BIG BOY Pants

Have you ever had a decision that needed to be made and you struggled longer that you should have or maybe delayed it?  Yeah, me too...

At some point in life, every one of us hears an invisible voice say:

“Alright. Enough talking. Put on your Big Boy Pants.”

Join Dave for some Grown Up talk about:

• LIFE EVENTUALLY REMOVES THE TRAINING WHEELS
• WE DON'T REALLY HATE DECISIONS. WE HATE UNCERTAINTY.
• AND THEN THERE'S DRAMA
• SOME PEOPLE DON'T WANT RESOLUTION
• THE DRAMA INFLATION CYCLE
• RUMINATION FEELS PRODUCTIVE BECAUSE YOUR BRAIN IS BUSY
• THE HELICOPTER PARENT PROBLEM
• HELPING IS NOT THE SAME AS RESCUING
• WHEN ADVICE BECOMES PERMISSION
• YOU DON'T NEED EVERY POSSIBLE OPTION
• EVERYTHING HAS A CONSEQUENCE
• FIVE THINGS BIG BOY PANTS REQUIRE
• TEN DECISIONS THAT REQUIRE BIG BOY PANTS
• THE 24-HOUR DRAMA TEST
• FIVE WAYS TO PUT ON YOUR BIG BOY PANTS

Life does not require us to make perfect decisions.

It requires us to participate.

To choose.

To act.

To learn.

To adjust.

To occasionally say: “Well...that didn't work.”

“Freedom is having the right to choose. Confidence is believing you can handle the outcome. Maturity is making the choice without needing everybody else to approve it.”

Giddyup!!!

Email David@Otalks.com or OWD@Otalks.com for comments, questions, or ideas for content on an upcoming O'talkin' with Dave podcast.  Otalks.com

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Transcript

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SPEAKER_00 0:02

Welcome to O'Talkin' with Dave. Coming to you from Fin City, where what happens in Vegas is talked about everywhere. Put your hands together for the pastor of positivity whose glass is always at least half full. Here's Dave.

