Super-Decider: Faster and More Confident Decision-Making for Personal Choices Big and Small: Recent Episodes

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This transcript was generated by Descript and may contain numerous inaccuracies.

Welcome to the Super Decider Podcast. You may have noticed that we now have new intro music. I want to shout out Sunshine Kids and G on Fiver for recording that for me. It's an original composition and it's one that I hope to keep using in the future. We're gonna have a better intro though, coming up soon.

I'm going to hire someone on Fiverr to record their voice instead of mine. So this podcast is getting better and better every time we do it.

With that said, let's get started.

Okay, so what is intuition?

If you have a big decision to make, you've asked around, you've talked to friends, and I bet someone has told you to "follow your heart." Or they've told you to "follow your instinct," "follow your gut," or "follow your intuition."

But what does that mean? And is that advice any good?

In this episode, I asked my little sister, Hannah, and a friend of mine Naga, about intuition, what it is, and how they use it. I wanted to ask this question because I don't think that I have a strong sense of intuition. That's one of the reasons that I can sometimes feel indecisive.

It's because I don't always know what my intuition is or if I even have one, and if I do have one, should I follow it? Sometimes I think that I have intuition, but it's bad intuition. I have intuitions that are telling me to do things that I know aren't a good idea, or I don't have intuition at all. So I asked my friend Naga.

He is currently the director of marketing (and an incredible data scientist) at an artificial intelligence company. I also asked my little sister Hannah Mills. She is a veterinary assistant at an emergency veterinary hospital. Both of them have to make decisions quickly and efficiently.

Here's what my sister Hannah had to say:

"For me, intuition is like a gut instinct that has more to do with like personal safety. Like if you feel that this isn't safe or a smart decision."

Here's what Naga had to say:

“It's like instinct where you don't have to analyze anything. You have choices, right? Two choices. You can have the left road or the right road, and I'm not going to second guess myself, or I'm not gonna think about it, I'm going to take the left road.

Intuition is based on instinct and that comes from being conditioned on what is right and what is wrong. My intuition right now, I feel like this is like a passive decision slash intuition, but is to lose weight, get healthy, and cut the fat, right? And that's something everybody knows that they should do.”

So two somewhat different definitions of intuition there. For Hannah, intuition is something that comes up in the moment and has a lot to do with personal safety. It sounds pretty situational, whereas, for Naga, his sense of intuition is that it's more about a general positive lifestyle, or knowledge of what he should do in his life.

Both of them saw it as being something unconscious. It's not something you choose or reason your way towards.

So here's what's bothering me.

I don't think that I personally often have a strong sense of intuition. And that has held me back or at least made me feel frustrated because sometimes I ask people for advice about what I should be doing in a particular situation or what choice I should make, and they tell me stuff like,

“Oh, well, you know, follow your gut, follow your heart. Do you have an intuition, like following your gut feeling?”

And sometimes with some of the big choices I've had to make in life, I don't have a gut feeling.

I was talking to this guy recently. He's a smart guy, actually a psychologist, and he was talking about how he had two children and he wanted to decide whether or not to have a third kid. He knew that rationally, logically having a kid would be an expensive choice. It would limit him in terms of being able to go on vacations and stuff like that. Emotionally. He also didn't feel like he was excited about having a third kid. But he said he just had an intuition or a gut feeling that it was the right thing to do, so he and his wife decided to have a third.

That stood out to me because I don't feel like I have that gut feeling or intuition a lot. I wouldn’t have intuition about something like that.

What is this intuition? If it's not emotion and it's not logic, the traditional standard definition you'd find on Webster's or whatever is that intuition is the ability to understand something immediately without the need for conscious reasoning. Psychology Today called it “an inner voice, that gut feeling, that little something instinctual from within us that tells us how we feel beneath those layers of logic.”

