The Mel Robbins Podcast - The 51% Rule (and 3 More Strategies to Think Like a Millionaire)

Episode Date: February 8, 2024

Do you want to learn the 4 essential strategies that will lead you to more success, happiness, and opportunity?And today you are going to learn the tools that you can use, from one of the world’s best thinkers and most successful people, to make better decisions.Steven Bartlett is an entrepreneur, speaker, investor, author, and host of Europe’s #1 podcast, The Diary Of A CEO. He has cracked the code on how to leverage your business online, rise above any obstacle, and excel in anything you set your mind to.There is a reason he sits on the boards of many global brands – because he has one of the greatest entrepreneurial success stories of all time. Steven was a broke university dropout at age 18 when he built an industry-leading social media marketing company. At 28, he co-founded Flight Story, a marketing and communications company and a software platform, which was valued at $600M. He then went on to launch the #1 ranked The Diary Of A CEO podcast.Today, he is sharing the 4 tactics he uses to make any decision for the best results. The tactics he shares are from his personal life as well as top-tier industry and thought leaders, entrepreneurs, entertainers, and athletes that he interviews on his wildly successful show.   In this episode, you’ll also learn: How The 51% Rule will help you make better decisions.The difference between Type 1 and Type 2 decisions. (And why it matters)Why Steven says you are operating at 1% of your potential.20% of relationship issues come from this one thing.How to determine what drives you. (And why it’s important to know)What to do when you feel trapped in your job or relationship.One of the most successful CEOs says THIS is how to launch any business.The ONE question to always ask before you go to others for answers.The #1 goal for entrepreneurs must always be this.  For more resources, including links to Steven’s podcast, book, and social media platforms, click here for the podcast episode page.Follow Mel: Get Mel’s free 29-page workbook to make this your best yearWatch the episodes on YouTubeFollow Mel on Instagram The Mel Robbins Podcast InstagramMel's TikTok Sign up for Mel’s newsletter Disclaimer

Hey, it's your friend, Mal, and welcome to the Mal Robbins Podcast. It is such an honor to be able to spend some time with you, and I want to just start by acknowledging you. You're thinking, what are you acknowledging me for? I'm going to tell you what I'm going to be acknowledging you for, for your commitment to making your life better. I mean, I know that's why you chose to listen or to watch this today. So welcome to the Mel Robbins Podcast family. And thank you for being one of those people that is a force for good on this planet and for making the Mel Robbins Podcast

one of the most popular podcasts in the entire world. I'm Mel Robbins. I'm a New York Times bestselling author and one of the world's leading experts on confidence and motivation. And I'm on a mission to inspire and empower you with the tools and the expert resources that you need and that you deserve so that you can create a better life. Today we have an awesome expert, and I'm really excited about this person because this is

somebody I really admire in business. You often write in and you're like, Mel, you know, who is it that you look up to? And you're about to meet somebody that I really look up to in business. You and I also talk a lot about the importance of having people in your life that are doing things that you want to be able to do and studying them and following them and learning from them. And somebody that you want to be able to do, and studying them, and following them, and learning from them. And somebody that I look to all the time when it comes to business and podcast in particular is a guy by the name of Steven Bartlett. Now that name may be familiar.

He's a wildly successful entrepreneur. I'm going to get into that in a minute, but he is really well known on a global basis for hosting a podcast called The Diary of a CEO. It is hands down the number one ranked podcast across Europe. It's climbing the charts here in the United States. It dominates globally. And I study this guy. I've learned so much from him. And today you're going to learn from him. And we are going to talk about the art and science of decision making.. And I'm gonna get into Steven's credentials in just a minute because they are crazy impressive.

But let's just pause and let's consider the importance of the art and science of decision-making and why this matters to you. Well, stop and think about your life. Your life is the sum of your decisions. And if you wanna create a better life, then you're gonna have to make better decisions. I mean, if you just keep doing what you do now,

10 years is gonna go by and nothing's gonna have changed. There is so much power in your decision making. In fact, research has proven that you and I, we make about 35,000 decisions a day. Let me just put that in context. That's like taking a soccer stadium and putting a decision in every single seat. And that's what you do every day.

And here's the thing about decisions. Decisions are kind of like dominoes. They tend to trigger the next one, right? That's why you're sitting on the couch and you only intended to check one thing. And next thing you know, boop, that one decision led to three hours of doom scrolling. We're not gonna be doing that. I'll tell you why. Because there are tools that you can learn and use

from some of the world's best thinkers and most successful people on the planet to help you make better decisions. And you're gonna learn some of those tools today, like the 51% rule. That really is gonna help you if you struggle with perfectionism, self-doubt and overthinking. You're also gonna learn about the two struggle with perfectionism, self-doubt, and overthinking.

You're also going to learn about the two different types of decisions, the speed of decisions, and something that my friend Stephen Bartlett lives by. He calls it the first principles. So let me tell you a little bit about my friend Stephen Bartlett. First of all, this guy is only 31 years old and one of his companies was valued at $600 million. And you know the popular show here in the United States, Shark Tank?

Well, the British version of that show, Steven was the youngest judge in the history of the show. He's also a serial entrepreneur who advises and sits on the boards of so many global brands. And he's gonna tell you today and teach you the direct connection between the decisions that you make and improving every aspect of your life, your health, your relationships, your business.

