Category: Self-Improvement, Psychology and Mindset

How many times have you made a decision – big or small – only to regret it later?

            “I wanted to fund my IRA this year, but that vacation was calling my name…I should have known better. Now I feel behind.”

            “I really wanted to take that out-of-state job, but I talked myself out of leaving my family and friends behind. Now I’m unhappy thinking about what could have been. How stupid of me.”

            “Ugh, I knew I shouldn’t have eaten all this ice cream, but it was too good to put away. What was I thinking?”

But…how could you have known?

We can’t make decisions with 100 percent certainty. Therefore, we can’t know how something will turn out.

Yet most of us get stuck in analysis paralysis, desperate to gather as much information as we possibly can before making a decision.

And when that decision doesn’t turn out as we hoped, our response is, “I should have known!”

How can we break this cycle? How can we accept that we don’t have total control over the outcomes of our decisions? How can we forgive ourselves, and others, for not getting it right?

Most of all: how can we improve our decision making skills to avoid this scenario in the first place?

That’s what today’s guest, Annie Duke, best-selling author of Thinking In Bets, is here to tell us.

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What process do you use to make decisions?

“Uhh … I put together a pros and cons list!”

“I harness my awesome spreadsheet skills and work out the variables in cells.”

“I ask others for their opinions and seek information from people who have been in my shoes.”

All of these tactics are common decision-making techniques…but they’re not processes.

What happens when you get stuck on a critical decision that you need to make quickly?

Does the intensity of the situation get the best of you? Do you make the decision based on your gut reaction? Or do you work calmly through a list of techniques that will help you arrive at a well-informed decision?

If you rely on your instincts in the heat of the moment, that’s natural. But it won’t lead to the best outcome, and it lacks process.

Today’s guest is here to share two decision making processes that can help you cut through the noise and arrive at a well-thought out decision. If you love practical guests with information that you can apply right away, you’ll love this episode.

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It’s September! If you’ve listened to any episode in the last month, then you know that I’m on round two of what I’ve dubbed my September Sabbatical, otherwise known as my yearly time to take a break from podcast production.

We’re not leaving you hanging, though. Instead, we’re digging through the archives and airing some of my favorite interviews on the show. Enjoy!

What does it take to create a sustainable sense of hope?

That’s the question that I invited Mark Manson, megabestselling author of Everything is F*cked and The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck, to answer on this episode.

While we published this episode one year ago, the question of how to create hope remains as pressing as ever.

Mark says that three basic factors contribute to a sense of hope:

1. Autonomy
2. Purpose
3. Community

Mark and I keep these three factors in mind as we discuss how to define success, find new challenges, and choose what’s meaningful in life. We touch on the importance of emotional regulation and avoiding crises of hope. And we talk about how they relate back to the financial independence retire early (FIRE) movement.

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Are you scared to take the first step toward the habits that you want to build?

Do you believe in your ability to change?

Or are you completely lost as to where to start?

Charles Duhigg, the Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and author of the best-selling books The Power of Habit and Smarter Faster Better joins us on today’s show to tackle these questions.

On his podcast, How To!, Charles explores the “why” behind our habits and helps listeners overcome life’s biggest challenges. Among them, finding a new career before it’s too late, walking away from an impossible parent, fighting racism in your town, and saying the right thing at the worst time.

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Who will you become in five years? 

Will you be the same person you are today, living a similar lifestyle? 

Or will you be a radically different person, with contrasting beliefs, goals, and preferences? 

According to research, most of us believe that we’ll maintain the same beliefs, goals, preferences, and behavior as our past selves. We believe that we’ll continue to plod along the trajectory our past selves set, destined for the same end-goal. 

That belief is flawed, and in some cases, downright wrong. 

Our personality is constantly evolving. The person we are today is not the same person we’ll be in five years. 

            What? That’s silly. I’m me either way, aren’t I?

Think about it this way: are you the same person you were five years ago? Ten years ago? Fifteen years ago?

Of course not. Things in your life have changed: your interests, hobbies, decision-making process, and habits are different than they were a decade ago. 

Past you ≠ present you. Present you ≠ future you.

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Dr. Susan David, a psychologist on the faculty at Harvard Medical School, joins us to talk about emotional agility.

For the past 20 years, Dr. David has researched and refined the principals around this concept.

A few years ago, she wrote about emotional agility for the Harvard Business Review. Her article became one of the most popular articles of the year, and the publishers heralded it as the Management Idea of the Year.

Dr. David gave a TED talk on the same topic, which went viral, gaining over a million views. She then published a book, called Emotional Agility, which became a #1 Wall Street Journal Best Seller.

The concept of emotional agility also won the Thinkers50 Breakthrough Idea Award. She’s provided consulting around this concept with clients that include the United Nations, the World Economic Forum, the NASDAQ, Google, and Microsoft.

She joins us today to explain how to define emotional agility, how to develop it in your life, and how it applies to any goal that you want to pursue – whether that’s financial independence, early retirement, career advancement, or greater success in your health and your relationships.

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