Tuesday's Rule #3

Make decisions like the best

Podcasts have quietly turned into an obsession of mine.

They have without doubt become my favourite media format, and it's not an exaggeration to say a handful of them have changed my life.

I particularly love the long-form interview format. In my humble opinion, Tim Ferriss remains the master of the craft, but I appreciate several others, Lex Friedman and Chris Williamson (from Modern Wisdom) to name two.

There is something incredibly powerful about hearing the world's greatest operators in their respective fields explain in detail, how they think and how they've plotted their path to where they are today.

When done well, the slower-paced, conversational format seems to unlock something different, making the lessons and "rules" more accessible to understand and crack.

Books are wonderful, but a good podcast is quicker to absorb and feels more personal, like a conversation happening just for you. 

A few weeks ago, Jeff Bezos was interviewed on the Lex Friedman podcast.

The episode is over two hours long. It's two hours of one of, if not the most successful business operator OF ALL TIME, dropping absolute gold by way of actionable advice and stories about his experience building Amazon, and today running Blue Origin, a competitor to SpaceX. 

One of his lessons about decision making stuck with me and it’s something I'm thinking about a lot.

So I made it today’s rule.

Two-way doors should be entered quickly. One-way doors should be entered very, very slowly.

Handily, a 10-minute clip from the show where Bezos explains this idea is on YouTube as a separate video. I've added a link to it at the end.

He says: 

"If it's a two-way door decision, you walk through the door, you spend a little time there. If it turns out to be the wrong decision, you turn around, walk back out, and pick another door. 

Some decisions are so consequential and so important and so hard to reverse, they really are one-way door decisions. You go in that door, you really aren't coming back... Those decisions have to be made very deliberately, very carefully..."

He goes on to talk about how this rule was applied at Amazon, how he empowered his teams to make two-way door decisions quickly, and the structure he put in place to ensure one-way decisions are analysed in each and every way possible. 

If this has been an essential heuristic in growing one of the largest and most successful companies ever, I thought it could probably have applications for us all.

As they discuss in the podcast, a massive part of the skill is identifying genuine one-way decisions. 

Many of us mistakenly think we can't change certain choices, often because we're afraid of being embarrassed if we go back on them.

However, the discomfort of admitting a mistake and changing direction does not truly make a decision irreversible. In reality, we may overestimate these, spending too much time on them.

This hesitation may often be less about the decision and more about our concern for others' opinions. I know that's been true for me.

Genuine one-way decisions have lasting effects on a significant scale and are very hard or impossible to reverse. The significance of them could permanently influence your life trajectory. 

The most obvious one is starting a family. That's a decision most of us probably want to scrutinise, discuss and ensure the timing is right before taking the leap. There's no reopening that door.

When considering two-way doors, it is not to say they should be made without proper consideration. But thinking about these decisions as two-way should give us the confidence to make them quickly and confidently, knowing that in the worst case, we can return to where we started.

As I've thought this through, I think a key part here is learning to think long-term. 

For example, changing jobs is a big deal in the short term, and it definitely requires careful thinking. However, if you get a chance to take a well thought out risk, remembering that over the long term a decision like switching jobs can often be reversed, might give us the freedom to embrace something we otherwise wouldn't.

There will always be decisions which are one-way, and all big life decisions should be taken seriously. It's really important to thoroughly analyse and maybe talk with others to fully consider the different outcomes that could occur.

But as part of that calculation, analysing whether the big decision is truly one-way could ease some resistance. In many situations, even major changes such as moving abroad could be undone if absolutely necessary.

There is no way to remove uncertainty. Accepting this might free us from over-analysis and fear of judgment, allowing us to be more confident in decision-making.

Whatever it is, understanding the fluidity of most decisions can be enormously empowering. 

So from now on I'm going to compare the decisions I need to make to my haircuts.

Even if I go for a really bad one, will it eventually grow out?