« Ten Percent Happier with Dan Harris

How to Make Good Decisions | Shane Parrish

2023-10-16 | 🔗

Here's what might be preventing you from making better decisions and how to know what's even worth wanting.

Shane Parrish is the entrepreneur and wisdom seeker behind Farnam Street and the host of The Knowledge Project Podcast. He is the author of the New York Times bestseller Clear Thinking: Turning Ordinary Moments into Extraordinary Results.

In this episode we talk about:

  • How to position yourself to make better decisions
  • Shane’s decision making process
  • The difference between decisions and choices

Full Shownotes:https://www.tenpercent.com/tph/podcast-episode/shane-parrish

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This is an unofficial transcript meant for reference. Accuracy is not guaranteed.
This is the ten percent happier pack casts doubt Harris hello, my fellow suffering beings, how we do- and I suspect the following is true for all of us, but I personally cannot count the amount of times I have made dumb decisions, because I have not been thinking clearly today we ve got an ex spy turned blogger, who has spent many many many years. Thinking about how to think clearly and very specifically thinking about what stops us from thinking. Clearly his name and shame paris. She runs a very popular cycled forum street, which sends out a highly subscribe newsletter he's also the host of the knowledge project. Podcast end
he's, got a book called clear thinking, turning ordinary moments into extraordinary results, and this conversation we talk about how to position yourself and how to weaker environment in order to make better decisions, chains, method of creating rules or safeguards to position himself for better decisions. His decision making process the difference between decisions and choices and a key part of decision making often overlooked how to know what is actually worth wanting in the first place, If you've listened to, this show for any length of time, you're familiar with Sharon Salzberg, she played a crucial role in bringing mindfulness to america, not to mention she's, one of my earliest and most trusted teachers she's a great friend, and she even got me to try. Perhaps the goriest form of meditation, loving
kindness, which has had a huge impact on my life. So when I help create the ten percent happier app, I knew we had to bring. Iran is one of the founding teachers and celebration of sharon's latest book. Fine, Your way, we ve made her excellent course on loving kindness free over on the ten percent happier app until october. Twenty third is called ten percent nicer download the ten percent happier apt today, wherever you get your apps and learn directly from sharing for free. Maybe you don't have as much time for reading as you'd, like I'm here to suggest audible. They offer an incredible selection that, across every genre, from best sellers and you releases to celebrity memoirs mysteries in thrillers motive. asian wellness, business and more? The app makes it easy to listen anytime anywhere, while travelling commuting working out can the dog doing chores around the house, I'm currently listening to how we live
is how we die by permit children whose bene guest on the ten percent happier pod cast new members, can try audible, free for thirty days, visit, audible, dot com, slash ten percent or text ten percent to five hundred five hundred, that's audible, dot com, slash ten percent or text ten percent to five hundred five hundred to try audible, free for thirty days, audible, dot, com, slash ten percent life insurance is one of those things that you go. You should have, especially if you ve, got left ones who depend on you, but it can be extremely confusing to figure out all the details, also maybe a little poor. Luckily, policy genius makes finding the right policy simple. Even you ve, already got a life insurance policy to work. It may not offer enough coverage for the needs of your family and it may not follow you. If you leave your job with policy genius, you can find life insurance policies.
start at just two hundred and ninety two dollars a year for a million dollars of coverage, some options offer same day. Approval. and avoid unnecessary medical exams. Policy genius has licensed award winning agents who can help you find the best fit for your needs and they have thousands of five star reviews on google and trust pilot. Your loved ones deserve a financial safety net. You deserve a smarter way to find it and buy it head to policy genius dot com to get your free life insurance quotes and see how much you could save that's policy genius, dot com, shane parrish, welcome to the show, thanks for him, it's a pleasure. I'd love to talk before we dive into your new book. I'd love to talk a little bit about your background is, as I understand it, you're a spy tour
Blogger how'd it? How did that career leap get made? Well, just to be clear, I never called myself ass by the new york times got me a spy. I started working at an intelligence agency two weeks before september, eleventh and, as we know, a lot of things changed on that day and we sort of get thrust in you all these roles and responsibilities that we are really prepared for it are really young age, and I got put into these positions: for I making a lot of decisions, but nobody really taught me how to how to think how to make decisions had gone to school for computer science? And now you know you're making decisions that affect your team? Your organization, your government, your country, other countries, troops and the and I really wanted to learn. How do I make better decisions and who makes the best decisions in the real world? I went back a sort of didn't mba. I followed her people.
Round the organization trying to figure out who consistently makes better decisions and I studied sort of late agents of the the real world, the people who consistently put themselves in a position where their outcomes better than average or better than expected, trying to figure out what they do differently? and how I can use that to improve the work that we were doing at intelligence agency. So I started this blog online and to put things in it, speculative. We weren't allowed a public profile. I did not exist. If you, Google, me, there's no facebook page, nothing knowing Dan anything. This is around two thousand and eight and I started this journal online and the journal was really my reflections about what I was learning and I never intended for anybody else who was intended for me and the sort of u r l for this was like. I think it was like twelve digits re like it was just these random.
sort of numbers to everybody else. They weren't random to me, but the whole point was that, if one a password protected, I just wanted to build a pull it up and see it sort of enter information as of his coming across it really acting on it and then all of a sudden it started to get some traction still don't quite know how but for I knew I was sort of being passed around wall street. I sort of something to read and write Getting these emails and the peoples are asking crews behind this and then that's how it sort of transition over the net. a number of years to what it is today, which is EF. I stopped blog or firm street and sort of my online learning tunnel and guides it's very unexpected to have you no six. thousand people reading here. Your work every sunday and sundays when you're newsletter goes out, yeah just to clarify what is far from ST refer to suffer
straight as the streton oconnor brass gatt, where Warren Buffett has the headquarters for berkshire. Hathaway said the original website with six eight one, three one dash fourteen forty and sixty eight on three wine. Is the zip code for berkshire outweigh headquarters and fourteen forty is their unit number and cute plaza, and this is an omission it's a sort of warren Buffett and Charlie Munger, who I held up and still hold up as sort of heroes in some way and have learned a ton from have a real world decision making, and that was how it got its name. It's interesting this this has really become a passion for you how to make decisions, I can imagine other people in your position would be interested in how to make decisions, given that you're working at a national security agency in and the stakes are high, but you really took it very far, and I wonder what it is about you that allowed this to become such a obsession is probably not the right word, but like focus fix it
Anybody who knows me knows that when I go into something I wanna give it my best, and I felt like everybody was depending on me. It deserved me giving my best and my best sort of I had to dive into this and sort of learn about it as best I could with that said, I'm in, I think everybody who something like test. It has to be a liver of love for what you're doing the steady something for a sort of fifteen years and have hundreds or thousands of conversations on it with multiple different people. There's just a deep sense of curiosity inside me harnessed for this particular focus over the last fifteen years, whether something else in your personal life like did you make it damn decisions in high school or where do I made so many terrible? Does. Never for high school in high school is where things started to get on try. I was a street de student until great tan borderline getting in trouble.