SPEAKER_02 0:20

Hey, how are we doing out there? I hope you're doing great. I am top shelf and ready to go. Ready to hit it. So today we're going to talk about an expression that hits harder home now when I look around and I listen, and even in my own life, but when I look around, I just sometimes I just want to say, hey, it's time to put your big boy pants on. Have you heard that before? Already enough talking. Put on your big boy pants. Now, before anybody gets offended by that, which I am one to do, relax. You can have your big girl pants. I even heard ladies say, big girl panties. That's a little personal to me. Plus, it puts an image out there, and I'm not trying to paint that kind of picture. However, it's the same thing. Same department, same price, same uncomfortable waistband involved. Because we know, and we're not really talking about foundation garments, we'll call them. No, it's the decision. Let's man up, let's get it together. Big boys making big decisions. They're metaphorically when we put on when life says, hey, nobody's going to make this decision for you. You've got the responsibility. Sometimes it takes courage, accountability, independence. One of the material things that's apparently become increasingly difficult to find is what we say all the time, and that's resolve. You make the decision and you work through it because it's the right decision. Because somewhere along the way, we started confusing thinking about something with doing something or about. If we think about it enough, okay, I've worked on that. No, eventually you have to do it. That's why I hate the term, and I don't hate it, but the term figure it out. No, figuring, you can figure on something a long time. I'll instead of that, I like to say determine. I'm gonna determine what to do. And then I'm gonna do it. Figure it out. Eh, please. That's just a that's just adding to the process. You know, you can discuss a problem for six months and still be standing in the exact same place and you feel like you've done something. You can analyze it, you can text your friends about it. You can call your mama, you can ask 12 of your closest compatriots. Maybe even post something on Facebook. Start a GoFundMe. I'm gonna listen to podcasts tomorrow. Maybe the answer's in there somewhere. Google it. AI. Let me chat GPT this bad boy. It'll tell me what to do. I know I'll make a pros and cons list. Yeah, and then I'll make a pros and cons list about making a pros and cons list. Uh and still, yeah, make a damn decision. Welcome to the world of the big boy pants. No, I don't mean to be condescending because I'm talking to me. So many times people will hit me up. You just think you know everything. You're so arrogant. You blah, blah, blah, whatever, Randy. No, I'm talking to me. I there are times recently where I've had to get myself by the proverbial collar and say, Dave, it's time for a decision. You know what you need to make, do it. Put on your big boy pants, and let's get on with this. I think life gives you training wheels, just like when you're learning to ride a bike. You get used to that. And remember, I vaguely remember when dad took the training wheels off of my bike. Scary. Uh, I don't I'm wobbling. I can fall now. Yeah. Yeah. With training wheels, decisions are harmless. You can make a sharp turn or whatever. You're okay. But life takes those off. And it's not always as simple as vanilla or chocolate. Ride bikes or play baseball. The blue shirt or the red shirt today. One more episode. I've got to get through season four. And it's three in the morning, but come on. Yeah, adulthood arrives. Most of the decisions we make, the consequences are measured in just minutes. Vanilla or chocolate. I got the vanilla. I wish I'd have got the chocolate. But ooh, this is sure as good. But in adulthood, in the big boy pants department, we're dealing with big decisions. Big decisions. Who do I marry? Should I get married? Should I stay? Should I leave? Should I take this job? Should I quit this job? Maybe we should move. Maybe I should start a business. I could s maybe I should sell the house. Should I sell the house? What's the market like? I've got to buy a house. Should I have that conversation with this person? It's it could be a come to Jesus. It could end the relationship. It could start the relationship. Should I end this relationship? Do I want a deeper relationship? Should I forgive that person? Should I ask that person to forgive me? Should I apologize? Should I take this risk? So see, it's not we're not choosing ice cream anymore. And they we don't find out immediately. However, there's still decisions we have to make. I've got friends that just wring their hands, fretting, rather than deciding. They know what to do. They're putting it off. Kids, they decide what to do this afternoon. Tomorrow's another day. There's there's beauty in that. We can't just go totally haphazard into the today and not think about the tomorrow. But as adults, we decide what kind of life we're gonna build. I've been very fortunate in that I've haphazardly, or just dumb luck, made good decisions. And I believe I have I think God has assigned me several angels to take care of me. Yeah. We decide this kind of stuff. But here's the catch nobody gives you the answers. You don't have a key. You can't look in the back of the book. It's not there. I looked. I tried. The thing is, making a decision is tough a lot of times. People hate to make a decision. Oh my goodness. We go to the same four to six places to eat when I'm in town. And it's we don't decide where we can eat, it's which of the places do we eat, and we usually end up at the same place more times than not. So the thing is, I don't think we hate decisions. I think it's the uncertainty that rubs us the wrong way. I think the uncertainty is the real problem. Because we would like guarantees. We would love that. Life offers possibilities, but we want some degree of certainty. When I go out to eat, I would like a I like to sit at the bar and watch TV and socialize and have a good time. So sometimes that's more important than the food. Sometimes it's a particular dish. Sometimes it's who's there, who's not there. All of those are a lot of possibilities. And so we figure