The Chris Voss Show - The Chris Voss Show Podcast – Never Say Whatever: How Small Decisions Make a Big Difference by Richard A. Moran

Episode Date: May 18, 2023

Never Say Whatever: How Small Decisions Make a Big Difference by Richard A. Moran https://amzn.to/42NCt9B Life Is Choices. Make Them. Calling in late to a Zoom meeting with kids playing in the background. Avoiding optional meetings. Dodging low-profile assignments. Giving H.R. lunch-and-learns a hard pass. There are countless ways we've become the apathetic version of our corporate selves―dismissing what seems unimportant with a big shrug emoji. Whatever. Who cares? In Never Say Whatever, veteran author, radio host, and former college president Dr. Richard Moran reveals with stunning clarity why you should care: The W-word is a career killer. In fact, he likens it to the similarly NSFW F-bomb. It can be a whole sentence, an attitude, an "OK," or nothing at all. It's a word that comes in handy and can be habit forming, but the consequences of using it as your fallback response can have drastically negative results over time. The numerous daily decisions we make, both at work and in life, are small chances to make big impact. Understanding this―and banishing that "meh" attitude―is key to success. Written with unflinching honesty, humor, and interviews with corporate decision makers, Never Say Whatever offers a blueprint to help everyone understand why and how the choices we make, even the minor ones, are in fact pivotal to professional development and career trajectory. For young graduates just starting out to seasoned professionals seeking ways to reenergize their careers, it's a timely call to get on track, and stay on track, with boosted productivity, an impressive personal brand, and a fortified gameplan for a supercharged career.

You wanted the best. You've got the best podcast, the hottest podcast in the world. The Chris Voss Show, the preeminent podcast with guests so smart you may experience serious brain bleed. The CEOs, authors, thought leaders, visionaries, and motivators. Get ready, get ready, strap yourself in. Keep your hands, arms, and legs inside the vehicle at all times because you're about to go on a monster education roller coaster with your brain. Now, here's your host, Chris Voss. Hi, folks. It's Voss here from thechrisvossshow.com, thechrisvossshow.com. Welcome to the big show, my friends and family. We certainly appreciate you guys coming by the show. 14 years, 1400 episodes plus, and we just keep on growing and doubling

size every year, which is hard to do at this point, but it just amazes me how those numbers work. I am your host, Chris Voss, the man with an ego so big he can fit about 10 multiple personalities into it. Talk to my therapist. Anyway, guys, let's stop my makeup on the ramble you have no idea how this is never pre-written uh maybe some of you do you're like yeah he just made that shit up and it sucked anyway guys refer the show to your family friends and relatives go to youtube.com for it says goodreads.com for it says chris foss youtube.com for it says Voss, the big LinkedIn newsletter. And we're over on TikTok now. We're trying to get the show going on there, the TikTok. So we can be cool with the kids.

Those kids, those young teenagers and 20-year-olds and all their Instagrammy, TikToky. We're trying to be cool because we're old. But we're smart. And that's about all we have going for us. So we're over there too. And there's even a channel called Chris Voss's Huskies, and it has my Huskies videos of my dogs. So if you hate me and my ugly, fat face, you can go look at my Huskies instead.

And, you know, you listen to the podcast. You don't have to look at my face when you're watching it. There's that. Anyway, we always have the brightest minds on the show and none of them are me. And that's why we have guests so that we can have a smart show and not a dumb show. Because God knows the smarter you are, the sexier you are and the more people will like you. I don't know. I'm not sure my attorney say I can say that, but I just did.

So sue me. Anyway, guys, Richard A. Moran is on the show with us today. He's the author of the latest book to come out from Wiley, I think it is, April 5th, 2023, Never Say Whatever. How small decisions make a big difference. Richard has served as a CEO, a college president, a venture capitalist, and a top-level consultant. He is a set of one.

He has worked for or with some of the world's leading organizations, including Accenture, Apple, News Corp, American Airlines, PG&E, and many others. He prides himself on his matter-of-fact manner of consulting and believes that many parts of the business world are needlessly complicated. He brings up perspective to bear as it relates to decision-making in Never Say Whatever. Welcome to the show, Richard. How are you? Chris, that's a great setup. Thanks. I'm glad to be dealing with your multiple personalities here.