Then I thought, okay, I don't have that. I don't feel like I have that a lot. So I looked around a little bit more and I found some other quotes like “the only real valuable thing is intuition” — Einstein. And then Oprah said:

“I've trusted the still small voice of intuition my entire life, and the only time I've made mistakes is when I didn't listen. It's more of a feeling than a voice, a whispery sensation that pulsates just beneath the surface of your being.”

And again, I don't feel like when I have a lot of big decisions to make, I have strong intuitions to help me make those decisions. So what is intuition and how can I maybe cultivate it?

My sister, Hannah said that she'd had some similar experiences when she had asked people for advice and been told to follow her gut. She said:

“In some ways, that's kind of a lazy answer. Yeah, because it's just like that's for a more impulsive person who just has a lot of gut feelings. But if you're the type of person who overthinks things or just has to know a lot before going into something and wants to examine every little detail. Saying ‘Go with your gut’ is like, what? What gut?

Like I don't have . . Yeah. If I had a gut, I wouldn't have this problem.”

Naga said:

“I mean, it's, it's exactly that, right? You can decide without thinking through it at all. Do we come to that road of what's your passion? Have you found what you're passionate about.”

Let me give you the the definition or the idea that I came up with when I started to like research this and think, think about what intuition is, and I'll get your thoughts on it.

I think that when we have a sense of intuition or a gut feeling, it's not a unique or magical form of knowledge or understanding the way that it's sometimes described as being, and it's not always good. It's the combination of some of the things you were describing a second ago, including our natural preferences stemming from, I think, evolutionary biology, really our cultural, religious, and social conditioning, our values, and you know, our sense of identity and what our passions are.

Also, I think our sense of like group identity comes into play a lot. Our learned mental associations, learned responses that we've picked up through our childhood experiences, maybe through family, friends, tv, and then education, and maybe even some cognitive biases play into that as well. Like I’m picturing a Katamari ball — that thing that rolls around on the carpet and it gets like bigger and bigger as it picks up stuff until it's like picking up houses and stuff.

Intuition gets formed by all of these different experiences and conditioning and it's kind of basically subconscious programming. So in the case of the psychologist I was talking about said he had intuition that he should have a third child. I think it was more like he was just like programmed that way because of like the culture he grew up in and a whole lot of other factors like that, that emphasized the value of having kids.

And he knew that he liked having kids and stuff like that, but it wasn't like a special form of knowledge. He kind of came from an upper-class culture where, you know, the definition of success is having kids that go to Harvard. And so he thought it was intuition, but I think what is was really describing is something that's more like programming or conditioning. But I don't know if I'm right about that. Because again, I'm not good with intuition myself.

I mean, that makes sense. It's all situational or it falls onto that person.

It seems like intuition is hard to define, but it's a combination of knowing yourself and conditioning and stuff like that. And just like life experience, it can be both good and bad. When it's good, it's when it keeps us safe, and helps us recognize patterns.

Maybe it helps us fit into cultural norms, which can influence your intuitions. I mean, those exist for a reason a lot of times, and they can be beneficial. Intuition also reduces the stress of decision-making because when you have a strong sense of intuition, you know what you want to do. But I also think that intuition can be bad if it makes you biased or prejudiced.

It can lead to over-aggressive social status-seeking behaviors and sometimes in-group out-group dynamics, racism, sexism, and stuff like that. And maybe I'm wrong here, let me know. But I think those can be a form of intuition, which is why I think that intuition is sometimes bad.

If you're walking down the street and you see someone and your intuition is that that person might be dangerous or something like that, then that's often prejudice and that's typically a bad thing. But I think it still counts as intuition, which is why I think that intuition isn't inherently good or bad.

Intuition can come from cognitive biases, and sometimes it can come from impulsivity as well. But I have a theory that the reason I sometimes feel like I don't have a lot of intuition is that I went to school in a specific religious environment for a while, and then I consciously, intentionally found my own beliefs and charted my own path that was different. I decided that for me, certain aspects of that culture and that conditioning wasn't stuff that I wanted.

