Pause and Reflect: The Key to Better Decision-Making and Personal Accountability

Tim Pecoraro [: 00:00:23

Welcome to Blank Pages, the podcast. A podcast for people who appreciate the new beginnings of a clean slate, but strive for the courageous willingness, curiosity and creativity available only on the blank pages of new possibilities. It's the potential to move beyond, move forward, where people are willing to make new decisions from fresh perspectives and are ready to write in a much better way. The world is waiting. And guess what? Nothing besides God listens better than a blank piece of paper. I mean that. So I've been doing a lot of journaling myself, so I can tell you for a fact, paper has been saving me. What my remarkable as well, because that's where I write.

Tim Pecoraro [: 00:01:05

It's like paper, feels like paper. It's remarkable. But in my notebooks, man, I tell you what you can get if you pay attention, if you just pay attention to half of what's going on around you in the world, you will have plenty to write about, especially if you are paying attention to how you are moving about in the world with whatever is happening as well in the world. So I'm sitting here, I have some throat coat. So if I clear my throat a couple of times, I'm going to try to do it by hitting the mute. I forgot my little button. But so much is going on. There's so many things going on.

Tim Pecoraro [: 00:01:37

I just want to jump right into today's topic so we can just. Yeah, so we can get into some good stuff. So if you have been listening to the show and subscribe to the show, thank you so much. For those of you who are listening now, maybe you're just catching it for the first time and you're in Spotify podcast, or you're in Apple podcasts, or you're in Amazon music, or you're on audible, or you're in odyssey, or whatever else you might be working with. Hey, wherever there are podcasts, you should be able to find this podcast. So if you would please follow the show, if you would subscribe and share with other people, I would love that. Also, if you would sign up for the newsletter, if you go to Instagram and that is impeccararo, you will find me there. Go to my bio.

Tim Pecoraro [: 00:02:19

There you can find resources that. I have some free resources. There's some new things that are about to happen. I have a beta thing that I'm doing for about. It's just a whole. I can't even tell you what it is because now I'm going to get ahead of myself. So I need to stop. So I'm gonna stop anyways, that all will be posted up there eventually.

Tim Pecoraro [: 00:02:38

So right now, though, if you would just sign up, you will get not spammed by me. Trust me. I'm actually on the low, low frequency side of emailing anything. So I'm at least just doing my best to do one a month right now with the things that I'm working on. So you can go ahead and sign up for that newsletter. It is the uphill Community newsletter or the four blank pages as well, because blank pages is tucked underneath there. And that way you can learn more about what I'm doing, where I'm going, and stuff like that. Things that I'll be sharing now, the past and future.

Tim Pecoraro [: 00:03:12

So, yeah, so hopefully everybody's doing well. I'm pumped up about today. I started a conversation a couple of weeks back on these seven frequencies, learning for communication. And I wanted to continue to build on that. But then last week, I felt a little touched to do something, and I'm going to get back to that. But everything that I'm covering right now is all around communication. And the reason that is, is because I am finding, by and large, we have a tremendous issue with communication. We have a big problem in our world with communication.

Tim Pecoraro [: 00:03:43

There are the things that people want to hear, people think they hear. I mean, there's so much going on. We have taken language and we have just literally taken away definition, meaning of so many things. But with that, one of the things I feel we have done is in our language, we've begun to create some very dangerous pathways of how we do things in our communication. And it's because, because we're not paying attention to what's underneath it. We're not paying attention to what we say, what we don't say, what we do, what we don't do, like, all these things, because there are undercurrents. There are all these things that are influencing us as we day to day make decisions. And so what I'm noticing and I'm hearing, and it's funny because a friend of mine went through the day before, something I experienced the day before, okay.

Tim Pecoraro [: 00:04:37

And it's so crazy. And I'm gonna save that for another topic because I have to still. I'm still processing some of what I learned, and I'm still processing. Processing the extent to which people are willing to advance themselves. What are they willing to do to advance themselves? What are people willing to do to someone else to advance themselves? And I'm in this spot in life right now where I just want people to continue to get better at being human. I'm not saying people need to be perfect. Cause God knows that's I will never, ever make it. I'm just working on continuing to just be consistent with just certain things that like reading more, being consistent to not just read more, but reading the things that are going to help my mind with the changes.

