The Complexity of Toilet Paper

Life Paths & Dinner Plans With A Side of FOMO (Hold The Cheesecake Factory)

• Complexity • Season 1 • Episode 12

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The tiny choices we make every day—where to eat, what to watch, which route to take—should be simple. Yet they balloon into mental marathons, and even after we decide, that nagging “if only” steals our joy. We pull the curtain back on decision regret with stories that feel uncomfortably familiar, a pinch of psychology to name what’s happening in your head, and practical moves you can use tonight.

We start with the everyday traps: wandering past a dozen menus, doom-scrolling Netflix until bedtime, and the people-pleasing loop that makes groups drift instead of decide. Then we zoom out to higher-stakes choices like buying a car or changing jobs, where FOMO and counterfactual thinking (“what might have been”) can freeze us in place. Along the way, we share a simple reflection tool inspired by the Decision Regret Scale—questions that help you assess a call, extract the lesson, and let it go without re-litigating it for days.

This conversation is warm, candid, and full of useful guardrails. You’ll hear how constraints reduce stress, why deciding early on low-stakes choices boosts energy, and how to judge your process instead of obsessing over every outcome. Whether you’re picking dinner or a direction for your career, the goal is the same: make a clear choice, find the value in whatever follows, and keep moving forward. If you’ve ever lost an evening to overthinking, this one’s for you.

If this resonates, follow the show, share it with a friend who overthinks, and leave a quick review—what’s one decision you’ll make faster this week?

SPEAKER_04:

And I wish we could go back to a time when things weren't so complicated.

SPEAKER_01:

Welcome to the complexity of toilet paper, the podcast that dives into the everyday moments where we overthink, hesitate, or just get double motivate. Through honest conversations, unexpected insights, and a whole lot of humor, your hosts Phyllis Martin, Mark Pollock, and Al Emmerich are here to help you roll with it and make your life a little less complicated. One conversation at a time. Right, dude. The beauty of this is its simplicity. Speaking of which, it's time to enter the stall. Put the lid down or not, depending. Get comfortable and roll with it. Oh, what a knot, dear friend. It's really quite shipping. This is the complexity of toilet paper. All day for some salmon. You've been waiting all day for salmon? Why?

SPEAKER_00:

I know I'm having that for dinner, so I'm still waiting.

SPEAKER_01:

What's more important? Salmon or this show?

SPEAKER_00:

Don't make me choose. You know how much I like.

SPEAKER_05:

That means it's salmon, and that does I don't know how I feel about that.

SPEAKER_01:

And this is what happens before we actually open the mic, but the mic was actually hot, and we caught Phyllis in mid-thought. Ooh, I made a rhyme, and I didn't even mean to this time. Here we go. No, seriously, I didn't. And and Phyllis didn't even know that the mic was open. Hi, welcome to the complexity of what Phyllis is having for dinner tonight.

SPEAKER_05:

Well, we know what she's having for dinner tonight. It's salmon.

SPEAKER_01:

Now by the time this show by the time this show airs, she will have had the salmon, and none of us are going to remember to come back and tell you if the salmon was good. But I can tell you, we've hung enough with with Phyllis Martin, and there ain't a bad meal within 20 miles of her.

SPEAKER_00:

Nothing bad coming out of that kitchen.

SPEAKER_01:

And it doesn't hurt that you live in a city where the food is just amazing. Charleston, South Carolina.

SPEAKER_00:

Yes, sorry.

SPEAKER_01:

Did I just did I just piss off everybody from Charleston with that terrible accent?

SPEAKER_00:

Everybody's happy. We all make fun of it.

SPEAKER_01:

Oh, good. Good.

SPEAKER_00:

But some accents in Charleston and in South Carolina in general are creamy and malefluous, like they're smooth and very um. I used a word, I used a big word.

SPEAKER_01:

Well, hold on.

SPEAKER_00:

I hesitated to use it, but I did.

SPEAKER_01:

Phil Phyllis is our partner, but I may need to excuse myself because I don't know what that word is, and I want to A, look it up, and B, it's kind of sexy. Creamy and malefluous, is that it?

SPEAKER_00:

Malefluous, they're smooth and they just kind of the accent just kind of flows very easily, and I love listening to people in South Carolina who have that accent.

SPEAKER_05:

I so want to figure out a way to use that word. I don't know that I can say it.

SPEAKER_00:

Malefluous.

SPEAKER_01:

I just realized a bonus for this show. I swear I think my IQ bumps a notch every time I hang with you guys. Because I either learn a new word from Phyllis, um an amazing idea drops, or Mark, you consolidate life in such a clear, clean way that everything makes sense. You are like, you know what you are, Mark? This this is it. Mark is is the line. I don't know what you call it. There's probably a math term for it. I know there is a math term. You're the line at the end of an equation, right before you give the answer. What is that called? Right? Anybody know? Phyllis is the has all the words. I don't know.

SPEAKER_00:

Phyllis does not know that word, but the definition of mellifluous is, and I I'm so on point, sweet or musical, pleasant to hear, an example, the voice was mellifluous and smooth.

SPEAKER_01:

Wow. Man, you even said that smoothly. I did.

SPEAKER_00:

And for all of my former English teachers, so noted.

