Paul Epstein [00:00:00]:

So now I'm not evaluating 20 options on what to create. I'm leaning into those 2 that do excite me.

Bryan McAnulty [00:00:06]:

Welcome to the creator's adventure, where we interview creators from around the world hearing their stories about growing a business. Much of our lives are dictated by the decisions that we make. Today's guest is Going to show you how to make better decisions both in your business and your life. Hey, everyone. I'm Brian McAnulty, the founder of Heights Platform. Let's get into it. Hey, everyone. We're here today with Paul Epstein.

Bryan McAnulty [00:00:36]:

He is the leadership and sales keynote speaker, best selling author, and expert on coaching others to play offense in defensive environments by making better decisions faster. Paul has spent nearly 15 years as a professional sports executive for multiple NFL and NBA teams, a global sports agency, and the NFL league office. He then Transitioned into coaching for clients like Amazon, Disney, and NASA, and became a best selling author and world renowned keynote speaker. Paul, welcome to the show.

Paul Epstein [00:01:09]:

Brian, fired up to be here.

Bryan McAnulty [00:01:11]:

Alright. So my first question for you today is, what would you say is the biggest thing either that you did where you are doing, that has helped you to achieve the freedom to do the things that you enjoy.

Paul Epstein [00:01:22]:

That's great. Yeah. Well, we talked about decision making, and I know that's gonna be a theme throughout All of this, but here's what I would say is I had a major transformation. The reason I'm no longer in the sports industry and I took this Jerry Maguire type leap, it's when I found myself. You know, a lot of folks, they think something happened in the sports industry, like, maybe I ran away or something scandalous or who knows? But the reality is After finding myself at a retreat that changed my life, I started to understand my why, my purpose, my values. I really, from the inside out, started to believe in who I am, And that's where this gift of unshakable confidence, which is another thing that I'm always, sharing with the world. It's Confidence is when you put your values and action on a consistent basis, period, point blank. So show me a person that takes consistent action on their values, and I'll show you a confident person Once I found my values and I started to create a process and a system for how to put those values in action, that's what I experienced.

Paul Epstein [00:02:19]:

That's the transformative inflection point. That's what's made me who I am today. I needed the whole journey in order to figure all these things out. But just like anything else, I'm not a massive believer that we're gonna have a lot of production, performance, Happiness or fulfillment if we just drift on default. So I'm all about living by design. I'm about operating with intention. And for me, that big pivot point came when I started to put my values in action.

Bryan McAnulty [00:02:51]:

Yeah. I like that. I think that, I've seen a lot of creators or potential creators out there who kinda get stuck on something because They're they're in this dreamland of imagining. Well, is this gonna be the thing I want, or is this not? And you have to do it a little bit and

Paul Epstein [00:03:10]:

start to

Bryan McAnulty [00:03:11]:

find out and discover that for yourself.

Paul Epstein [00:03:13]:

Yeah. And, Brian, you you mentioned part of my expertise, and that's Kind of a weird thing to say, especially when you say it about yourself. Like, I'm an expert in, you know, but regardless, I'll just leverage the bio that you intro'd me with, and you said the words, playing offense In a defensive environment. So for all the creators out there and beyond, think of a defensive environment as the hurdles, the obstacles, the setbacks, The challenges, the adversity that you inevitably are gonna face. Like, that is just the table stakes of life. No one of us is exempt from that Scenario. So if that's defense, and in my case, in the sports industry, it was navigating the uncertainty and embracing the change of the wins and the losses and the volatility of an Industry where I had no control. I was the business guy.

Paul Epstein [00:03:56]:

I didn't control whether they won on the field or the court or the ice, but I still had to perform, and I still had to produce. I still had to create. And so given all those different tentacles of the conversation, you know, for me, when you talk about playing offense in a defensive environment. So my first book was the power of playing offense. It was a leadership playbook for personal and team transformation. So the natural question that the market asked me, Creators and beyond. Everybody asked me, what do people that play offense do that those that play defense do not? And so for years, I went back into the lab with my team and our coaching practice, our training practice, our consulting. And I know we have a lot of folks in those spaces that are listening in right now, creatives and beyond.

