How To Recover From Bad Decisions - Help Wanted

Summary

Podcast Summary: Help Wanted – Episode "How To Recover From Bad Decisions"

Introduction

In the January 16, 2025 episode of Help Wanted, hosted by Jason Feifer, Editor-in-Chief of Entrepreneur magazine, and Nicole Lapin, a renowned money expert, the dynamic duo delves into the challenging terrain of recovering from poor decisions in the workplace. Catering to listeners grappling with work-related dilemmas, this episode provides actionable insights to turn setbacks into growth opportunities.

Listener's Dilemma: Lauren’s Hiring Nightmare

The episode kicks off with a real-life scenario from Lauren, a listener who recently hired an employee whose condescending and confrontational behavior turned her onboarding experience into a nightmare. Lauren admits, "I saw red flags when I interviewed them and I ignored them. Now I'm unsure if I can trust myself" (07:15). This admission sets the stage for a deep dive into strategies for overcoming regret and moving forward after making a misstep.

Three Essential Questions to Overcome Regret

Nicole Lapin introduces a practical framework consisting of three pivotal questions designed to help individuals navigate the aftermath of bad decisions. These questions aim to foster self-compassion, promote learning, and encourage continuous personal and professional growth.

Did I Do the Best with What I Had?

At 04:30, Nicole emphasizes the importance of evaluating decisions based on the resources and information available at the time. She shares her personal experience of becoming the editor-in-chief of Entrepreneur magazine in 2016, where she felt overwhelmed by limited resources compared to her previous roles. Nicole reflects, "I will do the best work with the resources available" (05:10). This mindset shift from scarcity to resourcefulness allows individuals to appreciate their efforts without the burden of unrealistic expectations.
Did I Learn X in Order to Know Y?

Moving forward, Nicole poses the second question at 08:45: "Did I learn X in order to know Y?" She challenges the conventional notion of efficiency by illustrating that life is often about collecting diverse experiences that may not have immediate applications but contribute to long-term success. Nicole asserts, "What you did before is imperfect... imperfection cannot be held against us" (10:20). This perspective encourages embracing mistakes as valuable learning opportunities that shape better decision-making in the future.
What If I'm Just Always Doing It Wrong?

The final question, introduced at 11:50, addresses the fear of perpetual failure. Nicole references the book The Startup of You by Reid Hoffman and Ben Casnocha, highlighting the concept of being in "permanent beta." She explains, "Each day presents an opportunity to learn more, do more, be more" (12:10). By accepting that imperfection is a constant, individuals can alleviate the pressure of perfectionism and focus on continuous improvement.

Applying the Framework to Lauren’s Situation

Nicole adeptly applies these questions to Lauren's predicament:

Best with Available Resources: Lauren hired swiftly due to urgent business needs and leveraged the skills that the new employee brought, even if the interpersonal fit was poor. This aligns with doing the best with what she had at the time (13:25).
Learning Through Experience: The challenging hiring experience taught Lauren to be more discerning in future recruitment processes and heightened her empathy as a leader. As Nicole notes, "She now knows not to rush a hire and understands the importance of empathy" (15:00).
Embracing Imperfection: Lauren recognizes that making mistakes is part of growth. By firing the problematic employee, she takes proactive steps toward creating a better work environment, embodying the "permanent beta" mindset (16:40).

Conclusion: Moving Forward Without Regret

Nicole wraps up the discussion by reinforcing the idea that past decisions are simply data points in an ongoing experiment. She encourages listeners to view their careers and personal lives as evolving projects where each decision, right or wrong, contributes to their development. Nicole’s closing remarks inspire confidence and resilience, urging listeners to "move on bravely and confidently, without regrets" (18:55).

Takeaways

Self-Compassion: Recognize that decisions are made based on available resources and knowledge at the time.
Learning Orientation: View mistakes as essential learning experiences that contribute to future success.
Continuous Growth: Adopt a mindset of perpetual improvement, accepting that imperfection is part of the journey.

Final Thoughts

This episode of Help Wanted serves as a valuable guide for professionals facing challenges stemming from their own decisions. By providing a structured approach to overcoming regret, Jason Feifer and Nicole Lapin empower listeners to transform setbacks into stepping stones for personal and career advancement.