Tim Pecoraro [: 00:05:37

I love to read before, right? So I was reading, reading, reading, but I needed to read the things that were going to help me change my mind. And that is more important than just reading, right? Do you see what I'm saying? So what am I willing to do? What am I willing to do consistently? It's not just the thing that I want to do consistently, but what is in the thing. Why am I doing the thing and what's in it? And how am I going to make that work into my life? And so today's topic that I want to jump into, and I'm a big proverbs person. I like things like that. And I like, you know, philosophers. One of my favorite, like Ryan Holiday, I love the daily stoics, things like that, but also biblical proverbs. So the one that I kind of want to get into is because I think we need to slow down. And this is what I want.

Tim Pecoraro [: 00:06:29

I'm moving into. There's going to be a season. I'm just going to do it's. People need to slow down. Covid did make a slowdown, but Covid made a stop. But now people have come out and people are afraid. People are still trying to figure out what's going on, what's happening. What about this? What about that? I mean, literally, I was out the other day and I saw all kinds of couples, but nobody holds hands.

Tim Pecoraro [: 00:06:48

Nobody. I saw parents with their kids. Nobody is like, you don't see it anymore. You don't see people just being warm in public much, right? So it's almost like, you know, like that old song, you've lost that love and feeling, right? The Everly brothers. Right? So it's just one of those things that it's like it's gone, right? I mean, I feel like we're better at walking our animals, dogs and stuff and doing that than we are with just being, you know, relational with people. Like, we go out of our way to make that so special. And we. We.

Tim Pecoraro [: 00:07:27

It's almost like we go out of our way to really not make it special when it comes to people. Anyways, that's my sidebar. I'll get to that. But today it's just all around slowing down. And I'm not even gonna try to give a title to it at this moment. But I just want to give you the proverb and where it's coming from. And so the reason this is important to me is because I'm learning more to slow down. You know, the always on is not good, but it's to be instant in season.

Tim Pecoraro [: 00:07:53

But part of it, I'm still learning and discovering what that means and how that works in my life. Right? So that's getting knowledge of something. And you've heard me speak about this before, that with knowledge and all your knowledge, you want to get understanding. You need to get understanding. So I know something, but now I want understanding. In all my getting, I want to get understanding. So if I have knowledge, I want understanding. Because wisdom needs a tool to work with, and wisdom will work with understanding.

Tim Pecoraro [: 00:08:21

But if you just have knowledge and you don't take that knowledge in and you don't let that knowledge work and have a process to become understanding, when you're in search for wisdom, wisdom will be hunting and hunting and hunting and have the wrong tool to be able to do anything, because it's just knowledge. It's not wisdom working with understanding. Or wisdom says, I can't work with this like this. So here's, here's where this is for me. I want to get people to slow down because we make so many errors when we're in a hurry. We make so many errors when we rush. We make so many errors when we're on the move. We make so many errors when we are just on the go.

Tim Pecoraro [: 00:09:12

So many errors. So check this out. It is not good for a person to be without knowledge. And he who hurries with his feet, this means acting impulsively and proceeding without caution or analyzing the consequences, meaning sins or mistakes. Right. This person will sin or make mistakes or errors. Okay, so think about this again. It is not good for a person to be without knowledge.

Tim Pecoraro [: 00:09:40

And he who hurries with his feet, acting impulsively and proceeding without caution or analyzing the consequences, they will sin, they will error, they will make mistakes like big ones. They will miss the mark, basically. So the foolishness, now we go to another part of this. The foolishness of man will undermine his way, ruining whatever he undertakes. And then guess what happens? Then his heart is resentful and he rages against here. And the proverb says, the Lord or for to people. And why does he do that? For what? For being a fool. He blames God or others instead of himself.

Tim Pecoraro [: 00:10:22

So that's proverbs 19, two and three. So I'm giving you that because there are main points. So if you're a believer, those main points are the value of knowledge, consequences of impulsiveness, impact of foolishness, and misplaced blame. Right. But I want to just make this just, you know. Well, no, it's applicable. It doesn't matter if you believe or not. So I'm just going to go ahead and say that this is going to be the same regardless.

Tim Pecoraro [: 00:10:49

These are principles that I'm hoping that you will grab ahold of. Okay? Just grab ahold of these. This is an interpretation I'd like to offer to you, and I use it for myself. That is really helping me as I slow down, as I realize that I don't need to have myself at such a pace that I cannot adjust change, you know, it's not about how fast I can do it. Like, the thing is, is why do I need fast? Why do I have to hurry? You know what I mean? Why can't I slow down a little bit and just do it better? Something I heard the other day, which I know is in sports, if you're an athlete, if you do anything, we look at all this speed, and sometimes we don't understand there's real, true speed. But sometimes the things that are looking so quick, they look that quick. It's because they're smooth. They have flow.