all those in and we complicate the decision many times. So many times. If I do this, will everything work out? If I do this, if I buy this house, if I buy this car, if I take this job, if I move to this new city, if I get out of this relationship, is everything gonna be okay? Nobody knows. That's life. That's being an adult. Put your big boy pants on, but the thing is they don't come with a warranty. They're not like the what was it back in the day, the Levi's thing. They would share toughness, they're gonna last. Cars, the safest, the most durable, the most rugged. They'll put a warranty on them for a to a certain point. Nobody puts a warranty on your big boy pant decision. But can I get a guarantee that this is the right decision? Oh, no wonder you're not making a decision. That's not what we should be asking. I think it helps when you ask, give them what I know today, what's the best decision I can make? And I'm willing to own that decision. If you're to that spot, okay. Tomorrow's a whole new set. It's much different than can I get a guarantee rather than based on where I am today, this is the best decision, in my opinion. And I'm gonna own it. That builds confidence. You don't know everything's gonna work out, however, with that confidence, I'll deal with whatever happens next. And quite frankly, the quicker you get that, the happier you're gonna be. You'll succeed sooner, you'll fail sooner, you'll learn sooner. It's all gonna happen. But this putting off decisions or delegating the decisions that are important to your life, that's not gonna end well. And if you benefit from it, eh, there's a little hollowness there because you can't really take credit for it. And then the one thing we have to figure in, and I don't know, I think the world instead of less drama, we get more drama. And drama is I don't it's not a throwaway word to me. It's fascinating to me because drama often disguises itself as problem solving. Yeah, let me process this. Yes, let me pro let me think this through, let me figure this out. Yeah, maybe. But you've been processing this since last Easter. At some point, your processing process needs to be repossessed. Yeah, you're marinating, that's what you're doing. There's a difference between thinking and ruminating. You bring all this into it. If you ever have a conversation with somebody where they're talking about a topic, and in talking about it, they bring up something from 20 years ago, or they bring up their childhood, or they bring up how they were treated as an adolescent, or they it has nothing to do with this decision. You're marinating and ruminating and processing, but nothing is moving you toward a conclusion or a decision. Rumination, I loathe rumination. It's a circular, it's a downward circle, but it's circular. When you're thinking, though, instead of ruminating, what should I do? Rumination is saying, but what if? But what if? Rumination automatically questions progress, it questions logic and it brings drama and dirt. It taints the well. Yeah. What if? It brings that in, and then another one, and then another one. Until your problem has more sequels. It's got more sequels than the original. You forget what the original premise is. I've never seen a fast and furious, but what are they on? Eight, nine? I saw part of the Paul Walker, I may have seen part of the first one. But anyway, it just keeps going to the point to where wait a minute, I get Fast and Furious and Transformers, and I'm getting all these movies mixed up. What's the original premise? That's what we do when we ruminate rather than make a decision. And reach research backs all this up. There's a strong distinction. Study have shown that rumination can make decisions feel more difficult and reduce confidence in the decisions we make. Think about that. It makes it more difficult. We do the work, we feel like we're doing the work, and then once we do it and we've ruminated over everything involved, they're not that confident anymore because we're still asking, what if? And other research connects repetitive negative thinking with poor problem solving and decision performance. Yeah, okay, yeah, you finally did it. But you didn't do a good job because you were factoring too many things into it. It makes me think about Charles Barclay when he had his weight problem, and but when he started playing. I remember when he was at Auburn, the round mountain rebound, and big, big boy. And then to play pro ball, we played with the Sixers. Wasn't the tallest guy who was rebounding champion? Did I just he was just fantastic talent? But he always had a weight problem. And somebody told him one time look, Chuck, you're getting paid an unbelievable amount of money. You've got to make this money last the rest of your life. You don't know how long your career's gonna be. And basically, you have the basketball talent. They're just paying you to not be so fat. Yeah, I'm simplifying it, but that's basically it. There are many things in our lives that the answer is don't do that. You can do all of this, just stop doing that, and we want to complicate it. But when we ruminate and add stuff to it, yeah, but I'm I eat my feelings, I stress eat, I'm on my journey, I'm just trying to find myself. And when I to look for myself, I have to find a lot of pizza. Yeah, come on. You're ruminating, you're adding things to it. Don't do the bad stuff. Sometimes when you get to a good spot, when you've got your life dialed in, it's just a matter of don't let the garbage in. Say no. And we'll get to the how-to's in a minute, but just don't do that. It's that simple. I think that research and what we're talking about now is talking about more thinking is not always better thinking. Sometimes more thinking is just more thinking. And most of the times we know the answers. And I've seen many times, I've got fair several situations going on right now where people really don't want resolution. They like that. They like this pain, they like this burden. It's liness's blanket to them. It's a sense of comfort, it's an excuse. It's something they can ruminate over. So if they solve this, I'm exposed. I'm out here. I have to take ownership. It's uncomfortable. A lot of people, it's so uncomfortable that they won't do it.