Paul Epstein [00:04:45]:

And now I thought about Where where can we distill certain themes of people, teams, organizations that play offense Versus defense. And here's where we landed. For 1, people that play offense are highly decisive. Highly. Now because of that, they embrace imperfect action. So people that play offense Believe in an action over outcome type of a game. And because of that, they don't suffer from paralysis. They don't get stuck at all of these forks in the road.

Paul Epstein [00:05:25]:

They don't suffer from decision fatigue and decision overwhelm. And here's the beauty. They also don't fall prisoner to the worst decision of them all, which is indecision. Brian, for me, indecision is the silent killer. I trust me. I've been through my fair share, and now I feel like I've come out of the other side, but I had to go through a lot of pain, And I had to lose a lot of time. I had to be inefficient. I had to sometimes lack effectiveness.

Paul Epstein [00:05:52]:

I had to learn from all these different pain points Of different chapters and experiences of my life and career to realize these things. And then once I started to Stress tested against other people at both the micro and macro level. I'm like, oh my gosh. Like, there is a massive problem that we need to solve for, and I believe that paralysis and indecision, They are truly, truly, truly silent killers because you can't see them. And they often live inside of our head, Inside of our heart, and then they prevent action. So that's really just closing the loop on what you just said, Brian. I I massively agree with what you said, because to me, you gotta decide to act, and most people don't even make that decision. And then we lose the time, and we often Then live with this massive amount of regret too.

Paul Epstein [00:06:39]:

So there's a lot that's tangled into that.

Bryan McAnulty [00:06:42]:

Yeah. Definitely. So with the the offense versus defense For those who are maybe that's not a 100% clear to them, like, what does that relate to in business? Like, I can think of examples myself and, like, being involved in sports where, like, realizing, like, we're playing defense, and we're we're stuck. We can't win because no matter how good our defense is, we're not gonna score points, and the points is what makes you win. Right? And so when you're you're playing defense, you're reactionary instead of Exactly. Taking taking actions. So What would you what would you add else or explain to that of, like, how it can relate to business?

Paul Epstein [00:07:22]:

A 100%, and I'll make this I don't care if somebody listening in, it says, I don't even like sports, and so I don't wanna talk about sports. I would say, cool. Let me meet you where you are, and let me just make this a 100% universally applicable. I just happen to spend 15 years in sports, so a lot of my metaphors come from that world. But you you mentioned the number one thing, Brian. I think there's this massive line in the sand of Reactive versus proactive. Here's another way of thinking about it. Mindset.

Paul Epstein [00:07:47]:

And all of us know both types of people. We know people that have a mindset where they play to win and then others that have a mindset where they play not to lose. So what that means is when you play not to lose, you're never gonna bet big. You're always gonna play smaller whenever there's Fear or risk or uncertainty or anxiety, and therefore, sometimes you never even get in the game. Vegas terms, You're not placing the bet, so you're never gonna fail big, but, therefore, you're never gonna win big. And we all wanna win big, but sometimes we don't take the required bets and risk to do it. And the beauty of offense is the mindset of playing the win. Notice I didn't say that offense always wins because there is no Crystal ball here.

Paul Epstein [00:08:36]:

I can't just wave a wand and say this is a guaranteed, foolproof way of winning. What I can guarantee with the offensive mindset is you're always On the move. It's that classic metaphor of taking 1 step back to take 10 forward. The one back is still offense, But it's with intention. It's because you see the bigger game. Like, a lot of people around you are playing checkers, but you're playing chess. And maybe the final point I'll make on offense versus defense is External market conditions and circumstances that we don't control have 2 drastically different effects on offensive versus defensive folks. So with defense, these external conditions, they dictate our mood, our energy, our Attitude are effort, but on offense, the same exact uncontrollable things happen all around us, and we embrace it.

Paul Epstein [00:09:31]:

We own it. We have awareness about it. There's intention on how we navigate forward. So we play with purpose, we play with passion, And we take control of our future, and that's the beauty of offense is I just feel like change and uncertainty. You know, right now, Brian, the world is, Especially me as a keynote speaker, a lot of folks are saying, hell, help us drive change and embrace change and navigate uncertainty. And in my head, I'm like, when has the world not been like that? I know that sometimes it it feels different, and it looks different. Sometimes, sadly, right now, we're hearing about a lot of world events That are just soul crushing. Right? Like, you're he you're seeing what's happening overseas, and you're like, my goodness.