at every level. I mean my great nine teacher road of my report card should we'll be lucky to graduate from high school and she was one hundred per cent correct, and this is back when teachers actually wrote what they thought. Instead of these, like form little nuggets, they have to pick out and it all turned around for me in grade ten, when my peer group changed the expectations change and with the person who would go on to become my best friend, his father pulled me aside, two months into grade ten and said you know we're talking about university at dinner and it doesn't sound like you're going to university and, if that's not the path you're on, I don't want you hanging around my son and I remember can't I'm going. I don't even know at university is like what is university and then is like. I'll tell you or help you but like this? Is the path around if you wanna hang out with my son and it just totally changed my trajectory I've
the questions about you. Do your decision making prowess now but a whole diverse? Second, let's get into the book and- whilst I also don't wanna, be held up as sort of somebody who never makes bad decision living, we all make he no stupid decisions from time to time. The point is: can we can we be better than we are making decisions yeah. I appreciate that and more to come on that front, but let let's get into the book, because it's very interesting and I believe universally applicable. You start in the book by outlining the enemies of clear thinking. Can you describe what those enemies are geared to the service biology before we re sort of get too he thought to realise we are animals. And we share a lot of tendencies and instincts with other animals and some of what we
Share with other animals is that, where territorial or self preserving or higher article these are sort of like these have evolved in us for thousands of years, and they don't look the same like we're, not like a wolf walking around a peeing and marking its territory. Our territory isn't necessarily physical, it's our identity and how we see herself and what happens for animals when any of these instincts are triggered. They react without thinking and what makes humans different is that we have the ability, we don't always exercise it, but we have the ability to pause before responding so between stimulus and response. We we can actually make a choice. We can think we can reason we can use all of our abilities to make a difference. Waste and are instinctive reaction. So I came up with four sort of defaults and defaults are the enemies of clear thinking. These are situations that prime us not to think so, when we're emotional, when we're driven by ego
social social pressure, social situations going along with the crown and inertia doing things that we ve always done just to keep doing them and in those situations we tend not to think now. Three wine just for a second here, because we're talking about decisionmaking were taught you get. The big decisions right and you're gonna be ok, the big decisions you know sort of like what are the common ones, who you marry the career, you go into. where you live in It was our moments where we think about what we are doing. We actually reason through the decision. We may not be perfect but were directly correct because we're thinking were actually pretty good ones. We start thinking the problem. Is we end up in these situations where we don't think and that gets us into trouble. The tagline to the book is turning ordinary moments into extraordinary results and the reason is
these ordinary moments, her? What power? These big decisions- you can pick the right partner, but if you don't go home and invest in our relationship, you're gonna find that it's not. There were new needed. You can pick the right career path, but it don't bustier your work hard every day, then it's not going be there for you We get laid off and I think that these things are sort of forgotten in society. We we sort of dont, think of these moments the same as a great example of sort of have you ever been into an argument with your partner or your spouse over like loading, the dishwasher or something just trivial, ie you're, not thinking in that moment about I'm arguing with my spouse and I'm choosing to argue with them. If I were to tap you on the shoulder and say hey Dan here boat, to pour gasoline or water onto this situation, what do you want to do? I don't tell you what to do. I just sort of like pause. I answered that pause. What would you do? You'd be like? Oh, I want to put water on this. I don't like
isn't worth fighting about. This is stupid, but we don't realize that were doing that and then all the time that we have to spend repairing, that relationship comes at the cost of enjoying each other building our connection or doing something fun or even striving towards our goals, and so are the energy that we put in to correcting these little failures in decision making in everyday moments comes at the expense of all the things that we want to do so as humans. We have this capacity to reason and use logic to make solid or, at the very least, defensible decisions,
however, that capacity is blocked by the fact that we are often operating in automatic pilot or sleep walking through our lives captured by these various defaults and those are the enemies of clear thinking. Yes, that's a great summary that, could you give us a brief tore through the fort defaults emotional default ego default, so default and inertia develop yeah sure. So when we're emotional great example, you know alcoholics anonymous. Has this thing called halt, which is hungry, angry lonely or tired when you're, driven by any of those things and so hungry doesn't really, counters an emotion, but angry and lonely do how in your driven by
as you're, not really in charge of yourself you're, not thinking. Clearly you put yourself in a bad position to make a decision that doesn't mean that you can't make the right decision but you're playing on hard mode and thinking about sending an email. And I remember you know I don't know- must have been like five years ago- and it's late at night and I'm running this email and I'm really angry. I'm upset something didn't go my way and I am taking this out like I don't even know. What's going through my head, anger is in charge, I'm not in charge, and that moment I'm not thinking about. Is this gonna move me closer further away from the outcome. I want that doesn't happen, and so you just end doing these things. They derail your egos another one at work. If your knowledge workers, this is a common one for people. If you're which worker a lot of your identity, so a lot of your territory to go back to the biology,
Tied up in being right in need to contribute you wanna, be right. Not right. What are you you're wrong and, if you're wrong, while then, what value do I was a knowledge worker, and so you, driven by yourself, you're, not driven by getting the best outcome driven by your ego. You wanna prove yourself right what happens when you want prove yourself right? Well, not only are you ignore evidence to the contrary of what you're doing you're gonna make all your relationships with all your coworkers harder in that situation, social and other one. I think we ve all seen sort of like group think we don't want to stand out. We don't want to be different. The risk of failures really high and the rewards often pursued
That's her pretty small, especially inside an organization. A great example of that, as I had a friend to take a big risk saved, the company was working for about twenty million, and you know he could have look like an idiot. You get a fell on his face and they gave him. I think he was like a two thousand dollar bonus and he's like. Why would I take all this risk? Why would I go against the crowd? Take all this risk and if I'm wrong everybody's, like I told you, we want to fit in we're, evolved to fit in where self, preserving right going back to that, we need to fit in to be part of the tribe, but today it's more advantageous to know when to create positive deviation and positive deviation is. When do I go against the crown anime right? It's not enough to go against the crowd. We all know that person who sort of is in every binning always going again everything they don't get, listen to the people who can positively deviate, which is go along go alone. Oh! Here's, where we need a path, does a huge advance
to knowing when that time is one that places there's a lot of comfort to being part of the crowd in doing what everybody else is doing and urges another one which is continue doing the same thing. That we ve always done in the book. I talk about the zone of average. the zone of averages great example of that as you're in a relationship, it's too good to leave but too bad to stay. You don't want to do anything about it, you're comfortable with it you've been doing it so long. You feel you're so invested in it that you can't change it and when all of these things are happening in in you know, each one is powerful when they work in concert, they're super powerful and they prevent us from thinking, and they make it a lot harder, and we end up doing these things that worse in her position and make the future harder than it should be. Is one of these defaults, your particular kryptonite? I think the one for me is probably ego rain. I have
