You Can Win By Making Bad Decisions

I’m a bit of a bastard for always looking upstream when trying to figure something out, improve a skill or do any sort of learning

For some reason my brain can’t just go ‘here’s the thing, do the thing’

It has to look at all the stuff above

I’m interested in AI, so I’ve spent some time learning about machine learning (yes, I am fun at parties - why?)

I’m interested in being more productive, so I enjoy reading about the neuroscience of how the brain works and interacts with how we go about tasks in the modern world

I obviously run businesses and find them really interesting - which means that I look at one of the key factors for building a business

Decision making

Decision making for me is one of those things that people don’t really study, learn about or consider - which is wild because basically everything we do is a consequence of our decisions

For example - it’s surprising that so many people will weigh the strength of a decision on whether the outcome they get is the one they wanted

This is a slippery slope.

People think that life is like chess - that they make certain moves, other people make other moves - and someone wins. But in chess, you see all of the pieces and have complete information

Business decisions are more like poker - Annie Duke says poker hands give 20 decisions in 2 minutes, and then you have concrete win / lose feedback

But that signal is weak - you win lucky hands and lose unlucky ones - so you don’t learn much from the outcome about how your decision making was

For coaches - it’s the same for business - someone might sign up despite what you’ve done, your launch might flop despite a ton of right decisions.

It’s important that we are a) conscious of decisions we make and b) have a way of assessing them that isn’t based on the outcome (or at least, solely based on the outcome)

In the past month I’ve started keeping note of my decisions, and then I can go back and look at my process, emotional state and all the other factors that make up how I choose the path I take - so that I can improve it over time

If you want to improve how you think, act and show up - it can help to be more intentional with it