The Secret to Making Embodied Decisions – Everyday Fulfillment
No Vacation Required
What if the hardest part of making a decision isn't the choice itself, but the way you're trying to make it?
That’s where this week’s conversation begins.
This episode marks the end of our current four-pack focused entirely on personality. While personality will always be at the heart of everything we do here at No Vacation Required, we are getting ready to shift our focus in some exciting new directions. But before we do, we wanted to tackle one of the biggest places where people get stuck: decision making.
The challenge is that most of us try to make decisions using only our dominant personality traits. We get stuck in our heads, second-guess our instincts, or rely on a process that doesn't actually fit how we are wired.
But what if there was an optimal way to make choices that leveraged your entire personality stack? In this episode, we unpack what it means to make a "fully embodied decision." We explore why your natural decision-making flow might not match the optimal flow, and how you can use your unique personality to get out of your head and fully into your life.
Onward and Inward,
COMMON QUESTIONS ANSWERED IN THIS EPISODE
❓ What is a "fully embodied decision"? A fully embodied decision is a choice made by leveraging all parts of your personality stack, rather than just relying on your dominant traits.
❓ Why do I struggle so much with making decisions? Most people struggle because their natural, personality-driven way of making decisions does not match the optimal flow for effective choices. This creates friction and second-guessing.
❓ How can my personality help me make better choices? By understanding your personality stack, you can recognize your blind spots and consciously bring in your less-dominant traits to evaluate a situation more completely.
❓ What is the difference between positive psychology and toxic positivity? Positive psychology is about recognizing the reality of a difficult situation – including the pain and stress – but choosing to look for forward momentum and possibility anyway. Toxic positivity is the denial of negative realities altogether.
CHAPTERS
(00:00) Mind Share: Crypto, Time, and Being "Freedom Rich”
(02:56) The Final Chapter of YouFinder: Decision Making
(07:27) What is a "Fully Embodied Decision"?
(09:19) The Optimal Decision-Making Flow vs. Your Natural Flow
(11:01) Applying Your Personality to Make Better Choices
(14:31) Mailbag: Positive Psychology vs. Toxic Positivity
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LINKS AND RESOURCES
🔗 Everyone Is Lying To You For Money Trailer
TRANSCRIPT
Caanan (00:02)
After many podcasts of foundational work, we're ready to share how we unpack personality and bring it to life in YouFinder And ultimately, understanding personality matters because it can help us make better decisions if we know both our natural strengths and our blind spots. In this episode, we'll show how YouFinder turns personality insight into something practical you can actually use when making choices.
Caanan (00:30)
I'm excited to do this mind share because we watched a documentary the other night that was pretty great, but there was a moment in it that just spoke I mean it just cut right to the heart of what Kent and I are all about and what no vacation required is all about. So before I tell you what this documentary is, I just have to share this clip –
Caanan (00:57)
Or say what this guy said. He said, I bought in because I thought it was my only shot at getting more of my time back. Isn't that what we're all about? Getting more of your time back? Being what we call freedom rich.
Caanan (01:12)
Yeah.
Caanan (01:13)
Which is really the only rich that matters.
Kent (01:15)
That's the whole purpose of No Vacation Required building a life you don't need to break from.
Caanan (01:19)
Exactly. So anyway, the documentary is Everyone Is Lying to You for Money and it's about crypto. it's the guy from the OC, Ben McKinsey, and he's pulling back the curtain on the whole like crypto craze and the Ponzi scheme of it all. and so I just thought I thought that what that guy said was so powerful 'cause it really hit
Caanan (01:45)
Hard. And I think this documentary is definitely worth the time.
Kent (01:50)
That's why I I'm glad you brought this up because the documentary's really quite good, actually impressive. But I think what's what was really cool for both of us and we we talked about after is the tie into another thing that we're learning a lot of people do because they want the good life. You know, the good life.
Caanan (02:10)
Yeah.
Kent (02:11)
Yeah. Actually I'm walking right into a a whole episode. This is a whole episode. It's it's not a Kent.
Kent (02:18)
It's not a Kent if at least once in a four pack and this is the fourth episode in this four pack, I don't start to yammer on about mind share in a way that's a whole episode, but it's why we pick these things for mind share because there's heavy overlap with no vacation required.
Caanan (02:35)
Anyway, I'm gonna put a link to this in the notes. so go check it out. It really is worth the
Caanan (02:42)
time.
Kent (02:44)
If you are enjoying the podcast, we'd be so grateful if you hit subscribe and dropped a comment below. It really helps this little community of ours grow. Thank you.
Kent (02:56)
And here we are at the fourth episode, as I just
Kent (02:59)
said, in this four pack. And I'm thinking back to the last episode, the third episode, Canaan, where you were talking about how we built the chapter that we got into.
Kent (03:11)
Yeah.
