How do you personally differentiate between what you want most and what you want now?

🤔 Our Discussion 🤔

In episode 57, we discuss the conflict between our immediate desires and our long-term aspirations, especially as we look back at the year and plan for the future. I explore how our decisions impact not just ourselves but those around us, emphasizing that our lives are ultimately shaped by these choices.

Together, we will highlight the necessity of ensuring our actions reflect our core values and the shared visions with our loved ones, pointing out the dangers of short-term rewards versus the benefits of long-term fulfillment. By clearly defining what's most important and actively shaping this vision together, we prevent external influences from directing our course. Our discussion will cover the roles of collaboration and co-creation in leadership, promoting a responsive approach to setting personal and collective goals that accommodates change through ongoing conversations, ensuring that our collective goals adapt and grow with us.

★ Key Topics ★

06:11 Choose language wisely; align decisions with goals.

07:37 Choose quality over quantity in daily decisions.

12:40 Fear is imagined; boldness and task real.

15:54 Open communication, collaboration, and phenomenology are essential.

18:48 Choices affect shared vision; explore and evolve.

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👋 Find Perry Maughmer 👋

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/perrymaughmer

Subscribe: https://perrymaughmer.com/podcast

Contact: https://perrymaughmer.com/contact

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Perry Maughmer believes the world deserves better leadership; that in every human interaction there is the opportunity to either build others up or tear them down; and that leadership is the choice we make in those moments.

These beliefs led Perry to create the Potential Leader Lab. He wanted to offer those who share his beliefs the space and safety to explore transformative ideas, experiment with new behaviors, and evolve into the leaders they were meant to be and that the world needs.

This is a framework he has used again and again with his Vistage peer advisory groups and companies like Turn-Key Tunneling, Convergint, Haughn &  Associates, I Am Boundless, Ketchum & Walton, LSP Technologies, and Ahlum & Arbor.

Perry lives and works on the shores of Buckeye Lake in Ohio, in the mountains of northwest Georgia, and on the beach in Anna Maria, Florida with his amazingly creative wife Lisa. They have 2 rescue dogs and are intermittently visited by their 3 wonderful children throughout the year. Perry & Lisa are living life in crescendo and focused on exploring, experimenting, and evolving their vision of a life they have no desire to retire from.

Copyright 2025 Perry Maughmer

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#leadershipdevelopment #personalgrowth #existentialism #leadershippodcast #podcast #leadershipdynamics #leadership #leadershipcoaching #leadershipskills #leadershiptips #leadershipinspiration

Welcome to the Potential Leader Lab, and I'm your host, Perry Maughmer. And today on episode 57, we are gonna be discussing leading beyond now, the decisions that shape tomorrow. So here we go. How often do you trade what you want most or what you want now? I have touched on this, tangentially several times in past podcast, and I find myself, I guess it was because we're towards the end of the year talking with lots of folks about, you know, what they wanna do next year in in the coming years. And this decision tree of, what I've come up with is what I want most versus what I want now. And and then also connected to that is the fact that do we realize that the choices we're making don't just impact us, but it impacts those that we care deeply about. And and again, my definition of leadership is we create a better world for those that we care deeply about. And I think that this we have, we have a ripple effect.

You know, decisions that we make ripple outward affecting family, friends, colleagues, all the people that are in our lives. So we're so interconnected. Sometimes we lose sight that even though we might not think so, the things that we do don't just impact us, they impact others. And and I wanna be clear that I the the concept that we don't we don't walk this path alone. Even though we might be taking actions that we think only impact us, eventually, they're going to impact other people. And we end up in a in a situation where I think our mindset should be in its refreshing and enlightening and, freeing if we co create a shared reality with those we care deeply about. And I'm gonna touch on in a little bit, I'll talk about the difference between collaborating and co creating. But I think I want you just to consider the next statement kinda deeply.

I'll let it sit for a second. The our lives are the sum total of our decisions. So wherever we are right now in our life, it is the sum total of our past decisions that have driven our behaviors that resulted in actions. And so, in that concept, when we follow it through is, if we wanna if we want a different, not better, not worse, but a different future, then we have to make different decisions now that will lead to that different future later. Now, I think what I want most, if I use that statement, what I want most is a reflection of deep intrinsic values, and it's shaped in the cocreation with the people that I care about. Whereas, in comparison, what I want now is really that pull of immediate gratification, and it's often pretty self focused and shortsighted. It's just about what what is going to satisfy me now. And the allure of what I want now often leads to decisions that undermine my shared goals and relationships with other people.