Tim Pecoraro [: 00:11:40

It's not. There's. There's a. There's a method. It's so smooth and flawless in this movement that it's faster, and it appears faster because of the grace that you see with it. You see the flow, and that also is fast. Smooth. It's fast.

Tim Pecoraro [: 00:11:57

So what I want to do is I want to help you grab a way to look at this, to grab a way to. To, to improve yourself by slowing down and by slowing down, you get smooth. And when you get smooth, you actually. You're fast, meaning you're fast. In your situation, you're fast. When you go through, you're not being bogged down. It's not cumbersome, it's not weighing you down, because smooth becomes fast. You knock off edges of things that are disruptive and keep you from making progress.

Tim Pecoraro [: 00:12:29

So here are the main points I want to cover with you. There's just four. Okay, there's a four main, big, big idea things, and I'm going to go into each one of them. So it's. Number one is the importance of knowledge. Number two from that proverb is the risk of being impulsive or risk of impulsiveness. The third is the consequences of foolishness. And then the fourth one is taking responsibility.

Tim Pecoraro [: 00:12:54

So what I think is important is for us to know. The first one is the importance of knowledge. So we know how this proverb starts out. And in the beginning, the proverb literally says, you know, it is not good for a person to be without what? Understanding. So there's a. There's a tremendous importance for us to get knowledge, right? So it's beneficial for individuals to seek knowledge. And also though its application so we can get understanding because we want to be informed and aware. And when being informed, when we're informed and aware, it will aid us in making sound decisions, and then we can navigate our life a little bit better.

Tim Pecoraro [: 00:13:31

So we do need to get knowledge. So how can you get knowledge? Like, or what are ways to get knowledge in certain situations? Right? So and so when, here's an example, somebody says something to you, you're not really sure about that. Rather than running off of that information, be it in doubt or in belief, what you want to do sometimes is make sure that you get clarity on that information. So that way you can move forward. With what? Understanding. So let's go to, .2, the risks of impulsiveness. Because, see, if you act, okay, so if you have knowledge and you don't really think about it, and you don't get into it, and you just act, acting without thinking, or when you rush into decisions without considering, you ready not just what you want to accomplish, but considering the consequences that can lead to mistakes and undesirable outcomes. See, thoughtful deliberation is essential for all of our success.

Tim Pecoraro [: 00:14:34

And it's so important that we understand that. So we've got to get the knowledge. But when we get it, we need to take some time to turn that over so it can turn into understanding. Because if we don't, we just move forward with that. We risk impulsiveness. And it's impulsiveness because we're rushing into making these decisions, and these are decisions that aren't very well informed. And so we're absent of that thoughtful deliberation. And if we want to be successful, we have to thoughtfully deliberate.

Tim Pecoraro [: 00:15:01

And the third is consequences of foolishness. So when we look at this, okay, so I'm gonna go back to that proverb, and it says that it's not good for a person to be without knowledge. And he who hurries his feet, acting impulsively, proceeding without caution or analyzing the consequences, will sin, they'll error, or they'll miss the mark. Why? Because the foolishness of man undermines his way. It will ruin whatever he undertakes. So that's what happens. Consequences of foolishness. Foolishness or foolish actions can disrupt your path, and they will, and lead to failure, not just in the one thing, but in other things that are going to be attached to it.

Tim Pecoraro [: 00:15:43

Because remember, if I. Okay, here's an example. If I cut my pinky, this pinky that I'm holding up on the camera, for those of you who are watching on video, if I cut my pinky, you don't just take the pinky to the doctor. You take all of me to the doctor. It all goes. So you have to remember that when you're making these things that you think are no big deal, they have fingers, they have paths and routes to connect to other things, and they will find their way creepily, yet eerily into your world and manifest. And you're trying to figure out what they are, but they are ready. A product of a vine from the same source or of a root from the same source.

Tim Pecoraro [: 00:16:25

You have to understand that foolish actions are going to disrupt your path and lead you to various failures in many areas. So it's important to cultivate wisdom so that you can avoid your own. You ready? Self sabotage. And if you go back to, again the proverb, it says, then his heart is resentful and he rages against the Lord or other people for why, being a fool, it's somebody else's fault. He blames the Lord instead of himself. Man, I've done that. I've blamed God. I blamed other people.

Tim Pecoraro [: 00:17:04

And that's why it's important to take responsibility. So when things go wrong due to one's own actions, it is crucial to take responsibility rather than blaming external forces. People, other things. It's your personal accountability is key to grow and improve. And so I'm wanting people to, myself included, to not ignore the fact that we have to slow down before we put ourselves in situations that you just realize, you don't realize how much you're destroying. I have been watching people try to get people fired from places like, I witnessed all these things, and I've watched people leverage information that's not true. In order to do it, I have. I mean, I'm sitting here and it is a shock.