And I have a theory, and I don't know if this is validated by psychology at all, but I have a theory that is because I rejected some of the primary aspects of my life growing up, like my culture and my conditioning as a kid, that has left me now with less of a sense of intuition than people who are strongly connected to their culture, their faith, their community, and the values they grew up with.

Hannah responded:

Um, my thought about like, prejudice in terms of intuition, like people think they're… I read a lot. I watch a lot of random TED talks and stuff. One of them was somebody, talking about how to like you decide who you're going to hire. So he asked this question when someone walks into the room, you're doing a job interview, what is the first thing you see that's going to impact whether or not you're going to hire them?

And people had all of these answers. This man points out, you know, if you are making a snap judgment about somebody, that is usually from a prejudice. If you're making a snap judgment about a woman because she's not wearing makeup, so you decide she must not be good at this job because she's not wearing makeup, that's not relevant, right?

That's prejudice. You make a snap judgment about somebody because their shoes are kind of scuffed up. You're making a class's judgment, you know, they may not be able to afford better shoes. You make a decision snap judgment based on like, what you see, and if you're making a snap judgment about another person, you're making a judgment based on your initial, not necessarily even prejudices, but conditioning to see other people, and those unfortunately are often based on prejudice.

Chris:

Prejudice is a good word. That was the word I was hunting for earlier. Intuition and prejudice are or can be two sides of the same coin. Like there's, there's a lot of crossovers there.

It can just be prejudice and you're like, oh, “I had an intuition that this person wasn't gonna be a good hire.” No, you were just prejudiced because of the reasons you just mentioned. But this brings up a good question.

Can intuition or what we call intuition be trained? This is something I don't know the answer to you off the top of my head, but can you train someone to have better intuition or to have certain intuitions?

And would you want to do so?

Hannah:

Do you mean can you train yourself to have better intuitions? Like can you train intuition into yourself? Yeah. Can I? I guess that's part of the point of this podcast, right? Yeah. I feel like we have a lot of like questions about intuition, but we're not answering anything and that's our job for this podcast.

Chris:

Yeah. Well, yeah, I guess part of the point of this was because, maybe I'm the only person in the world who feels this way, but I had often felt, again, and I feel like I've said this three or four times now, but I often would ask for advice and hear, you know, “follow your gut,” “follow your intuition,” and I always think “that's not helpful at all.”

If I had some magical sense of what to do, I wouldn't need to ask you for help. Please. Like, that's a b**t answer. Give me an actual solid answer. What does that mean? Follow your heart.

Yeah. Yeah, it's, and I think, I think the answer is that intuition, what we call intuition, certainly can be useful, but it's just conditioning.

It's just sort of a learned thing. It can even be prejudice. And if you are one of those people who, if you have great intuitions, you love your intuitions, you're probably not listening to this podcast because you're already a pretty fast decision maker.

But if you're one of those people who questions their intuitions a lot or doesn't have them, I'm hoping that this podcast will help you develop or condition yourself with some of the right intuitions. I'm hoping that you'll get better if you listen to this podcast at making snap judgments, but not snap judgments, just based on prejudice or anything like that, but snap judgments based on really taking some time to deeply think about what's valuable to you and what's important to you and to learn some decision-making skill sets that make those snap judgments more accurate.

I think that a lot of times we know far more than we think that we do and even if we don't have direct experience of something, we often have patterns that are pretty similar help us to make decisions. So, you know, if I asked you, Hannah, right now, how much does my computer graphics card weigh?

What would you guess? Throw out a guess.

Hannah:

Four grams?

Chris:

Nice. I have no idea how much a gram is, but you could be. Right. You knew that it was a pretty small number though, right? Yeah. For all I know. That's pretty accurate. Should I buy five cats tomorrow?

Hannah:

Uh, you do. You bro. . .