Paul Epstein [00:10:11]:

Like, how do we navigate this change? Right? Sometimes a couple years ago, it's more political by nature. Sometimes if we make it more personal, it's inside of our company or it's with our boss. But there's always change. The economy, a recession, a pandemic. Like, there's always gonna be change and uncertainty. And so For me, talking to every creator out there, we still have a responsibility to create. And so I can't say I'm only gonna create in good market conditions. I'm only gonna create when I can make a lot of money.

Paul Epstein [00:10:43]:

I'm only gonna create when I have all the answers. No. No. No. No. No. No. I can't guarantee a lot of those things, But I can only create when I take action, and every action starts with a decision.

Bryan McAnulty [00:10:55]:

Yeah. I love that. Alright. So from all your experience as an executive, a coach, what are what you would say some of the most valuable decisions, MVDs, as you call them, that you've observed either your clients or organizations that separate the successful businesses from the failing ones. Do you have any, like, Specific examples?

Paul Epstein [00:11:17]:

Yeah. So in the book, the way we make better decisions faster, I call it the head, heart, hands equation. So I'll Give the 30 to 62nd masterclass on the equation, and then we'll unpack 1 or 2 examples from there. So think of your head as your mindset, Your heart as your authenticity and your hands as action. The equation is head plus heart equals hands. In other words, when deciding whether to use your hands, whether to take action, there's 2 checkpoints, head and heart. Head, do I think it's a good idea? Heart, do I feel it's a good idea? And just like a traffic signal, Every creator and beyond listening in when you're driving and you see a green, yellow, or red, you know exactly what to do. Green is go.

Paul Epstein [00:12:05]:

Red is stop. Yellow is assess. And that's how the head, heart, hands equation works. So when you're heading your heart or onboard, it is a green light. Take action 10 out of 10 times. When there's no head, no heart, that's a red light. Either don't do it or stop doing it. And then the middle is the yellow, and we try to solve for the gap.

Paul Epstein [00:12:26]:

So when I wrote the book, it was to recognize what a green light is. So now we can have an abundance of green light in our health, in our relationships, in our career, In our creative ventures and beyond. Now that we're aware of red lights, let's stop running them. Nobody wants the a lot of the compounding things that we struggle from. Burnout. I'm Stuck. I'm fatigued. I'm lost.

Paul Epstein [00:12:46]:

I'm not happy. I'm not fulfilled. Though that's compounding red lights over months years, and we ask ourselves how the heck did I get here? It's a lot of red lights and then yellow. This is the messy middle. And this is where I had to write a playbook because it's so complex. And here's where I wanna Pick on a few examples. So a yellow light when either your head or your heart is on board, because they're green and red to me are more obvious. Try you know your hell yes and your hell no.

Paul Epstein [00:13:13]:

I just kinda created a framework to think about green and red now. But the yellow, let's unpack that. Okay. I normally use an example of leading a team right now knowing that we have a lot of creators listening in. We all have decisions on what to Create. And so maybe there's an idea that could lead to a creative opportunity for you to start a business, launch a product, launch a service, launch Something through your creative capacity. And maybe it's a very lucrative opportunity. You know that there could be a financial pot of gold if you invest the time and the energy and the resources into whatever this is.

Paul Epstein [00:13:54]:

So your head is saying, hell yes, But your heart doesn't care about it. You literally have no emotional juice toward it. No fuel toward it. And that is an example of the bad yellow because inevitably, your heart's not gonna change. You're not gonna wake up tomorrow with a new heart. In a month, your heart's not gonna be any different. So this yellow light where only your head says go, but your heart is a hard pass, That's never gonna become a green light. Your heart's never gonna join that party.

Paul Epstein [00:14:27]:

And the same thing, the the example I normally give is, like, let's say you are leading a team whether creators or beyond. And, I used to lead massive sales teams in my career. So often my top producer performer, they sell a lot of widgets, so your head says, keep them. But then they don't play well in the sandbox. They're not very good with team members, so they're a little toxic in the culture. We bid around these people whether in sales or beyond. Like, This is just like a problem. So your heart says keep them, but your heart knows they're not a keeper.