SPEAKER_01:

Hey, speaking of Charleston, if you've ever been to Charleston, back to the conversation about food, it is a foodie mecca. And I remember the first time I went there, and looking at the restaurants and making a choice was like, how the hell was that gonna happen? I mean, we had kids with us, so that kind of you know negated some of the places we were gonna go. But anyway, uh all three of us, everybody, Mark, Phyllis, and I, at some point have had this conversation about choice, and we started talking about it, and we were like, Well, have you ever tried to make that decision on a restaurant or what you want to eat or whatever? And we were like, let's not talk about this yet. Let's just talk about it over a show in the stall, and that is what we are doing today, and we found out that there's this actual thing called decision regret, and it's kind of this evil wraparound to I can't make up my mind. And and so this is what this show is about. If you've ever skimmed Netflix late at night, if you've ever gone to the library, yes, they still have them. Last I heard. If you've ever tried to make a decision, if you've stood in line at you know, Burger King, McDonald's, and you're like, why am I taking 20 minutes to do this and it hasn't changed in the last 40 years? Welcome to the complexity of toilet paper. And we are here to uncouple the things that we can't figure out, uh, at least in a small way, and help make your life a little bit easier, one conversation at a time. And so let's dive into this thing. Phyllis, um, you put together kind of like some framework for these this stuff. Uh you once you lead us off here.

SPEAKER_00:

Well, I, you know, uh, Al, you got us off to a really, really good start. Uh, because I swear I think it's happened to every, every, every person sitting in the pocket of how there are just everyday things that we overcomplicate. And I can, you know, tell you for uh my husband Tim and me, uh, the simplest thing like picking a restaurant um on a Friday or Saturday night, or as you said, if we're in a new town and we haven't made reservations somewhere, every single time turns into um this overthought, overblown process where just one more, just one more, just one more, until you know it could be like 8:30 at night and we still haven't found anywhere to eat. Now, people who know me know I get hangry if I don't eat by seven o'clock. So if we pass the seven o'clock time, there's gonna be a situation.

SPEAKER_01:

Um it's decision or death.

SPEAKER_00:

It's decision or death. And like I do wonder why. Why is that so hard? Why can we just not pick a restaurant and be okay?

SPEAKER_01:

So, so before we even unpack that, what talk talk through your decision matrix? Like, what how does it break down for you? Like, so you're like, oh hey, we're in this town. Do you like decide? Let's just let's talk about food, all right? Restaurants. Are you like, hey, what do you want to have tonight? Or does somebody you do you or Tim or people you're with usually have like a let's do seafood? Or is how do you even start making your decision?

SPEAKER_00:

I think sadly, there's no like parameter on it. So without the parameter of seafood or an ethnicity, the world is one's oyster. And if you haven't taken the time to make reservations ahead of time, it becomes even more complicated. And so there's really the matrix becomes we're walking, looking at a menu, okay, move on to the next one. Walking, looking at a menu, okay, move on to the next one. Until inevitably, um, some form of, oh my God, just pick a restaurant. And then sometimes it's back for restaurants. And by the time we get there, you know, it's well, we can seat you at nine o'clock, and then you just look at each other and you end up going to, you know, the convenience store and getting some popcorn and chips because you've missed like the whole, the whole entire thing.

SPEAKER_05:

As long as you don't end up choosing the Cheesecake Factory, because then you have 77 pages of menu that you got to decide from. So, you know, hopefully you're you're trying to choose from a restaurant that's got like one page.

SPEAKER_01:

You know where this started, right? It's all Baskin Robin's fault. Oh, the 32 flavors? Well, they were 31. Did they bump to 32? No, I don't know. They're probably they're probably 60 some odd at this point. I'm kind of joking, but I would be curious to know, like, I mean, it's well, so so what are the what are the precursors to all of this? You've got buffets, right? When you had all these choices at a buffet, did the same thing happen?

SPEAKER_00:

Uh I think you just nailed it on the head. I think the precursor is back in the day, there were so fewer choices. It might have been like one of five choices. So you just uh like TV channels. Like TV, like TV channels.

SPEAKER_01:

Movies. Movie channels. You had what? ABC, CBS, NBC, and PBS.

SPEAKER_00:

And you had the TV guide that came out every week, and those were your choices.

SPEAKER_01:

Which was like as thin. It was so thin. It was like a couple of pages long, and most of it was advertising. And of course, you had to uh this is like you had to actually get up and go turn. But that notwithstanding, you're right.

SPEAKER_05:

Choices. Yeah, but even even now we have more choices on demand, and we still can't make a choice. So but back then you had to pick a show, and if you if you ended up picking one and then you didn't like it, you missed out on the other ones, right? Because they're broadcasting at the same time. Now everything's recorded. You have access to everything whenever you want, and you still get decision regret when you're halfway through a movie.

SPEAKER_01:

Do you remember when HBO first came out? They actually, I I could be wrong, and if there's an HBO executive or some former employee in programming listening, let me know, and I'm sorry. But I remember when HBO came out, they wouldn't do another, they wouldn't replay another that same show for a long time. Um, but then I remember at some point they would do a show, they would repeat it periodically, right? Because I guess there was demand or something like that. It was like if you missed it at eight o'clock, you missed it at eight o'clock and you weren't gonna see it for days later.

SPEAKER_00:

So you would think decision regret then would have been worse because you couldn't get it on demand or knew you knew you would have to wait until like the reruns in the offseason to see it. But I I really feel like decision overthinking the decision and the regret or fear of making the wrong decision or missing out is more prevalent now. Even like if you think about how often, how frequently or um how freely we go out to eat. So even if you make a decision and you're not thrilled with the restaurant, the reality is like when I grew up, we hardly ever went out to eat. That was a rarity that we went out to eat. Now everybody goes out to eat all the time, so you can, you know, pick it up next time.