Chris:

Okay. Real answers. Real answers.

Hannah:

No. You have terrible allergies to cats. What the heck would you do with them?

Chris:

Yeah. Okay. One last question. How many hot dogs are in my freezer?

Hannah:

You have a package of eight, but you've eaten four of them, so there's only four.

Chris:

Nice. Well, okay, the reason those are really good answers, the reason that I was asking those questions, is to make the point that even with no information, you haven't looked in my freezer probably in months.

You have never picked up my computer. You don't even know much about graphics cards. The cats one was kind of random, but you were able to make a good guesstimate, and I don't know if you'd necessarily call that intuition, though. I think it did ties into play. It's stuff that you've learned that you're now applying.

But the reason to share that is that I think that we can get bogged down in seeking exact information, and a lot of times it's worth recognizing that we have enough information already to make many of the decisions that we have to make in life, or at least whether it's something like choosing, you know, insurance for your car or something like that, you have a lot of patterns and data to go off of already.

And I don't know if that's helpful or maybe we should cut it, but to me it's, it's sometimes potentially valuable to consider or be aware of that fact, especially if you're someone who gets bogged down in a feeling like, oh, I just don't know. It's you, you might know, you might, you know more than you think you do.

So if you're freaking out, cause you don't feel like you have the information at hand to make a decision, sometimes it's worth stepping back and realizing that you have a lot of kind of analogous or relevant patterns and experiences that you could get pretty close with the information you have at hand.

You know how you know yourself enough, you know other people.

Hannah

No, I like that. I like the thing that you did where I, like a lot of our indecisiveness comes from self-doubt. Like we don't believe that we can make a good decision, but the truth is we do have a lot more information.

Like we're a lot better at this than we think we are. We have a lot more than just information randomly floating around in our heads that will help us.

I was like, I just don't have enough information to make this decision, and actually. If I were to break it down, I usually have so much information.

Rarely, I don't have any information at all.

Chris:

Yeah, that makes perfect sense. And I think that ties into intuition. I could be wrong, but I think it's, it counts because it's that sort of learned or conditioned knowledge, or that we, that we have that we call intuition, so I'm going have to workshop that definition.

Thank you to everyone who, listened to this episode, and please, you know, I always ask you to like, subscribe, et cetera. None of you ever do. Don't worry. I listen to podcasts a lot and I've liked and subscribed to like three of them. So we're all in the same boat. We're all jerks. Is that a good podcast ending or is that a really bad ending jerk?

Hannah:

I'm a jerk. You're a jerk. Subscribe butt-faces.

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Some thoughts and observations on the ways childhood experiences and mental models can shape us. Subscribe on Substack or Apple Podcasts.

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Preview: Today’s Episode

Today's episode of Super Decider is about low-stakes versus high-stakes choices. It's also about one of decision-making's most intransigent complicating factors. It's the inevitable passage of time. Stay tuned if you're planning to make a big career or relationship decision. Think about getting married, breaking up with your significant other, quitting your job, or going back to school.

Big takeaways from today will be:

1. Strategies for identifying high vs. low stakes decisions.

2. Why does the amount of time you have to make a decision matter?

I'll also talk about whether you should second-guess your answers when you take a test like the SAT. We'll cover something called "optimal stopping theory," and the Secretary Problem. We're even going to do a little math — but I promise, not a lot.

My Mortgage vs. My Wallet

About a year ago, I bought a house. I sold my first place, a small home in the DC suburbs, and moved to a smaller town with more room and better schools.

Selling a house and buying another one meant that I had to make many decisions that felt were very high-stakes. For example, the location mattered. I work from home, but if I ever have to go back to the office, I might have to sell the new house. I also learned that all the houses I liked the best were outside of my price range.

One thing you should know about me is that I am always tempted to agonize over decisions. I mean ... that's the reason I started this podcast. The other day I spent an embarrassing amount of time looking on Amazon for a new wallet. I found one I liked, but it was 100 bucks, and I was like, "no way am I spending that much on a wallet."