As long as the kill, kill, kill one doesn't emerge, the judge says it's okay and i can remain free on bail i'm just kidding i'm i'm with you i'm in a i'm in a mild state of arousal just thinking about how this whole show is gonna go yeah my nipples are hard right now no i'm just kidding that's a joke people they're not uh anyway guys we're just we're just going to conure one of both you and I will just go to stand up on the road. How's that? We'll just,

we'll just be a team like a, I don't know, Penn Jillette or something. Uh, anyway, give us your.com. So people can find you on the interwebs, please.

Yeah. Well, um, everybody hates the word, whatever everybody says. Oh, whatever. Yeah.

Everybody says, I know somebody who says whatever, and I hate it when they do that. And I ask people that, you know, a hundred percent of people say, I know somebody who says whatever, I'm going to kill them.

And then I ask the same audience, how many of you say whatever? And only like half of them will say it, but it's not true. Everybody says whatever. It's the most annoying word in the world, in the, in the world.

And I'm here to try to kill it. There you go. It's even more annoying when it's the California Valley word in the world in the in the world and i'm here to try to kill it there you go it's even more annoying when it's the california valley girl who's like whatever yeah well that's where it started with uh alicia silverstone you know doing the doing the w out out there um oh yeah um you know two things happen when you say the word one is you're projecting the notion that you're a slacker you're a stoner, you don't give a shit. Or you're not making a decision. It's usually both. And it's the little decisions that make for a successful life, successful career, and make you happier.

So my premise of the book is stop saying the word, make the decision and things, your life gets better. It's simple as that. Simple as that. So Richard, give us a.com or where we want people to look you up on the interwebs too. So some people will look you up during the show so they can know you better. You can go to richardmoran.com. Um, and, uh, that's, that's my website and I do look at it and I do respond. And, uh, I'm, I'm here to, I'm here to, I'm here to cure you, including you, Chris. Uh, I, you're going to have to argue with my therapist over that. He's, he's saying that in order to eliminate the multiple personalities, we need a frontal

lobotomy. So that might be the cure. Just stop saying whatever, and it'll get better. Whatever. Uh, sorry. You know, you whatever and it'll get better. Whatever. Sorry. You know, it's like an earwig. The word is like an earwig.

For you now, for you, Chris Voss, for the rest of the day, for the rest of the week, every time you say or hear that word, whatever, it's going to be like a theme from Cars for Kids kids or something you won't be able to get rid of this word yeah now i'm gonna have it i i wish i'd set up the sound bite in the show to have a sound uh plug that i could hit with the value or going whatever yeah my god yeah so uh so i and i took a look at your website i can verify that it is yours. So you're on this mission. Is that a correct thing to say because I'm reading from the PR agency and what they sent me? But you're on a mission to get rid of this W word, the whatever word. Is this a mission from God like Blues Brothers, or what's going on? No, it's just, you know, there's a lot of books written about decision making.

And those books include, you know, lots of sophisticated modeling and, you know, spreadsheets and pivot tables and flux capacitors. I don't know. Decision making doesn't have to be that difficult. But here's some numbers. When you go out to lunch with a colleague, you are making about 300 decisions. Researchers at Cornell have this figured out. During the course of a day, you make about 35,000 decisions. I'm tired already. Wow. you know, where do we go? Where do we sit? Is it cold enough? Is it hot enough? Do I want roast beef? Do I want chicken? Do I want sourdough, whole wheat? And every time you say the word, whatever, you're likely to get the sandwich that you don't want. So there you go. It's a simple, simple metaphor about, about that. And people get confused. They think that there's, well,

I have, there's so many big decisions. There aren't. Life is made up of a lot of minuscule decisions. So, you know, when you, and again, it's research, but people are hard pressed to name more than 10 or 12 big decisions in their lives. You know, where you live, who you marry, you know, where you go to school, your faith, whether or not you get a dog. I don't know. There's just not a lot of big decisions. So I don't want to sound like a missionary,

but it's a simple decision-making tool. If you just stop saying that one word, things get better. There you go. Is there a psychology for reason we default to whatever? Is there some sort of thing in our brain where we're just like, hmm, you know, I, I don't want to be difficult.