The other thing that I love about Stephen is that his story is so wildly compelling. So we're going to begin the conversation with his story. Stephen grew up so poor that he was stealing food, a fact he was hiding from his schoolmates. He dropped out of college to start his first company, and he has so much to teach you, not only based on his own life and business experience and success, but also based on the wisdom that he has gained from interviewing hundreds of the world's most innovative, influential, and successful minds in business, sports, science, all of it. And one of the reasons why I admire Steven so much is because you know how you can tell from afar

when somebody is literally in a class of one, meaning that they are the very best at what they do? Well, that's Steven. Because what's very clear to me is that he's doing things his way. And here is what I want you to me is that he's doing things his way. And here is what I want you to take away from today's conversation. You need to learn how to do things your way.

See, you have your own unique story to tell and your own genius to share. And in order to unlock your full potential, you have to learn how to make better decisions. Decisions that align with what you want personally. Decisions that align with your creative and business instincts and decisions that help you become more of yourself. Wouldn't that be awesome? You better believe it's going to be awesome. So let's jump into the conversation I recently had with Steven Bartlett. So first of all, I know you don't do a lot of interviews. And I'm thrilled because selfishly, you are somebody who I really admire. And if there's a pace car in personal development, you're it. And so this interview is a huge gift for everybody listening because I am just curious about about how you think and how you make decisions and what to use your word drives or drags you.

And I personally think anybody listening at any age could take what you're about to teach us from your own experience and apply it to the beliefs that are holding them back. One of the things I find most fascinating about you is that you experienced a lot of very challenging and painful things in your childhood. And yet somehow all of the challenges that you faced as a kid have fueled success in some way. And I'm so curious to understand how that happened.

Someone once said to me, there's two things no one wants to be in life. Not enough and different. And I think at some level, I felt both of those things. So that was certainly a belief that I had. I also was firmly believing in the social narrative that, you know, we are not moldable. Our destiny is kind of prescribed for us. And I started to pull apart all of that BS that most of us are conditioned with. I mean, we all grew up in the same like relatively the same system of education and the same society.

And it programs us, I think, to limit us. And one of my great passions in life now is I firmly deeply believe that people are operating at one percent of their potential in all facets of their life. And I'm like, desperate to tell them that. I'm desperate to show them that. I can't tell them. But I can encourage them to take that first step into a situation where they'll be exposed to counteracting evidence. That is my mission, is to push people off the cliff so that they can figure out that they can

actually fly in a world where society has made them disbelieve in their own wings, per se. Since so many of the folks listening are not gonna know your story. They know the accolades, but they don't know your story. I would love for you to just talk a little bit about how this all started. I moved to the UK from Botswana when I was a baby. And we moved to an area called Plymouth in the southwest of England, which is an all-white

area. It's a relatively middle-class to lower middle-class area with some areas of poverty. You understand the value of everything in life by the context in which you see it. And the context in which I saw myself was we were the poor black family in an all-white area. There must have been 1, 1500 kids in my school and we were pretty much from what I recall the only black kids in the school. So sort of confounding that was my mother is Nigerian and she came to the UK, can't read, can't write. I think she left school when she was

five years old or six years old in Africa, starts working on a stall, moves to the UK because she meets this white man in Nigeria and she undergoes a ton of racial abuse in the area. By the age of about 10, our life completely flipped because my mother had what I can only describe as an addiction to gambling, the lottery, whatever. If I opened any drawer in our house when I was growing up, every single drawer was full of lottery tickets. She would steal my maths book when I walked in the door and she would stare till 3am in the morning,

going through it, looking for numbers to then play in the lottery. So I would lose my textbooks to my mother because she was trying to find some secret code within these books. Although my father has a good job and we live in this nice area, all the money goes. So we basically get to the point of bankruptcy and that's when things I think start to change because she spends all of her time in her corner shop trying to make money, trying to start businesses. People are breaking into the corner shop at night, abuse her and steal her stuff.

So she decides just to sleep in there on this bag of rice in the back room. And at 10 years old, being the youngest of four kids, I think my parents just assume that they've parented all the kids, as parents sometimes do. The youngest is kind of like, he's 25, 24, 23, 10, like they're done. And by the age of 10, if I woke up, there was no one there.

And when I went to bed, there was no one there. And so you have these two forces in my life. You have a huge amount of independence, which comes from my parents' absence. And then you have this huge amount of shame and insecurity, because I'm the only black, poor kid that I know. I'm chemically relaxing poor kid that I know. I'm chemically relaxing my hair to try and be a white person. I'm stealing stuff to try and buy the shoes that my friends have.

I'm going to great lengths to try and fit into the detriment of a lot of things in my life. None of my friends know where I live because I lie about where I live. None of my friends know I don't have birthday presents for Christmases because we just lie about that. And there's this subtle sense of shame in me. And that shame drives me. So I so desperately needed to find ways I could fit in

that I can control. And one of them was trying to find ways to have nice things with money. And I remember very early on, like six, seven years old going around my school looking for money, which meant waiting for my teachers to leave the classroom at three o'clock, hanging around and then going through every single drawer in a classroom. And that was, I was desperate. And then I'd take that money. And if it meant going down to the

sweet shop, Swyke kid, pretend I had the same sweets as the other kids, I would do that. And it was a desperation. One of my friends said to me back then, they said, you're either going to be a millionaire in jail. And that's, for me, I remember where I stood when he said that to me at seven years old because I was that desperate. I was that desperate, which means if I need money and if I think money equals fitting in and belonging, then I'm going to sell everything in the house. I'm going to start businesses at 12. I'm going to sell the cigarettes my mom bought back from Nigeria and those black bags in the spare room.