Right? And and I'm always I think that, you know, nature hates a vacuum. And so step 1 in this process is just clearly defining for yourself what matters most. And you're gonna co create and collaborate with people that you care very deeply about to to have a shared vision of what that means. Right? Be because if we don't, nature hates a vacuum and it will do it for you. So if we don't have that clearly defined, if that if that, if that vision isn't clear in our heads, we will default to whatever society is telling us. We'll default to listening to the what I'll refer to as the noise from the outside. And when you choose what you want now over what you want most, you're not just selling out yourself, you're selling out those close to you. You're taking the easy route.

And, also, the last thing just as we get started, some of the fear sometimes is the finality around what I want most. We think we get, like, one shot

at it. It. That's not true. It evolves over time. So I can tell you

this from my own personal standpoint from working with clients over the years. Some of them, you know, 10 years I've been working with some folks. What they want most has evolved as their lives evolve. So it's very important to understand that, I guess, you could combine the 2 a little bit if you wanna get kinda cheeky about it and say, this is what I want most now. You know? And I think that's that's realistic because it is. We're we're making it in the current moment, but we're saying it's what I want most. But when you have a different stage of your life, you know, quite you know, everybody can probably understand this or or most people, when things change dramatically in your life, you know, what you wanted most in your twenties or thirties or forties might not be what you want most in your fifties or sixties, and there's nothing absolutely nothing wrong with that. It makes perfect sense because my reality has changed.

My shared version of reality and the shared version of my future with those I care deeply about has changed. So the what I want most reflects that. So there's always an opportunity to evolve it. The the our explore, experiment, evolve framework works very nicely here because it's nothing's ever really permanent. So, I think the first question, kind of a key reflection question here is, who is part of what I want most? So we gotta have the who and the what. Who is part of what I want most? And then secondly, how do my decisions honor or dishonor that shared vision? Now, very specifically, I put some words in here that are gonna make people a little bit cringey. How how do

my decisions honor or dishonor? That

changes things. Because it's one thing not to do what I said I'm gonna do. It's another thing to say I dishonored a shared vision. And I think this goes to I'm very fond of David White, who was an Irish poet and essayist. And he is he is known for this, for this thought about using bigger language. And he actually what he means by that is he has this philosophy of using language that that is expansive and rich enough to capture the complexities

of the human experience. And I think that's meaningful.

I think that for ourselves, we need to choose our language very carefully because language carries with it emotion. And that's really important. And we tend to use we tend to, just be, how do I say this, lazy or cheap with our language? We just we just say we we see we keep it simple, which a lot of times there's nothing wrong with, but sometimes using different language drives a different result. So the second part of this is we have the, the ripple effect because I believe that what I want most versus what I want now, I may make, you know, 10, 20, 30, 40 decisions a day. And what I think if you think about these two things, what I want most, and if you if you put that out there as the thing you're striving towards, every decision you make or not everyone, but there's a there's a number of decisions you might make every day that either gonna get you closer or further away from that. So that's the that's the mindset to have is, is this decision that I'm making right now moving me closer to what I want most or further away from what I want most? Now, the kicker is, as long as you're intentional and you own that decision, there's no bad decision. Right? The the key is that you're you're cognizant of the impact of the decision. Are you honoring your shared vision of reality and your shared vision of the future with those people that you care deeply about? That's all you have to own.

Sometimes we're gonna make decisions that maybe don't get us closer to where we want what we want most. That's okay, as long as we understand that we can make a different decision tomorrow. And I really do think this there are some examples, like, I gotta be honest. This is not this is about quality, not quantity. Right? So, this is about choosing to invest in a meaningful conversation with your partner versus zoning out in front of the TV. These are small things. Right? Deciding to show up fully for your child's game instead of scrolling through your emails while you're at while you're at the game or the or the or if maybe, at a Christmas party or a presentation or a concert that your child has. So we're not about this isn't about quantity and how how many times you do it.