I don't want to be the pain in the butt person. I don't want to be, you know, seen as, uh, uh, you know, highly,

uh, what, what's the word? Some people are complicated or highly demanding or highly selfish, or, you know, there's kind of maybe some people approach it from that or, or,

you know, the, some people, you know, they're high maintenance, you know, and you don't want to be seen as that. So you're just like, you know, whatever. I'm good. You know, I'll do whatever. Yeah. Whatever can mean. I'll just go along with it.

That's one lazy way to fill the air with a word. But it usually is, you know, it can be passive aggressive. It can be, it can mean screw you. It can mean, I mean, it can mean I'm helpless. It can mean I'm lazy. It can mean you make the decision for me and I'll blame you later. I mean, there's like 20 reasons that, and they're the only good way to say whatever is, you know, I love you and I'll do whatever it takes to win your affections. Other than that, it just is, you know, love you and i'll do whatever it takes to win your affections other than that it just is um you know the psychologists would say it's uh you're avoiding a decision and we do that because there's so many decisions in our lives right now you know and um and when you

don't make them they tend to pile up and then we get decision fatigue and then it's even worse you might be able to attribute whatever to, to women speak. And it's kind of like when women say fine and they're not fine. And maybe if a woman says, whatever, whatever you want to do, buddy.

Yeah. It's not, she really doesn't mean whatever you should do. I have to admit that a lot of guys have told me, well, women say that. Oh, and young women say that. guess what it's not the case

and everybody says it you know old men young men uh in in every country every every state i had a i had a new yorker tell me well you know i'm from new york we're in your face all the time whatever whatever he said it in the same sentence yeah so it's not it's not valley girl speak it's but it can also think about this it can be you can say the word or you can shrug your shoulders or you can roll your eyes or you can give somebody the middle finger i mean there's there's lots of ways to convey whatever um but it's it's the same message all the time. And it can be a real passive-aggressive way to deal with people. Definitely.

Well, that explains my first seven marriages. That's just a joke, people. I'm married now. Well, you know, it comes up often where it drives women crazy when you get together for dinner and the woman says hey honey what do you want for dinner and the guy says whatever you know which is you know she wants to punch him in the face because it's it she's it's a way to say i'm i'm dismissing you oh yeah and again it's it's bad so it's not like it is something that everyone says, and it is just an easy way to cure yourself of something that's easy to do.

Hi, Voxers. Voss here with a little station break. Hope you're enjoying the show so far. We'll resume here in a second. I'd like to invite you to come to my coaching, speaking, and training courses website. You can also see our new podcast over there at chrisvossleadershipinstitute.com. Over there, you can find all the different stuff that we do for speaking engagements, if you'd like to hire me, training courses that we offer, and coaching for leadership,

management, entrepreneurism, podcasting, corporate stuff. With over 35 years of experience in business and running companies as a CEO. And be sure to check out chrisfossleadershipinstitute.com. Now back to the show. Is there any good case of using the word whatever that won't get you in trouble? Or is it pretty much just a bad word that we need to maybe put on the four-letter word expletive list there? Well, you know, one of the things that I did for the book is I interviewed a bunch of people

about the word and whether or not they say it, who uses it. And, you know, people, you know, real leaders don't say it. You know, real people on a mission don't say it. You know, Steve Jobs didn't say whatever. Warren Buffett doesn't say it. You know, real people on a mission don't say it. You know, Steve Jobs didn't say whatever. Warren Buffett doesn't say whatever. And I interviewed Michael Huerta, who used to be the head of the Federal Aviation Administration. He had 156,000 air traffic controllers reporting to him. A big job.

So it took me a while for him to even understand the premise of the book. He said, I, you know, at the FAA, that, that is not something that nobody ever talks about. I mean,

can you imagine the pilot talking to the air traffic control saying, you know, runway left, runway, right on the air traffic control guys, whatever, whatever, just pick a lane you want to land on.