I'm gonna do whatever I can. And from those experiments, you end up building a ton of evidence about yourself. I just had a different perspective on the world. And by 16, I realized that grades weren't going to get me where I needed desperately to go. And when you realize that the system is telling you success and happiness is a result of getting an A on that exam that you can't get an A on. You have to find another path.

And for me, the other path was if I can persuade all of my peers in this school now to buy a ticket to this thing that I just came up with, or to come to come to this website I just launched or buy coffees from this machine that I just put on campus, these are going to be the adults with me. So when we're all adults, I'll just do more of that. That was my reasoning. And then with that, I felt safe not to come to this school anymore. So I stopped coming. My tenants hit 30%. They expelled me. I take the expulsion form to my head teacher. He says, quote, and I've been back to the school multiple times. He's been on national TV to confirm this in the UK. He said, you're my little Harry Potter.

I keep you under the stairs because you've made this school a lot of money. So you unexpelled me. And then in the last week of school, they expelled me again because I just wasn't coming. By then I had so much evidence that I didn't need this system. Well, here's the part that I just find mesmerizing. And that is that there are so many stories of people who have an experience of, I don't belong, this isn't working, I'm not good at this anyway, nobody cares. And instead of going, I'm going to just do whatever I can to climb on top of this situation

in order to control it. That's what you did. But so many other people in that moment go light up the blunt or they start drinking or they don't go to school ever again and just start down the path of I must be a loser. My parents are here and you didn't do that. It doesn't sound like. It's hard to take credit for something

that's always comes so naturally to you. What comes naturally to you? Questioning if what I've been told is the truth. One of the prevailing principles of my entire life, my professional life, everything is it's so natural to me to assume that things I'm being told aren't actually the truth and that the systems, the society we live in, the institutions, the narratives that surround all of the above are true. I just naturally don't accept that. And that means that you do, you go the extra distance to find out what is true about the existing systems.

I.e. is me getting DE on these exams, does that mean I'm going to be lonely, poor failure? I didn't accept that to be true. And so I did a piece of work, which was the experimentation in my own life to find out if those systems are true. And it turns out when you push on most doors, there's really nothing behind them. I think most of our experience is a bunch of social myths, bunch of doors that we just haven't tried pushing on yet. And I, at a very young age, started pushing on those doors. And when you start pushing on all of them and you realize that there's nothing behind them, they lead to nowhere.

I think it develops into a habit where you start questioning things a bit more. You start questioning like social norms about you have to do this at this age and you have to go to university and you have to pursue a career and quitting is for losers and all of these narratives. Turns out most of them are BS

and it is in taking them on that you find yourself reaping life's greatest rewards. I wanna just jump in and make sure you were really paying attention at that very last part because this is critical. Stephen has always naturally questioned if what he was being told by the adults is the truth.

I mean, just stop and think about that. Can you imagine if you did that in your own life right now? I mean, I'm talking about questioning all the things that you've been told that are true, whether it's big or that it's small in your everyday life. I mean, just imagine for a second if you ask yourself, is it really true that I'm too old to go back to school? Is it really true that I can't eat healthier?

Is it really true that I'm never gonna find love again? And here's what you're gonna find as you start to question the truth, right? And what you tell yourself is that you can see that the truth could be of your own making. Like as you start to question it, and you say to yourself, wait a minute, is it true that I'm not a morning person

or that I don't have enough time in the morning? All of a sudden you're gonna say, well, wait a minute, why can't I get out the door every morning and take a walk? Why can't I get up 30 minutes earlier and start the day in a much more empowering way? That's just one tiny example. This notion of questioning what you believe to be true, that is just your very first takeaway.

There is so much more in store for you, but we're going to take a quick break and hear a word from our sponsors. And then we're gonna pick right back up where we left off. And Stephen is gonna explain that once you start questioning, is this even true? Next he's gonna teach you how he started to figure out the truth for himself and why you need to do the same thing.

And a little later, we will be jumping into those tools, like the two different types of decisions, the 51% rule and the speed of decision-making. So stay with us. Welcome back, I'm Mel Robbins. I'm so glad you decided to keep listening because today you and I are talking about the art and science of decision making and how you need to learn how to make better decisions. And you're getting a masterclass in this from somebody I deeply admire and that's Stephen Bartlett.

Now, we were just in the middle of the conversation where Stephen was sharing about his childhood and how it just came naturally to him to start to question what all the adults were telling him. So let's drop right back into the conversation with Stephen. You start questioning like social norms about, you have to do this at this age and you have to go to university and you have to pursue a career and quitting is for losers and all of these narratives.

Turns out most of them are BS and it is in taking them on that you find yourself reaping life's greatest rewards. And this has just developed in me over the years where now I believe that the answers I'm looking for in my life probably won't come from books, systems, teachers, and schools, because the world is changing at such a terrifying rate, they will come from tuning in to how I feel in certain situations after trying some stuff, but very simply. If I had to synthesize the difference

between how you coped with that situation the difference between how you coped with that situation and how so many of us cope, which is to tune out or to numb out or to just create a narrative in our mind. Well, that this is it. I guess I'm just a loser. I guess my parents hate each other and they hate me and nobody's gonna be there for me, you develop this really unique skill. And this is what I really want to explore, which is

there was something in your need to survive that situation. Nobody's home, older siblings, not doing well in school, the only black kid in your neighborhood Lying about this that and the other thing you develop this Unbelievable skill at a very young age to tune into how you felt in the moment and to actually trust it Yeah, that's accurate Yeah, I always thought I was I don't know how to say this because people think it's a bit I know I reckon I always believe I always thought I Wasn't the things that the system said I was. I thought I had loads of talent and potential. I thought I was different in a good way.