I'll stick. You know it on my desk. You can't see it, but it literally has three words on it. This is our come over ego and when I worked at the intelligence agency, I thought every solution had to be my solution. I always thought my solution was the best solution only really when I laughed the intelligence agencies over six or seven years ago, now and I started running my own business- that there really solidified for me that I don't care who has her idea. I really want the best outcome cause have so much of my future wrapped up in the outcome and not, being right- and I think that that was a really pivotal moment for me, where I realise just how in charger eager can be about these things and how it can blind us We have an opinion on everything how we basic-
I think that we know everything were an expert with Google, for, like I dunno twenty minutes, we feel like we get the gist of it. We can pull it off and I think there's so much more to it than there's so much involved with stopping the perverse off right getting out of that perspective, because when you're in that perspective, you have all these massive blind spots to what other people can see perspective and blind spots. These are part of decision making. You wrap this back into The source of all bad decisions is that we have blind spots. One way to eliminate our plans by to reduce them has to take a different perspective into the problem We get rid of. Her ego makes it a lot easier for us to take a different perspective into the problem by the exact same problem. You tell me about that-
yeah. I just in certain relationships their certain relationships. I find this comes out more often than in others, but yet I can cottages dig a trench and reform. Used to give up- and I know it's happening, but somehow even knowing its happening makes me dig in even more yeah. This true cause Don't wanna admit that you're wrong, we're all like that? That's a normal natural response to things right, even when you see it and recognize it, then it becomes less of it ego and it becomes more about. I just don't want to admit that there is a better approach to s. Yes, it doesn't mean that my approach, I think, is best it's that I dont want to correct the fact that I've said something as stated it have taken a position on it or their people. In my life, where it's like, I specifically dont want to admit that they were right, oh yeah, especially if you dont, like them right or yellow rival, outward. How dare this person
I didn't have a better idea than me and you know their idea could work better and be more effective and more efficient yeah. I think that those things are just normal and natural right. So what I've tried to do over the past? I dunno six years. It is just I don't think I can eliminate my ego and I don't think that's the point, but changing the ego from me being right to getting the best outcome is a much better approach to things. How do I get the best outcome possible in this situation? How do I position myself to be able to withstand multiple different futures instead of just my version of the future, and I think that that's the stuff where it's not a bow, you can't eliminate These things we think we can just sort of like wash them clean and launder them, but we can. We can manage them and we can sort work around them, and one Work around the misery of recognising hey, I'm a mushroom egotistical, but it's a lot easier to prevent create autumn.
Acc rules create friction around and and sort of guardrails around these things, and it's so interesting to me that we we don't sort of think about how to do that. One of the most counter intuitive things I learned from studying decision making for the past fifteen years is the people who consistently make the best decisions, aren't necessarily smarter than everybody else, but they're are always in the right position to take advantage.
Image of the circumstances and the right position puts them on easy mode to manage the defaults and to think independently, which are sort of the three key elements of clear thinking. So when you say positioning, what do you mean specifically yeah? So the reason that I came up with this is like any one looks like a genius when they're in a good position, and even the smartest person looks like an idiot when they're in a bad position and why is positioning relevant to sort of decision making and default, and I want to get into the habit. First
a little bit of it. Two examples: two different contexts about positioning. So if we look at berkshire hathaway today- and we talked about Warren Buffett and Charlie Munger, there were about one hundred and fifty billion dollars in cash on their balance sheet. They're not predicting, what's going to happen with the stock market that are predicting, what's going to happen with the economy. If the economy and the stock market go up, they win. If the economy and stock market stay the same, they win if the economy and If the market crash they, when they are in a position, no matter what happens to take advantage of the circumstances in order to grow in order to expand, nothing can knock them off course. That makes managing the day to day easier, they're, never forced by circumstances into a bad decision, they're, never forced by circumstance. is to respond to something that our honour respond to. That's really important when you think about the quality of decision making that basically determines whether you're on easier heard, but the goal is to put yourself on easy moon, another example of position
and the other I'll mention just completely different context for the parents who are listening. You know one of my kids came home and he he passed me a task needed terrible on this test and he just you know in his teenage little attitude he just sort of like shrugged his shoulders and he's like. I did my best and walked by me. And I remember, sir playing sports when I was a kid and, like you know the worst time to talk to somebody about what's happening or their performance or the game is is in that moment right. There's too much emotion going on he's got a lot of things going on in his head. I might not be able to see it, but that's not the time to talk to him If I talk to him was emotional, it's gonna end up in a fight or an argument, and in sports that manifests itself has quitting sort of way. Did, I let his emotion stamp and down a little bed. Let him feel the feelings that he's feeling in we pass through him so later that night, I came up here.
when I was like okay, I wondered how you need to walk me through this rape. You said you did your best and I really want to appreciate what doing your best means and his response was. I sat down at ten. I read all the questions I knew, which ones were worth which points I focused on. The questions were the highest points. I answered them to the best of my ability. I handed in my test after I double check my work, I just got my butt kicked and I was like huh. That's really interesting. A lot of people think about decision making. As that exact same thing, I am faced with the decision. I did my best in that particular mo man where I took this conversation with him was. I was like, let's rewind, let's go back in time. Did you have a healthy breakfast? No, I did not have a healthy breakfast. Did you get in a fight with your brother? That morning I did get in a fight with my brother that morning
Why didn't you have a healthy breakfast cause? I slept in? Why did you sleeping cause? I was cramming. Did you study in the three or four days, for the task. Now I waited until ten o clock. The night before went to bed late, woke up. Late, cannot fight with my brother. Didn't eat healthy breakfast. as you know it you dead is you chose to play on harbour. All of those things are within your control. Those things are your position here. Position determines at the moment. You sit down into your task here. You know if you ve done your best, because your best as all the things you control leading up to the moment, they put you in a position for success. So when he sat down to take that test- and this is what a lot of us deal with a lot of our decisions- is circumstances took over. It didn't matter that he read the points on the questions you and prepared for the task and we don't get warnings in life which is like go home and hey. You know why next week were really gonna. Give you this emotional challenge or next week we're gonna. Give you a finance
the challenge we don't get to prepare like that. It doesn't work like that. We have to constantly position ourselves to withstand whatever the world is throwing at us and most of the positioning, whether it's sort of taking a test or financial positioning or, however, you want to think about running a business. All of that positioning is within our control and when were well positioned. Managing our defaults is a lot here there were more poorly position to create example of that sort of. If you sleep, really poorly, you get up really early. For some reason, you can't get back to sleep. You have a long stressful tat were when you home you're, going to be prime to be more emotional, more territorial, more self, preserving.