Tim Pecoraro [: 00:17:58

I literally can see two people sitting in the same room. One is aware of the motive, one is not, and then there's a third person who's confused because that is not what they were told and what they were talking about. It is unbelievable what people will do to get ahead. And so what are real life examples of ways that people are, you know, in situations, different situations. And here's some examples. Okay, I'm just going to put some out here. What happens when they ignore this, when they ignore this principle? So here's an example. When they get impulsive with career decisions, when they just quit a job without any backup plan or accepting a job offer without considering its long term impact, people just take a job and they go, they come in and then they want to dump on you that, oh, I already had this thing planned and that thing planned, and then I had this thing planned and you're coming in already asking for vacation.

Tim Pecoraro [: 00:19:05

We have created a society where people come in and it's not what they can do that's of a value, it's what they can get. And so for me, as it comes to leading myself, I'm just going to go ahead and tell you so that you can. I just want you to think about long term stuff. It's not about what people can give you, it's what you're going to give in, put into it. I want to know, what do I need to contribute in order to be a part of that? And then the other thing with, here's an situation when you have impulsive actions and lack of knowledge, when you make career moves without sufficient research or understanding of the industry, it can result in a poor job satisfaction and limited growth opportunity. It can make you look as if maybe you misled the employer. I mean, there's so many ways that that can go. That's, that's just an example.

Tim Pecoraro [: 00:19:51

Financial decisions, impulsive purchasing, you know that. Buying items that are outside, you know, of what you can afford, getting yourself into debt, trying to keep up with other people, not realizing that money is a tool. And I mean, it's a big deal. Investment choices, investing without proper research or understanding. Someone says, hey, I mean, you see a lot going on, and I'm not telling anyone's industry what they should do or whatever, but you look at some of these things and people took chances with some of that cryptocurrency and all the things that happened. You know, people are mad at other people for a decision that they made because they say, but you told me it was your money. You put it in. I mean, it's, it's, it's.

Tim Pecoraro [: 00:20:35

Sometimes I don't understand it. Someone does something, and of course you trust people, but that's part of it. It's called risk. It's your job to mitigate it. Now, if they lost it and you have an action, you can come after them to try to get it back. I mean, then do that. Go after it, get your money back, if that's what you, you need to do. But if it comes down to you, just.

Tim Pecoraro [: 00:20:57

You gambled and you lost. That's why it's called gambling. And I'm not laughing at it. I'm just saying I've done it, too. I've given things to people that were extremely valuable to me, and they destroyed it, hurt it, took it. I mean, all kinds of stuff. Well, that's all me telling me, not on them. And then personal relationships, hasty reactions, responding to conflicts or disagreements, you know, impulsively.

Tim Pecoraro [: 00:21:27

It can damage stuff. When people do things and knee jerk reactions, people just start railing on people and trying to wreck people, and then there's no way out, and they don't know what to do. Well, it's already going now. What am I going to do now? So then they duck and run. I mean, it's, gosh, man. Gosh, we've got to stop that type of stuff. And then blaming others. I literally had someone tell me the reason that they were doing what they were doing is because.

Tim Pecoraro [: 00:21:53

Because, I mean, I can't even tell you. I mean, I don't even know the reason. I don't even. It's. It's basically, they didn't have an answer. It's. It's. It is.

Tim Pecoraro [: 00:22:04

It is unbelievable. That's all I can tell you with some of the things that people will say is the reason they do what they do. I remember being a kid one time, and I was in class, and I had a teacher. Her name was Miss Hopkins in Connecticut. And she is. She was awesome to me. I loved Miss Hopkins, but she was so hard on me because I was a bad kid. I was just not good.

Tim Pecoraro [: 00:22:25

And, I mean, I was good student. I did good stuff, but I was just bad. It was just bad. And I remember Miss Hopkins just. I mean, she. She would get on me about stuff. She would. She would challenge me with things.

Tim Pecoraro [: 00:22:37

And I remember one time she told me to stop talking. And I said to her, I said, well, Miss Hopkins, I'm not the only one talking. All the other folks are talking, too. And she said, right in front of everybody, she says, but I'm not talking about them. Of course, I went through, that's unfair and all these other things, but I was blaming other people. And the reason later on when she talked to me is because she wanted to challenge me because there was more to me. I've done that in sports as well. I've had parents mad because I'll challenge their child and they come home and their child might say, oh, I feel like he's on me more than he's on anyone else, and he's letting everyone else get away with it.