And the system told me I wasn't. When you put a kid in exclusion unit and you make him copy from a piece of paper and over and over again for hours, you make him look at a wall and you give him this report card where you grade him every day because you think he's naughty. I just thought I thought the system was wrong and I thought I was right. And I became very good at tuning into that voice. It's one of the things that I think is the most liberating thing for anyone who's looking for answers to do is instead of searching for answers in books and on podcasts and all of these things, take a second and just ask yourself,

how do I feel? This is a lot of what you talk about as well as your body will tell you long before your brain will. And I heard you say this on my podcast which is exactly the way I always view it is we are all born with this internal signal called, call it intuition. I just call it how you feel. And as we grow up, we're almost brainwashed by society to tune out of that voice, which is there, and to tune into this external voice, which is how you should feel. And this how you should feel voices, you make a million pounds, you have a nice car, you know, you should feel like this. So we tune into that and we let that voice go like guidance. But it just guides us to nowhere good. It

guides us to midlife crises. It guides us to health breakdowns when our body starts to rebel against the decisions we've made. I've developed through trial and error, the belief that how I feel should also correlate to how I act. And in the short term, there's a shedding. There's a mum stops court speaking to you for two years. There's a you lose a friendship group. You might end up in the exclusion unit in school. But if you can persist, if you have the belief that that internal voice is actually guiding you to somewhere you should be, where your health and happiness is,

then you will create a life in a very short amount of time that very closely resembles the one you've always dreamed of. If you're very bad at tuning into that voice, you'll live with this sense of hopelessness and stuckness. If you spent too long tuning into the external voice, which comes from your parents from school, from Instagram, from university. Can I point something out about you that's really interesting?

Can I point something out about you that's really interesting? You have known this since you were little. I just had this insight about you that you have been at war internally with what the world was telling you how you should feel and knowing deeply that that's not how you feel about yourself. That is the story of both my childhood and my life. Which is just that belief that most of the obstacles that we stand in front of us are self-imposed. There's this incredible video I love watching whenever I need to watch it as a reminder of these self-imposed limitations.

I don't know if you've seen it. They take an ant and they put it on a piece of paper and they draw the circle around it. Have you seen that video? Oh, and it just... They draw a circle and it just literally walks in circles. It stays inside the circle, right? So, they draw the circle around it and it stays inside the circle. And they've drawn it with a pen.

And objectively, you look at it and go, that ant isn't trapped. It just believes it is because they've drawn this sort of limitation, this figment of its imagination, this circle around it. They do the same thing with a spider in this other video and as they're making the circle smaller and smaller and smaller, the spider accidentally steps over the pen line and then they try and trap it again with the pen and for the rest of that spider's life it can never be trapped by the pen again. So they chase it down the table,

drawing circles around it, and it is free. And it's the same thing I'm describing. It's once you see behind the curtain and you realize that most of our limitations, yours and mine, are both these figments of our imagination that we've accepted to be real and true and to stand in our way. And that they're false.

There's very little that can take you back to that place, but how does it happen? Well, you have to stand in our way. And that they're false. There's very little that can take you back to that place. But how does it happen? Well, you have to step over the line. Wow. When I hear you talk, I'm like, push my ass off that cliff. Let's go. Tell me where the circle is, Stephen, because I want the light bulb moment that you have that is part of the belief system that you have cultivated and that you over and over and over and over and over again demonstrate with how you show up in life.

And so let's take a couple scenarios. Yesterday in the airport, woman walks up to me and says, Mel, could you do a show on finding purpose in your 20s? And I said, sure, what do you do for a living? She said, I'm a banker. And I said, well, what do you like doing? I love being with kids. I'd love to be a teacher.

And obviously it's very easy to say to somebody that you've just met, well, duh, then stop being a banker and go be a teacher. I do feel that the reason why somebody wouldn't quit banking is they're afraid of what other people would think. And here we go. So what they've done there is they put the most important goal that any of us can have in the world below

someone else's opinion. And that's, and that in there is the problem. It all comes back to what is the most important goal for all of us. And I would argue that the most important goal that we can all aim at is our own happiness. And happiness is such a strange word. So I'm using intentionally ambiguously, you can define it for yourself. But I think that should be the North Star. And when that is the North Star, anything that stands to compromise your chance of happiness is the greatest risk of all. So you are, by way of that decision, a huge risk taker.

You are the biggest risk taker. Oh, because you're staying in banking and it's a huge risk. Go and speak to people that have zero days left. And you've got it exactly wrong because the biggest risk is staying in banking. Yes. The biggest risk is staying in banking. Yes. The biggest risk is not what people might say when you leave banking. The biggest risk is doing another decade in banking and looking back with the retrospective clarity that you had your priorities all wrong.