unknown 15:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 15:56

A lot of times people say they want a problem solved when they actually they just want an audience for the problem. Because resolution, that ends the story. That ends the story. And I don't want to alienate anybody here. I have gained what gained and lost probably a ton in my life. And what I've noticed with a lot of people now, they lose a lot of weight, they get healthy, and oh, it's fantastic. But mostly what they talk about is how awful it was when they were fat. Yes, I said the F-word. Get over it. But you're not anymore. Look at you. And people that didn't even know them before they got healthy, that's all they want to talk about is how much weight they've lost and how much better they're doing. In business, many times I've seen companies and presentations where let's move from this point forward. They want to talk about the struggle and the journey up until now. They don't need to know that. They just need to know we're ready, we can go, we can help you, we can solve a problem. You don't need to hear about the trail of tears. That's rumination. It's drama. It keeps it alive. And drama has benefits. Drama gets attention. It also gets sympathy. Some people want sympathy. Pity. Oh, I loathe pity. Also, it creates allies. Yeah. Oh, let's talk about it. Let's get all down in here. Because drama gives you something to talk about. It also, the dangerous part is drama clouds things and it allows us to postpone responsibility. Think about that. If it's dramatic and I will get worked into a froth, and if I can work you into a froth, oh, let's be frothy together. Well, you don't want to make that decision because I, oh, I like the froth. Yeah, it's like a suds or bubble party at a resort. Whoo, we just want to hang out in this as long as we can. Because once that problem is solved, we lose one of our favorite sentences. You know that sentence? Okay. Listen to me, don't get mad. Once the problem is solved, we can't say, you just don't understand what I'm dealing with. You have no idea what I'm going through. You don't know what it's like to blow. Okay, you do. You want to keep doing that, or do you want to solve the problem? Or do you want to get better? You want to get past it, or do you just want to bask in it, marinate in it, ruminate in it? Because sometimes we don't need another conversation. We just need the decision to move on. You don't need 17 people sitting around a conference table of your life, and half of them aren't qualified to be there anyway. Well, one hasn't made a good decision since the 2000s, and yet somehow they've got they've got advice, and you're giving them a vote. No, stop it. Quit. There's something called the drama inflation cycle. And here's how manageable problem becomes a disaster. Okay, think about it. Something happens, we tell somebody, they react. We tell somebody else, and we also tell them we've already told this person, and here's how they react. So now they're reacting to the first person's reaction. Now we're reacting to both reactions. Maybe they're the same, maybe they're not. And then somebody says, if it was me, oh Lord, here we go. A couple of days, something that could have been solved on Monday, it's Wednesday now. We've got witnesses, we've got factions, we got screenshots, we got memes, we got quotes and stats, expert testimonial, and a documentary crew following us around for that next person. And we're going to look for somebody with a new reaction, or the same reaction that's confirmation to how we think we want to feel. The original problem was we had a disagreement. Within 72 hours, I am beginning to question everything I've ever known about my relationships. Let's just calm down, Bucky. Sometimes the most emotionally mature thing you can do is to choose to not inflate the situation. Just ask yourself, what happened? What actually happened? Okay. What needs to happen next? Okay. What part belongs to me? And then handle it. So many times we are wringing our hands over something that didn't even happen to us. We have no part in this. But we are either drawn into it, pulled into it, or inserted ourselves into it. It's not even up to us. We don't really have any action items. But we'll sit by the phone and wait for that text update or that post or who said what? To who. Oh, they did. I can't believe they said that. Well, if it was me. Oh. Sound familiar? Hopefully you're not doing this as much as you used to, and hopefully you can stop altogether. But I know you've got friends, partners, compatriots, peers, whatever. They're going through this. And the thing about all of this, the drama, and the rumination feels productive because your brain's busy. You're thinking, you're acting. You've got recall. You've got feelings. This is one of life's big traps. Yeah, a spinning tire is busy too. Trapped in the snow or in mud. Yeah, it's busy, but you're not going anywhere. Rumination creates that sensation of activity without productivity. Now I could talk about that in a lot. That's good business for me. People are busy work, getting stuff done. Yeah. You're getting action items done that really are not productive to what you need to do. Psychological research is repeatedly linked with difficulty solving problems and moving toward action. It's described preservative negative thinking as an attempt to form as an attempted form of self-regulation that can create the illusion of control while actually making the problem harder to resolve. You ever had a problem that you've been working on so long and complicated it to where now the problem is so big it's hard to solve, and that's when you seek help. And I'm not saying don't seek help, but a lot of these people aren't qualified. They're doing the same things to themselves. And one way they help themselves is by making your problems look worse than theirs. And if they inflate yours more, theirs not, theirs aren't as bad. But that illusion of control is a dangerous thing. We think if if I consider every possible outcome, eventually I can pick the best thing and eliminate the risk. No, you'll just eliminate Wednesday because you spent all day thinking about it. Risk is still going to be there Thursday morning. You can't think your way into certainty just because certainty frequently doesn't exist. Certainty is a tough thing. That's one thing I do with the ten foundational beliefs. I don't have to think about