Where ego driven. He don't have time for this. You donna you're, not empathizing with my day and what's going to happen in that moment, managing all of those emotions is going to be harder than it would have been had you slept and put yourself in a good position. So positioning is the most underrated aspect of decision making, because good positions lead to good choices. Bad positions lead to bad to worse, like really bad choices. That will make sense. I'm just I guess I'm wondering whether like and I mean this in a friendly way. Bates feels like, a very small articulation of the obvious tat I mean, isn't that serve all the best insights? Are all gaseous india, its young people, caught people called buddhism advanced common sense, but nor do I think that exactly right, and I guess that's what comes to mind- is there's a great expression from David Axelrod who ran bombers campaigns here and in the united states and
at one point he said all we can do is everything we can do, and so that's what you're recommend your son pre test sit down on one level. Yes, that's just advance common sense on another level. I I guess the other thing I was coming In my mind, as I listen to you talk is, there is a kind of psychological positioning too. That seems like it might lead you in a position to outperform to make good decisions which is a kind of intellectual humility and openness not being sucked up in what my friend Maria Popova calls the pandemic of certainty that is sweeping through our culture. It is all that land for you, yeah you're mindset is totally gonna position. How everything unfolds tray trade, if you, for example, yours, cynical person, you're gonna, see everything through a cynical on That's gonna make it a lot harder to get where you want in life, if you're the type of person whose sitting there hear things in your head? That little conversation in your head is saying: you know what
when they are recognised by potential, if only they gave me the opportunity, I D, if only that, that's a sign that you're wasting your being passive abot here. Your approach to life is you're waiting for somebody to come up and tap on the shoulder and say hey here the big shot, we're going to give it to you, but the world doesn't really work. That way I mean it might in hollywood movies, but practically speaking running business working in organizations and all the organizations we've worked with it. It doesn't work that way. You have to go out there and you have, to Change your mindset. Your mindset is going to position how everything else unfolds, because again it's going to put you on easy mode or hard mode coming up. Shane parrish talks about how to position yourself to make better decisions and how to create rules for yourself to stay accountable and exercise. A solid judgment.
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So what can be done so that we are getting better opposition our cells in the holistic sense of that word from mindset to logistics? Yes, who, in the book we sort of talk about different safeguards, different aspects of what we can do to position or selves, better, prevent automatic rules, friction and card rails, and I think the key thing is a lot. There is common sense right, like sleep working out eating, while those are common sense care, investing in their relationship with your partner before a time of crisis that common sense, but how many of us do I've just listed what four things? How many of us do all for those we don't saving money, example, of positioning okay. Well now, let's apply it to work, because these are all sort of like personal things, or how do we position ourselves for success at work? I know from working with people who who make decisions that often what happens is you get a whole bunch of talented people
in a room, you sit down in that room and you say what's the problem and somebody threw their an idea. That sounds like the problem. And that idea sounds reasonable enough and then all of a sudden you go into solution space. This is what happens when you put a whole bunch of taipei. People together, who want to solve problems who are driven to solve problems and you get rewarded for solving problems has all sounds great and probably also- millyard everybody it. Listening to this, the problem is to be ever really defined. The problem who define the problem, somebody who came to a meeting in just through the problem on the table, so one of the safeguards that we talk about in the book is sort of the person who is responsible for making the decision has to define the problem. Ok or that's one safeguard. What does that? Do it, instills accountability?
around the decision making and in instills consistency around it added instil somebody's names on it. So they're going to take pleasure, they're gonna, take ownership of that decision. The second guardrail we have sort of around those things is like, let's break that meeting into two, so we're solving this through an hour- official environment constrain? The article The environment is we're going to separate this one meeting, which might have been an hour now we're going to do two half hour meetings and we're going to do them. You know one or two days apart we're not going to do them on the same they were going to have a thirty minute meeting, we are going to get some input on what the problem is, so that we can make sure that we're solving the right problem and then, on the flip side of that we're going to meet the next day. The decision maker, the person who is responsible for me That decision is going to outline what the problem is and then you're going to start coming up with solutions, and that guardrail is so simple and it prevents us from derailing. It prevents us from.
going down solving the wrong problem, it prevents from having one person dominate the conversation because than other people can chime and afterwards through whether through email or through a sidebar conversation with the person making the decision and it sort of reduces our blind spots and allows us to make better decisions. Those are examples of how we can put this into practice in the real world. Another great example: a sort of automatic rules right too we talk about. We find ourselves in the moment. It's really hard for us to catch ourselves. In a conversation the ourselves and be like hey, I'm derailing here, I'm negotiating with myself, I'm emotional or you know my egos, probably driving me here and even when you do like you said, that's really hard for us to course correct. So we can have these automatic rules for success and they sort of have to individual and you have to come up with them yourself in these. Medical rules allow you to circumvent
The wiring in your brain. The currently exists toward ceasing trade is just another sort of default. It's very powerful creates an inertia. So I have inertia. Nursa is by itself non judgmental. You know it works for you. It can work against you, while we've been taught our whole lives to follow rules. Here's the speed limit. You don't question it. You just follow it. Here's the tax code. You don't question it! You just follow it, you you don't follow the rules, you get punished and if you're getting punished you don't that nobody has to tell you every day to follow the rules you just do you were in the raw. You follow the wrong, that's how it works, but we ve never thought about how we can turn these rules into something that helps us get more of what we want and less of what we term. I think that's really improve and to think about how do we create rules? The moves towards something we want and away from something we don't. So I came up with this sort of suddenly Daniel kahneman of Berta, and we were at his penthouse near
and his phone rang, and he had to take the call and towards the end of the colleagues like. I know my rule is, I don't say yes on the phone and when he hung up the phone I said whoa tell me more about that I've. Never I've never heard that. Why do you have this role and he's like? Well, I hate to support, if people, and so I don't want to say you know- I'm I tend to say yes in situations that I want to say no to, because I'm talking to the person, I don't want to disappoint them and he's like I devised this little strategy, witches, I cringe a rule and the rule was that I wouldn't say us on the phone and he's like I went from saying. Yes, you know eighty percent of the time on the phone to a ten percent of the time I so he ended up. Creating a rule that allowed him to circumvent. Thinking in that particular moments were treated. His own default, his own inertia default. by creating this rule, his brain wasn't thinking about. What's the rule, he just knew the role, and so he thinks of it. The role so he's not. He doesn't have to be conscious in that moment, but now