Yeah. Yeah. Just, uh, run with it. Just let us know where you're landing. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Just pick one. Run with it. Just let us know where you're landing. Yeah.

And there's certain careers. I mean, your brain surgeon doesn't say whatever. Oh, that would be bad. Yeah. So, you know, so certain people in certain worlds, you know, it's not a part of their world. But in most cases, it is. I found, you know, in the interviews, I found that the larger the organization, the more likely it is that people say whatever because their voice doesn't count. It doesn't matter.

Whatever. They're homeless people around whatever, so whatever. And no, there's probably ways to deal with this. Yeah, there really is a dismissiveness in fact you really struck me with that that in larger in the larger the organizations people don't seem like they have a voice and say whatever and i can see how that leads to complacency in an organization and powerlessness you know when i wrote my book beacons of leadership i talked about how everyone can be a leader, no matter whether they're in middle management,

whether they're running a team, even if they're not empowered with, you know, I worked at companies when I was young where I just exercised leadership abilities whether anybody liked it or not. Sometimes it got me fired. Sometimes people liked it and employed it and empowered it

but um you know if people don't feel like they're empowering organization that can be and they have that whatever thing maybe that's the same approach we also you know it's a life approach too we seem to as americans uh not be shocked anymore by school shootings and other things that are happening in our world and we're just kind of like seem to almost be saying whatever, because we, we don't really do anything about it. And so it looks like it affects everything in our lives, public business. Yeah.

And, and I, and I want people to take a little bit of responsibility and be accountable. I talk about, I mean, it happens everywhere, especially when, when we were back in the office,

remember offices, um, where you'd go to the break room or the kitchen and over the sink there'd be a little three by five card that said the maids have been fired so clean up after yourself oh wow yeah and then you look in the sink and there's piles of you know dirty dishes from tacos and chinese food yeah that's me usually so you're faced with a choice do i say whatever and you just load your own dishes on on top of the pile or do you clean up after yourself or do you clean up

after everybody else it's just not a whatever situation and it's it's so so that's such a small example but it's so indicative and metaphorical for all the whatever's we have in our life every single day. And, you know, maybe people should also look at it as an opportunity to lead. Um, you know, like I'll just, I'll just talk about when my tribe gets together of men, my tribe of men, and when we do gaming and like the worst thing that can happen is, you know, there's several options and call of duty of different gaming place that we can do as a tribe to go, you know, hunts and kill the, you know, that whole caveman thing that guys are into. And there's nothing worse than when there's six of us going, Hey, what do you, which game should we do? What do we, what do we want to do? Whatever.

And everybody says, whatever. And like, no one takes the lead. And then somebody finally has to go, oh, fuck it. We're just going to fucking go do this because everyone is saying whatever. And it is an opportunity to lead. I mean, especially if you're maybe someone in an organization like you talked about where they don't feel empowered. There's an opportunity to lead right there and to take the mantle. And those are the people I think that usually get promoted and are successful is the people that show leadership qualities,

because those are the people that will ascend to the top of the organization. And, and usually, you know, I mean, they don't, they don't, they don't give CEO positions to people who are followers and say whatever, I don't think. Well, they don't last long. If anybody who's in leadership who says whatever doesn't, doesn't last long, but. That's true. You know, Steve't, doesn't last long, but.

That's true. You know, Steve Jobs, you mentioned that earlier. Steve Jobs went like, Hey, what should we do to, you know, uh, bolster sales of the Mac and stuff? He didn't just go, I don't know, whatever you want to do. Should we do the iPhone? I don't know. Yeah, no, but I, I have, there is good news here. Cause I discovered the cure. There is a cure for whatever.