SPEAKER_05:

You know how much thought I you so so we had a uh a team meeting here at my house a couple of weeks ago, and I had to choose where we all went out to dinner. There's not a lot of choices here. I mean, there's a good amount of choices, but do you know how long I thought about where to take you guys? And then when we went, I was like, oh what were you thinking about?

SPEAKER_01:

Like what was like would you be worried about the lengths?

SPEAKER_05:

Would you be disappointed? Would the wait times be uh too long? Would uh do would you like it as much as I I like this restaurant? Uh would you find anything on the menu that you're gonna like? Uh is there a better place that's less noisy that we could go to? Uh so the place we went to, what was it called?

SPEAKER_01:

The the salty pelican. The salty pelican. Had a great time. It was amazing food. And Phyllis and I were both like, yeah. Okay. Now I have to be honest. I was like, I've kind of been there before, but I wanted to go because you want you seemed to go wanted to go so badly. And so is that why you made that choice ultimately? Because you it was just like it's your kind of favorite place.

SPEAKER_05:

I love that place, right? And and uh the owners are fantastic people, and so I just I enjoy it. Their food's always good, and so it was delicious. I just thought, well, I I can't go wrong with this one, but I really still had to give it thought of like, oh, would this be the right place for us?

SPEAKER_01:

But isn't that the other side of the decision story? It's like like there's a number of times, like there's a coffee shop in in Jacksonville, Florida, um called Southern Grounds. I love Southern Grounds, right? Now there's a bunch of other great ones too, and I can't call them all out, right? But I'll talk, you know, Mark shouting out to you, buddy. Uh he's the owner of Southern Grounds. Anyway, um sometimes I'll be like, oh, I should mix it up, but I go back to what's familiar. Um and I liken that to my Netflix, right? I'll like I'll be in the middle of a show and I don't watch, I don't have a whole lot of time to watch a lot of shows. Right now, uh and by the time this airs, I'll I I will probably it'll still be around. I'm watching this sci-fi show called Foundations. Um and you know, I'll step away for a while. Well, the other day, I was like, oh, I'm gonna mix it up. I'm gonna give myself something new, but I didn't know what I wanted, and so I surfed. And so for me, I think that so much of this decision confusion and this decision complexity is also rooted in we just haven't said this is what I want right off the bat. Now, I will tell you, I use I use value mapping uh a lot, specifically the value equation, to actually help people in businesses with that. Like businesses that are trying to decide on a strategy, when they can't say, oh, well, this is the range to go, we'll say, hey, well, what's the word that most clearly defines what you want to get to at your end of your goal? Why did you choose that? What's the impact? That's the value equation, word-wide impact. Well, that gets the data out in front of them because they have to be forced to make a decision. But at the end of the day, the only reason they get there is because they made a choice. How often do we actually sit there and go, all right, Phyllis, we're going out to dinner. Let's decide before we even start searching what we want.

SPEAKER_05:

I I'm sure rarely, uh, but you know, it comes back to uh an article I I wrote uh a little while ago on LinkedIn around the number of decisions that we make in a day. And and I really think too, it also comes down to decision fatigue. You're so tired by the time you're even thinking about where to go out to dinner that if you've not made that decision, so Phyllis, you gave a perfect example. You and your friends are walking down the street, there's 10 restaurants in a row, and you go look in the menu at the menus. Prior to, let's say that's a, I don't know, six o'clock, prior to six o'clock in the evening when you're walking down that street, you've made 7,000 decisions that day on everything from what you're gonna wear to what you've eaten for lunch to who you're gonna call to conversate, like all of this stuff. So by the time you get there, you're just exhausted uh from from from making decisions. I think that's gotta play into it.

SPEAKER_00:

I I think so too, Mark. And oh, I'm sorry, were you gonna say more?

SPEAKER_05:

No, go ahead.

SPEAKER_00:

I felt like your mouth was continuing to move.

SPEAKER_05:

Um sometimes it does that, it just doesn't stop moving.

SPEAKER_01:

He's a pupp he's a puppet. He's Mark actually has a little you never saw the little man that runs him. Yeah, it's it's Mark, folks. If you didn't realize it, Mark Pollack is actually a puppet. Yeah. So yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

So Al, uh you just said something um like I might give you a mic drop on it. I don't know, maybe. We'll see how we'll see if Mark comes sliding in at the end and like takes it away. It is now a competition game on. But I'll we'll see. I don't know, but I think what I heard you say is like, do we clearly state what we want? And I know for me when I'm in a group and we walk by a menu, I bet anything if I just clearly stated, gang, this looks like a great restaurant. Let me tell you why. I think we should I I want to eat here. I bet everybody would say, okay, let's eat here. Or maybe like, okay, can we check out one more menu? Yes, and then we'll make a decision between the two, versus I think what we all do, which is, oh, I don't know, maybe okay, okay, we'll do the like, oh, and or the opposite is true, Mark, to what you're saying. If one is just tired, as we all can be from making so many decisions, then it's okay to say whatever you pick is going to be fine. I'm gonna be happy and grateful that you picked it, and we're gonna we're gonna go from there.