For more insights and personalized advice, listeners are encouraged to email their work-related questions to helpwanted@moneynewsnetwork.com and follow Help Wanted on Instagram and TikTok for exclusive content.

Disclaimer: Timestamps are approximate and serve as reference points for notable quotes and sections within the episode.

Transcript

A (0:00)

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B (1:21)

This is help Wanted, the show that makes your work work for you. I'm Jason Pfeiffer, editor in chief of.

A (1:27)

Entrepreneur Magaz, and I'm money expert Nicole Lapin. On Tuesdays, Jason and I answer the helpline and help callers solve their work problems.

B (1:35)

And on Thursdays, I give you one way to improve your work and build a career or company you love.

A (1:40)

And it starts now.

B (1:43)

You made the wrong decision and now you're doubting yourself. Maybe you said yes to something when you should have said no. Maybe you said the wrong thing or turned in bad work. Or maybe you're like Lauren, a listener who just emailed me this. She wrote, I recently hired someone and it's been a nightmare. They're condescending and confrontational. But here's the worst part. I saw red flags when I interviewed them and I ignored them. Now I'm unsure if I can trust myself. That's what Lauren wrote. And Lauren, here is my answer to you. Give yourself a break and here's how to do it. Today. I'm going to give you three questions to ask yourself whenever you feel like you really made the Wrong decision. Three questions to ask yourself. And once you truly consider them, you will have an easier time growing, changing, and making peace with the past. So let's go through them and then I'm going to share how these questions impacted Lauren. Okay, ready? Here is the first question to ask yourself. Question number one. Did I do the best with what I had? Did I do the best with what I had? To explain this, I want to take you back to when I got the biggest job of my life. I became editor in chief of Entrepreneur magazine in 2016 and I felt instantly overwhelmed. I was used to working at magazines with larger staff. And now Entrepreneur. Well, Entrepreneur was a family owned company with a lean operation. There wasn't a lot of people. And so I kept thinking, how will I do everything I did before, but with fewer people? How am I going to do this? I soon realized the answer. The answer is I couldn't. And once I accepted that, opportunities opened up. Because here's the thing. I like you do not have all the resources that I want or all the time or all the connections or all the knowledge I just have. Don't you? And I just don't. So what do we have? Often we sit around thinking, you know, I could be so much better if only I had more whatever. And after that, after thinking about how we could be better with more time or connections or knowledge or whatever, our actual accomplishments start to feel smaller because they don't match our fantasies of abundance. That is why I came up with a mantra for myself, which I've mentioned on the show before. For every project I take on, I repeatedly tell myself this. I will do the best work with the resources available. I will do the best work with the resources available. I accept my limitations as a starting point. Then I measure myself by how I use them, how I use those limitations and use the actual resources that I have. This is what's fair and realistic. Because no matter the restrictions, I know that I can do something great with whatever I have. Now apply that thinking to your past. Maybe you are ashamed or embarrassed by a decision that you made, but ask yourself, did I do the best with what I had? The answer is probably yes. Your decision was not random or foolish. Instead, it was informed by the knowledge, experience, needs, interests, curiosities, and desires that you had at the time. Now, all right, well, now you know more. That mistake was made and now you're wiser for it. And therefore, maybe you have different knowledge and experience and needs and curiosities and whatever, but that doesn't make you a full fool back then. It just makes you a person who collects information and adapts. That is the best trait of all. So, all right, that was question number one. Remember, question number one was, did I do the best with what I had? Now let's talk about question two. Question two is, did I learn X in order to know Y? Here's the thing. We hold ourselves to the wrong standard, and that standard is efficiency. We want to get something, and then we want to use that thing to succeed. Nice and tidy, right? It's like you're at a starting point, and then you get the thing you need, and then you succeed. Boom. But here's the thing. Life does not work like this. Instead, it's more like this. You're at a starting point, and then you wander around for a while and collect a whole bunch of things that you didn't know you needed. And then you sorted them into something and you found some patterns and used them in some interesting way, and then you found success. In other words, life is not about acquisition and usage. Life is about collection and assembly. We wander around, we pick up pieces, and then we figure out what they're good for. Think about the last time that