those. Those are concrete to me. And I have many more, but those ten are very important because I don't have to think about those. That is certainty to me. Everything else, woo! Lord help me. But eventually, all this thinking you're doing is just thinking until you choose. Thinking needs to lead to a choice, or you're wasting your time. Now I know we've heard about the helicopter parent problem. Yeah, let's make everybody uncomfortable. How about that? Parents, I understand the instinct. I've done it. I had it done to me, I guess a little bit. They called it something different. Yeah. We love our kids. You love your kids. You don't want them hurt. You don't want them even at risk of being hurt. You don't want them to be disappointed. You don't want them to make the same mistakes you made. So you protect them. Nothing wrong with that, right? Then you protect them some more. And sometimes you protect them right out of adulthood. My kids are 36 and 33 right now. I still do this to some degree. If I can, I probably do it where I can. They're very independent and they do their own thing. But if I can, I try to. But back in the day, you call the teacher. You have a little talk with the coach. You may even talk to their professor. Some call their employer. You want to fix that relationship. You want to pay that bill. You want to solve that conflict. You want to remove the consequences or explain away a mistake. I've seen that many times. And every time you do that, you're sending a very dangerous message. You're sending the message, you can't handle this without me. That's not good for them to understand that. Because they may lean on that. They may actually believe that. That's not really what we mean, but that's the message it sends. And that's what the child learns. And then I'll learn one time. I learned it with my son first, and my daughter came along, we knew it too, but sometimes you gotta let them skin their knees. A toddler learns to walk by falling. Imagine following a toddler around with a helmet, knee pads, and bubble wrap and an NDA and some sort of non-capete clause, whatever it takes. Eventually you just created the safest three-year-old in America. There's just one problem. I had a good friend growing up, he couldn't tie his shoes. He just couldn't tie his shoes. He tried. He would do an attempt, and they were the next one step, and Velcro came along and problem solved, right? No. That's one of the things we need to do. That's one of the things we need to learn to do. Human beings develop capability by experiencing difficulty. Make a decision. Endure the consequences. Make adjustments. Make a decision. Endure the consequences. Make adjustments. That's how you develop judgment. That's how you develop resilience and confidence. That's how you break in your big boy pants. That helicopter parenting, it's both true, but it's also symbolic of things we do for other people. In business, I got accused one time of underpinning. You know what that means? Underpinning, I don't know if it truly comes from the mobile home industry, but if you had a mobile home, you underpinned it, meaning you attached it to the ground. It was both support and you attach it to the ground to where when God, who hates mobile homes, by the way, decides to blow one away. No, you've got it, you've got a firm foundation. If any weakness happens, that's okay. It's underpinned. And in in business, you underpin your team. You do their sales for them. You do all the extra stuff for them. And maybe they don't want to load their stuff in Salesforce. And so you do that for them. And all the Yeah, I remember doing that one time, and then I got promoted, moved across the country, and that branch fell apart because I had been underpinning. I'd been an helicopter manager. So it happens. It happens. But the research isn't very comforting. In 2024, there were 53 studies, more than 46,000 emerging adults, and 111 effective sizes, meaning different groupings. More anxiety, more depressive symptoms, lower achievement, lower self-efficacy. They didn't believe in themselves and lower ability to regulate emotions and stress. You're talking about 53 studies, 46,000 people in 111 different categories, all of those things. And that was regarding helicopter parenting or helicopter relationships. Because you have to believe in yourself. If you have that, I think I can handle this. If you don't, I don't think I can. And I think that's what we're talking about. Research has also linked helicopter parenting or management with greater self-doubt and lower adaptability. If you don't put on your big boy pants, you're asking for this. See, I'm not accusing people of being helicopter parents or helicopter managers or whatever. I'm talking about those of you who can't make decisions. You're asking for someone to take care of you. Make the decision for you. Be involved in this. And your self-efficacy is going down the dumper. So everything's not yes no, but everything's not black and white. But you've got to make a decision. I know we're trying to protect people from falling and failing, but falling is part of how we learn. It's how you learn to walk. You don't learn that you can get back up until you fall. I've seen mom and dad remove every obstacle. Everything. But when that kid is bouncing off the walls and running into things, and they learn to walk, and they're running into things, and they stay up this time. They have that confidence. I got this. I've got it. You cannot outsource every difficult experience of someone's life and then be shocked when they're terrified when a decision comes up. So let's talk about it though. Helping is not the same, doesn't have to be the same as rescuing. Shouldn't be. And that distinction matters. Good parents, good friends, good mentors, good leaders, they help. But how they help matters. I'll stand beside you while you handle this. Rescuing is no move over. I got it. Move, give me the keyboard, give me the mouse. No, I'm behind you. While you handle this, I'm here. Just in case you need help or you have any questions. One builds capability, the other builds dependency. And that's a huge difference between giving somebody a life jacket and refusing to let them learn how to swim. Teach them to swim. Eventually that boat, it's not going to be there. I remember I was at the river, oh goodness, last summer, and I hadn't swam in a long time. But I we were at we were in Habasu playing