SPEAKER_05:

Well, I I think it comes down to food. It comes down to movies. The other night, um, my daughter and I are sitting and we're flipping through, you know, the 900 movies type companies. There's the Netflix and the Tubi and the Paramount Plus and the, you know, all these things, right? And so we're trying to pick a movie literally spent, I mean, no hyperbole, an hour flipping through movies and TV shows, so much so we both just turned off the television. We're like, nah, we're just gonna go to bed. We didn't watch anything, we watched nothing. Yep.

SPEAKER_01:

Uh well, and something about you, Mark, and I, and I well, no, all three of us. This is truly all three of us. This is this may be the first mic drop. I'm calling it. All three of us are pleasers. Yeah. I know we have done it ourselves. We've had talks uh in like we've had talks about the production of the show, about hey, listen, you know, we can't always say yes. We need to be able to say no. So, all right, so that aside, we are pleasers. I know that if I'm with a group of people, this is an oxymoron. I think that's the right word, because it's it's like you can't have both. I hate it when, like, oh, we could do this, but if you want to do this or just and and and like just do something, but then I'm the first person to say, Well, is if that's okay with you, Mark, if that's okay with you, Phyllis. And it's like it it they feed off of each other. And so I think when you really want to please people, it also makes it difficult to make a decision.

SPEAKER_05:

I I'd agree. I think it comes back to your conversation earlier, too. If if you knew let's say you're out with friends and you know your friends love seafood, right? Like, do some planning and be like, hey, I know you guys love seafood. There's a really great seafood restaurant. This is this is where I think we we should go tonight.

SPEAKER_01:

But we don't. So there's some real science behind this, and I'm just gonna throw these out for consumption, but also so if you're listening to this and you're going, yeah, that's me, that's me. Um, I mean, it has to be you. I don't I know I know a few people. I have a really good friend of mine that I mean, he usually is pretty much like boom, cut, eat, we're done. But very few people are. So there's some thoughts here, and then and then I'd love to move it to life because we're talking about Netflix and movies and all that, but but there's real life implications here, okay? So, first of all, decision regret is a thing. It's and there's an entire field around it that examines literally how regret serves as a feedback mechanism that can slow you or go you. And so some of the key aspects of this, there's a there's a term called counterfactual thinking. It's the ability to actually stimulate what could have been by comparing decisions to outcomes to alternate possibilities. That's what we're talking about. You're sitting here going, oh, well, if I did this, this could this could do this. Uh, in in the business world, it's opportunity cost. If I do this, what's the cost of this? And you're playing this out in your mind. There's anticipated regret. Oh my God. The end the end the preemptive fear of future regret. If I like that goes on in colleges, chill our students go through that, you know. Your your your son and your daughter's gonna be going through it, Mark. Uh, there's actually regret aversion. So somebody doesn't want to actually have to deal with regrets so they don't make a decision whatsoever. And and then lastly, well, not lastly, this is just the tip of the iceberg. The way this shows up is um in decision making, you either like learn and adapt, or you continuously stick in that loop and you begin to evolve this if only thinking. And the regret can literally lead to massive depression because you're living your you're leading your life in this this regret phase. And sure, we're talking about Netflix and these things, but they're actually according to what we were reading, and we'll we we need to bring an expert on about this. Let's let's what did you call it, Mark? We're gonna bring in the couch? No, the couch? No. What did you call it?

SPEAKER_00:

I think it's the couch.

SPEAKER_01:

I think it's the couch.

SPEAKER_00:

We're bringing people in.

SPEAKER_01:

The potty couch, whatever.

SPEAKER_05:

Multiple stalls? I don't remember.

SPEAKER_01:

Multiple stalls, that's it. Yeah, we'll have multiple stalls going because we've got to really talk to an expert. But but now let's talk about like real life stuff. Like what is something that you really hem and haw over or have um that's related either to the business or your personal life where you kind of had some of those things going on? I've had it show up in buying a car.

SPEAKER_05:

Uh I don't know if uh our listeners experienced that, but you know, I I did a lot of research. I felt really good about you know these different cars. I went and test drove, and uh even even feeling really good about the decision that I made, I still had like, oh, but it, you know, I could have I maybe I should have, you know, I still had those those kind of regret tinges of maybe I should have done something different. And uh and that was even with research and and feeling good about it at the time. So that's that's an example of a real life big purchase.

SPEAKER_00:

And maybe it's just big purchases, I don't know, but well, I think it shows up in career choices too when you're interviewing or have interviewed for a particular position and maybe there's like a second one right behind, and you have this, or or or there's the reality of do I leave what I know for this thing that I think is going to be better? Um and and I think it's probably fair to say for I'll say it for myself, but I'm imagining for our listeners as well, you've made a career change or you've jumped ship and gone to somewhere else, and you do regret it. And not all of it, but some of it. And there's a longing for what was. So maybe it's not as perfect as you thought it was going to be. And that's that's real. I think the trick about that, or the key like a uh uh something to consider is um it's okay because two things can be true at the same time. You can make the decision, and maybe you have some level regret, and perhaps you can also find some joy and happiness in the decision that you made. And so I think even as something as simple as picking a a dinner choice, and then you get there, and maybe it's not all that you thought it would be, it was still good and is good enough sometimes, okay. And sometimes I think it's just perspective and and perception. And some of that's just on us, quite honestly. There's the fear of the regret, but then there's actual, okay, how am I gonna like can you flip the lens a little bit and find the good?