You cared about Sally and Jenny's opinion in the WhatsApp group, not your own happiness. You had one life to live. That breaks my heart. That's what I observe in the world. I observe people overstaying their welcome for decades and situations and risking the most important thing, which palliative nurses like Brony Ware talk about when they interview people on their last day of their life. They just wish the number one regret of the dying is they wish they'd lived that

lot. They'd gone and been the entrepreneur. They'd taken those ballet classes in Peru. They desperately wish they could have one more day to do it. I'm not going to risk laying there with those regrets. You can, if you want to gamble that much with your life, I'm not going to do it. And I'm so attuned to the fact that I'm going to die someday. And when you really understand that, that's why there's a sand timer on the shelf behind you. There's sand timers all over my house. It's the reminder that, by the way, buddy, your time is ticking away. You can't see how much you have left. That gives you the required urgency to take on big challenges,

to quit quickly, to leave situations that are compromising your health and happiness, and to go and pursue it yourself. And when people ask me, you're 30 years old, you've started all these businesses, you've done all this stuff, I go, yeah, yeah, yeah, cause I'm not gonna risk my happiness. I'd say more than almost anybody I've ever met. And I don't know you very well,

but I just watch what you're doing from this side of the pond. And I've listened to enough of your interviews and read your books that it is very clear that your superpower is in making decisions that you know are right for you and trusting yourself in that. Trusting yourself in the decision that you're making

and trusting yourself in your ability to face whatever comes next. There's two things that came to mind when you said that. I was reading about Jeff Bezos who built Amazon, second most highly valued company in the world. I think it's worth two trillion dollars or something. And in one of the shareholder letters, he says there's two types of decisions in life. You have type one decisions and type two decisions. Type one decisions are the doors you can't walk back through. Take your time on those ones, right? Like me, you know, resigning from my company.

But most decisions in life are actually type two decisions, which are doors you can walk back through if you were wrong. Most of the things that we end up mulling and ruminating over and worrying about are type two decisions. He says, make those decisions as fast as you possibly can. That's how you get to where you want to go faster in life and in business. And I also thought of Braco Barma, who I spoke with on stage many, many years ago at this event in Sao Paulo, Brazil.

And he was recounting the time he was faced with the decision to fly to Pakistan with those two Apache helicopters with about 50% certainty that Osama bin Laden was waiting in that compound. He was risking two Apache helicopters of American lives. And he says, on the big decisions in life, you have to get to 51% certainty or as close as you can and make the decision with the peace of mind that you made that decision in that moment with all of the available evidence and you have to let it go because we all know in life that the 100% certainty on these big decisions that everyone's seeking only exists in hindsight.

I want to take a highlighter and repeat that line, that in life, 100% certainty on big decisions, it only exists in hindsight. And you've had that experience, haven't you, where you look back and you say, oh, God, I wish I would have, or if I had only known. But here's what Steven's trying to get you and me to understand. The information that you have now, you didn't have back then. If you had it back then, you would have made a different decision. But we're not talking today about making different decisions. We're talking about how you make better decisions. And here's what you have to understand. You will never have

100% certainty and you cannot wait for it. And this is what I'm going to now refer to as the 51% rule. And you have to know about this, because if you're somebody who is constantly overthinking or worrying or doubting yourself when it comes to making decisions in your life, that's the formula. You can only be 100% certain years after you make the decision, but you will never be 100% certain before you make the decision. That's why you have to use the 51% rule.

Look for 51% certainty in the moment. That's the goal, because 51% certainty will stop you from overthinking and doubting yourself. And I want to remind you something, this is such an important point. Overthinking is a decision. Doubting yourself is a decision. Not making a decision is a decision. And think about how much time has gone by, how often you doubt and overthink and you

let perfectionism rob you of the ability to make a decision and just do something you've wanted to do that you didn't go on that trip. You didn't say yes to that day. You didn't start writing. You didn't start the YouTube channel. You've been thinking about it. For me, I've talked a lot about it in our conversations. For years, I didn't start this podcast.

That was a decision. Why? Because I was waiting for 100% certainty. The 51% rule will help you get started. So grab onto that tool, start using it, and you better stick around because we're just getting started in terms of tips and tools and the art and science. And when we come back, Stephen has another story and the story will help illustrate

the next tool that you're going to learn, which is the speed of a decision. So stay with us. I'll be waitingbins. Thank you for deciding to stick around and listen to this conversation between me and Stephen Bartlett today. You and I are both learning about the art and science of decision making, how to make better decisions for you in your life from none other than Stephen Bartlett. And you've already learned two really important tools. The first one is that there's two types of decisions, type one and type two. Type one, as Steven describes them,

are decisions that are irreversible, okay? The second type of decision is a type two decision. This is something that you can decide to change later. And as you heard me say loud and clear, almost every decision is a type two decision because almost every decision is reversible. And yet you heard me say loud and clear, almost every decision is a type two decision, because almost every decision is reversible. And yet you get so paralyzed because you think everything is fixed in stone. As my daughter likes to say, mom, it's not that deep. Okay? Your decisions, not that deep. Now let's remind you of the second tool that you and I learned, the 51%

rule. You're never going to be 100% sure. And as soon as you're 51% sure, it's a yes or 51% sure, it's a no, make the decision. Now we're ready with that quick recap to drop back into this conversation. And Steven is at the part where he's gonna explain something about the speed of a decision. And I love the stories about to tell you,

because it's not only gonna help you make a lot more money, it's gonna help you stop wasting so much time thinking things through. I spent 10 years working in marketing, and there's this one particular company, which you'll know, that is run by the father, and the other part of the company is run by the son. And the son's business started a little bit later, but they're both in the same industry.

I'd go to the father's office every week and I'd present him new ideas. And he'd spend six months, nine months waiting for Rochelle to get back from annual leave to sign it off and arguing about the details, etc. I'd bring the same idea to the son that same day. Literally they live on the offices or on the same street. He would interrupt me halfway through. He'd go and tell his assistant, go and get Nicky. He'd call the marketing team in, tell me to repeat it.

