There Are Two Vital Questions to Ask When Making an Important Decision

**Matthew Gottesman** (0:02)
Welcome to The Niche Is You. My name is Matt Gottesman, at Matt Gottesman on Instagram, and this is my daily podcast where I create short, quick hitting episodes to help you uncomplicate life, creativity, and the pursuit of your highest self. There's only main character energy here. Now let's get into it.
Welcome to episode 818 There are two questions you can ask when you're making a decision. Two questions you can ask when you're making a decision. I'm not going to get into them right away. I instead want to talk about Jalen Brunson, MVP champion of the New York Knicks, and why this came up. And you know, it's funny, originally this title of this podcast was going to be Provision Follows Position. The best decisions are measured by what they position you for. So I will give you a hint as to questions right there. It's like the best decisions are measured by what they position you for.
Why do I bring this up? Because most people make a decision based on what do they get now.
And you're probably nodding, you probably think about the time that you did that, right? It didn't happen. So what am I getting right now? Jalen Brunson, I'm going to give you just a quick little recap. You know, I made sure to just kind of double check it through some Google search and whatnot, just to make sure I got it right. But he basically left 113 million on the table by signing a four year, $156 million deal in May 2024 Instead of waiting for a five year, $269 million extension. So let me recap that real quick. Took less money instead of waiting for a five year deal with an extension for 113 more million dollars, right? So he took 113 million less.
Now, some people looked at that as wow, like, okay, first, you know, you're signed in 2022
I think that was the first year he was signed. And everybody said, like, he was, he was number 33 in the draft. Everybody thought, like, already he wasn't even worth it. And they, I mean, they really gave him, they gave, and it's all over the, it shows all the past, all the things that people said about him in 2022 Fast forward to 2024, takes a deal and actually takes less money, right? Already you understand, you know, where this is possibly going. It says that gave the Knicks the cap space to acquire Michael Bridges, his Villanova teammate and Carl Anthony Townes. And also there's another, I know, I believe another one that they acquired as well too. They just won their first championship in 53 years and Brunson was named finals MVP. The head coach Mike Brown said Brunson set the standard. He's also a guy who was doubted from the start, drafted number 33 in the second round, originally with the Mavs, then signed by the Knicks for 104 million when many said he wasn't worth it.
There's a lot in here.
He was constantly said, told you're not worth it, you're not worth the money, you're not this, you're not all these things. And he was quiet. He didn't do anything other than go in and do the work. And when he was asked and interviewed, you know, what do you want to tell all the people who doubted you now? And he's like, it really wasn't about them. It was about my purpose and my mission and my own work. So even after he made it, the standard is still shining through the way he was raised, the way he was taught to think like about the situation and work through it was shining through.
Why do I bring up the decision he made is because he was playing for the future, not a present state of what can I get? Give me all of this. He actually made sacrifices in the money so the team could acquire the other tools to make happen what he wanted to make happen for future as a team winning together.
And I know some of you like when you hear the numbers, it's like, oh, well, you know, still this much money. Yes, but most people would have taken all the money. He actually chose less and chose to make sure that other people were taking care of with that money. So I think it's important to pay attention to that. And here for me, I want to talk about this, the Jalen Brunson lesson here is why alignment will outperform optimization every single time. Optimization is how do I get the most out of this right now for me right now without thinking about the future. In this episode, I want to talk about why most people only ask one question when making decisions and it's the wrong one, which is what do I get now? What about me now? And I understand, especially if, depending on what circumstances you've been in, I get it. I totally get it.