Paul Epstein [00:14:58]:

And because of all the goals and the pressure and the expectations around us, we do keep them. And then 2, 3, 4 years go by, and now we have A bad culture. We've got an engagement problem, a retention problem, a recruiting problem. Actually, those are just the symptoms. The root cause is we have a yellow light problem. We hung on to the wrong yellow lights. And, again, this can go for an idea, Speaking to our creators out there, or this can go for the people around us. Some of us have been hanging on to a yellow light relationship for far too long.

Paul Epstein [00:15:32]:

And when only your head is saying to stick with it, your heart ain't gonna join for the party, so now it's just a matter of us being true to ourselves. But then the opposite's also true. The opposite is, In life, your heart is gonna care about so few things. So when I'm thinking about a creative opportunity, when I'm thinking about what to create and I look. I'm a thought leader. I am nothing without creating. I am nothing. And because of that, when I am looking for The okay.

Paul Epstein [00:15:57]:

I just launched my 2nd book. Here's a good example. What's my 3rd book gonna be about? That's a great question. That's Something that's an itch that I'm already starting to scratch. I'm not writing it yet, but I'm thinking about it. And here's my nonnegotiable rule. I don't really care what's going on in the marketplace because that's a lot ahead. That's a lot of what logically makes sense.

Paul Epstein [00:16:17]:

I need to start from my heart Because that's the thing that we often bypass, especially in business or especially as an entrepreneur. We're not thinking about our heart. And so here, I'm not gonna tell our creators out there that heart is more important. What I am gonna say is this. They both matter, but in this go go go do do do world that we live in, we've got a lot ahead. We've got a lot of hands. We often skip our heart. So if we lead from our heart, and that's the starting point, and our heart Is in.

Paul Epstein [00:16:50]:

We evaluate 20 options, and then 2 or 3, our heart says, I'm in for that. Then those have the potential to become green lights. So now I'm not evaluating 20 options on what to create. I'm leaning into those 2 that do excite me, That do give me passion, and that's where we are there. So in some, when we think about this, when your heart is onboard, here's the payoff for all our creators out there. It's gonna make you more resilient because any creative journey, you're gonna hit roadblocks. There's gonna be a 1000000 people that tell you no, or it's Stupid or it's a bad idea or they're gonna give you a reason to not believe that the market's gonna consume it. Whatever it is.

Paul Epstein [00:17:32]:

Somebody that maybe doesn't believe in you. Sometimes we don't believe in ourselves, In the mirror, and that that that's natural. That's natural. Like me writing books, one day, I think, oh my god. This is gonna change a 1000000 lives, and the next day, I asked myself, who would read this? And I'm still the same author. That's the roller coaster that I signed up for as a creator. So I wanna be resilient because I need to be resilient because you don't ever get to the most purposeful finish lines without it. And that's why I believe that if our heart is on board And then we filter it after through our head.

Paul Epstein [00:18:03]:

That's how we end up with the creative ideas that are worth pursuing, and they became our own version of green lights.

Bryan McAnulty [00:18:11]:

Awesome. So we noticed that you've worked with a wide range of clients, including Amazon, Disney, Johnson and Johnson, NASA. Can you tell us a little bit about, like, what are some common maybe Patterns or challenges that you've noticed in these organizations when it comes to both leadership and decision making?

Paul Epstein [00:18:33]:

Oh, huge. Well, Those are not small companies. And so one thing that often comes up, especially from folks that I know that work with them is, What's their culture like? People are really curious. What's it like? What's a day in the life like? Like, if if I plugged into the big Disney box or the big Amazon box, And sometimes we hear things through the news or through social media or whatever. Oh, this is what it's like to work at a company. And I actually wanna take a moment to debunk that myth, Because I actually don't believe that the majority of what you're gonna be able to publicly consume about these places is true. And I mean that for better or worse. I'm not protecting any companies, And I'm not throwing any under the bus.

Paul Epstein [00:19:14]:

Here's the reality. So I've worked with organizations that have a 120,000 employees, And they've got 6,000 positional leaders. And I go through workshops, and I do consulting work with the 6,000 leaders. Now people ask me what's the culture like? And instead of just giving them some generic answer, I say, who's the leader? What department? What location? What floor of the building? That's the culture. Because when I visit headquarters, floor 5, they're high fiving. Floor 6, watch out. Bosses around the corner. And, Brian, the crazy thing is floor 5 and 6 aren't just the same company.