shows, and I jumped into the water, and the current just took me. And the boat, I came up, and the boat's 30, 40 yards away. Wait a minute. I didn't have a life jacket on. I did. All right, what do I do? I better do something. And it's that quick that things can happen. And I just I did what came natural. I swam back to the boat or I swam to where the boat was going. I got my bearings and you started doing stuff. Instead of panicking and oh my goodness, what I could have drowned. But I had been, I grew up on the river, so I knew what to do. But if I never had, if I'd just been in a lake situation, oh that could have been dire. But the boat wasn't there and I was prepared. I'm not I mean, I'm no Olympic swimmer by any means. But the thing is, I didn't panic because I've been in that situation before, because someone allowed me to be. I didn't depend on all of the things that would keep the consequences from happening. Now I adjusted after that. I was tired. So I made that decision. Here's the consequences. I made some adjustments. And also blew lake water out of my nose for three days. Yeah. Eventually the boat's not going to be there. Also, eventually, you're not going to be there to help them. And they need to know eventually I'm going to have to make this decision, face the consequences, and then make adjustments. And it is considering big boy pants, a lot of times outside forces can steal our big boy pants. What? How dare you? It's not just parents, it's a spouse, it's a dominant friend, a boss. Social media can steal your big boy pants. Or the air quote experts. Or the culture we're living in. The world wide web. That online mob, my goodness. Anybody who becomes more influential over your decisions than your own judgment, oh, that's stealing your big boy pants. Advice is useful. Wisdom is useful. Expertise. Uh, all useful. But there comes a time when you have to learn that it's your decision. This is not life by committee. It's your decision. And everybody's giving you advice. They get to go home afterward. They don't share the consequences or have to make adjustments. You gotta live with it. And that's why I have a simple rule seek counsel, but don't surrender control or command of the ship. I love counsel. I love it. I love drama-free counsel. And that means I don't insert it, and if it comes back, I can get through it or redirect with a non-dramatic way. A lot of times advice becomes permission as well. That's another trap. And sometimes we aren't actually asking people what they think. We're shopping. We're shopping. Can I get permission? Can I get an amen? We keep asking people until somebody tells us what we want to hear. Oh, hey, I like that guy. That's a smart guy. And we'll quote them. So-and-so said this. We'll do that to other people to get their reaction. That sounds reasonable. Oh, good. That's what I was going to do anyway. That's not consult consultation. That's emotional Amazon. Okay, here's all this. I can get this. Ooh, I can have this delivered in two hours. I can have this right now. I'll take it. Add two cart. Yeah. One of my things, it's a way that I would trigger conflict to get to a right answer. And I learned it early on. I heard a guy say it one time, and so I just adopted it. If somebody gave me an answer that I didn't want to hear or I didn't think was right, I just started, even if they were older than me, I went, huh, I don't like that answer. Meaning, tell me more or let's talk about that. Oh, I don't like that answer. Yeah. And see, when we shop for permission, uh, and somebody says something we're like, ah, I knew it. Yeah. I interviewed 14 people and found 13 consultants, and then the one person told me what I wanted to hear. I'm gonna hear what they said. And then you can say they said it. Yeah. Well, and two, here's the thing. This is this was so freeing for me. I don't know, mid-adulthood, that I don't need every option. Knowing when you have enough information. We live in an age where every decision, we can generate a hundred options or alternatives. We can read another review, going on vacation. Oh, I can read reviews all day long. Okay, yelp, I can yelp a restaurant. Yeah, yeah. The people m giving bad reviews, they're either pissed off, they're a competitor, or something was wrong. The people that love it are probably friends and family, and something was terribly right. Yeah. So those reviews, just keep reading. I'm gonna read this till I get 10 positive reviews. You keep reading, you'll get that. We live in an age where almost every decision creates options. Reviews, videos, experts, another scenario, and different choices. Because these choices, they feel like freedom. No, they're just an escape route for making a decision. But these excessive choices, a lot of times, will paralyze you. Especially if it's a difficult decision. I went with uh uh I went with a friend to buy shoes the other day. When I buy shoes, I go in, huh? I like those shoes. I try them on, those feel nice. I'll take them. And you know what? I'm probably just enough of a child, I'll wear them out of the store. I love that. I love that as a kid. No, this person, that's not how they shop. All right, let me take these four different styles. Okay. I don't know if shoes, these are like tennis shoes. Each one has a different feature about them. The layers of padding, the structure, the the makeup of the sole. And so you there's four shoes with three different structures and four different other things. Now you've got 60 pair of shoes in front of you. All right, now we decide what feels good. All right, now let's talk about color and appearance. And oh my god. Hour and a half later, finally we got her on the catwalk, and she's walking back and forth, and she's second guessing, and going back to the other one and thinking, I can't remember how that felt. And oh, somebody help me. That's the way a lot of people do with basic problems. They've got paralysis with all the options. They got preferences, but now it's uncertain because they have different opinions. And now the options are more complex. We've got choice overload. It's crazy. That sound familiar? I'm not talking about shoes anymore, by the way. So the objective is not to consider everything, the objective is to consider enough. There's a point where additional information stops improving the decision. It's just delaying it. These aren't the last pair of shoes you're going to buy in your lifetime.