It's about the quality of when you choose to do it, and it's prioritizing maybe your friend's personal growth over convenience. And

this and again, I wanna just quickly explore, experiment, evolve. Right? The this dovetails very nicely because exploration requires ongoing curiosity and reflection, and experimentation means I'm I'm I'm gonna do x and believe I get y, which is almost everything we do in life. And then the key to this, and I've been thinking a lot about this, our evolution it's funny if you if you take explore, experiment, evolve, and you figure out which ones you're in charge of, you're not really in charge of the evolution. And what I mean by that is, it's really a perception issue. You can think that you're evolving, but what really matters is do those close to you believe it? Do those do those close to you see it? So, in some ways, we're we're very much in charge of how much we explore and

how much we experiment. We're really basing our evolutionary gains on feedback because that's what matters. That's what moves the needle. And so, your decisions contribute to the story you're writing,

and you're not just writing it for yourself. You're writing it for, all those close to you. And then all those decisions will evolve as you continue to learn

and grow. And we have to

understand that small decisions and and what I call micro decisions have a cumulative impact. I mean, if you think about something as simple as I'm gonna read 10 minutes a day. Well, if I read 10 minutes a day and I build and I and I do that for 30 days, that's 300 minutes of reading. Now I'm not reading I'm not reading a book a week. That that that's not the point. The point is to do something that's scalable and sustainable. Small things add up over time, and it's a compounding effect that's rooted in consistency. It's showing up and doing those small positive decisions that help you build momentum.

And then, conversely, negative little micro decisions compound and move in the opposite direction. It doesn't take long to get off base. I mean, just think about this. If you're trying to be healthy, you know, eating 1 candy bar a day doesn't seem like a big deal. Eating 1 candy bar a day for 30 days, that could be a bigger deal. And, also, these small micro decisions build self efficacy. They show us. Right? They they increase our confidence in our own capacity to overcome challenges and make meaningful strides towards what we value most, these small wins.

You hear a lot about it. You hear a lot about small wins, and you gotta have patience, and you gotta see things through. Right? You're not gonna see a change immediately. You're not gonna leaps and bounds towards the thing you want most. Right? It's it's showing up every day and doing the work. Now, let's touch on collaboration and co creation. They're they're both important but they're slightly different. Right? So, co creation is really about going deep and involving people in the process of shaping the vision, the goals, and the outcomes.

It's not just about working together, but about creating something new and meaningful collectively, where everybody contributes to the final result in kind of a integrated and emergent way. Versus collaboration is really task oriented, and it's more focused on combining efforts efficiently. You need both, but you wanna start with cocreation, and then you can collaborate. Now here's the thing. Collaboration often aligns with execution, and and the co creation piece is more about innovation and shared ownership of the entire process.

Now here's the thing. In order to do that, we have to give up

a little control. So for some people, that's gonna be an issue. For people like me, I don't like to give up. I like to be in charge. Not as much in control, but I do like to be in charge. And so I am not, by nature, a very good collaborator. It's it's not instinctual for me at all to collaborate. If I if I have a problem, I solve it.

And and the and I'll work through it, and I'll think about it, and I'll commit to it. But I often don't I often don't involve other people because there's a fear. Right? A lot of what we don't a lot of what we avoid is fear because we're I have

a fear of of giving up authority. I don't like it.

I don't like to do that. Now, just real briefly, fear is arises from the threat of harm, either physical, emotional, or psychological, and that's real or imagined. So, again, most of our fear can be something imagined. It isn't necessarily real, and I want to share with you to Carl Jung had 2 really great quotes about fear. One is, only boldness can deliver from fear, and if the risk is not taken, the meaning of life is somehow violated, and the whole future is condemned to hopeless staleness. And the second one, which I really love, is where your fear is, there is your task. So whenever you feel yourself getting scared, lean in. That's where the work is.