Paul Epstein [00:20:02]:

They're the same department, drastically different weather system. So every single culture Has infinite microclimates down to the floor of the building, down to the individual person. And so when I'm talking to folks, not only about what it's like to drop into these companies, but also I wanna apply this to even a solopreneur and beyond. We all have our own weather system. Every time that you and I walk in a room or we hop in a Zoom meeting or whatever we do, we either warm it up or we cool it off. The question is, are we aware of our own temperature? And when you can own your weather system, you can own your life. And I didn't realize that lesson Until I started to work with massive organizations and feeling a sense of hope and optimism That even though in some of those companies' cases you just said, the news, oh, it's not a great place to work. BS, man.

Paul Epstein [00:21:08]:

It's a local culture. I maybe there is a floor of the building that ain't so great. And you know what? There's another floor of the building that is equally as beautiful. And I now have an open mind and an open heart to say That I wanna be in environments where people are consistently warming rooms up, and I think that applies to each and every one of us.

Bryan McAnulty [00:21:28]:

That's really interesting. So I wanna talk a little bit about decision fatigue now. That's something I know is a common challenge both for leaders and entrepreneurs. So can you explain a little bit of, like, what is decision fatigue and what strategies or practices would you recommend to Overcome that both in business and in life.

Paul Epstein [00:21:48]:

Absolutely. Well, here's a scary statistic for you. I I was scared.

Bryan McAnulty [00:21:55]:

I'll I'll keep this PC. I don't know what the, rating of this show is, so I'll I'll keep it PC.

Paul Epstein [00:21:59]:

And I'll just say that I was Damn near frightened when I saw this research statistics so much so that my team and I then go back and do more research to figure out is the research valid, and here is why. When I started to think about the early stages of creating a book and a keynote and beyond on decision making, Here's what the research says. The average adult makes 35,000 decisions in a day. 35,000. So, Brian, you and I today, every creator out there listening in, you are going to make 35,000 decisions today, And then another 35,000 tomorrow, and the next day, and the next day. So as if that wasn't overwhelming enough, You know what? Look. I I get it. The majority of them, thankfully, are on autopilot.

Paul Epstein [00:22:46]:

Right? It's turn left into the driveway, brush your teeth. You don't need to read my book to do those 2 things. Please Continue with your autopilot wherever it's appropriate. But you mentioned it earlier, Brian, about MVP. So in sports, they have a A metaphor called MVPs, and that's the most valuable player. This is your MVPs, your most valuable decision. So the ones of higher stakes, The ones of higher consequence, the ones of higher value, and here's getting to your decision fatigue piece. Before we even get there, though, We've gotta do an honest audit and an assessment.

Paul Epstein [00:23:19]:

For everyone listening in, when you've had Really good chapters of life. It was probably tied to making good decisions in those chapters. The opposite can also be said. When I face the worst days, weeks, months, years of my life, Bad decisions were baked into that. So now we can make the correlation. The quality of our decisions leads to the quality of our life. And everybody I share this with, nobody debates it. From CEOs to Olympians to you name it.

Paul Epstein [00:23:53]:

High growth founders, nobody pushes back. They if I say, Audit your health, audit your relationships, audit your career, audit how you've invested your time, audit where you've placed bets whether financial or other, And chances are when you make good decisions, good life followed. Bad decisions, bad life followed. So here we are, decision fatigue. For 1, knowing even though we're not conscious that we make 35,000 decisions a day, thank goodness, It still takes a toll on us, and the compounding effect for better or worse creates a level of fatigue. Now if I'm talking to a group of solopreneurs out there I've been a solopreneur, and you know what? The weight is heavy. The weight on your shoulders is significant. You feel like everything is riding on Your daily decisions, your actions.

Paul Epstein [00:24:51]:

What are you spending your time on? What are you prioritizing? Are you optimizing for the best Performance and production. How's your well-being? Physical, mental, emotional. Like, all these things. The the this is the grind. This is what we trade off for freedom And then said the beauty of not working for a big box company. I've been in both shoes, and in one, I feel significantly more decision fatigue. I didn't feel decision fatigue when I plugged into a big machine of a company. I felt massive decision fatigue when I took on my own business because I felt like Now my family, everybody else that's relying on me, I started building a team, and there's nobody to look to besides me.