SPEAKER_05:

I so you you brought up the the job piece and that people, you know, jump shipping and go somewhere else. Have I I've seen this and and Phyllis and Al, I'm curious if you've seen this, you know, like on LinkedIn, I'll I'll see people go back to former employee employers. Like they'll you know, they'll go and they'll do this thing, then they go back. And I'm wondering, you you brought in a good point too, Phyllis, around um feeling good about your decision or finding good in your decision. What is a tip do you think that someone you know, just in that, you know, I know we'll get to tips later, but that I think that's a really big piece. I'd love to love to sit on that for a second. How could somebody do that? How could someone find joy in in that or not have the regret?

SPEAKER_00:

I I think I think this is really true. I I feel like sometimes um what we mm like regret is a judgment in a particular way. And I think we do this with a lot of aspects, I do it in a lot of aspects of of life, and maybe our listeners do that too. Instead, like another tip is can you be curious about it? Can you ask it questions? Can you ask questions of your of yourself to start to figure out because there's definitely a why behind it? And can you look at that, those questions and the answers that really only you can provide is information? And what is that information then telling you? Because I think that's part of the fat pathway to um, I don't want to say acceptance, that's not what I'm trying to say, but to gratitude, to joy, to being happy while understanding, sure, maybe I gave up this, but what did I get? Because I got something. Now that's not to say sometimes you make a decision and it really turns out to be not what you thought it was going to be, but even in that, I have come to learn there is such that's the only way to learn. And that's where the growth happens. And so I try now to look at things through that lens. What did I learn that I can take with me for the rest of my journey? Because something's happening. I love that. I made the decision and I can trust myself.

SPEAKER_01:

There is actually a decision regret scale. Um, it's it's used, uh, it measures distress or remorse after a healthcare decision. Um and uh it's it's incredibly clarifying. It's it's a five-point Likert scale, and it's the questions are there's there, there's like five questions, and I'm not an expert in this, okay? So we just this is like Google search and some chat GPT. But you did stay at a Holiday and Express once. I did. There you go. I did. Um it was the right decision. These are all strongly agree, agree, neither agree or disagree, or strongly disagree. It was the right decision. I regret the choice that was made. I would go for the same choice if I had to do it over again. The choice did me a lot of harm. The decision was a wise one. I listen to that, and it's like it's so simple. I would love to go back and apply that to some of the things where I have sat and and had this. See, I wanted to go, you you got to a tip, but I wanted to step back for a moment. And Phyllis, if if I'm if you need me to, I'll I'll pause because I'll remember what I was going to bring up. But when you were talking about the decisions, I was thinking about something I struggled with for many, many years uh when I had my production business, and even with value mapping, which was the product line decision. Right? There's the decision of this thing that I love to do, this thing that's supposed to drive revenue, this thing that's going to be scalable, all the things that like product decisions have a glue to them that if it's a retail product or something like that, sure, you know, you maybe the decision matrix is a little different. But when you're the product or you've created the product, um you're it's it's kind of a different thing. And so I have literally gone through, and I never saw it this way, but I've literally gone through the similar type of like uh wow, I could do this, should I do this, should I do this, and not done a thing, and not done any of them. Don't act on this, don't sell this, don't promote this, and and it and it's hurt, it's been painful, both financially as well as pride wise. Uh anyway. Um and I I I've I just never saw the correlation, but it's exactly the same th mechanism that's going on in the brain.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, it's paralysis. Mm-hmm. It's a straight line.

SPEAKER_01:

Well, it's but it's it's paralysis by analysis, all that, but it's just also raw frickin' fear.

SPEAKER_00:

That's what I'm saying. Fear is the fear is the driver to paralysis.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

So one thing I was gonna say all before you did that, and I don't mean to cut you off, um, but what I was gonna say about um I f I forget what we were talking about, the tips or whatever. I was gonna add, you know, for real, I can say with truth in my heart, I accepted a a position one time. And I say this to people to this day, I it was the worst decision I ever made, but without making and in in many ways, many, many ways. However, I can't think of a time or a decision that I made where I learned so much about myself personally and where I grew so much professionally. And that drove me to where I am today. Which also includes sitting doing this podcast with you. And that's like the tip I'm trying to get out about decision regret. And the tip is there yes, you can have regret, I understand that, but there's learning in that regret.

SPEAKER_01:

Well, didn't you say once, or didn't you say something that some notes that you shared that it's it can either stall us, pardon the pun, or it can teach us. But that's what you were saying before. You flip it's the flip the of the perspective. It's almost like manifesting, right? You have to you have to make a choice. It's almost like we have to say, look, we're going to fumble with our choices, they're gonna be wrong, so just but make the frickin' choice. Fast, imperfect decisions.

SPEAKER_05:

And and I think we have to do it because there are so many decisions that we have to make. We we we have to train ourselves to make decisions faster and to and to live with the decision. They're never going to be perfect. And if we sit around and regret them, so I'm I'm going on a vacation, and I looked at many places to go, and it came down to you just gotta pick one, and then you you gotta pick the elements of it. You it you you can't just keep going back and researching more and thinking that you're gonna have this this perfect thing, because each decision that you make it says that you're not choosing something else. And I think that FOMO, uh, this this made-up fear that you're gonna miss out on something else is preventing you from making a decision in the moment that could be really great, or it could really suck. But until you make the decision and move forward and keep moving forward, you're gonna keep thinking about, well, what did I miss out on? Oh, did I miss out on a on a on a better vacation, a better car, a better meal, a better movie, a better this? Uh I'm I'm I'm spending my time here, I I could have been spending my time there. Uh I mean, it's it it really comes down to you really could think through every decision that way. But if you get to a point, Al, and you said it earlier of of knowing what you want, and and you don't have to know it maybe 100%, but you've got some really good idea of what you want, do some research. If it's a bigger thing, do a little bit more research and just make a decision and keep moving forward. Um I because I I I think that FOMO is is really what drives so much of this, uh at least for me, uh, in in silly things like movies, but in in more big financial decisions like buying a car.