sudden these these ordinary moment start working for him instead of against him, and I was like what other rules too, This is so powerful. I think, don't have any other rules, but that rules great and others like ok, so I went away That meeting- and I started thinking about this and then I think it was like the next week and I was like going to the germ- and I don't know about you, but I'm not a person who who loves going to the germ. I mean it's. Ok, like some days. A lot of days, actually I'm just not super motivated to go, and I call myself having this conversation, which was the conversation, was you know I didn't sleep well, have a lot of stuff to do today, I'm not going to go to the gym today. Why don't we just do extra tomorrow and since I'm working at like two or three days a week, you know this conversation replays a lot. Have you ever had that conversation with yourself
Thousand percent yeah, so I was like what, if I used a rule to get around this and what would that rule be, and, and so what do I. I want to be healthy. What what does that mean in the context of this means going to the gym every day? so I created a rule that I work at every day and I was like ok what marilla I work at every day that doesn't mean the scope or duration of my work. I can't change, but the rule as I do something some days. I just go to the gym- do squats I go home Sunday go for a little run and I go home some days. I go might there ninety minutes- and I like kick by and then I come home, but I go every single day and have had that rule for just over two years now, and it has been one of the most powerful things ever because now the negotiation in my head doesn't go from the conversation with myself he's not should I work out today it's what scope and duration,
Am I gonna work out today he goes from. Should I go to the gym too? How do I set this in and that is so powerful forgetting what we want in life. Another example I had a friend who sort of was trying to eat healthy, and I dunno about you, but, like you go to the social situations, a lot of work events he's a salesman. He he's finding it hard to eat at restaurants all the time, so he's got this social pressure going on and when are we making our decisions about food, usually in wine and alcohol, and all that steps at night, while eventual everybody loses the battle with well power, and so we started. Keep the sun was. I want ages, critter rule that you, you don't eat desert and it's like. What do you mean? It puts us bigger role. We know have a dessert. That's your thing. Unless you're with. kids or whatever, like you, just don't, have deserved and he's like a rule of an endeavor thought of her.
All I know is like will right now what you're doing is you're sitting down and you making these decisions every man and you relying on willpower to make the right choice in this social right, going back to social default, social environment, not Only do you want to do what everybody else is doing, because everybody else is doing it cause you're, a social creature you're here an animal but they're going to they're going to pressure. You social pressure into doing this thing that you know might be fun, but you don't want to do So how do you avoid the whole thing? You just say in my role, as that only deserve I started. Thinking about this is like okay. Well, let me try this. And so he started trying it and he's like it only took two times. I only had to say it twice. The first time I said you know I rule is that only desert and people sort of like huh. What does what you always it desert. Before he's, like oh yeah, but when you roll, like, I just don't, eat dessert he's like the second time, we were out the same thing. Happen ever basic over celebrating is a big. When you know the bottles are popping sort of care he's coming here, he's enjoying
I'm paying but he's like in my role as are all nature. Nobody pushed back on a nobody, argued, the social pressure and the situation dissipated and for that point on everybody knew his role was. He didn't need dessert as long as he was consistent in not eating dessert. That would never come up again. It would never be a thing, He's created His own way around a situation where he doesn't even have to think all he has to do is watch the rule for the rule, but we automatically. Remember what rules are so rules can work for us This really weird were yet. It makes a lot of sense. Total degree in here, I had a rule of no desire for a long time and found that it was actually creating like dysfunctional relationship with a whole category of food that I didn't want to pass along to my son, but That's the way I want to hear about that because you had this rule no dessert, but like walk me through the trajectory of this rule. Right because just because you create a rule for a year,
Does it mean you have to stick with it forever? But I want to hear about that the ark to this, because this is really important. In brief, I was raised by parents reserve restrict about sugar Then I fetish ized and fixated as a consequence and would, as I got older and you as, as you know, as you get older, your sleep is a little bit more tenuous, and so I would eat a bunch of desert and not be able to sleep and also like. I would maybe feel like shit the next day cause. I have super gorged on it by the way, I'd also quit doing drugs and drinking, and so like desert became, like my one quote. Unquote, vice and I had a fateful conversation right here on this show. We can put a link in the show notes with a woman named evelyn, Tripoli, loyal listeners, probably their heard that episode or have heard me gush about it subsequently but she's, one of the architects of something called intuitive eating and her argument among other arguments, but her argument as a pretense
Sugar is the holistic fix, is for you to rule it out in and describe it as sinful and like these moralistic terms or advice, the holistic fix it for you to have a healthy relationship with food in your body and by the way, that's a really important model descend. Jeer, I think then, five year old son he's now eight and I really too at the heart and I spent many years working whether directly and having healthier relationship with sugar, so that I have permission to eat it when I want it, but I don't feel this childish animalistic urge to gorge, and that, I think, has been very helpful. I don't know is any way relevant to the discussion of decision making, but that's the truth, while totally because what you're doing is you're, taking a different environment right, sir I think you have an environment where you want to avoid dessert. That doesn't mean you don't eat dessert like his rule. Socially was, I don't eat dessert, but he was doing it with his kids and so your creating that sort of situation out of
environment. Where you you know environment often determines your behavior and survey, changing and creating this environment. Eu superpower, you charges, you can have it both ways: trade, you can have a healthy good relationship with your home life and showing your your kids are. Deleting what behavior you want to be normal around dinner and in social settings with work, you can have it completely different set of rules that keeps her well or it doesn't enable you to do the things that you might lead you away from the goals that you have some of the other sort of like rules that I have ever lived. have meetings before twelve every day I stopped he, nine. What america work events I ambassador index find every month there like boring things Call them automatic rules for success because they put you in the position and on the path tissue. Get where you want out of lie, afraid stop doing get night? What do I do that cause? I wanna get sleep, I'm nothing good happens past.