He'd look at both of us without a contract, his marketing team and me, and say, do this now. And what he intuitively knew is what a lot of the successful people I interview know, is that the biggest cost in life isn't a failed experiment being wrong about a decision. It is the nine months, the 10 years, the 15 years you waste deciding whether to make the decision because that was a type two decision where if we were wrong, okay, 20K, but the next day we're closer to conducting another experiment to find the right answer. And I sat there for five years watching this son's business just gradually creep up on his father's, take over the father's.

And I was in both boardrooms thinking, it's just because he makes decisions at a much faster rate and his risk equation is reversed. Daddy thinks the risk is being wrong in a decision. Son thinks the risk is not making a decision. And his business grew, sold the company to Sun. He now lives in Monaco in Dubai. He's got more hundreds of millions than anyone would ever know. That's still there running the business.

And so that sense of urgency to throw open those Type 2 doors is so deeply ingrained in me. Same way we run these businesses. It's all about experimentation. Let me give you a personal example of a type two decision that I think people think is a type one. One of the best things that you could do if you are in a relationship that sucks

or is sucking the life force out of you is to break up. Or if you're married, to say out loud, I want a divorce, I'm miserable. And the reason why that is a type two decision that people mistake for a type one is because simply saying this isn't working causes a change in the relationship for the better. Or for the off, no.

Or not, or not. But the only way that relationship is actually changing is if you make a decision to say the way that it is isn't working. And so I personally feel like part of the framework of the type one and type two decision is insanely helpful. And the issue for most of us is that we mistake those type two decisions for something else. And...

She can go back and be a banker. Of course. That's true. She can go back and be a banker. Yeah, she's doorstepping Mel Robbins in an airport. And I'm telling you now, as a banker, she's got a couple of dollars, you know, probably. But she will probably become the dad in that example and ruminate over that decision for three years.

She might go and try working with kids yesterday and find out it sucks. Yep. And that's what the son knew. The son would conduct the experiments right or wrong. He was closer to the correct answer. The problem is people never make the decision to get the feedback. Failure is feedback. Feedback is knowledge and knowledge is power.

They never get the knowledge because they never want to fail. So they live sort of entrapped and imprisoned in their current misery because they've got the risk equation the wrong way around and they don't realize that urgency is part of the answer. To the person that is in that conundrum, I'm a banker, I think I want to be over here. How do you find out or do you have another matrix that you use to figure out what you actually want in a moment where you're just engulfed with uncertainty?

My natural reaction was to go back to the way I've built and run all my businesses, which is scientific method, which is experimentation. I think that's the only way we find out in life, but no one wants to do it. If I had a seven-year-old kid and they said, Dad, I want to sell pen lids, I go fantastic. We're going to that weekend, we're going to go to the Pen Lid Museum and find out

because failure is the feedback that you're searching for. It isn't doorstepping Mel Robbins in an airport. And on life matters of purpose and meaning, Mel Robbins in an airport can't tell you what your purpose and meaning is and whether it's kids or banking. So failure is feedback. Feedback is the knowledge you're looking for and knowledge is power. So therefore, failure is the power you're looking for. Currently, you feel disempowered.

And the only way that you're going to feel empowered and feel the power that you're seeking is to fail at the thing you're doing, which is banking. Fail. Fail. Fail at teaching. Fail at trying something new. We can find the right answer in a world that is so nuanced and ever-changing, not by reading a book or doorstepping melon in an airport, but by running the experiment like a type two decision as fast as we can.

The world is only going to change faster and faster and faster and ever before, which means the correct answer to these life questions, how to structure a marriage, how to work from home or office, how to build a business, all these things. The correct answer is going to change so quickly that you're not going to get it anywhere else other than conducting an experiment in your life, which means taking that first step. And my whole thesis for why any of the companies I run will be successful is because we outfail the competition. Any of my businesses, I can tell you how many experiments my head of experimentation and failure conducted this week. I can tell you how many, you know? And I take the same approach for my life, which is in my romantic relationship.

How does that work in relationships? I'll tell you. So convention says, for example, that two people in a relationship, I don't know, have to sleep in the same bed at night. But if you reason from first principles, first principles are basically like something that you know to be true about now and your situation. Which is if you reject all conventions and nonsense and think that's other people's solutions for other people's times, other people's situations. So put simply a first principle of mine and my girlfriend's relationship is that we have different chronotypes. A chronotype basically dictates the time when you are activated, you're

creative, what time you wake up in the morning when you get hungry. Does that mean like a night person versus a morning person? Yeah. Okay. Yeah. And then that has implications for how you sleep. So that mean like a night person versus a morning person? Yeah. Okay. Yeah. And then that has implications for how you sleep. So my girlfriend is a whale chronotype, which basically means she goes to bed at like

9pm. She gets up at 6. That's you. Same. I'm an owl, which means that I go to bed at 1 or 2am and I get up at about 8 or 9. Kind of just let it run as you know. I don't set an alarm. That's one first principle.

We have different chronotypes. First principle number two is that so many relationships end according to Matthew Orca, who's the sleep expert, but I think he said 10 to 20% of relationships can be linked back to sleep issues. Couple's not sleeping problem properly, which causes arguments, all kinds of issues in their relationships.