Paul Epstein [00:25:32]:

And it's like, man, That's a lot of weight, and a lot of weight leads to, oh my gosh, another decision. And that's why so many CEOs, owners, Founders and leaders out there feel decision fatigue, and then eventually decision fatigue leads to decision overwhelm. And then the more fatigued and overwhelmed we are, the more we feel Paralyzed because we're just tired of making decisions. I am just exhausted of making decisions, and that's My process, that's how I felt naturally until, frankly, I started to apply what became The book, A Better Decisions Faster, what became the head, hard hands equation. And it wasn't until I Started to have a framework and a process and a system for how to make my most valuable decisions. That's where the pressure felt lighter. That's where some of the weight came off my shoulders. That's when I was less stressed, less anxious, and I think most important, That's when I far started to finally feel peace.

Paul Epstein [00:26:35]:

I started to finally feel peace In my decisions, in how I showed up, I felt very confident in my choices. I felt very clear in my day to day, and that's why I wrote the playbook. Because I just feel like there's such an amount of Decision fatigue and overwhelm and paralysis and indecision and then stress and anxiety and lack of peace and lack of confidence, and you're like, man, this is just never going away. And what I've realized is if you don't have a process or system to plug into these vital, vital situations in your life, Then you're just gonna live very randomly, and randomness is just it's too sporadic. It's too volatile. Sometimes you're too heavy in logic. Sometimes you're too heavy in emotion. I created a process and a framework and a system where now you have to do both in order to optimize for the best decisions.

Paul Epstein [00:27:29]:

And, ultimately, that's why Today, as we're having this interview, Brian, I've never felt more peace. I've never had more confidence. I've never been more clear, and it's because I've just Compounded the benefits of applying this for years of my life now.

Bryan McAnulty [00:27:42]:

Awesome. Yeah. I I think that The way I've looked at a lot of that is, of course, like, decisions are are so important and, of course, making the right ones. But I actually see that, Like, for most people, if you take a step back and look at, like, why you're not making progress on whatever it is that you're trying to do, It's often not that you're, like, doing you're not it's not a work problem. It's a decision problem that There's probably some kind of decision that you haven't been able to make for whatever reason, and maybe you didn't even really realize it. It's kinda like in the back of your head there. But definitely, like, being able to have a process to optimize that and and get those things out so you can continue and and do things the way that you want and also not be overwhelmed by it ideally, is really great. So I wanna ask, what would you say is 1 piece of advice that you'd offer to an aspiring entrepreneur or individual who wants to make A significant impact in their chosen field.

Paul Epstein [00:28:49]:

Only pursue green lights, Period. Point blank. We've talked about the head, hard, hands equation. Use the equation to decide what to pursue, And equally as important, what not to pursue. I I I think both are massively important. You know? Sometimes We have 10 different things that excite us, and one of my buddies, Jay Farrugia, he always talks about, you know, I'm not great at answering the question of what do I love doing because I love a awesome things, Paul, and he's, like, really high wired. So he asked himself, what do I hate not doing? So instead of asking, what do I love doing? He asked himself, what do I hate not doing? And I I think it is very similar. You wanna have clarity on what your green lights are.

Paul Epstein [00:29:29]:

You also better know what your red lights are. You have to know that. Just because it makes money doesn't mean it's a good idea. Just because it's gonna make somebody else happy doesn't mean it's a good idea. You have to go through this process of head plus heart equals hands. And if you're heading your heart or not on board, It's just not a green light. Could you do it? Sure. Could you be successful? Sure.

Paul Epstein [00:29:56]:

Am I gonna bet on you being healthy, happy, and fulfilled, and purpose Driven in a decade from now? Nope. Not gonna bet. I'm not saying there's not exceptions to the rule. I'm telling you right now, I placed the game, probabilities here. And for me, if you're making a big decision, use the head, hard hands equation and really just be honest about, is this a green light? Because yellows can be a very slow death. Unless your heart is on board, then you can kinda stay in the fight, but this framework allows you to move Faster through these types of otherwise paralyzing decisions.