and when you are at work, have had no meetings till twelve. Why is that a rule? Because I need to and trade in my dear. I don't want to have to search for that time. I have that the most important thing that idea I want to always be able to have that time and I don't want to have to find it in the rest of it. It doesn't mean that it's all productive time, whether I'm doing something super, but with that I'm playing never have to find the time and to its just a rule that were block off all of that stuff. I love that. I have a lot of those rules too. I try not to have any more, it's before one. What are your other rules? I am curious cause. I don't get to hear other people's rules very often. I try to think that kind of thing, but the difference between rules and pratt this is but many they're. The same thing I wanted out every day, maybe take one day off I meditate everyday. I tried him
It stayed for an hour hm, but I'm pretty another rule is that I'm pretty flexible about all of these rules, because I I have in the past demonstrated a real penchant for taking the rules so seriously and being so rigid that it makes everybody miserable. So those are three rules, meditation exercise and flexibility, and then I would say I guess I can think of a million others, but another is that I really try to be pretty diligent about. This is going to sound a little corny, but I've found it really helpful too, make, in my mind, a little dedication of pretty much everything I do throughout the day, to the extent that I can remember to do this to dedicated to the benefit of everybody, including myself, so I'm doing this exercise to make myself stronger and happier so that I can be not be a good dad and do good work that helps other people here, as you are saying that I thought of one of the rules that I haven't really talked about. One of my referrals, as I look at my inputs on a quarterly basis and inputs being
Am I spend my time around as people don't want to be under my time round those people what information and make consuming from other people. I am conscious about the information I'm letting into my head by who I follow on social media by who I read, who I consume, and I just sort of like do a check in every quarter. I book it. Actually it's like two hour meetings for the last week of every quarter with myself and I sort of like okay just met we walked through these I reflect on you know. Am I adopting bad habits that I don't want? Why is that? Is there somebody in my life who's got that habit that I I you know need to think about consciously, who am I letting into my head? Is it negative is a positive? How am I feeling about that, and I sort of objectively just go through this, as if I was a third party auditing myself because we don't think of this as being important, but like what you read what you consume. The conversations you have become sort of
the feed or raw material. If you will for your future thoughts, but we don't think of it that way, because we think that oh do we just process it and we filter it out, but that doesn't really how the brain works and how mind works. You hear something enough. You start to believe at even if it's not true and sort of like give your consuming slightly you know, or even extreme negative content online like that just sort of enables and snowballs all of this stuff, and so I want to be positive. Smart people who have interesting idea, as let's do a czech imbalance on that, because not everybody stays that way and sometimes people will creep in terror. Your network through circle, only in person but online and the information are consuming and it pays to have a consciousness again to position yourself to have the right inputs so that you can actually thing independently and when you do think independently, you have the right thoughts bell of that. Yet the buddha said the mind is the forerunner of all things. You really
You wanna be pretty careful and territorial as appertains to to what you're, letting in there or get another expression is garbage and garbage out coming up chain outlines his decision making process He talks about the difference between decisions and choices and the biggie how to know what is worth wanting in the first place. Introducing fidelity advantage: four o one k, the affordable four o one K plan built for small businesses like yours, it's easy to manage, so you could focus on your business and make saving for retirement a reality ready to learn more visit fidelity dotcom, slash, set up for a one k: that's fidelity, dot com, slash set up for a one k to learn more from and sponsor an investment professional use. Only some products and services are not available to employers outside the EU. S fidelity to it's for a one k, is a service mark of em are llc fidelity brokers.
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There are a million other things I'd like to ask you about, but I do want to make sure in our limited time that we get to decision making. So you have a five step process for decision making that you talk about in the book. Those steps are defined. A problem explore possible solutions, evaluate the options, make the judgment and execute the best option. Can we spend some time on each of these and explicating them and also getting a sense of how you came to these five years sort of like a basic decision making process? I don't think there's anything super def, and from what you would think about in terms of making a decision right. So if Is it an independence of this comes at the moment sort of of your decision? So maybe you don't have a chance to make her position better and, as you say, the goal is to find the problem, but if I'm making the decision I have to find the problem. I can't let somebody else to find the problem. For me and ownership
moreover, over. That is where the decision making process really starts at its super important. That's a detail, a lot of people mess. If your boss tells you to solve this problem, but you responsible for solving the problem, you gonna verified, thats, actual problem. We need to solve. If you're the one solving the problem, you need to get the inputs, you need to make sure the ear defining the right problem. A great way to do that is sort of when you, people together in a meeting like we talked about earlier instead of asking Everybody felt like a summary of the situation where everybody basically like paraphrasing, says the same thing: change the social signalling value to what do you see about this problem that nobody elsie's and try to get unique inside that remove the blind spots that you have into the So what you're trying to do is change your perspective and walk around the problem. Almost in a three dimensional where explore the possible solutions is once we define the problem will often what tends to happen and we get into this serve right at work. Where
We have one real solution and that we have it maybe like status quo solution and, like you, have to choose between these options and what you find to do again is get the best thinking out of other people to solve the actual problems they are facing and is often is on an either or thing off you can combine things between them and if you've only come up with two solutions, you haven't really thought about the problem really hard and long has usually there's three four five and the more you think, the more insight you're gonna have not only into the problem but into the solutions, and once you I doubt, if I'd possible solutions, term value at the criteria by which are making this decision. What are the key, very was the otter and how do I await them and one way that I've come up with to sort of identify the the criteria, because often we say like oh here, the sixteen things that matter usually there's one
You and after we can't pick out what the most important thing is killed. This idea is sort of like battling criteria which is like take it up. hosting patents are running down all the criteria for EU decision making all the criteria for this and the criteria being I will know this is a success, if excellency, these are the key variables I need to monitor to make sure the situation is going as plan these the variables and I need attention to their also the variables you gonna tell me whether this is working alright, so I want to watch them and I want to give everybody else permission to tell me if they start going askew so that we can course correct really quickly. But if you hold up your e, if each sticky note has one criteria on it and you hold up these two at a time, you have them battle with each other. It's like which one is more important and that can't be the same. There's no ties, and so you put down the one, that's less important new pick up a new one and at the end of this whole thing, you you're laughed what sort of like yours,
criteria ranked in order of importance and that allows you to put a weight to them because, often when you explore possible solutions, they're going to solve different or maximize different aspects of that criteria, once you have that you can make the judgment about which decision is which criteria is being solved? Which solution is going to solve the most criteria, where it's going to give you the best bang for the buck? All things considered, including time energy focus cause like all of that stuff, and then you can execute and sort of, like that's a standard decision in the process that you learn about. We often follow it, sort of unconsciously with inertia re where we defined the problem, exploring the solutions. We don't really come up with the criteria. Very often we don't tend to think of it that we get one or two that sort of like sticking our head, and we don't think. Oh well, there's other criteria, prey which might be sort of the overtime cost or are sort of. Are we thinking with the complexity?
reducing into the situation. All of those things are relevant to making a judgment. This is why decision making is serve so hard, and you know we make it really academic, but at the end of the day he have to simplify your price. this- is around this new dont want to use the same process for different types of decision, so he energetic pieces has concept of one way door were to a door a one way door being once you go through it, you can't really go backwards, hard to go back to a door being you can just like walk around and and go through again. and it's easy either through that already don't like it. You come back and often what organizations do people do is we serve apply the same process around decision making to one way, doors to two doors and then it's? Not really what we want to do to hone judgment to develop judgment in people. We want to its doors to be made quickly. Those decisions to be made quickly the biggest risk with those decisions
is it would go to slow as an organization is too much bureaucracy around them, because the car to failures, really low, the opposite being one way to where we want to go slower more methodically. Once we get through that door, it's gonna be harder to go back. That's not the time everybody is to develop judgment in other people, s Time where we want to use the people who have the judgment to make those decisions and communicate that two people who are developing their judgment and that's how we go about it, an organisation that makes good decisions and consistently executes. You said before that this five step process for making good decisions. Is it being a revolutionary? Having said that, you also said that we often forget to do it because were in default mode, so? How can we get better at remembering to do this? Is it that we should make up some automatic rules that when a big decision comes up, we ve got a process? We we have a checklist yeah.