He says 10 to 20%. So we know that we need to get sleep. Maybe a third point is when you understand sleep cycles, as I know you do, the restorative sleep happens about 60 minutes into the cycle when you go into stage four, which is REM sleep. So but also most of the REM sleep and those sleep cycles get shorter late at night. So if I go to bed at 2 a.m. It's by 6 7 a.m. That my sleep cycles are really really short they go down from like 90 minutes to like 45 minutes All of my restorative sleep is happening between the out most of it is happening between the hours of 6 and 9 So in that example if my girlfriend wakes up at 6

She can destroy 50% of my restorative sleep, which is then gonna put me in a terrible mood the next day. So in days where she has to get out of bed early for whatever reason, we have a spare room. Convention goes, he doesn't love you, right? But first principles and thinking for yourself in a world that's always changing and you're conducting experiments to find the answer goes, you're going to be happier when you wake up giving your relationship more chance

It's the same thing with me quitting university. It's the same thing with all the stories. I've told about quitting rejection of convention and I'm gonna find out by conducting an experiment myself and in my partner I've got a good experimentation partner who understands that the goal here isn't satisfying external expectation, as we said. It goes back to how do we feel? So, yeah. It's amazing.

So, we have a spare. I sleep in a different bed. And it sounds like it's a great thing for you. It's a great thing. Because we don't have insecure. The insecurity comes from external narrative. It comes from, well, if he's sleeping in that room over there, then he doesn't love you. Of course, I fucking love you. Where did you

get that nonsense from? Instagram. And it's the same thing with our lives. You know, where did you get that nonsense about you wanted to be a banker from? Your parents. Your parents or your friends. Yeah. Well, some teacher in school said that would make you happy and rich. You didn't run the experiment yourself. So you never got the feedback. You didn't get the knowledge and now you're disempowered. So. Wow.

That's how I build all my businesses. That's how I run everything in my life is just the assumption that I probably don't know the right answer and convention probably doesn't either. But if I actually sit down with a blank piece of paper and I go first principles, which are the things that I care about, the things that I know and what I actually want, then I can make a decision for me. You can reason up from there. Got it.

Thank you for that. I want to go back to the ant and the spider in the circle. How would you advise someone who's listening to this? And they're like, but I don't trust myself, but I have a string of examples of how I've blown it. Evidence. You have a string of evidence about how you've blown it. Yes.

So how do you, what would be like the, just the next right step for somebody who's like, I'm in, I wanna go off the cliff, I wanna erase the circle, I wanna sell the pack of cigarettes, I really want a breakthrough in testing what I believe about myself. Is there a way that anybody could kind of set up

something like this? Yeah, so I think that going off the cliff analogy is so terrifying that it's inaccessible. And this is part of the reason why I think people don't act in line with the person they wanna be because they see it as climbing Mount Everest. They can see Amel Robbins at the top of the mountain, but they can also see the 15 years of walking they're going to have to do to get to where they

want to go. And as Nirael said on my podcast, we are creatures that are discomfort avoiding. We avoid discomfort. You know, I always wondered why I procrastinate in some things in my life. And he made a very compelling case to me when he came on my show, Near I El, that it's because there's some discomfort I'm avoiding. So the book I have to write, I get to chapter 11, it's about something I'm not that familiar with, I end up picking up my phone and doing the dishes. I'm avoiding the psychological discomfort associated with the task. Become aware of the psychological discomfort and then break it down into little pebbles so it doesn't feel like Mount Everest. for me that's how I've taken on some of my biggest challenges in life. It has to start with an action that sometimes feels contrary to how you feel, something

you said as well. You can't rely on emotion to get you there but it's the smallest step you can take to counteract your existing evidence about yourself. 14 years old for me that was walking out on stage in front of my peers, pissing my pants and running out of the room after delivering a talk. I then went back onto the stage a couple of days later and I ran out of the room and the piece of paper I was given, my hands were shaking so much that I couldn't read it so I just made up the words, blurted out the words ran out. The reason why I can then speak in South Paola with Obama in a big arena of tens of thousands of people is because I put myself in situations where they're small or big to counteract my

existing evidence. And something a friend once said to me recently was, the reason we don't do that, the reason we don't take that small step forward is sometimes the small step is so unbelievably embarrassing that we don't think it'll be consequential. We're so ashamed by how small that step has to be. For some people, that's literally getting out of the bed and going to the toilet. And there's so much shame associated with that. It feels so minute and inconsequential that we don't think it matters, but it's everything. That first step is everything. It's the pack of

cigarettes. I think it can maybe even make this more tactical for the person listening. So if you think about what Steven's teaching you and you, let's go to the example of the banker, right? Who thinks she wants to be a teacher. And I can imagine her standing on a piece of paper with a circle around her.

Yeah. And the first step is not quitting the banking job. The first step, which literally takes her out of that circle and across the line. Can I guess what you're going to say? Go for it. Is it using your evenings and weekends? It could be that.

It could be Googling teaching certificate. It could be using your evenings and weekends. Like, it's literally one move out of the circle. I always think this with people. When they say to me, they want to start a business. And then they say to me, six months later, they want to start a business. then they say to me six months later they want to start a business and then six months later I go I think part of the reason you're doing it is because you see the challenge as like Mount Everest and that's causing you so much psychological discomfort that you're

channeling that energy into procrastination talking and deferring it. What you need to do today is start the Instagram page. This for me is one of my big hacks in life, is the minute I go on Instagram, click Create New Account, and I just write the name, the train has left the station. And it's that, that for me is starting the business. But people don't see that as they think they have to launch this website and hire these people.

Oh, hold on, I wanna make sure everybody just got that. Steven has launched and sold multiple businesses and invests in them and sits on boards. And you are constantly leaning into new ideas and curious about things. And what he just told you is that the way that he gets out of the ideation stage and the I should start a business stage or maybe I'm going gonna get into this collaborative workspace

business until community. Isn't that what it's called? Until community is he goes to Instagram and creates an Instagram account with the business name of the business. He hasn't even started yet. If you're looking for the business plan before the other stuff, this is what he's talking about. I've never written a business plan in my life.

