Making Good Decisions

Too often people don’t make the time and they are not in the habit of asking powerful questions that evoke emotion to and create hope in a better way of working and living.

You cannot go through life on auto-pilot – there needs to be a high commitment to managing decisions that you make and before that can happen, you probably need to make some new decisions. Most decisions that need to be made will begin with and spring forth from an internal, intuitive perspective but without asking new questions, often this internal emotion lies dormant.

Questions that are both heart and head provoking can begin to move an individual to a position of having to make new decisions. I teach a process called Life Planning and here are some examples of questions I use each year as I review my annual Life Plan :

What if…? (I could go home on time. I could save more. I could spend more time with my family. I could get that promotion. I could become self-employeed.) Whatever are my dreams or desires and what if I could achieve these?

How would the person I see myself being in the future be handling the issues of today?

What would need to happen to take my life to a whole new level? My business?

What decision could be made in the next 5-minutes and what action could be taken in the next 60-minutes to create fulfillment and happiness in the (state area) of my life?

What am I not willing to settle for any longer in my life? My business? My finances? My health? My relationships?

Which areas of my life are most stressful for me these days? Why? What hope lies ahead in helping reduce the stress in that environment?

What could I say “no” to today?

New questions serve one key purpose – to make our intuition come alive. They also hit hard in the area of common sense. We all have a “gut” instinct to what decisions we should be making. We all know in our “heart of hearts” the key areas of our business and our life that need new or different choices.

Intuition is always first when it comes to decision-making – the reasoning always comes second. What new questions do is cause those emotions to come to the surface on the important issues that need to be dealt with. Balance is a result of acting on those emotions and reasoning is the process through which the best decision is made. All of our key decisions require facts. And if the facts were understood, we would see how many of our decisions could be altered or fixed. But it all starts with the gut! And because of this, balance is always in flux, a constant process of decision making and managing the decisions made; a process of intuition and integrity. So when we arrive a point where our gut is telling us something, we MUST move on it, balance the emotion of this with facts, the making of new decisions, and then the management those decisions consistently.

In my own personal journey of making and managing decisions, I have learned two very important truths:

1. Intuition is most effective when it is educated
2. Analysis is most effective when it is isn’t over done

Spend the rest of this year asking new questions and coming up with new solutions that will change your life forever.

Make Prioritization Your Passion

Principle #2: Self-leadership means scheduling what’s important to you.
Make prioritization your passion.

If you do not take control of your schedule, it will take control of you. Stephen Covey put it this way: “The key is not to prioritize what’s on your schedule but to schedule your priorities. In this high-productivity world we often forget that there comes a time when we need to unplug. Work spills over into family. Family gets neglected. Stress builds and relationships—the ones closest to you—become strained.

You must learn to schedule time with your loved ones first and foremost. You must be in the memory making business. I have friends who schedule their lunch breaks so that it shows up busy on their calendars. I have other friends who schedule time with their kids during the workweek; when something work-related comes up, they simply fall back on their calendar that says “Football with Billy” or “Lunch Date with Madison.”

My wife Sheryl was amazing about this concept. Today is a hard day for me because 1-year ago, she slipped into a coma on this day. And a week later, she was gone -safely home and free of pain. But in her life, priorities mattered. Her keys to making memories is good advice for us all.

1. Never say no to a memory making moment. If may never present itself again.

2. Take as many pictures as you can and take one night a week to look at them as a family.

3. Become passionate about creating memories by giving cards that people will keep a lifetime.

4. The smallest phrases are the most powerful, and overtime create the most priceless memories.


If you have a family, they are your first priority. Once they are taken care of, then schedule accordingly. Prioritizing is essential to knowing what gets scheduled and what you say no to. The great German writer and philosopher Goethe said it best: “Things that matter most must never be at the mercy of things which matter least.”

Make sure today you do what matters most before you do what matters least.

April 15

I love today
by Todd Duncan

OK – maybe that’s not entirely true. But even though I had to write a couple of checks today for my share of taxes, it sure reminded me that things could be worse. I could be unemployed. I could be homeless. I could be dead. No, thankfully, I am none of those things, and I feel blessed. I know it’s not like that for everyone – but one thing is for certain, this life we have been gifted is a journey of the most significant kind, never to be taken lightly and always to be seized for the opportunity it presents.

I am writing a book of Toddisms – just a working title. These are the things I say and that people write down – I guess that means they like the words, and more importantly, the meaning of the words. Here are a few of my favorites.

1. If you don’t know what’s important you will do the things that aren’t.
2. If you want to be great, pick a date.
3. Small steps over time give you big results in time.
4. If you don’t do something differently, you will be then where you are now only later.
5. It is never a matter of if, only when.
6. Go with your strengths; don’t try to put in what God left out.
7. Your direction is more important than your perfection.
8. The best times pull up is when you are on your way down.

Which one is your favorite? Which one gets you thinking a new way?