SPEAKER_01 40:47

No.

SPEAKER_02 40:47

They don't work out. You know what? I'll get some other shoes. Big boy pants requires recognizing the point. Don't consider everything. Consider enough. Everything's got a consequence. There's no doubt about that. A lot of times we say, I made a mistake. Sometimes that's true. It is true. But what we really mean is I made a decision and didn't like the outcome. That is a more constructive way to say that. That's not the same thing. It's not a mistake. You just didn't like the outcome. That outcome may be what you needed, however, you learn from it and make adjustments. A good decision can produce a bad outcome, of course. A terrible decision, sometimes that works out. That's life. That's the way it is. And you can carefully research an investment and lose money. You can marry somebody you sincerely believe is right for you and eventually get a divorce. You can accept a promising job and discover that the company is a disaster. You can turn down an opportunity that later had a huge benefit, and you ugh, you missed the boat. Because that hindsight is a cocky little creature, man. Hindsight knows everything. Unfortunately, hindsight doesn't show up until after the decision. So stop judging yesterday's decision using information that you didn't have yesterday. It's okay. Yeah, it might have been a mistake. I don't know. But I think it's basically a decision that just you didn't like the outcome. So ask instead: was my decision reasonable based on what I knew at the time? I didn't have to look through everything. I looked through enough. Okay, I made the decision based on what I knew is the right decision. That's how you move on. That's how you move on. So let's talk about what are a few things big boy pants require. Okay, huge decisions, smaller decisions, doesn't matter. One thing putting on your big boy pants requires is courage. And courage is not the absence of fear, it's a willingness to choose while fear's in the room. It's courage. You need that. Also, you gotta have accountability. Don't blame the committee afterward. All the 14 people you asked and they gave you what they thought. No, you made the call, buddy. You made the call. That is that's the thread that holds the big boy pants together is the accountability. Own it. Also, there's a little bit of discomfort, especially at first. Some decisions are rough, man. They hurt. Doesn't make them wrong, though. A lot of times the the most painful one is the right one. So there's some discomfort. And we talk about boundaries a ton. Big boy pants require boundaries. Everybody doesn't get a vote. Hey, hello. Some people even don't get a ballot. Nope. Sorry. My decision. Here we go. Yahtzee. And then big boy pants you knew it was coming. It requires resolve. Once you've made that decision, stop reopening the case. Every 10 minutes. It's done. Move on. There comes a time when reflection just becomes self-torture. So let's talk about a few things, a few decisions that require big boy pants. And I alluded to them before. Who are we going to spend our lives with? When do we stay? When do we leave? You can stop, never quit. What work deserves our time? How am I going to handle money? What is a responsible way to handle money toward my goals, toward my retirement, toward my security, toward my living an abundant life today? Yeah. Whether to forgive or not, that's a big one. That's a big one. That will come up at some point. How serious are we about our health? How are we gonna treat ourselves? How serious are we about that? Big one. Who gets access to me? To my life. Big one. When do I take a risk? What risk is too big? What is a risk? If it's not big enough, it's not a risk. How do I feel about that? How's that gonna apply? When do I take that risk? When do I say no? Maybe it's when do I finally say no? Huge. Your life will improve so much when you can say that word. And this one. What do I do after life punches me square in the mouth? What do I do? I gotta make those decisions. I may be groggy. I may be staggering around the ring. That all of those require big boy pants. You can't let someone else make those decisions for you. You can't do it. And if you have, you can't do it permanently. You gotta own it. Not your mom, not your dad, not your friends, not social media, not a therapist, not a pastor, not that podcast guy with the great voice and the perfect hair and teeth and that rapist wit. No, they can help, they can advise, they can challenge, but ultimately your life requires your signature, or it's not yours. And if it's not yours, you're gonna have so much regret. What if, what if, what if. So I also have a little 24-hour drama test. You listening? Here we go. When something happens, try this. Before turning it into a national emergency, ask yourself why five questions. What actually happened? Not what I think it means. What actually happened? What was said? What was done? What happened? Not fallout, not drama, not what happened. The second thing, what part of this can I control? Usually it's very little or less than we'd like. Third thing, does this require a conversation, a decision, an action, or nothing? Nothing's the best option, by the way. What happened? What part can I control? What does this require? Who actually needs to be involved? Probably not your entire contact list. And what would resolution look like? This is a big one because if you can't describe what resolution looks like, you're not pursuing resolution. You're just pursuing drama. So what happened? What part can I control? What does this require? Who needs to be involved and what does resolution look like? If you complicate that, ah, there's your drama test for sure. Absolutely. And so we know this. We know all these things. Dave, it makes sense. You've told me nothing here other than just eloquently in your very sophisticated accent, just a bunch of common sense. Then why don't we why don't we put on our big pants more? Big boy pants more. So sometimes we just need a how-to. So a few things. How do we put on our big boy pants? I think it starts with a decision deadline. Give yourself a reasonable time, but decide. It could be a morning, it could be a day. I'll just go and give myself a week. Okay. The deadline prevents thought from becoming an endless subscription service. I looked at something the other day and I am subscribed to some streaming services that I haven't watched in a year. Yeah, that's the same way some of these decisions are. We've been struggling with this for six months. Oh, give yourself a timeline. Second thing is reduce the committee. That's a couple of friends whose judgment you genuinely respect. Not all of your friends, not anybody on the street, not your Uber driver. Come on. Wisdom doesn't necessarily improve with the crowd size. Alright, give yourself a deadline, reduce the committee, separate facts from fear. Just make two columns: what I know and what I'm imagining. That what I know is the only column you need to follow because imagination is just drama. It's disturbing thoughts. You may be surprised how much of your anxiety lives in what am I imagining? Alright. Give yourself a deadline, reduce the committee, separate facts from fear, define what is good enough. Perfect decisions are mostly false, fictional. Ask yourself, is this a reasonable decision based on the information available? If yes, move, do it, done. Decision made. Just as big as any of this. Own what happens next. Maybe it worked, maybe it didn't. Either way, you're gonna say you don't, I either I didn't lose, I either won or I learned. Okay, that's kind of hokey. But with this, you learn, you adjust, and you continue. There's no stopping. You can't quit being an adult. That's what adulthood is. So let's look back at it. Set a deadline, reduce the committee size, separate facts from fear, define what's good enough, not perfect, and then own it and move on. If you're a kid who had helicopter parents, or helicopter manager, or helicopter friends, or if you're one of those helicopter people, everybody needs to have their own set of big boy pants. If you got an adult child, if you have adult children, one of the greatest gifts you can give them is it's not protection, it's confidence they can handle it. On one of the podcasts with my daughter, one of the things she said, she asked me one thing I would like for her to know. The one thing she would like for me to know is I'm gonna be okay.