But, when my real estate agent suggested tacking on an extra 10,000 dollars to my offer, I said, "hey let's do it!" I spent more time researching the right wallet to get, and trying to shave 30 bucks off the price than I did on tacking on 10,000 dollars to my mortgage.

That's NOT rational. Sure, the 10,000 dollars will be spread out over 30 years, so monthly it's not a lot. But it's still 10,000 dollars plus interest. When it comes to finances and building wealth, big things like your mortgage and your salary matter a lot more than saving money on small purchases.

For more on this concept, by the way, I recommend I Will Teach You To Be Rich by Ramit Sethi. It's a great introduction to building wealth. He has simple advice like it's ok to spend money on the things you're most passionate about, as long as you save on the things you don't care about as much.

One of the points from Sethi's book that stuck with me is that the purchases that carry interest, like your house and your car, generally matter the most. They matter more than something like how much you spend on coffee every day, so saving 30 bucks on a wallet.

But I'm getting off-topic.

Back to decision-making!

It's too easy to mix up low-stakes and high-stakes decisions. That's because high-stakes decisions can feel overwhelming. They feel out of our control. They sometimes involve big numbers. But low-stakes decisions put us in the driver's seat. We sometimes spend time on them even when they don't matter because we like to feel in control.

We sometimes devote more effort to small decisions than big ones. We feel like we should get them right. But big decisions can feel overwhelming. Sometimes, we make big decisions quickly to get them off our plates.

99% percent of all our decisions are low-stakes or no-stakes. The phone or the wallet we buy, the movie we watch, or the dinner we order tonight won’t matter a few weeks from now. Even if they do matter a bit, like buying a phone, they’re usually reversible: you can usually return the phone or get another one later.

But that doesn't always make choosing easier. Indesivice people often know that a decision is low or no-stakes, but can still get stuck. I'll be honest, I've even gotten stuck making decisions at restaurants.

Restaurants: What to order when it all looks good.

I'll be sitting there thinking "well at first I wanted the salmon. I've been trying to eat more fish for those Omega-3s, and I always like salmon. But then I saw the steak and boy does it look good!"

This is where time comes into play. You usually have time at a restaurant. You can ask the waiter for a recommendation. You can read reviews. But that's a lot of work, and you want to be more decisive.

Good news! Researchers have figured this one out. The answer is steak. I should get the steak (not because the steak is healthier or tastes better, but because it was my second choice).

When you:

A. have a low-stakes (no pun intended) decision like what to order at a restaurant

B. find yourself drawn to another option instead of your first instinct

… go with the second option.

This is a concept that comes from test-taking. When you take an exam like the SATs, if you're like me, there's always that question where you answer one way, but then you start to second-guess your answer. There's another option that also works, and you start to wonder if you should go back and change it. Statistically, when people encounter this type of situation, changing their answers improves test scores.

So if you're stuck between two low-stakes options, go with the option you liked best most recently. Go with the option that made you second-guess your initial instinct.

I can't guarantee you'll like the steak better (that depends on the restaurant). But you'll up your chances of being satisfied with your choice if you go with the one you liked best most recently. Just be sure to remember, that this is for low-stakes decisions. It doesn't matter what choice I make, so I'm giving myself a simple rule to saving time.

By the way, this doesn't mean you should second guess your choices once you've made up your mind. Go with the second option (the steak in this case) if you're on the fence. Once you've placed an order though, this is no reason to go back and change it. Again, this is a low-stakes decision.

The 10-10-10 Rule

If you need help convincing yourself about whether a decision matters, whether it is low or high stakes, try the 10-10-10 rule. Ask yourself,

"How will I feel about this decision in 10 hours? 10 days? 10 weeks, months, years?"

