Call it in the Air – Chris Scott (Entrepreneur and President of The Paperless Agent)

Chris Scott is an entrepreneur who has created strategies to help guide the careers and business development efforts of CEOs, business leaders, and entrepreneurs. Knowing that, Chris’s own strategy for decision making might surprise you.
In his Paper Napkin Wisdom, Chris shares the story of how he and his wife made the decision to bring his grandfather out of hospice and have him live with them and their young family for the last few months of his life. How did they make that difficult decision? They flipped a coin. Making a huge decision based on a coin flip might sound slightly insane, but as Chris explains, it’s an excellent tool for figuring out what your intuition is telling you.
We all have two sides to our brain: The left brain, in charge of analysis and logic, and the right brain, in charge of creativity and emotion. When we’re making a decision, it’s important that we’re using both sides because each half of the brain has its own effect on the way we approach things and how good we are at maintaining them. To visualize it a bit more metaphorically, it’s about thinking with the head and the heart. We need to be aligned internally; the stronger that internal alignment, the less likely we are to lose resolve in moments of self-doubt. A large part of success after we’ve made a decision is our commitment and resolve to follow it through, and that resolve comes from being as aligned as possible and committed to the decision we’ve made.
In using a coin flip to determine a decision, you’re not really just letting a coin randomly decide what you do, you’re gauging how you react to that decision. When Chris and his wife, Nicole, flipped a coin to determine whether or not his ailing grandfather would be moving in with them, the coin’s outcome dictated that he would not. Neither Chris nor Nicole felt good about that decision and that provided them with the clarity they needed to make the decision that was right for them.
The coin flip tool is not one that works for everything, Chris points out that he finds it doesn’t really work for small decisions, but the idea behind it is powerful. We need to know where we stand on decisions both from a logical perspective and an intuitive perspective.The coin flip, if you’re in the right mind, is a great test of that intuitive alignment.
As entrepreneurs, we can often fall into a kind of buyer’s remorse regarding decisions. When we do that it’s because we’ve lost faith in that decision and if we lose faith in it, we need to be asking ourselves how much faith we had in it to begin with. In the long term our focus goes where our heart goes. What decision do you have to make? Where does your heart stand on it?
Flip a coin and find out.
Listen to my conversation with Chris here:

Get the book we talked about:
The Highest Goal – The Secret that Sustains You in Every Moment by Michael Ray