Why sequence was relevant is sort of like doing it for yourself right answer, I can give you user of rules that I work for you follow the process, And you can define decision, I mean the first step is like what type of decision making is it or you know, is the cost of it. They are really small hours at high, and then that will guide the process that we take from there. I have a friend you keeps that little diagram actually from the book on their their dost thou. They showed me a patrol the other day and it sort of just remind them to walk through the process around nine. We talk a little bit about this earlier by sort of britain. these meetings between defining the problem and evaluating the criteria or coming over possible solutions are defined in the problem coming up with possible solutions into two different meetings, and so what you can do is just right now, just design the process before your faced with
and don't wait for the actual moment of her decision, because then that's going to rely on willpower to follow it. It's going to rely on remembering it. You can design the process by which you want to go about making these decisions. Okay. So if this decision is a through a door. Here's how we're gonna make it we're gonna delegated to junior employs. Let them go fast and you know we want to have some method of capturing the judgment and evaluating and improving that judgment deficits, hey one way door. Well, here's a process, we're gonna, follow we're going, have this series of sort of three for meetings and these meetings don't need to be long right. They can be literally like defined the problem explore the basel solutions. Have I who at the options and then by that point, making the judgments is it. Maybe you ve taken this hour long meeting, and now you broken it into three thirty and at meetings over a period of a week. But that's the process by which you make decisions, and so again your creating the artificial environment that helps you do the things that you wanna do
stead of relying on your willpower instead of relying on catching yourself in the moment, you're preventing all these problems from happening in the first place. Yes, I love that as sort of up a logistical and intellectual infrastructure to avoid getting carried away by our default modes by overriding some of our less helpful animalistic tendencies makes a lot of sense. You also talking about the difference between decisions and choices. I guess what you're getting at there is that, like not everything required, five step process. Sometimes you know you just order the happy meal yeah totally lick when you're in the aisle at the drugstore near like buying toothpaste don't have your brand you're not gonna, go through this process of how we evaluate you're, just gonna grab something. Innovate doesn't works, the cost of failures, really low and is really important to have these sort of like rules are behaviors or approaches around decision making that allow you to sort of solve these
albums in a different way than you would think about another. One, though, is in the book that a lot of people like is sort of a sapper a lab. Am I going to make this decision as soon as possible, which is sort of a t the way door where the cost of failure is really low. While I want to make that as soon as possible or as late as possible, which is sort of oh will, you know this is going to and ass. This one way door the cost of failures high and then the question becomes Well, how do I know? I have reached the point where I have to decide and in the book we talk about stop flop or no, which, as I stopped gathering useful information so there's no new information. I went away as late as possible because I want to gather all the information that I can, but when I stop gathering useful information, I start over the same information over and over again, nothing new, Nothing relevant is coming up. I flop flop stands for first lost opportunity, so the deal's a bit go away the situation
changing we're. Gonna lose optional. Eighty ok were forced into a decision or we now we just know what to do, because we ve got some inside or some unique perspective into the situation will now I can make that decision. You don't want a lot. Decisions have had the middle, where they're just occupying these threads in your mouth Why do you want to make them quickly? It's all really helpful. One thing you say that is also helpful. Is that the final part of decision making is figuring out what to want I'll quote you back to you, you say quote good decision, making comes down to two things: one knowing how to get what you want and two knowing what is worth wanting yeah. I think you know this. The second part that really holds people are probably going back to that social default again and the example I sort of used from the book
Cause I thought it would resonate with a lot of people comes from a friend of mine and the air was ebenezer scrooge rent one at ebenezer scrooge one. He wanted to be the most successful, most well known richest person in the neighborhood. Where did he get? He got all of those things he accomplished what he wanted, but he discovered what he wanted wasn't worth wanting the end of his life. What did he want he wanted to do over? he played live by somebody else's score part. He wasn't consciously deciding what mattered to him and going after that and pursuing that, and I think that so often this happens and I've seen this with so many different people in so many walks of life who used to work for a guy who came to the same conclusion. He reached the pinnacle of his career. He reselect the ceo, huge company very prestigious. and then he laughed he sort of retired and when he retired nobody wanted
asked him anymore. Nobody wanted to deal with him. This. This person went from like having eighteen to twenty people play golf wanna play off with him on a weekly basis to nobody wanted to talk to him. and what he realized afterwards, and we talked about this about a year later over coffee and it was such a powerful inside and he realized tat. He got c, o level and the way that he got there was a mutually exclusive from living. A life of meaning is mutually exclusive from developing I flung relationships. He got there rush sharp elbows. He got there with you know stepping on people. as he climbed over them to get to the top, so he got what he wanted, but he found out. You know what that really wasn't worth wanting in the first place or if it was worth wanting the strategy and approach that I was using to get. It wasn't the right one because in the end I just wanted to do over and this great sources this everywhere in the world. If you live near a sort of retirement community or assisted
living your talk to keep on volunteering, and you can allow their hindsight to become your foresight. There's a good book by Karl helmer. Which is lessons for the living. I thank, and he talks about interviewing these people and what they regret and what they tend to regret again. Somebody else told them what the scoreboard was. They played to that scoreboard at the end of life, none of that scoreboard matter. They really wanted to do so. indifferent, the end of the day as a matter of yet another zero in your bank account for most people. What's gonna matters are there for the people you care about, and you can do this interesting thought experiment because of the goal is to like how do we turn our future hindsight into our current foresight, and you can sort of close your eyes and just visualize this experiment here. You know ninety five or I guess a hundred and ten are, however old. You are and you're in hospital and your unconscious and
can hear everything going on around you. You can open your eyes and everybody thinks that you can't hear. Had everybody's lying around your bad and sort of your last night before you pass before you die, and what are they saying about? You know? What do you want them to be saying about you? and are you living your life and away that's going to get them to say that a bit You were you doing something else, and I think it's a really powerful thought experiment that allows us to change our perspective. Remove a blind spot and allows us to see in the future our future the future were creating and be cautious about. The choices are making today the saying witches. Don't tell me your priorities show me: your calendar Are we living life? Everything one thing and living another one. Are we matching up our real priorities with our calendar and our counter means time commitment. Energy focus. Are we doing this?
