The Real Problem With Bad Decisions
The Amplified Impact Podcast
April 24th, 2023
Today I want to share a simple truth with you all.
I find this to be one of the most simple truths, yet so profound and helpful when navigating through the world.
Bad decisions compound faster than good decisions. If you’ve spent any time researching investing, you’re more than likely familiar with the concept of compounding interest. This idea, this concept… applies to more than just investing. It applies to the decisions you make in life.
And just as a bad debt has higher interest rates… bad decisions do as well.
TWEETABLE QUOTE:
“It’s very easy to to step wrong and then all of a sudden find yourself at the bottom of the hill. Just keep going. Whereas good decisions, the things that are moving you forward towards your greatness, they compound more slowly” – Anthony Vicino
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Episode Transcript:
What’s up everybody? Welcome back to the podcast. I’m gonna share something with you today that is gonna seem stupidly obvious. Once, um, I pointed out however, I was thinking about it yesterday and I found it to be one of those simple truths that’s very profound and, and helpful. It’s a helpful lens through which to move the through the world.
So here it is, bad decisions compound faster than good decision. So let’s say that again. Bad decisions compound faster than good decisions. I think compounding interest is one of those concepts that you’re likely familiar with. If you’ve spent any time like researching, investing, entrepreneurship, and like skills, like if you’ve listened to this podcast, I, I use that word a lot, compounding and compounding interest, and we know that it’s a really powerful force that when it comes to investing in.
Investing in, you know, uh, assets or into our skillsets. It pays huge dividends over time in that we, we, we want to get on the right side of. But in the same way that compounding interest works when we’re, you know, moving towards goals in investing, it also can work against us. And you see this most clearly in like credit cards where the interest that you’re paying is like 25%, whereas the interest that you’re getting from your savings account is like two.
So doing the good thing, investing or like putting money into your savings account only yields you 2%. But doing the bad thing and taking out credit card debt, it’s gonna cost you 25%. And that analogy holds true, I think, into all different areas of life. Whether you’re looking at compounding skills, your health, your relationships, your business, all of these things, the bad decisions in life compound more quickly and severely than the good decisions.
I was thinking about this because I’ve been on a slippery slope recently with my, my nutrition. I’ve been doing really well for the last 6, 7, 8 months. Um, but then in the last month, in June, in January, we jam, Jamie and I, we moved and then kind of got out of our groove in terms of our eating and our grocery shopping and all that stuff.
And then we’re leaving for Antarctica here in just a couple of days. And so February is a little bit of a wash as well. And all that’s to say is that I’ve noticed for myself. That first bad decision of like, oh, I’m going to eat that candy bar. Then very easily spirals into the next decision, which is I’m also gonna have some ice cream, and then spirals into the next decision of like, oh yeah, I could have an old fashioned, right?
So all of these bad decisions, they compound and they, they tumble into each other really easily. And somebody on Twitter called it like the, ah, fuck it. Where it’s like, ah, I’ve already done, I’ve already slipped up. I’ve already, I’ve already failed this on this one thing. I already. I broke my, my goal, so fuck it.
I’ll, I’ll just do another right. What’s, what’s another two or three? I might as well get ’em all out of my system and I find that to be incredibly true. Whereas like when you’re stacking good habits, you can also have them tumble into each other, but there’s still a lot of work. Um, they don’t tumble into each other as naturally, as easily, and.
The way I think about it is bad decisions are like that slippery slope. It’s very easy to to step wrong and then all of a sudden find yourself at the bottom of the hill. Just keep going. Whereas good decisions, the, the things that are moving you forward towards your greatness, they compound more slowly.
It’s like trying to trudge up that same slippery, icy slope in like slippers, right? So like it’s a lot more work and just one slip can take you easily back down. And so, and just thinking about. And realizing that dec bad decisions have a way of kind of dominoing from one into the next and to the next.
Uh, the, the key then I think is to recognize when you’re s when you’re dominoing, and then you have to stop the momentum. You have to stop the slip slide. You have to get your foot rooted into the ice to stop yourself so that you can get turned around and start slipping and sliding back up that damn.
And it’s that, ah, fuck it, that the guy on Twitter was mentioning where I was like, where it’s, if you, if you find yourself in that position, you have to take a stand. You have to draw a line in the sand and say, it’s beyond this point. I will not go. I had this mocha, I had that candy bar, I had that drink.
I’m not having another, it starts right now. It doesn’t start tomorrow. It starts now because quite often with these bad decisions, we tend to write off days and say, I’ll try again tomorrow, or we write off this week. I’ll try again next week. Or if it’s getting towards the end of months, we’ll say, ah, I’ll try again next month.
We liked as humans to have these like sharp delineations of beginning and ending, and so. As much as possible, we need to condense and shorten that time horizon so it’s not, oh, I’ll do better next year on the 1st of January, or I’ll do better starting next month or next week, or even tomorrow. If you can get to the point where you say, okay, I’m gonna do better starting now with the next decision that I have to make, and this is what leads into that.
The plus one framework of decision making that I’m so passionate about that served me incredibly well is recognizing each decision as a moment, an opportunity to move towards your greatness or away from it. That each decision is equally important, even though in reality we know that they’re not like, but if you view it as every decision is only moving you forward or backwards, one.
Then that slip slide of the mocha is only a one step back. It’s not 10 steps back. Right. And just that reframing of it says, okay, I can get that step back. Now if I go drink water, I go do my pushups, I go for a walk. Right. And in reality, do those things actually balance each other out? Technically no because your mochas are like a thousand calories and you’re gonna have to do a whole lot of walking to to burn that calorie.
But still, if you equalize them and say, that was a negative one decision and I canceled it out. With this plus one decision on a long enough timeframe, you’re stacking the plus one s and that is what is going to pay the biggest compounding interest or dividends over the long run. And that’s the key. The good habits, the good decisions, they compound more slowly than the bad ones.
And so I hope this brings you a new perspective, a new lens. If you’re currently on a slip slide, like I’ve been recently with my nutrition, the key is to say no more right now. The next decision is gonna be a plus one. So as soon as I get off this podcast, I’m going for a walk. I’m gonna get my butt onto the treadmill and I’m gonna go walk for an hour and that’s gonna be my plus one decision that is gonna offset.
Mocha negative one decision. So I hope this brought you guys some value. As always, I love, I love, love, love each and every single one of you. Thank you for being here. I can’t wait to see you back around these parts tomorrow, but until then, stay hyper-focused, my friend.
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