The Power of Learning from DAD

Lesson 3 – Decision – Part 1

In a recent survey of senior executives, the ability to make decisions was identified as the most sort after leadership skill. We are not surprised.

Decision making is more of an art than a science, nevertheless in this lesson you will encounter a range of tips that will greatly improve your decision-making capacities. Some of these tips include:

• Do not procrastinate. Procrastination is the enemy of decision. Successful people have a habit of making decisions promptly and changing them slowly. Unsuccessful, however, people have a habit of making decisions slowly, if at all, and changing them at the first sign of any challenge or obstacle.
• When decision on how to move forward, reflect on the result you are after rather than the problems or obstacles. Your deciding should be guided by the result you want to achieve, and not the problems you wish to avoid.
• Relatedly, if you are currently at a place that you would not like to be in, do not base your decisions on where you are now, but rather on where you want to be. If your decisions are based solely on where you are now, your decision is bound by your previous thinking, which may well have been ineffective. That thinking carries into your new decision if you use it as the springboard for further decision making.
• Choose your mentors wisely. Be careful about which ideas you listen to when in the deliberation phase inaccurate opinions from well-meaning friends, family or colleagues can easily cloud your decision-making faculties and derail you, steering you away from your purpose. This is not to say, do not seek council, it only means that you should be looking to identify facts from others, so that your decisions are well informed.

“Opinions are the cheapest commodities on earth. Everyone has a flock of opinions ready to be wished upon anyone who will accept them. If you are influenced by “opinions” when you reach DECISIONS, you will not succeed in any undertaking.” – Napoleon Hill

Lesson 3 – Decision – Part 2

Being decisive is something that we do quite naturally when very young. Sadly, this decision-making capacity is infrequently taught or developed in schools, which means that many people lose their decision-making capacities becoming more reticent as they get older.

In this video, we carry on looking at the key features of effective decision making which you can use to reignite or bolster your decision-making faculties. Some of the ideas introduced or reinforced include:

• Without a purpose it is difficult to make effective decisions. Decide first on your purpose or end goal and the decisions needed to arrive at your desired location will become clear.
• Decisiveness requires courage, be prepared to stand your ground, remembering that when you make a committed decision you cannot give up at the first sign of difficulty. Only by sticking with your decision will you experience the joy of accomplishment. The joy of accomplishment comes from achieving your end goal.
• There will always be tough times however the sky will always clear. The key is stickability. Remember that a major cause of failure is giving up before completion: a lack of stickability. As Ray Dalio says “push forward until completion”
• Use your intuition. Your intuition is one of the most important mental factors to use when making decisions. Our intuitions are frequently overlooked, but you must become attune to or develop your intuitive faculty in order to make the best decisions.

“Have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.” – Steve Jobs