There are very few decisions that will matter 10 days from now. Most won't even matter 10 hours from now. If you want to take this idea further, imagine yourself at age 100, looking back at your life. How much do you care about this decision now?

High Stakes: Urgent Decisions and Risk

I know I just said that you should go with your second choice, the option you liked best most recently, in low-stakes situations. But this just applies to low-stakes decisions when time and risk aren't a factor. When every second matters, or when you feel nervous for your safety, but, it's usually better to go with your first instinct if you have one. When you have to make a split-second decision, instincts can be a very good guide.

Many people who have been the victim of crimes, natural disasters, and other catastrophes report the same feeling. Even before the tsunami hit or the kidnapper appeared, they felt like something was off. Something felt "not quite right" even though they couldn't put their finger on what it was.

Don't discount your instincts, especially fear or distrust or a sense that "something isn't quite right" but you "can't put your finger on it." Be aware of what made you gravitate towards one option first because instinct or intuition can be valuable. Especially if a person or place makes you feel nervous but you can't quite place your finger on why that's a signal worth listening to.

When you have to make a split-second decision, your first instinct is usually a good one to follow, especially if you feel like something is unsafe.

So now we've covered low-stakes decisions and high-stakes, split-second decisions. But what about high-stakes decisions like whether to get married, break up with a significant, or quit a job to try something new?

Let's start with a little math.

The Secretary Problem

You are the HR manager of a company and need to hire the best secretary out of a given number of candidates. You can interview them one by one, in random order. However, the decision to hire or reject a particular candidate must be taken immediately after the interview. If nobody has been hired before the end, the last candidate is chosen.

So how do you choose who to hire?

Math geeks have figured it out. Take the number of candidates you have, divide that by 2.7, and interview that many candidates. So if you have 27 candidates, you'd interview 10. After that, hire the next candidate who is better than the best of the first 10.

The secretary problem comes up in all sorts of ways in your life.

You move to a new town. Exhausted after a day of unpacking, you head to the nearest restaurant. There’s no way you’re cooking tonight. Besides, the dishes are still in a box somewhere.

You find a restaurant, and the food is good. It’s good. It’s so good, you eat there every time you go out.

A few years later, you get a new job. You have to move again. You pack your dishes up. You head to your favorite restaurant for one last meal. It’s closed. For the first time, you go somewhere else.

The food at this new restaurant is amazing. It’s way better than the place you’ve been going to for years. You’ve been eating at the wrong restaurant this entire time! It’s too bad you’re moving out of town.

In decision-making, time matters. When you have a lot of time (or a lot of room for mistakes) you should experiment. You should take risks. When you have less room for error, you should be more cautious. It’s why your 401k shifts more money from stocks towards bonds each year.

Imagine you’re in a relationship that feels OK. It’s tolerable but mediocre. The person you’re dating is great, but not perfect. You’re feeling FOMO and want to play the field. You agonize over whether to stay in the relationship and try to improve it or break up.

If you’re in high school or college, the answer is: break up. You’ll have years to meet new people. Your tastes and personality will change. If you’re already unhappy with the relationship, you’ll be unhappy with it in ten years.

The important thing is that you count forward, not backward. You should not fall into “sunk cost” thinking. Even if you’ve been dating all through college, that doesn’t mean you have to stay together.

But, if you’re in your 50s, you’re in a different situation. You should work on improving the relationship rather than walking away. The hard truth is that you no longer have as much time to play the field, and your options will be fewer.

So to recap:

Learn to recognize whether a choice is low or high stakes and whether it is urgent. For split-second decisions, it's often best to follow your first instincts or go with your first best choice, especially when you sense risk or a threat. But, for low-stakes decisions where you have some time, it can sometimes be helpful to go with whatever you liked best most recently. When you have a lot of time to experiment, try new things, and take risks.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit superdecider.substack.com

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Imagine:

You already have a good job. You like your job, but it doesn't pay well. And then you get a job offer that pays a lot better. And it also looks like a great job, but one downside is it's far away. You don't want to commute that much.

