Teaching what I've learned from the hood, the ring, and everything in between. Join 35k other readers to learn how to manage risk, build relationships, and confront reality.
3 frameworks for making better decisions
|
Assuming I get this out on time, I turn 39 years old today. I'm grateful for yet another trip around the sun. If you want to do something nice for me, share my newsletter on your Twitter timeline. I've made it super simple. Just click this link, and you'll automatically share a tweet on your timeline. Or click it here—>Share this newsletter on your timeline. The Podguesting Power Pitch workshop is live to sign up for. This course teaches you how to search for and pitch yourself to podcasts without spending thousands on outside PR. This is perfect for anyone looking to grow their audience or sell their products to a warm audience. I partnered with another creator, Adrian Moreno, to bring this to my audience at a discounted price. The lessons are already completed and ready for you to watch at your own convenience, and there will be at least two live Q and A sessions in the next two weeks. When you join, you get lifetime admission to the Hard Lessons Academy, where all of my courses will be forever posted. So buy once, and you'll always get access to my paid content. Easy deal. Check it out. Today's newsletter covers the three frameworks that I've used when it comes to making decisions. But first, a word from our sponsors... Today's sponsor is Greco Gum
3 frameworks for making better decisions In a podcast interview this week, I was asked what rule or metric I use when making decisions. At first, the question gave me a little trouble, as I couldn't readily identify how—or even if—I thought about making decisions. Then I thought about all the decisions I've made in my life that had a significant positive impact. I consider these events "watershed moments." Watershed moments are critical points of change that cause a major shift in the potential outcome of events. These were events where I had a choice to make. All but the first choice was made as an adult, and my decision on where to attend high school was mine alone. Among those were:
I also thought about important decisions that affected the direction of my life but were not as defining. The decisions I made in the first category, I'm either incapable of imagining an alternative life, or the life I picture is so fundamentally different that my life wouldn't look like it is now. The difference between these choices and the life-defining watershed moments is that I can see how my life looks if I don't take the following actions. While it's impossible to know for sure, I can imagine a life where I didn't do the following.
And lastly, there are the small decisions I make more frequently. They would affect the quality of my daily life but would not change its course or where I’m going. Those decisions are too numerous to list, and I’d forget most of them anyway. Thinking about the significant decisions I've made and my approach to the lesser ones did reveal that I have a set of rules or metrics. They're so ingrained in my method of operation that I had trouble articulating when I was put on the spot about them. However, I eventually answered, and that's the subject of today's newsletter. Here are my three frameworks for making decisions—with a bonus fourth. These metrics are responsible for everything positive in my life, regardless of the domain. Furthermore, whenever I've found myself in an adverse or precarious situation, the reason is because I was not following these metrics.
Interesting things I read this week Seven Frames: This is an ebook by David Elikwu from https://theknowledge.io. I discovered this guy from a great article he wrote about the power of using Bayesian Statistics in decision-making. The ebook covers seven unique frameworks for making better decisions, none of which I'd heard of but I learned a lot from. It's purely a coincidence of timing that my newsletter this week is about decision-making making, which is the cool thing I'm reading. Check it out. |
Stoic Street Smarts
Teaching what I've learned from the hood, the ring, and everything in between. Join 35k other readers to learn how to manage risk, build relationships, and confront reality.
People always think I’m full of it when I tell them that learning how to box helped me get a degree in physics, learn enough Spanish to watch my favorite telenovelas *mostly* without peaking at the subtitles and get my chess rating into the 1800s, Everyone has this idea that boxing is a sport of brutal headbanging aggression that leaves you with less mental capacity than when you started. And to be fair, I have had some concussions that left me at a loss for how to do something as basic as...
Watch the essay here Today I'm 40. I started my life in the projects, didn't graduate high school, and became a stone-cold alcoholic making so little money I was stealing food to survive. Eventually, I went on to be a standout Golden Glove-winning and national champion boxer, got signed by Roc Nation Sports as a professional, served in the military, got a degree in physics, and met the woman of my dreams along the way—and now said woman and I—who have lived in Portugal because she's born and...
You are the worst person to assess your strengths and weaknesses because you have the worst perspective of your actions. Everything you do or say, you can only judge its impact by how others respond to it, and that response will be influenced by the recipient's current state of mind, relationship with you, and what they want—or don’t want—from you. It can be impossible to get honest feedback about yourself from people. Even when a person gives you a complete assessment without regard to your...