#486: How to Get Better at Making Life-Changing Decisions

The Art of Manliness

Society & Culture, Education, Philosophy

4.7 • 14.5K Ratings

🗓️ 27 February 2019

⏱️ 43 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

How do you make the biggest decisions you face, the ones that have significant consequences and can change your life? Choices like whether to get married, move, attend a certain college, take a particular job, and so on? If you're like a lot of people, you just kind of wing it, and maybe draw up a basic pros and cons list. My guest today has studied the latest research in decision making theory and formulated a better approach. His name is Steven Johnson, his latest book is Farsighted: How We Make the Decisions That Matter the Most, and today he walks us through how to move beyond listing pros and cons to using a more effective 3-step decision making process. We begin our conversation discussing how most people make decisions and how it hasn’t changed much in hundreds of years. Steven then walks us through the phases of a better decision-making methodology, including developing a more creative map of the possibilities before you, accurately predicting the outcomes of those options, and questioning the narratives you have about your choices. Steven then makes the case that reading novels and watching quality television shows can be a great way to train our brains in the skill of decision making. We end our conversation discussing what the raid on Osama bin Laden can teach us about making good decisions. Get the show notes at aom.is/farsighted.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Music
0:15.0	Brett McKay here and welcome to another edition of the Art of Manliness Podcast.
0:18.8	How do you make the biggest decisions you face?
0:20.9	The ones that have significant consequences and can change your life.
0:24.0	Toys like whether to get married, move, tend to certain college, take a particular job,
0:28.2	and so on.
0:29.2	Most people just kind of wing it and maybe drop a basic pros and cons list.
0:33.5	My guest today is study the latest research and decision making theory and has formulated
0:37.1	a better approach.
0:38.1	His name is Stephen Johnson.
0:39.1	His latest book is far-sighted how to make the decisions that matter the most.
0:43.1	And today on the show, he walks us through how to move beyond listening pros and cons
0:46.6	to using a more effective three-step decision making process.
0:49.8	We begin our conversation discussing how most people make decisions and how it hasn't
0:53.1	changed much in hundreds of years.
0:54.9	Stephen then walks us through the phases of a better decision making methodology, including
0:58.7	developing a more creative map of the possibilities before you, accurately predicting the outcomes
1:02.6	of those options, and questioning the narratives you have about your choices.
1:05.9	Stephen then makes the case that reading novels and watching quality television shows
1:09.1	can be a great way to train our brains in the skill of decision making and we enter
1:12.5	conversation discussing what the raid on a summit has been laudant to teach us about
1:16.5	making good decisions.
	...

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