Kent (03:12)
In that third episode. And it's a chapter about unlocking how your personality type gets stressed, how to deal with stress.
Kent (03:23)
You talked about how we went back to the beginning of us, the projects we did, the client projects we did, with both individuals and work groups, and we were paying attention to what people really needed. And this is how we realized, as we said in episode one of this four-pack, that we needed to do more and more work in personality because people just don't know themselves. But within that
Kent (03:51)
We learned, just like you said last week regarding stress, that people get stopped up around decision making. Yeah. So this is this is the fifth and final chapter of YouFinder. And just to recap, You Finder is our core product. We don't love talking about our products, but after many podcast listeners,
Kent (04:20)
wrote in specifically saying, wait, I know about the four letter personality type. I took it at my job or I took it free or whatever. How do you get what's all this insight? Where's all this coming from? Why have I never heard of the level of depth you two bring to personality and helping people know themselves? So we're talking in this four pack about who we are, what we've done,
Kent (04:48)
what our experience is, what our credentials are, and why we're making working with people on figuring out themselves our legacy work. Yeah, it's sort of funny that that you referenced... you referenced something like that, I think, in one of the other episodes a few weeks ago. And I was thinking...
Kent (05:13)
I said this in the last podcast, the last four-pack, and I really want to say this again. Our goal is to get you out of your head and into life. I've just read a book where they talked about another criticism of being too self-involved trying to learn too much about yourself and not living. With this work we do, we want to get you
Kent (05:40)
into your life fully. And I was thinking, yeah, there's a there's a place we go to pretty often to hang out. And just the other day a guy came up to us and said, God, I love seeing you two together and your energy and your vibe. I just love it. Keep doing it. And we were like, we were like, this is sort of weird. It's like this guy doesn't know us at all. But yeah, we don't, we're, we're not wandering around talking about personality all
Kent (06:10)
Personality is literally not our whole personality, but the work we do and and this thing we're passionate about and and the passion we bring to wanting to be better people and to be in the best relationship that we can be in. We just I guess we just have a a vibe and whatever. People people catch it at times and
Kent (06:36)
I believe it's because knowing ourselves, working on ourselves, just lets us live more comfortably. So I really wanted to say that as we launch into this final chapter, which is all about decision making, because again, as Caanan said regarding stress in our last episode, decision making gets people so
Kent (07:04)
So halted.
Kent (07:05)
Yeah.
Kent (07:05)
And so confused. They get in their minds. They can't make decisions. They don't know if they're making a good decision. they don't know if they can trust their decision making. So this is what we're gonna really unpack in the next segment.
Caanan (07:27)
You know how you hear the term fully embodied decisions? And I think
Kent (07:34)
I think I've said
Kent (07:34)
that term. Have you? Yeah, so I know how how I hear that term. Yeah. You've said it too, why are you being all yeah?
Caanan (07:41)
Yeah, but you know, like I I try to look at things from a broader perspective, how how it might sound to people. Yeah. And I think of the term a fully embodied decision and I think I know what it means, but I do think still, what the hell is that? What is a fully embodied decision? Something I'm super certain about? I don't know. But I have an answer.
Caanan (08:05)
If you've ever heard that and thought, what the hell is a fully embodied decision? It is a decision you're making, leveraging all the parts of your personality.
Kent (08:16)
Yeah.
Caanan (08:17)
And the beauty – I'm gonna pull a Kent and say, This is my favorite part, even though I said that last time.
Kent (08:26)
This is my favorite.
Caanan (08:28)
Yeah. This is my favorite part of YouFinder and there's a reason we did it last because I think it really is the most helpful given yeah how much people struggle with decision making.
Kent (08:43)
And when we conceived, just to co-sign what you just said, when we were conceiving this, building this product, this is this is the part I felt you putting the most heart and soul into. You wanted to really embrace this and make it as understandable as possible because there's kind of a weird little twist in this, and it's what makes...
Kent (09:09)
I'm gonna do it.
Kent (09:10)
I'm gonna do it.
Kent (09:11)
I'm gonna do it.
Kent (09:12)
It would it's what makes this study of personality so yummy.
Caanan (09:19)
so yummy. Yeah, this one is interesting. So decision making. The fifth chapter in YouFinder. We really want to leave people with information that they can then like put this report down. We've had the conversations, we've had the little back and forths, and they can just go out in the world and start putting this stuff to work. Because that's what matters to us, that you can use this information.
Caanan (09:45)
Decision making is very interesting because personality theory has shown that
Caanan (09:52)
That there is a specific flow for making decisions that is optimal, that is most effective. And maybe you even heard about it or seen it at work. Sometimes it's referred to as the Z model. it's not uncommon. It's out there. Yeah. but what's interesting about this is despite the fact that there is an optimal way to make decisions, none of us
Caanan (10:19)
make decisions naturally in this optimal way.
