Ask It for Organizational Leaders—From the Vault

Andy Stanley Leadership Podcast

Andy Stanley

Business

4.6 • 2.2K Ratings

🗓️ 18 August 2025

⏱️ 23 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Our biggest regrets often start with unwise, not necessarily immoral, decisions. In this episode from 2014, Andy Stanley introduces a deceptively simple question that can revolutionize decision-making. You'll learn 3 angles for applying it to your life and leadership so you can avoid costly missteps and move toward your personal and professional goals.

Recognized as one of Forbes' 6 Leadership Podcasts To Listen To In 2024 and one of the Best Leadership Podcasts To Stay in the Know for CEOs, according to Industry Leader Magazine.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome to the Andy Stanley Leadership Podcast, a conversation designed to help leaders go further faster.
0:08.6	On today's podcast, we'll explore a question that can revolutionize how you make decisions.
0:14.3	Andy, today's podcast is a little different than usual because our topic has application in personal leadership and organizational leadership.
0:22.3	Yeah, you're right. I think a lot of the things that we talk about land both with personal
0:26.0	application and professional application. But today's in particular, it really does.
0:29.8	Well, I really am excited about today's content because it comes from a great book you've written
0:33.9	called Ask It. And what I love is the subtitle is the question that will
0:38.2	revolutionize how you make decisions. Well, we're going to get to the question in just a minute.
0:43.0	But first, where did the idea of the book come from?
0:45.6	Actually, this is something that I've been talking about really for 30-something years. When I first
0:50.3	began speaking publicly, this was a topic for me that really, again, boiled down to a simple
0:56.0	question. I've taught my children to ask this question. I've asked this question all my life. And every
1:00.9	time I teach this material, or every time I share this question, people come up and say, wow, I wish I had
1:07.4	heard that years ago, which is their subtle way of saying, if I'd heard that years
1:12.5	ago and ask that question, I would have a lot fewer regrets in my life. And this is one of those
1:17.1	big, broad questions that applies to every area of life that really will reduce regret. I'm absolutely
1:23.0	convinced of that. Well, you make the point in the book that a lot of the regret is associated with a lot of planning.
1:30.2	Yeah, that's true. And what's so strange, Lane, is there are a lot of bad decisions that actually
1:34.9	require a lot of planning and time. I mean, all of us can think of bad decisions we made in the
1:39.8	moment or bad decisions we made because of temptation or because we had too much to drink or because we were with the wrong person.
1:45.5	But there are some big bad decisions people make that require, as you said, a lot of time and a lot of planning.
1:51.6	In fact, the meeting I was in right before this one, I was meeting with a couple, and this won't be an unfamiliar scenario for some of our listeners.
	...

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