I have made a decision that I will spend the rest of my life helping people navigate the challenges they have in their life and that is why sharing these quotes with you is important. Since my first book, The Power To Be Your Besthttp://www.amazon.com/Power-Your-Best-Todd-Duncan/dp/1595553347/ref=sr_1_6?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1271363000&sr=1-6, I have thought that would be my ultimate direction. But arriving at a point today that it is my new life’s purpose is invigorating and defining.

In my new book, Life on the Wire: Avoid Burnout and Succeed in Work and Life,http://www.amazon.com/Life-Wire-Avoid-Burnout-Succeed/dp/078521898X/ref=sr_1_5?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1271363000&sr=1-5 hits the book stores on Monday.

I’m very proud of this book and I hope you will read it. I wrote a press piece for it today and I want to share it with you for the balance of this post.

Falling in an uncontrolled spin seemed like a nightmare. Was I dreaming or was it real? I sold my company, and then I was fired. I had a savings account, and then it was gone. My house had equity, but now it had evaporated. My retirement was around the corner, and then I learned I had to keep working. My wife was healthy, and one year later she was gone – cancer. When I awakened, it was real, not a dream, and I realized I was walking the high wire. This was life on the wire and I was desperately trying to stay balanced in a world out-of-control.

How about you? How are you doing? Is everything going ok? How’s your world? Are both feet firmly planted on the ground with a sense of confidence about tomorrow, next week and next year? Or like many, are you feeling the wire wobble as you try to navigate your next steps in life’s important areas. Odds are that something is out of whack, and that if it’s important to you and to those you love, you are trying to figure out the next step, literally, before you fall.

Choose anything – Unemployment is at 9.5%, the highest since Ronald Reagan was President in 1982. For every 6 American’s looking for a job, one exists. Real Estate values of fallen by as much at 77% in some markets in 24 months. One out of every two-hundred homes will be foreclosed upon. Divorce rates have been steadily climbing and one in two will fail. Personal bankruptcies are up by 34% since 2008. And our children will bear a 900 billion dollar a year tab to pay for the debt service the proposed economy, including health care, will cost by 2020.

Don’t fret – this may sound like a foreign language to you – this is the new normal. The only difference is the people who get through this topsy-turvy moment in time in one piece choose the imbalance as a strategy for balance. They may not have asked for it, but it happened. Now it’s time to harness the positivity of a challenged life to seek a greater level of purposeful imbalance – chaos by design and maybe by default. To ignore the opportunity to grow, change, re-prioritize, fix and focus on the good from the bad is to simultaneously decide to “go down in flames.” And, sadly, too many people are choosing this route.

Famed tightrope walker Tine Walled and his family, the Flying Wallendas, have been walking on high wires without nets for nearly a century. When asked how he maintains balance on a wire with nothing but earth beneath him, Tito gently corrects the assumption: “The reality is that you are never actually balanced; you are constantly making small adjustments—moving back and forth—and it’s those constant movements that keep you on the wire. The truth is, if you stand still, you fall.”

The same is true of harmonizing our personal and professional worlds. You are never actually balanced, nor should you try to be. To ensure a more harmonious existence, you must keep yourself moving—carefully teetering and tottering between work and life activities. Like a tightrope walker, you must regularly make adjustments back and forth to keep yourself standing. The key is being purposeful; having sound reasons for everything you do.
The point is that both big and small adjustments are inevitably necessary to maintain work/life harmony. And you cannot be the victim. You must be your own personal super hero, and then the super hero for the people in your life who matter, maintaining among the most important virtues, a sense of perspective – this too will pass.

Eventually the seasons will change. An inevitably something else will come up. This is the natural flow of harmonious living: giving and taking, back and forth between personal and professional activities. Thus, purposeful imbalance—not perfect balance—is the only way you can achieve a gratifying work life without decimating your personal life, and a gratifying personal life without abandoning your career aspirations.

The strategies for getting through tough times vary. But they exist – here’s a few:

• Slowing down is a good idea before you speed up. Assess where you are at. Don’t panic. Look at all the opportunities that exist and decide the one alternative that will give you relief, and allow you to advance more confidently. The key to turning anything around is to get momentum going on your side.

• Cherish what you have lost and embrace what you still have. Maybe your money is gone, but your health and the gift of your life are not. Maybe your spouse has died but the gift of your children remains and her foundation will benefit millions. Maybe you have been fired, but the gift of your skills is still your great asset and someone will always pay you for your skills

• Simply your life to alleviate your stress. Too much going on is not good for navigating tough times. Reducing spending and debt gives you financial breathing room. Moving from two sports to one per child cuts you effort by 50% per child. Enlisting your spouse and building your creative team will yield new ideas and solutions. Downsizing, rightsizing, and emphasizing a simplified life is often the catalyst for the breakthrough you need. Remember, this is temporary.

Henry David Thoreau once said, "If man advances confidently in the direction of his dreams and endeavors to live the life he's imagined, he will meet with success unexpected in common hours. New and more liberal laws will be his and he will dwell with the licenses of a higher order of being."

I think he had it right. Tomorrow is a new day and one thing is for certain; if you keep moving you will get to the other side!