you felt embarrassed by a decision. And now ask yourself, did I need to learn that in order to do what I really want? You know, just think about it. What a simple way of thinking about it. You made the wrong decision. And then because you made the wrong decision, you learned something really important. And then you use that learning to drive some new action or some new decision and then get what you actually wanted. That makes the past worth it. We learn by experience. That is just simply a fact. So we need to accept that and give ourselves the grace. All right, remember, first question was, did I do the best with what I had? Second question was, did I learn X in order to know Y? It is now time for the third question. The third question to ask yourself is this. What if I'm just always doing it wrong? This sounds like a haunting question, but actually it should be a liberating one. There's this amazing book called the Startup of youf. It was written by Reed Hoffman and Ben Casnosha. And in the Startup of youf, they write this. Finished ought to be an F word for us all, because when it comes to our career, we are all works in progress. Each day presents an opportunity to learn more, do more, be more, grow more, often in unexpected or unpredictable ways. So, anyway, that's from the Startup of youf. The Startup of youf goes on to say, everyone should consider Themselves in quote unquote, permanent beta. I love that phrase. Permanent beta. As if you and your work are in a constant state of testing. I love that phrase because it changes the stakes. We often beat ourselves up for our flaws. But a product in beta is supposed to have flaws. It's supposed to be full of bugs. That's not a problem. It's just part of the process. The three simple truths of life are really this. What you did before is imperfect. What you're doing now is imperfect. And what you're going to do next is imperfect. And if all of that is true, then imperfection cannot be held against us. We can instead be measured by our willingness to grow to solve today's problems and create even better problems. Next. Now, let us apply all of that. I shared these questions with Lauren, the listener who had regretted hiring the wrong person. And let's go through her answers. This is really interesting. So first I asked Lauren, did you do the best with what you had? Right. Lauren is regretting hiring this person who turned out to be condescending and terrible. And now Lauren is regretting and also questioning her own ability to identify good talent. So, okay, Lauren, question one. Did you do the best with what you had? Her answer is yes. Lauren has a new business and she was in desperate need of help and she needed to hire fast. Also, the person that Lauren hired has skills that Lauren herself lacks. So she thought, well, look, I'm seeing red flags, but maybe I just don't know any better. In other words, Lauren was rushed and she lacked experience and she doubted herself, and yet she made the best decision she could given the situation. Now, number two, did Lauren need to learn X in order to know Y? Yes. This experience taught Lauren a lot. She now knows as a result of hiring this wrong person not to rush a hire, and she knows what to look for in job candidates. Because this new hire was so condescending, it. It also taught Lauren something else. She told me this person kept criticizing me, and now I am much more aware of being empathetic to others. I'd like to think I was always empathetic, but now it's top of mind. That makes me a better leader. Lauren, I love that. That is a excellent lesson to have learned from this situation and it puts it to very fine use. Now, question number three for Lauren. Will Lauren always be doing it wrong? You know, the answer is yes. But Lauren now realizes that's okay. She fired this person and now gets to start again, knowing that each step is imperfect but better than the last. You can Apply these questions anywhere in business or in your personal life to late night deadlines or one night stands. Your past is just a series of data points and it is in an experiment that will never end. When you appreciate that, the future becomes much easier to build and you can do it without regret. Now, in case you're wondering, yes, I am getting over a cold. My voice is not perfect. So still a little raspy today, but hopefully it was not terrible to listen to. What you just heard comes from my newsletter. My newsletter is called One Thing Better each week, one way to be more successful and satisfied and build a career or company that you love. I read them right here on Help Wanted. One Thing Better is a companion to Help Wanted. But if you don't want to wait, then you can subscribe to my newsletter and get them early because I read them here on Help Wanted a few weeks later and along with some other goodies that I put in the newsletter, just subscribe at One Thing Better Email Again, One Thing Better Email. That's a web address. Plug it into a browser. Onethinkbetter Email and now I want you to move on bravely and confidently, without regrets. And I am going to move on and get a throat lozenge because my throat throat does not feel great. Help Wanted is a production of Money News Network. Help Wanted is hosted by me, Jason.