Tim Pecoraro [: 00:23:11

So instead of the parents trying to understand what I might be doing, instead they think it's favoritism. And that happens all the time. What are you going to do? You can't change people's minds. They're going to think what they're going to think, and that's where it's. You've got to know where your motives are so that you don't blame other people. And if they blame you, you know where you stand. And if you blame other people, it's going to strain the relationship and it's going to prevent you from growing. So those are just some examples.

Tim Pecoraro [: 00:23:40

Okay. But here's what I want you to do in order to avoid these situations. Okay? This is the best. I'm going to give you strategies. Here we go. First one is pause and reflect. Whenever you're in a situation, you've got to make a decision. You feel that pressure so you can avoid, you know, getting into folly and foolishness to where you blame other people.

Tim Pecoraro [: 00:24:00

Okay? Take a moment to breathe. Reflect before you make the decision, especially when feeling emotional or stressed. So this is going to help separate your emotions from the actions and lead to a more thoughtful decision. Now, I'm not telling you to get rid of the emotion. You're trying to do is separate them. You're going to feel it still, but you want the action to not be energized by that emotion. The second thing is you want to gather information. So in situations where I witness, where, you know, this is two things I've seen just recently, last week, two different instances where I was able to clearly see and hear about when people don't gather information properly and then they try to weaponize something, so you ensure you have all the necessary facts before you make a decision.

Tim Pecoraro [: 00:24:49

This involves researching, asking questions, considering different perspectives so that you can make informed choices. Now, it doesn't mean to go run around trying to get exactly your biases, because trust me, you're going to 100% find what you're looking for. That's why people who are negative and they go, I just. There's no positive people. Well, they're negative going in looking for them, so they're going to attract negative. It just happens. Sway it is, you will 100% find what you're looking for. It's so funny.

Tim Pecoraro [: 00:25:13

People say, well, how come I can't find someone to spend the rest of my life with, it's because you're still trying to find someone. If you're negative, that looks like that. And so that's why you can't find what you're looking for. Maybe you need new people, you need new world. Like, for me, when I'm trying to find answers, I tend to look at it and go, if I'm not finding the answers over here, I think I'm looking in the wrong spot. I need to look somewhere else so I don't get stuck in the rut of just looking the same spot. So gather your information. Second one, our third one, is seek input from others.

Tim Pecoraro [: 00:25:40

Discuss decisions with a trusted person. If not, I mean, they're a therapist. Get online. Ask a therapist. Ask a. Ask a business pro. Just ask somebody if it's a business question, if it's a life question. Like, you can do things where you can just get some input.

Tim Pecoraro [: 00:25:55

They can provide valuable insights and help you see things from a different angle. And it's going to reduce the likelihood that you do something impulsive. But you've got to be the one to pump the brakes. To get there, you got to pump the brakes. Okay. And then the fourth one is you want to set time limits. So while it's important not to rush decisions, you also need to set a reasonable deadline to prevent you from procrastinating. Okay.

Tim Pecoraro [: 00:26:20

And encourage timely decision making, because you don't want to just sit on something in perpetuity. And then the fifth one is you want to reflect on past decisions. So you want to say, when does this serve me well? Right. So if you know that you got caught in a lie, or if you know that someone tried to catch you in a lie, or if you know that, I mean, you've got to look at that. And I'm trying to get to something real heavy. I had a guy recently tell me he wants some help because he was in his first leadership position. He did a few things that he did not know were leader things he just did not know, and because of it, it didn't go well. So he is trying to make some changes.

Tim Pecoraro [: 00:26:59

I applaud that. So he's having to review past decisions to understand what worked and what didn't. And that reflection can help identify patterns, and also it's going to help you improve your future decision making. So I'm just at that spot where I want you to implement these strategies, and I want you to avoid negative consequences of impulsive actions. Impulsive answers, impulsive responses because of lack of knowledge that's ultimately going to lead you, you know, okay, I don't want you to be led in any other direction but forward. I want you to learn and to grow. I want you to not be your own fool in anyone else's as well. I want you to be the person who can say, I want.

Tim Pecoraro [: 00:27:57

I want more for my life. I believe more for my life. I value knowledge. I understand there are consequences to being impulsive. I do know that there's impacts of foolishness. And I don't want to be one to misplace any blame. You know, we all have the same opportunity to get better at this, to do it, to be world class people, to just be better at being human. So ask yourself questions.

Tim Pecoraro [: 00:28:32

Ask yourself about your impulsive mistakes. Ask yourself about consequences however you get there. Just don't be afraid to ask questions. And don't forget, write it down, because nothing listens better than a blank piece of paper. So until next time, we'll talk soon.