Metric for Making Better Decisions

I workout a lot. I lift heavy things. I subscribe to Arnold Schwarzenegger's Pump Club newsletter which comes out every weekday, noted as the "positive corner of the internet...to make your life healthier, happier, and less stressful." The "weekly wisdom" to end this last week was about navigating the clarity bottleneck. And it kind of sounded like what I say for business continuity.

First let's start with making your life happier and less stressful. That already at base is what I say about investing in business continuity. But on to what you are really reading for...

We have lists of goals and struggle to prioritize them. The old question: what goal should I focus on next? The better question: Which goal, if I didn't focus on it now, will I most regret ignoring? Instead of pitting goal against goal where everything is worthy, you wind up picking whatever feels urgent instead of what actually matters. People dramatically underestimate how much future regret will bother them - specifically regret about what they didn't do over what they did do.

"A goal drive by ambition can wait. A goal that's driven by regret usually can't."

Let me apply this to things I have said consistently over the years. There is a cost of inaction (as hefty as business death) for choosing to not invest in business continuity. Lost money, time, wages, opportunities, market share. I've heard too many times, "I want to do this but I need to do [invest in marketing; grow; wait until I have more money because I just started a growth plan that costs money] first so I can [afford you; have time for you; have a person dedicated to implementing what you tell them to do]. That all sounds like ambition. That kind of thing turns into regret when they lose clients, start a go-fund-me after a disaster, wait for government assistance to help them pick up the pieces, lose out on free grant money, not get an insurance claim paid they were expecting, or be forced to close when things are out of their control.

A lot of it was in their control earlier. And it would have been less stressful. And they would have been happier both before (knowing they were ready) and afterwards seeing the impact of their preparation through business continuity.

The cost of doing business continuity is mostly time and effort since you need to be involved with me in the process. The dollar amount is negligible when it allows you to keep making money. The cost of inaction - the cost of waiting, of putting other goals ahead - is far greater.

The EOS model kind of gets this - you have "rocks" that are goals to be met over the course of the year and they're meant to be accomplished along with the more pressing tasks. But I've encountered businesses who have business continuity as a rock and have kept it as a rock for 2-3 years counting. They need to fire their EOS implementer because they clearly don't understand the concept of a rock - either it wasn't explained to them properly or they aren't being held accountable.

Maybe putting "regret" at the forefront will really hit the priority home.