And you have to be willing, again, to co create and collaborate, and that means releasing ultimately control and and being in charge and inviting other people in. But that's growth, and it's also it creates buy in, collective buy in because we are greater than me in every way, shape, or form, and I know that it's easy to say and hard

to do. I can I can attest to that? I sit here

and I'm again, when when we're going through these things, oftentimes I talk about stuff that I need to hear. And, and I'm working on this, but I'm still not good because I do view, funny as it sounds, co creation and collaboration are a threat to my own autonomy and some level of efficiency because it does take longer. It's much better product normally, but

it does take longer. So,

now we're gonna talk about, you know, some several steps. Right? So, you know, you wanna you wanna clarify the shared vision and ask ask everybody, what do we wanna build together? And then what values and long term goals bind us today? And how might these change over time? And acknowledge that this process is an exploration that needs to be revisited periodically as with everything else, because relationships, circumstances, and priorities can shift. And then we're going to experiment together. We're gonna encourage trying new approaches to decision making and co creation. We're gonna keep testing out new things and and accept the the fact that not all experiments will succeed, but each one offers value because of the feedback. I'm not trying to figure out the right way. I'm just trying a way, and then I'm gonna get feedback, and I'm gonna process that feedback and move forward and continually

iterate. And then finally, we're gonna evolve through open communication.

We gotta have the courage to admit and talk about when our priorities have changed or direction has changed. We have to we have to be able to communicate when we don't feel the same way we used to feel. And we need to talk about the value of flexibility. You know, what we thought was our most, you know, when we say what we wanted most a year ago may not may no longer serve us, and that's okay. It's perfectly okay. As long as you're talking about it and and reagreeing on it, and then go that's the cocreation. We have to have that open line of communication. I mean, we all exist in an ecosystem, and all of our actions impact everything else.

And so, open communication and co creation and collaboration are central to this of figuring out what we want most. Now, also, this a lifelong process and it's and it's heavily phenomenological. And I you probably, you know, we've talked about this a little bit before. And the reason it that it is that we need to have kind of a a phenomenological mindset is because we have to be fully present, suspend judgment, and seek to grasp the very essence of the other person's viewpoint, which is essential for fostering mutual understanding and shared purpose. But their experience and that is phenomenology at its at its core, which is the lived experience of other people and ourselves. That's all that's the only thing we got. So my lived experience is gonna be different than somebody else's. And if I'm gonna cocreate something with them, I have to listen to what they're telling me.

I have to suspend judgment and and grasp the very essence of their experience because that's important. I can't just see it through my frame. And if I focus on the subjective experiences of everybody involved, it helps build trust through deepened relationships and connections, and that helps create a shared reality, making the very collaboration more authentic and inclusive and impactful because we're all heard. Right? We can all do the exact same thing and have a very different experience. I've touched on this a couple times before, but it's really, really, really important to understand that. That just because we're in the same car driving through the same city doesn't mean we're having the same experience. The example I gave you was, I'm driving through Bexley here in Columbus. Well, my wife grew up in Bexley.

She graduated from Bexley High School. I did not. When we drive through Bexley, we're both in a car, the same music can be playing, we're looking at the exact same thing, her experience is very different than mine. That's phenomenology at its core, Is it is understanding that her her experience in that moment is different than mine and embracing that difference. So I'm just gonna reiterate the central idea here. What we were talking about is what you want most is never a solo endeavor. It's and it's also never finished product. Every choice you make either builds or erodes the shared vision with the people who matter most, and that vision will evolve in time as as you guys evolve, as the people evolve, because it's a product of the people that are involved.

So that vision will evolve as you grow together. You have

to grow together. You have

to grow individually and back together. Individually and back together. Individually and back together. Because we don't we don't grow as a unit, we grow as

a as an individual. So who are you co creating your life with? How can

your choices today honor that shared vision or dishonor it if you go the other direction while staying open to its evolution? And then, just remember, the life you want isn't just yours, it's ours. And every decision you make moves us closer or farther away from what we want most. The beauty is this process is never done, and every day is a new chance to explore, experiment, and evolve. So I would say the first thing to do would be have a conversation with people that you care deeply about. Do some experiment. Do some experiments in conversations. Just test it out. It's not gonna work perfectly, but ask ask the question, what do we want most? And is has that changed? Because maybe you had the conversation a couple years ago, maybe it's different now.

And then how do we move closer together? How do we grow back together? How do we

grow back to this shared vision of the future? And talk about it often. Share it with people. Share it with those close to you. And just remember, life is

a journey of co creation and growth.

So I would be ecstatic if you would start exploring yours today.