SPEAKER_01:

Which brings us to what I think is the moment we should stop for a quick moment, because you guys need to do all these recap tips, but I think we should jump into the roll-up. Yes, this is the roll-up, unprompted, unscripted. We haven't talked about any of this, uh, as we usually don't, and but I think we should throw out a constraint for this roll-up. I think the roll-up has to be around decision making. Okay, I think the roll-up. Yeah, I think the roll-up should be around this wonderful thing that you've put together, decision regret. And so we will throw it around the horn with a question. I haven't even thought of one yet. So do you guys need a minute? To think of your question.

SPEAKER_00:

Well, here's a question.

SPEAKER_01:

Let me see if I can see if I can.

SPEAKER_00:

Oh, when she goes like that. Let me see if I can formulate the question.

SPEAKER_03:

Okay.

SPEAKER_00:

When is there a time, and if so, when that you have um I don't really think this is the question, but it's funny, so no I'm just gonna say it. Um yeah. How do you make the right decision when you're traveling and you know you have to go to the bathroom, but you think you can hold it maybe longer than you actually can hold it? So how do you make the decision that gets you where you need to be in enough time while continuing to make the progress you want to make while you're driving down the road? What's your decision matrix for that? Matrix men.

SPEAKER_01:

Okay, Neo.

SPEAKER_00:

I think I've stumped them. You can't see their faces, but I can.

SPEAKER_01:

Well, if I understand well, I we should get a squad shot right now. That's what we should we should do. We should because I'm like really like um. Let's see. Uh I can't wait to see what that squad shot looks like. Uh for those of you who don't know, squad shots are this thing that we're able to oh yeah, that was a good one. That was a good one. Um squad shots are are these things that enable us to be able to take a picture within the session. All right.

SPEAKER_00:

Um you're driving down the road, you may you know you're gonna have to go soon, you're gonna have to make a decision.

SPEAKER_01:

So I'll just tell you I so I think I know what you're talking about. Um, all right, I've driven across the country multiple times, and I'm talking about as an adult, not as a kid when I didn't control, but I've driven across country minimum, I think I think four or five times. So um I I know up front, typically, if I'm on a gun and running gun, and I will just bring a bottle and I'll make sure I have toilet paper in the car.

SPEAKER_05:

Um, I'm never ever driving cross country with you. Ever. Driving cross-country. You're not in my car ever. I'll I'll drive you to Phyllis's house, but that's that's the extent.

SPEAKER_01:

Now, most of the time, now that now that's that's if it's a run and gun and I don't want to have to worry. That's just backup. But I will literally plan a trip based on restrooms because I can't stand going to public restrooms that are nasty. And so I will check Google reviews, I will do pictures, um, and I will um plan out a trip based on whether like not plan a trip, excuse me, but I will map out my bathroom breaks.

SPEAKER_00:

Fair enough. Is that what you mean?

SPEAKER_05:

Only going on road trips now where there's a Bucky's house. I was just gonna say that.

SPEAKER_00:

No.

SPEAKER_01:

There's there can be a Wawa, there can be a 7 Eleven.

SPEAKER_05:

I mean, Bucky's bathrooms are so clean, an attendant goes in the bathroom with you. It's really amazing.

SPEAKER_00:

I mean, it's and they're very private stalls, like their rooms. Very private.

SPEAKER_05:

Yeah. I it's cleaner than my house.

SPEAKER_00:

Mark, what have you got? No, it's not. We've been to your house.

SPEAKER_05:

Your house is nice. All right. So I I was I was given Al a hard time, but I've got actually a funny story if you want to hear it. I was in Chicago on a business trip, and I had uh a rent a car, and I had to return the car in downtown Chicago. Well, the place that you return it uh did not have signage on the building, and my little app at the time, and this was many years ago, they were not as advanced, um kept messing up what street I was supposed to be on because of the buildings were throwing off the navigation. And so I was basically circling downtown Chicago, sweating because I had to go to the bathroom so badly that I decided I didn't know what to do. I ended up just double parking and running into this building and going to the bathroom. I left the car, I actually left the car on and everything. Like I was crying. I literally had tears running down my face because I had to go so bad and I did not have a bottle or anything to go in. And so I run into this place, double parked, go to the bathroom, run out. Thankfully the car was still there, thank goodness, and and drove off. But uh that was the that yeah. That's I hope that answers your question. But that was a great story. Yeah, that was it. What about you, Phil?

SPEAKER_00:

Um, you know, here's my uh travel plan. Uh when Tim and I traveled together, when we first were dating and then married, I came to learn that he's like a road warrior. So it was almost like put a catheter in, I'm not stopping. So over the course of time, I have learned to say, I am going to need to use a restroom in 30 minutes. Oh I just trust that I'm gonna need a restroom in 30 minutes, and then he can make some decisions about when he's driving. Because when I'm driving, he'll just say, pull over, I need to go to the bathroom.

SPEAKER_01:

And I'm like, Is that what Finn was just doing for you by barking in the background saying I want to go to the bathroom in 30 minutes? Hey, there he is. Okay. All right, I got a question. Um, here's a question. And you know we don't need the gory details, all right? But well, you can if you want, but I don't know, whatever. Have you ever is there ever a time where you regretted where you went and when you went to the bathroom in a public place?

