’ve got it. It’s such a simple topic and it’s so important,
and for some people it’s actually very difficult.

All I want you to do this month – you have simple homework – make decisions faster.
Make small decisions faster, make big decisions faster and then whatever happens
keep moving forward and continue making fast decisions.

That’s what I want you to do. It’s about speed this month, fast decisions. Not good ones
– I don’t care if you make a good decision, make some bad ones. It’s okay. In fact, if you
make bad ones, it might be better because then you’ll really grow your confidence.
You’ll get more confident because you’ll realize even if I make a bad decision its okay, I
can handle it, and keep moving forward.

Make lots of decisions this month, make them fast – fast, fast, fast decisions. Make
good ones, make bad ones, it doesn’t matter. Make small ones make big ones, just fast
decisions.

In business make decisions faster at your job. Just decide. Don’t ask permission from
your boss, just make a decision and do it. If you’re the boss just make a decision and do
it. Keep doing that this month, faster, faster and faster.

In your personal life if you’re like what should I do about my relationship – just make a
decision. I’m staying, I’m leaving – it doesn’t matter, just decide and do it. Commit. Keep
moving forward, you can change your mind later.

In work, in school, in everything – fast, fast, fast decisions this month. I guarantee you
people will start to look at you differently and respect you more just by making faster
decisions and making you more confident.

I hope you enjoyed this topic. I’m passionate about this topic because it’s so simple, yet
it is probably the number one thing that has allowed me to become a leader in different
fields, sometimes just in terms of my family and friends, and in terms of teaching,
internationally.

This is it, this is the core secret. This is how I did it. I hope you will do this too in your life.
Make fast decisions. Have a great month and I’ll see you again.