Bryan McAnulty [00:30:30]:

Yeah. Yeah. I thinking about this as you've been explaining it over our talk here. Like, I can think of, like, some yellow yellow lights that I pursued where my heart was not in it. My head, it seemed good. Like, the

Paul Epstein [00:30:42]:

Yep.

Bryan McAnulty [00:30:43]:

The financial potential, the creative potential, whatever, it it seemed good, but my heart thought something is is not not really here. And looking back on that, like, the result of it, I should have probably ignored those and and went with only the green lights instead.

Paul Epstein [00:30:58]:

Yeah. And and, you know, given that we're having such a creative conversation here, so I've got a lot of friends, and I'm in Los Angeles, so a lot of friends in the entertainment space. And, You know, as a creator, I think we're hardwired to love the content. Like, if I not that I'm in the movie business, but if I evaluated 10 different Scripts. And I would read the 10, and I'm like, oh my gosh. This is the one. This is the one that's speaking to me. However, however, that means that it's a green light Script.

Paul Epstein [00:31:29]:

But then you meet the producer. You meet the director.

Bryan McAnulty [00:31:33]:

Going on.

Paul Epstein [00:31:33]:

You meet your fell you meet the people. And what if they're not green lights? And then you fall into this very dangerous place of without evaluating all the different levels of it. Just because it's a green light script doesn't mean it's a green light project, doesn't mean it's a green light decision. So I'm just urging us all to think about it from different angles, And we have to feel green across all the different layers. Otherwise, we're just setting ourself up for failure.

Bryan McAnulty [00:32:03]:

Yeah. Yeah. I like that. It's definitely important. So, Paul, on the show, I like to have every guest ask a question to the audience. So if you could ask our audience anything, And whether it's something you kinda wanna get everybody thinking about or something you're just curious about, what would that be?

Paul Epstein [00:32:20]:

In order to make better decisions faster, we need to live and lead with confidence. That's just a nonnegotiable. So my question for everybody is, if you were to think about your confidence at work, at home, parents, Health, relationships. Like, just think about your life holistically. And on a 1 to 100 basis, how confident are you showing up every day? And that's the question that I think we should all be asking ourselves. And here's one layer of Hope and optimism. And I also have a resource and a gift that I'll share out with folks to help with this. But as you're thinking about whatever you would think your Confidence is at in different areas of life.

Paul Epstein [00:33:07]:

Don't think of confidence as a light switch. Don't think of it as I am confident or I'm not. It's on or it's off. Think of it as a dimmer switch. So dimmer. Today, I'm a 72, and I could go to a 73. Oh, something bad happened. I so It's not an on off.

Paul Epstein [00:33:23]:

It's very much a controllable dimmer switch, and that's really a a problem And a question that was keeping me up at night. So I want everybody to really think about how confident you are on a 1 to 100 basis in all these different areas of life that you think are important.

Bryan McAnulty [00:33:40]:

Awesome. Yeah. That's a great thing to think about. Alright. Well, Paul, before we get going, where else can people find you online?

Paul Epstein [00:33:47]:

Paulepsteinspeaks.com is the home of all things from thought leadership to speaking, and, also, I just mentioned it. Confidence. 1 to a100. I wanna help. If you wanna know how confident you are, 1 to a100, There's a confidence quiz, which is in the main nav bar of my website, paulepsteinspeaks.com, and in less than 5 minutes, it's a free gift from me to All of our creators out there, all of, Brian's community and friends and fam and everybody that's listening into this, I just wanna help people gain that data point. 1 to a100, where does my confidence stand today? And then because it's a dimmer switch going forward, Then when you get your result of 1 to a 100 emailed to you, I'm also gonna hook you up with 12 keys on how you can build and sustain unshakable confidence going forward. So that's just a gift from the heart for me to everybody out there.

Bryan McAnulty [00:34:40]:

Alright. Awesome. Thanks so much, Paul.

Paul Epstein [00:34:43]:

Yeah. Thanks for having me on.

Bryan McAnulty [00:34:45]:

I'd like to take a moment to invite you to join our free community of over 5,000 creators at creatorclimb.com. If you enjoyed this episode and wanna hear more, check out the Heights Platform YouTube channel every Tuesday at 9 AM US central. To get notified when new episodes release, join our newsletter at the creator's adventure.com. Until then, keep learning, and I'll see you in the next episode.