SPEAKER_05:

Yes, yes, for sure. I was in a uh I was in I think it was New Mexico, and we were we were driving and there was like one bathroom somewhere within a hundred miles of where we were, and it was the it was not nice at all. Like it it was it was bad. There was uh you go in and there was like uh it was it was graffitied everywhere, uh you know, it was just disgusting in every term that you could possibly think of. And but there were no options though. So coming down to decision regret, I didn't even have to make a decision. That was the only decision, and it still scars me. Yeah. I would have been better off in a field. Phil?

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, I mean there was one time I mean, there have been many times, don't get me wrong, but there was one time I really had to go. I mean, had to go. And so I pulled in, I was with my friend Maureen, and I pulled into a Burger King and it was really bad, like bad. But you know, you do what you gotta do. And when I came out, I I was staying with her because I was moving back to Greenville and I was in transition. And she looked at me and she said, When you get to my house, you are to go right into the shower. I don't want you sitting any sitting down anywhere.

SPEAKER_05:

She's hosing you off in the yard.

SPEAKER_00:

She essentially was like, I'm gonna hold you down before you're allowed to touch to touch anything. But you know, you do again, you do the best you can do with what you have at the time. Now, the flip side is that decision regret, yes. Has it made a good story for 20 years? Absolutely.

SPEAKER_01:

My decision regret goes back to a shaming uh that nobody meant to give me, but um, I was it was my bar mitzvah year, and uh oh, they meant to give it to you then. Oh, they did, they did. It was my bar mitzvah year, and this was the getting to the bar mitzvah. It was at my old temple in St. Augustine, and this was an old temple, and there was like one you know, small little men's room. Anyway, long story short, I could have waited and I didn't. And I went and it was like, ah, I just thought it was gonna be one, but it was two, and the next thing you know, anyway, it turned out to be a big deal. Um and I I mean it it was it was it was not a pleasant environment I created. Well, it just so happens at the same time, like three of the elders come into the bathroom and they all they're and and they start talking. Now I'm in there and they're literally saying, Elfie, are you in there? This is terrible, and it was like, Okay, all right, all right. I'm I'm almost 13. Actually, I may be 13 at this point, but the problem was when I came out, they were still talking about it, and it became part of my bar mitzvah litany or whatever story. Of course it did, and it even came up, they didn't thank God talk about it on the Bima, but even afterwards, after the bar mitzvah at my damn party, uh one of the guys was like, Yeah, you know why Alfie did such a good job? They told the story, and I regret it. I was like, God, if you had just held it, if you had just not gone to the bathroom, all would have been well with the world.

SPEAKER_00:

And it's so it's so embarrassing at that age.

SPEAKER_01:

Oh, it was mortifying. It was mortifying. Um, anyway, now I look back and I laugh on it. I don't know what I learned from that, Phyllis. I hate to tell you, I had no lesson to learn.

SPEAKER_00:

Humility.

SPEAKER_01:

Is that what it was? Okay. All right.

SPEAKER_00:

Um to carry matches with you.

SPEAKER_05:

Until the story shows that uh, you know, Al set the bathroom on fire, but that's cool.

SPEAKER_01:

All right. Um now, real life, real quick around the horn. Um, I I I was thinking about regrets that have shown up in our lives in in other unique ways. And I just thought I'd throw a couple of these out. I don't know if you guys have any of these or not. Um I coached little league baseball, and um I I had uh I used to laugh uh and now I do umpiring and I laugh because I hear the coaches doing the same thing, and I'm sure every coach does this, but I'm but it but the situation was um or the the the topic is decision regret shows up massively in coaching and Monday night and Monday morning quarterbacking in your fantasy football. That's another fun way that decision regret shows up. I should have started so and so because so and so went off. Um thank God, thank God, because I don't live in a sports bar for the Sunday NFL ticket because it takes decision regret out of the way for what are you gonna which game you're gonna watch, because you can watch them all at once. Greatest greatest creation since mankind, I think. Uh for football.

SPEAKER_00:

Greatest creation since mankind.

SPEAKER_01:

Huh. Yeah. The Sunday NFL ticket. Who knew?

SPEAKER_02:

Curious if God feels the same way, but okay. Well, God created the Sunday NFL ticket. Come on. Duh, Mark.

SPEAKER_01:

Duh. I didn't church on the rest because now football's on seven days a week. So he he couldn't get all the games in, so he created the Sunday NFL ticket. Okay. Okay. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

Okay.

SPEAKER_01:

We might get a sponsorship out of that one. Who knows?

SPEAKER_00:

For the end ticket. Where are we? I'm so lost as to where we are. What's happening? Or God?

SPEAKER_01:

I don't even know where we are. All right. No, so I just thought I'd throw it out. What if if if you have any before we get to our tips? Uh I was just thinking about other places in life where decision regret really shows up, sometimes good, bad, but usually with some level of like humor, and it's after the fact. And that was that was the little league baseball thing. You know, should I start this kid? I'm trying to please the parents. Uh uh, I don't want to let the kid down. My football team, you're what you're starting lineup, all those. Those are fun ways that that are different versions of the things we've been talking about. What about you guys? Any others? You could be.

SPEAKER_03:

I think you've Oh go ahead, Phyllis.

SPEAKER_01:

No, go. I'm Robinson frickin' Caruso right now.