And it's very simple. And it's about, and the leaders all taught me this. It's about having a clear intention. That's all it takes. So the examples I use, if you have an intention, then the decisions are easy. If you intend to lose weight your decisions are all about being on a diet if you intend to stay married you act and make decisions about you are married you act like you are married if you if you intend to uh get in shape then your decision

is to take the stairs not the elevator so it, you know, it's a three simple words, actions, follow intent, decisions, follow intent. I think it sounds simple, but it's not. If you, but every day, if you clarify your intent, then the decisions you make about that day are, are better. That makes sense. I mean, it really does because, uh, you know, we tend to kind of do what we're focused on and so if you're focused on the wrong thing like you're looking at something and going i don't like this and i want to do it uh you're going to focus on things that maybe sabotage or don't do it and if you're focused on making something work you know like we could fall back to steve jobs again

one of my friends uh was on the team that built the iphone and one of the hardest things they had to do was, you know, cram a fax machine in it and a phone in it and a camera in it and all these giant big things that, especially back then, were big, and cram it into, you know, the software on this little teeny phone. And if they would have said, you know, well, I don't know, whatever, man. I don't know if this is going to work. It wouldn't have happened.

But the intent was to cram all that stuff in there and somehow make it work and even when steve jobs announced it it wasn't working properly it was crashing about every three motions and it was a miracle it worked on stage and there was multiple phones in the desk too um but uh it still took about i think another six months to perfect it before they could even release the product. But the intent was the key. Yeah, yeah. And when you think about it, you know, when I talk about intent, people think, well, we're talking about a big corporation. We're talking about IBM, and they put their mission and their vision and their intentions up on the wall. And I'm bringing it down to the personal level about clarifying your intent.

And it's hard to do. But if you have a clear intent, then decisions are easy. My intention is to get this book out and make it popular, make it a bestseller. So that's why I'm with you today. I made the decision to be with you today. Oh, well, that's good that you did. Yeah, and here we are. And I hope it happens.

But think about it just like that, and you can do it every day. Just clarify your intent. Today, I intend to get exercise, so I'm going to make some decisions so I have free time to do that. There you go. And I intended to bring my good

personality of my 10 personalities to the show today, and I think it's working so far. I haven't heard the kill, kill, kill voice. So we're doing it. Yeah, but there's still time. What haven't we touched on that you cover in your book that we can tease out? Well, there's things, you know, people, people need to recognize that it's about, I'm talking about them and I'm going to, I'll give you a little survey. So here's some questions I have.

Like, um, do you eat sick? Do you eat second helpings even when you don't want them? Whatever. You know, that's, that's a way to get fat. I've seen that.

I've seen that movie. I am that movie. Do you, do you schedule or attend meetings to kill time? That's a, that's whatever. Or do you hang around with friends that you don't like? That's whatever.

I mean, there's just, do you not get dressed up for a Zoom meeting? Do you say whatever about that? Because people notice. It's not a whatever world. It's a people notice world. And that's what i'm talking about it definitely is i love the concept of whatever now i'm gonna feel guilty saying it although the opposite is happening in my brain i i just want to say whatever oh my god i know i

know you're gonna think about me i mean i'm gonna be like i'm going to be like barney when he sings happy birthday you know i'm just kidding in your ear but no i'm going to be more conscious of it and i think that's the great thing about your book and what you're bringing to light is that we need to be conscious of this data and uh you know taking more leadership roles like you know i know even in my relationships with women uh you know if you ask, what do you want to eat? Where do you want to go? I don't know, whatever. Uh, they want you to lead. And so you pick a place and you go, you set up, you know, when he said, when I set up a date, I lead, I picked a place, I picked the time I say we're going and, and that's where we're going. Um, and, uh, you know, people like leaders, we look through life. I think people don't realize how much we look through life for leadership and leaders and people to guide us. It's kind of an innate nature of human beings.

And I don't know why. Maybe it's a tribal mentality or a community mentality. There always has to be a leader and so whether it's politics whether it's business whether it's life coaches or maybe an author or you know whoever you know maybe it's a tv show host oprah was a great leader to a lot of women and people uh you know whatever that is described to it seems like we're always kind of searching for messages and it seems like we look to leaders to tell us those messages and and i suppose you can ascribe to whatever the caveman basis is that, but there tends to be a lot fewer leaders than there are followers.

It seems like there's a lot more followers than there are leaders. And, uh, and it just, maybe that's the way the dynamic works, but, you know, understanding these things of leadership, et cetera, et cetera. You know, and the next book you should write is, is, uh, one of the things that I come across a lot of times, especially on dates is, is people use the word like, and you know, like, you know, Nick, like, like, you know, you know, like, like, like. Those are a little more benign than, than the word, whatever. I would give you that. And everybody knows, you know, the retailers, everybody knows that we're having trouble with decisions and choices right now and comments about your leadership.