is that we want to be doing to live the life that we want to be living. I love that roma me of this woman, a lower arthur who has been on the show up at length in the shown us she ever this incredible ted talk. She's a death do LE that's! Basically somebody who's there help the dying in their family make this transition, and she talked a lot about envisioning your death bed. What what is gonna matter from that perspective and can you live your life to the best of your ability from that perspective, and given the fact that the default that we ve talked about the ego, the emotions Social pressure inertia nurture their their powerful. You got a kind of make this approach Does he have to make an automatic rule to infuse this viewpoint into your life, while so many people so interesting? I used to work with a lot of people like this and at the intelligence agency
work, the hollyhock ism or whatever you want to call. It was really an escape from their life they didn't wanna be home with the kids they didn't want to be at home. With their partner work became an I to get away from the life that they had created for themselves, and I think that a lot of inertia to that and you need your recognise when that's happening. Part of that is choosing to play life on your own scoreboard instead of somebody else's is this the life I want to be living? Am I living it in the way that I want to be living it, and am I doing it with the people that I want to be doing at west. I think for me- and I don't know if this is true for you- my work all as to the extent that it still operational, I think it's it's less than it used to be, but not not gone. I don't. It is driven by a desire to escape
keep an eye. My because my home, though I didn't mean that in all cases are not ok, you know I totally totally I took I took that in the spirit in which it was intended, I believe, but I'm just building on it. I think there are lots of ways we can become workaholics and in my case I think it's fear like quasi rational, fear of you know being destitute or something like I've read I of your irish. I shouldn't dignify it by calling it quasi rational It's totally irrational fear going back to fear, fears and emotion when we're making decisions and we're fearful and you can be fearful of failure and success, and I think a lot of people don't appreciate that if you're trying to quit smoking, for example, being successful at quitting, smoking means changing your peer group most of the time and so subconsciously. A lot of people are afraid to be successful because it means giving up all these familiar friends. All these familiar
social situations? What does that mean for me? And I think there is a very powerful emotion that dictates behaviour? have you figured out what matters most for you. Yeah, but I'm in a sort of the big things: don't change trade, big things. You know I sort of have a mosaic of life. I don't I don't view things as balance between work and life, I have different pieces and they can shrink and expand, but that can never go to zero and the kids are obviously You know my kids are the most important thing in my life, the second most important thing me right now is like I want to make the world a better place, I'm on a mission through the podcast and the blog and the book to try to put out higher quality information for people to consume, for people to have easy access to to help them sort of become the best versions of themselves. That's really important me in order to do that. I also have to take care of myself frayed going back to what we talked about. I get to sleep, I gotta work
we're going eat. Well, I invest in my relationships. I want to be national independence, I don't have to make choices that other people tell me to make so saving more money than I spend investing every month and, having These rules around that I think, if I can leave the world a better place, I will excited about what I've done here on this brief time on earth sounds like our priorities are exactly the same yeah I think so. Are there other practices that support this process of clear thinking and good decision making, but coming to mine, Things like meditation, which I referenced earlier, but also reading anything else that I may I You talk a lot about curetting your role models or any of these if the mentioning in what, in whatever time so I mean when you talk about personal board of directors but sort of like it's interests,
the emission meditation and reading, because there are two things that position year to make things easier, ran so meditation, at least in my experience with it sort of makes me less emotional. Less egotistical gives me a different perspective on not only myself but others and the situation in the context of the problem Instead, I'm pacing answer it actually makes those things easier to handle, because now I have reduced my boys parts, I can more easily circumvent. Those things same as reading re reading allows me to avoid mistakes so that I find fear mistakes literally. The tagline to our website is mastering the best about other people have figured out. None of these ideas are mine, but through them I can prevent problems if I can prevent problems than the default become less relevant. Another one tat I have that I mentioned in the book is a person board of directors
You might not be fortunate enough to work with the people that you want to work with you. You know you don't always get a page you're around, but you can have access to the best people in the world, but people history is ever produced by adjusting listing them on your personal board of directors. Don't need their promise and what you doing in that moment is your coming up with a repository of people that are your heroes and they exhibit a trade that you want to adopt a word. Exhibit a mindset or an approach that you want to take, and I often do this when I'm walking or just walking to the gym and I sort of think through problems or think through a situation, and I just asked myself like what would Warren do? What would Dan do? What would you know anybody whose, on your personal board of directors Ivan, have Michael Jordan on there. You know what would make
Jordan, say what kobe bryant say about the situation, and it just allows me doesn't what what it does is it really gives you a different lens into the situation. You assume a person's identity. You look at the problem through their eyes and harry removes are blind spot. Too many remove blind spots again. The source of all bad decisions is blind spots. We can't entirely eliminate them, but we can dramatically reduce them. by seeing the world through their eyes, we get a completely different perspective onto the problem that we facing and often we know what to do, We stopped giving in our own, where this has been very helpful. I appreciate your time in helping us to better at thinking. Clearly before I let you go. Can you please you ve reference the the website, the news letter, the book he just give us the full run down the full blast of resources, so that people can. check it out if they want here. The book is clear thinking turning ordinary mermaids, india, extraordinary results is available at all major bookstores.
Booksellers around the world. The blog is F s, stop log F, as in farnham asses and ST, so fs dot blog, and he find me on all social platforms and the podcast is called the knowledge project. Shane such a pleasure. Congratulations on the new book! Thank you for your time. Thanks Dan thanks again and parish great to meet him. Thank you to you for listening, go, give us a rating or a review that really helps also go check out all the stuff I'm doing on social media. That also helps thank you most of all to everybody who worked so hard on the show. Ten percent happier is produced by justin, davey, Gabriel Zuckerman, Lauren smith and tara anderson DJ, where's, our senior producer, Marisa, schneider men- is our senior editor and can be regular. Is our executive producer scoring and mixing by Peter bonaventure of ultraviolet audio and nick thorburn of the great ban islands wrote
theme check out his new album will see you all on Wednesday for our freshly a brand new episode, we're talking about a d h d. We haven't really done a full episode on a d h d, with a true expert, a physician like this before, so I'm really excited to have on my friend my new friend doktor mark for a prime members. You can listen to ten percent, Happier early and ad free on amazon music down the amazon music cap today or you can listen early and ad free with one plus in apple pie cas before you go to a solid and tell us all about yourself by completing a short survey at wondering dot com slash. serving verbal vacation homes come with twenty four seven life support
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Transcript generated on 2023-10-17.