Apollo Emeka

When people tell me they realize"I don't need to care what people think." Wow... It's one of the most rewarding phrases I hear in my work. The moment I stopped setting my life goals based on imaginary people who I thought were judging me... I became unstoppable. 🎙️ From my conversation on Leveraging Thought Leadership with Bill Sherman If this resonates, follow along for more on making big decisions.

Fear doesn't come from the worst-case scenario. It comes from refusing to look at it. Here's the mindset shift: instead of avoiding the worst case, I ask "what would make it even worse?" Sounds crazy. But it works. 🎙️ From my conversation on Surfacing Leaders Podcast If this resonates, follow along for more on making big decisions.

One powerful question can challenge every assumption in the room and shift the conversation toward a BIG DECISION. It goes like this: "Is there any reason we should NOT [insert BIG DECISION here]" Watch what happens when you ask it. 🎙️ From my conversation on Surfacing Leaders Podcast If this resonates, follow along for more on making big decisions.

At first, Kobe Bryant tried to do everything. Score. Facilitate. Defend every position. Be everything, everywhere, all at once. Then he made a BIG DECISION that he would become the most lethal scorer in the game. Period. That singular focus didn't limit him… It liberated him. Five championships. Eighteen All-Star games. Legend. Here's a secret that even high performers miss: The quality of your decisions matters way more than the quality of your actions. Sure, you can grind, hustle, and beast your way to a lot of accomplishments. But eventually you hit a ceiling, and no amount of doing will break through it. That ceiling is a decision problem, not an action problem. Most people keep trying to level up their actions when what they really need is to level up their decisions. They keep running faster on a path that doesn't lead anywhere worth going. Kobe didn't work harder. He decided better. That's what DECIDE BIG means. What decision are you avoiding by staying busy? If this resonates, follow along for more on making BIG DECISIONS.

You can take a ton of action, but if they’re the wrong actions, nothing will change. BUT… one BIG DECISION can change everything. Even some of the highest performers never figure this out. They think they can beast their way to success forever. But eventually, you hit a ceiling. And the only way through is to DECIDE BIG. If this resonates, follow along for more on making BIG DECISIONS.

The first step to making decisions from your heart? Acknowledging that you were trained not to from the time you were a kid. The bell rings. Time to line up! You're five years old. Your body wants to keep swinging on the monkey bars. Doesn't matter. Recess is over. Or maybe you didn't even want to go outside. You wanted to keep reading. Keep drawing. Keep learning about dinosaurs. Doesn't matter. Put the book down. Get outside. From age five, we are trained to get onto someone else's program. We learn to achieve success by someone else's standards. We learn to tune out what we actually want. And then we wonder why we can't hear our own voice when it's time to make a BIG DECISION. Toni Morrison talked about spending years writing the kind of books she thought she was supposed to write. It wasn't until she decided to write the books she actually wanted to read... books that centered Black experience without apology... that she found her voice. That decision led to Beloved. To the Nobel Prize. To a legacy that changed American literature. The first step to making decisions from your heart? Acknowledging that you were trained not to. What did you want to keep doing when that bell rang? If this resonates, follow along for more on making BIG DECISIONS.

You were trained to ignore your heart in kindergarten. Recess ends. You want to keep playing. Too bad. Line up. You want to stay inside and read? Too bad. Go outside. We've been trained since age five to follow someone else's program. If this resonates, follow along for more on making BIG DECISIONS.

Gary Klein's research on premortems found something wild. When teams imagine a project has failed and work backward to figure out why, they identify about 30% more potential problems than teams who just brainstorm risks. "What could go wrong?" isn't a fear question. It's a clarity question. Most people avoid it because it feels scary. But here's the thing... the fear is already there. You're just not naming it. When you actually look at what could go wrong, one of two things happens. Either you find deal breakers (and save yourself from a bad decision), or you don't (and now you can move forward with the confidence that you'll just have normal speedbumps along the way). That's how I make BIG DECISIONS. I look for reasons to say no. When I can't find any real ones... I go. What decision are you avoiding because you haven't asked what could actually go wrong? 🎙️ From my conversation on Leveraging Thought Leadership with Bill Sherman If this resonates, follow along for more on making big decisions. *Research: Klein, G. (2007). Performing a project premortem. Harvard Business Review, 85(9), 18-19. Original finding from Mitchell, D.J., Russo, J.E., & Pennington, N. (1989). Back to the future: Temporal perspective in the explanation of events. Journal of Behavioral Decision Making.*

"What could go wrong?" Most people hate that question. I love it! It doesn't produce anxiety for me. It produces clarity. Especially when you want to make big moves. 🎙️ From my conversation on Leveraging Thought Leadership with Bill Sherman If this resonates, follow along for more on making big decisions.

"Hey Apollo! Are you gonna stick with the Greek tradition when you name your kids?" Sigh… It’s not Greek! People kept asking us when my wife was our son. I got tired of explaining, “It’s not a Greek… it’s Black!” I was named after Apollo CREED! Our tradition is Black 80s action heroes. So we sstuck with THAT tradition. Axel. Like Axel Foley from Beverly Hills Cop. I see this all the time with BIG DECISIONS. People follow paths that were laid out for them. Career moves that make sense on paper. Life choices that fit what other people expect. Toni Morrison once said she stopped reading reviews because they were telling her what kind of writer she should be. She decided to be the writer she wanted to be instead. That's what's up. When you DECIDE BIG, you get to choose which traditions to honor and which ones to make your own. You don't have to follow anyone else's playbook. What tradition are you following that was never yours to begin with? 🎙️ From my conversation on Surfacing Leaders Podcast If this resonates, follow along for more on making big decisions.

My son has a “traditional name” based on my name, but it’s not the tradition you’d think! They kept asking about the "Greek tradition." I got tired of explaining... that's not our tradition. I was named after Apollo CREED. Our tradition is Black 80s action heroes. Axel. Like Axel Foley from Beverly Hills Cop. 🎙️ From my conversation on Surfacing Leaders Podcast If this resonates, follow along for more on making big decisions.

My time in the FBI taught me the hidden power of asking this rhetorical question for real: “What’s the worst that could happen?” But here's how most people make decisions. They think about every single thing that could go wrong. They spiral. They stall. They stay stuck. Here's a better way. Go straight to the worst case. Not the annoying stuff. The absolute worst. Then ask three questions. 1. Is it actually that bad? 2. Is it actually that likely? 3. And what can I do to avoid or mitigate it? Gary Klein, a researcher who studies how experts make high-stakes decisions, developed a technique called the "premortem." Before you commit, you imagine the decision already failed. Then you figure out why. His research found that this simple exercise increases people's ability to identify reasons for future outcomes by 30%. That's the power of facing the worst case head-on. You stop fearing the unknown. You start planning for the known. When I made the BIG DECISION to move my family to Panama in 30 days, I didn't list every possible problem. I asked: what's the worst that happens? We don't like it and we come back. Not that bad. Not that likely. And super reversible. That clarity made the decision easy. What decision are you avoiding because you haven't faced the worst case yet? If this resonates, follow along for more on making BIG DECISIONS. Research: Klein, G. (2007). Performing a Project Premortem. Harvard Business Review, 85(9), 18-19.