And my favorite restaurant in San Francisco is the house of prime rib. They have taken all the choices out of your world because you don't go there to get fish. You don't go there for vegan food, huh? Well, I'm not, I don't even know what I have.

Probably not. Yeah. The world is recognizing marketers are recognizing that we're that we're struggling with choices and and i think we're struggling with leadership as you said yeah it's it's it's really become a i don't know what's going on with the whole leadership thing but it seems like we are struggling with that a lot and people um i don't know if it's uh i don't know if people are just less leadership-ery they're they're leadership-ery anymore people love leaders who can make decisions and even if they're hard decisions they like leaders who can make decisions they will follow people leaders who can make decisions. But, you know,

as you said earlier, at the most basic level, we're all in charge of something, whether it's, you know, your church group or your bowling team, or at the most basic, basic level, you're in charge of your own life. So make decisions about that. Yeah, that's always a good idea. Make decisions about your own life. That's quite the concept you got there, man. We should all do that. Anything more you want to tease out in the book before we go? Just that in the book, I put out a lot of tools and hacks about how to make decisions. They're all easy. You know, everything from lists of pros and cons to, you know person said when when she when it was a guy when when

he has to make decisions he consults with the magic eight ball just turns it over and you know that's how he makes decisions well it's it's a it's it's a way that works for him so go with it but the book is full of little easy ways to make decisions yeah unless the magic eight ball says whatever you know then that doesn't say that it doesn't there's not one in there no it might say answer hazy try again that's as close as it's gonna get i'm gonna go i'm gonna go make an eight ball that every answer always comes up as whatever yeah and uh some people and then uh i'm gonna sell it as the ultimate uh passive aggressive non-decision makers eight ball uh thing as a parody as a parody joke i don't know thing don't send it to me i won't send it to you you know what's happening with

the book that i like is people are buying it and leaving it on their boss's chair at night leaving it in their in their partners under their pillow you know as in stop saying this word can i can i do a five-star review on amazon and just say whatever yeah you probably can't as long as it's a five-star right yeah yeah whatever with this book no i really love the idea and you've really made me uh you've given me a piff in here too as to why people feel disempowered in big corporations. That's a big deal for people. And the other thing I love about your concepts, Richard, is like you said at the beginning, we make everything overly complex.

And therefore, we have a harder time getting to the truth and honesty about something or resolving issues. And life is really simple. Some simple rules. Do good unto others simple. You know, some simple rules. Do good unto others like you would have them do unto you. Like, whether you're religious or not, I'm an atheist. I mean, that makes sense. It's like, I don't want people to be marauders and steal my possessions

and raid my house, so I won't raid anybody's house this week. Maybe next week. Good idea. Yeah, that's what the judge says too. So there you go. Oh, Richard, it's been very insightful to have you on the show and you've expanded our minds and our knowledge. Give us a.com so we can find you on the interwebs and learn more.

It's richardmoran.com. The book is available everywhere. So I think whether you buy it for your college graduate who's facing all these decisions or anybody else you know i think i'll leave you with three words never say whatever never say whatever that's the key word and uh hopefully you're giving us plenty to think about i i know whenever i say if i say whatever anytime soon i'm gonna be like oh my god i'm in your ear yeah i've i'll just slap myself with the rolled up uh newspaper or something that's usually how i uh train myself i have dogs so you know that's how we train chris around the world in fact my dogs hit me with

newspapers don't hit your dogs in the newspaper that's people that's a 70s joke uh anyway order the book wherever fine books are sold people. Never say whatever. Whatever. Never say whatever. How small decisions can make a big difference in your life. At April 5th, 2023. Thanks for tuning in, everyone. Be sure to refer to the show

to your family and friends and relatives. Check out the new AI podcast at AI podcast chrisfoss.com or I think it's AI chrisfoss.com. There's a few variations we bought as a referral. Thanks for tuning in. Be good to each other.

Stay safe and don't say whatever. We'll see you next time.