SPEAKER_00:

I think you are.

SPEAKER_05:

No, I just think you name them all. I I all the all those things. Like, I just I'm I'm over here laughing. If you were to take another picture, I'm over here laughing because yeah, I mean, it's all the silly stuff.

SPEAKER_01:

What about your what about your shots, your photos? Like, like when you go now and like remember your high school senior pictures, you know, or or remember you you you go back and you're like, hey, I want to put together a um a bunch of pictures from my trip, and you got a hundred pictures, and you're like, well, I better, yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

I think you might be overthinking it a little bit.

SPEAKER_01:

Oh. Oh. Why don't you guys lead with the tips so we can get the hell out of here and I'll shut up.

SPEAKER_05:

All right. Tips.

SPEAKER_00:

Mark, are you going?

SPEAKER_05:

Yeah, I'll go. Yeah. I I I I think the the first tip that really comes to mind that helps me with the complexity of decision regret is to understand that you've made the decision and it is time to move forward. And uh my mother used to always tell me, don't look back, only look forward. So how I get past decision regret personally is just looking forward. I've made the decision, that's in the past. All I can do is keep a focus on what can I get from this, what can I learn from this, and if I need to, how quickly can I change this? Um, but there's there's no reason to to be sad about it. So that's that's a tip uh from my mother.

SPEAKER_00:

That's a great that's a great tip. I'll I'll add to that Markin, you said it. We make a million decisions every day. The decision you make about your outfit for the day or dinner or the movie or even your job is one decision in a lifetime of decisions.

SPEAKER_04:

Yes. Yes. And as that's beautiful.

SPEAKER_00:

And as my friend who wanted to hose me off, Maureen, would say, if we could like look out, right, after we're not on this earth anymore, and if you were watching the tape of your life in reverse, would you really fret about the dis like the daily decisions or even the big decisions that you made?

SPEAKER_05:

You know, that is beautiful. It really is, because when you look back at all the things you have to decide in a day, uh what really matters and and what really doesn't matter, and and there's a here's another tip that goes with that because that's uh just came to mind and uh I really uh if there are decisions that that you have the power to make the night before, like what you're gonna wear or where you're gonna eat or what you're gonna have, maybe even make those ahead of time and just stick with the decision because you've got six thousand nine hundred and seventy-four other decisions you're gonna have to make that next day. So pick the easy things, get them off your plate. They're really not gonna matter. In a week, in a month, in a year, would you even remember you made that decision?

SPEAKER_01:

I think that might be a dual mic drop. Both of you, bam, dropping the mic. Well, we're not done yet.

SPEAKER_05:

You might what what what what's one of your tips?

SPEAKER_01:

No, I was not gonna no, I just sucked the oxygen out of the microphones on the other ones. I was gonna leave you guys with the mic drop. I didn't want to go last. Oh well.

SPEAKER_05:

I mean, I mean, do you still could provide a tip if you want? I mean, even though it won't be as good as ours. And then and then you'll have regret that you didn't put another tip in there, and then that's cool.

SPEAKER_00:

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_01:

Uh no, I I honestly I really don't have a whole lot to add because um my mom told me, and I speak about this all the time: there's value in everything the good, the bad, and the sad. It's your job to go out and find it. And um, as someone who has made plenty of choices and has looked back with regret, um, I am learning still to this day how to look at it as a positive and shift the mindset. Um, and that's that's so so my tip is what you already said, Phil, what'd you learn and make it a positive? And I I didn't even think about all the numbers. I mean, we're gonna put some links in the in the show about like some of the stuff we talked about. And also I want us to look up, I'd be curious to know, Mark, how many actual decisions do we make in a day? Because I never even thought about the fatigue level. That's that's brilliant. So I'm sorry.

SPEAKER_05:

So I I I think that this has been a beautiful conversation. I really do, because everybody deals with decision regret. But the thing that we have been talking at the end with these tips, and what I'm pulling from that is that regret does nothing to enhance your life. It does nothing to make your day better. It makes nothing to make that decision feel good or you feel good about the decision. So what our mothers have told us, what our friends have told us, and what life has told us is do what you need to, make the best decisions that you can with the information that you have, keep moving forward, and let it go. In the grand scheme of things, likely a lot of these decisions are not going to be a big difference in your life or someone else's life. So prioritize those and stop with the regret. It's not gonna let you live a day longer.

SPEAKER_01:

Man, that's a mic job.

SPEAKER_00:

There you go.

SPEAKER_01:

Mark, Mark pulls it out. Phil, are you voting on that one?

SPEAKER_00:

I'm totally giving it to Mark on that one. He has he has synthesized the information. His delivery was mellifluous.

SPEAKER_01:

Oh, wow, we got mellifluous back in.

SPEAKER_00:

We did. And now we're ready to go.

SPEAKER_01:

We are ready to go. We are flushing regret, saying goodbye down the potty tubes, not to be seen again. Live a happy life. I we all three of us hope you are smiling at this moment. Um, we hope you don't regret having listened to all of this show. But if you take Mark's advice, we know that you're not. And uh anyway, uh, we love you guys and we are so appreciative to be a part of your life. Thank you for joining us on our ride wherever you are in this day time of your life. And remember, one conversation at a time is all you need to find the simplicity. And speaking of which, this is the complexity of toilet paper.

SPEAKER_02:

Did you say toilet paper?

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Al Emerick

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Mark Pollack

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Phyllis Martin

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