SPEAKER_01 51:58

I'm gonna be okay.

unknown 51:59

I love that.

SPEAKER_02 52:01

So instead of, oh, let me call them, let me solve this for you. No, what are you gonna say when you call them? That's great. Or instead of, I'll take care of it, how do you think you should handle this? If you can't help yourself, instead of removing consequences, let the appropriate consequences be a teacher. That will change your job. You go from manager to consultant, and that's wonderful. Consultants advise. They don't storm in the building and demand to speak to the manager because their 26-year-old got a disappointing performance review. Eventually, Junior's gotta wear his own pants. Yeah. I tell you, the parents, the manager, the overbearing friend, all that stuff, they've got to wear their big big boy pants too. Letting people struggle is uncomfortable. Watching somebody you love make a decision you wouldn't make is difficult. But the autonomy is so important. It requires that freedom to make those decisions we disagree with. Otherwise, it's not autonomy. Sometimes love says, I'm here if you need me. And then it goes and sits down. So hard. So hard to do. So let's take it back to freedom, resolve, and control, and I'll wrap this up. Freedom, resolve, and control. These three ideas, they're at the center of just about all this adult decision making. Freedom is I have the ability to choose. It's wonderful. Control, I have responsibility for what I can influence. That's the control. And resolve is I will continue moving after this decision is made. So important. Freedom without responsibility becomes chaos. Control without action, that's just obsession. And resolve without judgment, you're just being stubborn. But you put all those three together and something powerful happens. The belief that this is my life, and I have a role in determining what happens next. It's wonderful. So think about one decision you've been avoiding. You probably already know which one it is, or three of them, but pick one. Don't analyze it. Just pick one. And it's like, just ask yourself, what am I avoiding? What am I afraid will happen? What information do I genuinely still need? And whose opinion actually matters? What would I choose if I knew nobody would criticize me? And then finally, when am I going to decide? Put a date on it. Someday is not good. Tomorrow is not good because every day has a tomorrow, the next day. So life doesn't require us to make perfect decisions. It requires us to participate, to choose, to act, to learn, to adjust. And occasionally say, I didn't go well. Whoo, you know what? I'm gonna put my big boy pants on again tomorrow and let's go. People who build meaningful lives aren't people who somehow eliminated any uncertainty. No. They learned to operate inside of it. They made great decisions, they made bad decisions. Some decisions were probably brave, stupid decisions. Hello, present. Some decisions were celebrated, many were regretted, but some along the way, somewhere you learned that something is incredibly important, and that is I can handle the consequences of my life, of my decisions. And when you do that, that's freedom, that's confidence, that's adulthood. Maybe we spent too much time trying to make life comfortable for ourselves and the people we love. Maybe discomfort is not always the enemy. Maybe disappointment teaches us, and consequences teach us, and struggles makes us stronger. Maybe falling down occasionally is exactly how we learn we can stand back up and fall down less in the future. And maybe the greatest danger isn't making the wrong decision. It's becoming so afraid of making the wrong decision that we slowly surrender our ability to make one at all. So stop polling the audience. Stop reopening the case. Stop feeding the drama. Stop waiting for certainty. Gather the facts, listen to the people you trust, check your values, and make the call. Then you own the outcome. Learn what teaches you and keeps you moving. Because sooner or later, life looks every one of us right square in the eye and says, nobody else can do this one for you, buddy. Put on your big boy pants. That's your cue. Pull them up, button them, get a belt, suspenders if necessary. And wear your damn pants. Freedom is having the right to choose. Confidence is believing you can handle the outcome, and maturity is making the choice without needing everybody else to approve it. I hope this has helped. I know it's it's been requested. It's talk about it. It's I simplify things, but it's those decisions that need to be made, make them. Live with the consequences and make adjustments. So hit me up, david at otalks.com or davidotalks.com. Let me know what you think. Let me know what you like, what you don't like. Hit o talks.com, the website. You can find all sorts of stuff on there. But I appreciate you so much. Thanks for hanging out. Thanks for hanging on. But most of all, thanks for O Talking with Dave. Giddy up.