I don't know where that where people get this business plan stuff from. I written a business plan in my life. I don't know where people get this business plan stuff from. I've never written one in my life and I don't intend to start now. If you look at my phone, which is in the room behind you, you'll see a bunch of Instagram pages for businesses that I'm yet to launch because I just want to secure the Instagram page and I also see that as step one of setting an intention, which is the easiest step one can make towards the direction I want to travel. So to the banker listening, you opening your mouth and telling them Robbins, that was your step one. I just want people to... Right? And then step two is the next thing. This is how you started in social media. So would you please give that example of how you

just got started of you made yourself a promise. 7pm, 8pm. What post? What posting? Yes. Ah, okay. You see what I mean? Like this is an example of that. Yeah, I mean, so on the personal brand side of things and the content creation and the storytelling side of things, I created an obligation with myself where at 7pm every single day, I would write a 140 character quote or make a video based on what had happened to me that day. And it's of all the things I've done in my life, it is the single highest yielding, most valuable habit or discipline I ever instilled because not only is that the thing that cured the trauma I had around relationships with my parents because at 7pm every day I had to look down on how I'd behave that day, the

notes I'd taken, the avoidant behaviour I demonstrated in my relationships. I had to summarise it and then I had to teach it. But also it improved my communication, my writing skills. This guy called Richard Freiman, who's this American psychologist who came up with this technique, and they call it the Freiman technique. They say it's the ultimate way to learn and to develop. The idea is you learn something,

you then condense it down to the understanding of a 10-year-old as if you had to teach it to a 10-year-old. You then deliver it to the world, teach it to the 10-year-old, and then based on the 10-year-old's reaction, you then go to the top. And the whole principle here is your ability to summarize a concept correlates to your ability to actually understand it. I was doing that. I've done that for six, seven years now. That meant

that all of my experience, you know, people say that I, people use the word wise or they use these words that like they describe me as being older. It's purely because I feel like I've got more wisdom out of every day that I've lived because of this introspection. It's the single greatest hack that I could give to any young person or old person in the world is this habit of introspection and teaching in some regard. So it walk us through how to do it. What I would do if you want to do it the Steve Bartler way that I do is I get it. I'm going to say something here.

Create a Instagram page or a Twitter account, whatever you wanna do. Don't need followers, don't need to tell anybody it exists. And as you go through your day, keep notes in your phone. So you have an argument with your friend, you respond negatively to a situation, someone cuts you off in traffic, you feel something. When you have these feelings, write them down in the notes of your phone.

And at 7 p.m. every single night, 6, 7 p.m. every single night, all I want you to do is to fit that experience into the confines of a 280 character tweet or post, and I want you to post it. And I can't tell you that cycle of having an experience, summarizing it down to its essence, which is the true definition of understanding,

and then posting out and sharing it with the world. And step forward is not so important, which is getting some feedback on what you said, drives you forward more, I think, in key areas of your life, helps you understand your cycles, and does the hardest thing, which I think any of us can achieve, which is heightens your self-awareness,

which has been this really elusive thing on the podcast that I've asked people over and over again, how does one increase their self-awareness? I think this is the easiest way to do it in a reliable way. I feel like I have a masterclass and a million things from you. You're very kind. What I love about just getting to spend time with you is I really love how you have the courage and the bravery to challenge what is so in

order to build a life and build businesses and make decisions that really empower you. I get so obvious, and yet I think none of us really take the time to stop and go, wait a minute, there are so many things that we do in life that we just blindly do without stopping to ask the question. And I just want to thank you because there were so many things that made me stop, and not only think, but more importantly, start asking myself different questions. Thank you. You're a huge inspiration to me for so many reasons,

and I continue to learn from you and from a distance, but it's a great service that you're delivering for the world. So thank you. Thank you. I never know what to say when somebody thanks me when I'm the one that's talking to them, you know, but I will accept that. So I want to thank you. I want to thank you for taking the time to be here with me.

I want to thank you for sharing this, for spending time listening to something that can improve your life. And also, in case nobody else tells you today, I wanna be sure to tell you that I love you, I believe in you, and I believe in your ability to make better decisions. And it's through your decisions that you create a better life, so go do it.

I'll talk to you in a few days. I know you don't do a lot of interviews. So thank you for sitting. I know you're already tearing up. I can't imagine. Wow. That's a challenge. I can't imagine.

I know what you're saying. You just shifted in your chair. Do you imagine? Wow. That's a challenge. I can imagine. I know what you're saying. You just shifted in your chair. Do you notice that? He just shifted in his chair. He's actually getting nervous. A little bit. Just a little bit.

No. You look suspicious, Mel. I do? Yeah. Oh, hardly. Like, do you think I have, like, some trick up my sleeve? No, I don't know. No idea.

No, what could I possibly ask you about that would make you nervous? I wanna go back to one more thing that you said, and I can't remember what it was. Menopause. Don't blame you. I don't think, God, there was something that you said, and I can't remember what it was.

Don't touch the table. All right. You're done. Thank you so much. Appreciate it. Of course. Excellent. Wonderful job.

Thanks, guys. Oh, and one more thing. And no, this is not a blooper. This is the legal language. You know what the lawyer's right and what I need to read to you. This podcast is presented solely for educational and entertainment purposes. I'm just your friend.

I am not a licensed therapist and this podcast is not intended as a substitute for the advice of a physician, professional coach, psychotherapist, or other qualified professional. Got it? Good. I'll see you in the next episode. Stitcher.