Caanan (10:23)
Yeah.
Caanan (10:23)
Right? We make decisions based on our personality stack and our dominant functions and what comes most natural to us.
Caanan (10:32)
So our natural hierarchy or flow for making decisions does not match the optimal flow for making decisions. Yeah. But that's okay. Yes. Cause what we learn is through personality study and understanding your personality that you can fit your personality into this optimal flow. Yeah. And make really embodied decisions.
Kent (11:01)
It
Kent (11:01)
reminds me of the thing about that I've talked about in I think the last four pack and the four pack before regarding, you know, thinking is not high – Critical thinking is not high in my personality stack, but I know that. Yeah. So I know that of course certain tasks call for quick
Kent (11:24)
Clear thinking. So I know that about myself so I can shift and know that I need to use that thinking trait in certain situations. And just having that knowledge
Kent (11:43)
helps you to, again, work with your personality so that you can optimize how you move through life. This isn't about changing your personality because of course different things are going to be aligned with different personality types and personality stacks. That's why those are the things we should be gravitating to in life. But there are times when you're gonna have to do things that are outside of your
Kent (12:12)
Direct type. So you just know that, and you're able to, because you have full command over your personality, take what you need from your personality and apply it to, as Caanan said, in this case, this preferred decision making style. And I don't even think we need to get into the specifics of it. I think it's just knowing that.
Caanan (12:36)
Yeah, I think it would be kind of confusing here, unless you fully understand your personality. I hope you do, but if you don't, it isn't really helpful.
Kent (12:50)
so decision making... sending people off with an ideal path for decision making, that then we collaborate with the client on helping them apply the facets of their personality to this kind of optimal decision
Kent (13:08)
making style. So
Kent (13:11)
That's it. That's that's the full five chapters of YouFinder And again, it's a multi-week process complete with interaction.
Kent (13:23)
Can say journey?
Kent (13:24)
Let's say journey.
Caanan (13:25)
It's a personality exploration journey.
Kent (13:27)
Yeah.
Kent (13:28)
With interaction and interaction done however you want it to be done, phone or or text or email or whatever, and at the pace that's comfortable for you. So you could read a lot more about this, of course, on on the website, under the services tab, and you can feel free to l check out our other podcast episodes or other four packs.
Kent (13:55)
And you can also email us any questions, even if it doesn't have anything to do with what we offer. If you've got a question, we'd love to hear from you, because it helps us to know what people care about and what they want to know as they figure out the life they're living and we hope, build a life that you don't need to break from.
Kent (14:20)
Caanan, did it cover it all?
Caanan (14:22)
You covered it all. That's it. Build a life you don't need a break from.
Kent (14:31)
Okay, so we got a another question from some of our early, I think, podcast episodes where we talk a lot about living, building a no vacation required life and everyday fulfillment. And we're big proponents of positive psychology, which is not at all toxic toxic positivity. positive psychology is just living in whatever reality it is...
Kent (14:58)
That is your reality, even if it's negative, even if it's stressful. Hopefully it's not. But how taking a positive approach to whatever situation you're in, is always the most productive. So, Caanan, I want to hear what you want to say about this. Cause this person who wrote in was like, I'm not really convinced, all this talk about
Kent (15:23)
Positive psychology, how is that not toxic positivity? I know you've got a lot of a lot of comments or a lot of thoughts about this because you you of the two of us have seen how positive psychology and footing forward positive psychology has made such a big impact on you. Yeah.
Caanan (15:46)
I I loved this question. I actually it was kind of I don't know, skepticism. Yeah. Let's say skepticism. Yeah. Because I'm naturally quite skeptical and I I hope that our general
Kent (16:03)
Contrarianism.
Caanan (16:04)
Contrarianism,
Caanan (16:05)
that's the right word, comes through in what we say on these podcasts. We're very positive guys. We are extremely optimistic. We have a wonderful life and we understand the benefit of being
Caanan (16:21)
Optimistic and positive and generative. But in no way does that mean that we don't understand the realities of the world. And so we try to communicate that, but I think sometimes maybe it slips through or people just don't understand our general positivity. So let me just make it clear positive psychology, something Kent and I align ourselves with, firmly align ourselves with, is really just recognizing the reality around you.
Caanan (16:50)
The reality of the world, the pain, the suffering, the frustration, the stress, the complications, all of it. Yeah. It is true, it is real, it is valid, it sucks. But looking at that and saying, how can I keep forward momentum? How can I be generative? How can I see possibility in what is a sometimes a very dark place?
Caanan (17:16)
And that's really it. That's really it. It's what we do. And if you don't naturally feel this way, we encourage you to look into positive psychology. Keep listening to our podcast. We'll talk more about it in the future. But this general optimism, despite the reality and in the face of the reality of the world, we think is a really powerful way to live your life.