So what do you do? Do you take that job offer that pays well but is far away? Do you stick with the current job that pays less well, but it's a lot closer?

That's a false dichotomy.

You think you only have two options. But you have lots of options. You might have some good options you haven't even considered yet:

Quit your job, but don't accept the job offer. Go back to school or start a business instead.

Commit to finding a new job that is willing to offer you the same salary, but is closer.

Go back to the hiring manager and say...

"Listen, I like this opportunity but it's too far away. I'm going to need an opportunity to work from home. Or I'm gonna need a stipend to help me move. I'm going to need these accommodations for this to be the right decision for me."

I'm always surprised by how often I get stuck in a false dichotomy. I get stuck between this choice or that choice. I don't take the time to think about why neither option has to be that way and why I might want to follow the third path. I might be able to change things up.

I remember a time in my life when I was working in New York City. I hated my job. I began looking for other jobs nearby. I also began looking for jobs in South Carolina, because I'd always wanted to move there.

I started sending out job applications and didn't get any responses. After a while, I felt frustrated and I was thinking, what do I do?

Do I keep applying for jobs? Do I give up? And then I started applying for jobs in Maryland. I started to get responses. I don't know why, but I had been stuck between these two options, NYC or South Carolina. Only when I started looking at the third option, Maryland, I started to get a lot of responses to my applications.

Often when we feel indecisive in my experience, it's because we're trapped in a false dichotomy of some kind.

Sometimes that false dichotomy comes from external sources, such as people who don't want us to think outside the box... people who want us to think that we only have two choices. Sometimes it's internal. Sometimes we convince ourselves to hyper-focus on one or two options when there are many more out there.

That can be one of the situations that makes us most indecisive. Two choices seem almost exactly equal or they seem so unpredictable that we can't pick one.

3 Questions to Tackle False Dichotomies

What could I change about either option that would make this a way easier decision? For example, if you're comparing two job offers, could you negotiate for better benefits higher salary, or extra time off, at one of the jobs?

What if I didn't choose either option? What if I didn't take either job or any job at all? What if I went back to school, would it be so bad to take a sabbatical or a vacation?

How can I make this decision reversible? Is there a way to test either option before committing, let's say you are about to start a job in a new state, but you're not sure you'll like it? Maybe don't move and buy a house yet. Maybe rent for now. Maybe commit to you checking back in after three months and deciding whether you wanna stay at that.

We often have these scripts in our heads that we have to do one thing or the other. And then that script causes us to stop focusing on all the options available to us.

Create More Options: Ask for Help

I’m surprised by how often this works. Ask for what you want. It’s simple and effective, yet we often avoid it.

Are you unsure whether you’re getting paid fairly? You might be surprised to find that your coworkers are willing to discuss their salaries — especially if you return the favor.

Indecisive people have a strange, emotional aversion to asking for what they want. Maybe you’re worried about offending people. Maybe you’re worried about exposing a weakness as if you don’t want to admit how little you know. Whatever your reasons, you may be surprised by what happens when you ask.

If you’re struggling to decide because of too many unknowns, you may have fallen into this trap. There may well be someone you can ask for help.

Get better at making decisions. 1 tip per week.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit superdecider.substack.com

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A Short Message from Chris

Sometimes, I use podcasts to learn new skills. I skip around and listen to whatever episodes seem most relevant. But I’m hoping you’ll listen to each episode of Super Decider in order. Please go back if you haven’t yet, and listen to episodes one and two.

Also, please subscribe to Super Decider. It’s free and it’s an easy way to let me know if this content is valuable. Every episode I post centers around a lesson that I’ve learned through a lot of research and trial and error.

My goal for each episode is that you learn at least one valuable lesson each time you listen.

My golden rule for each episode is that it has to center around something I learned that either changed my life or helped me to become a more confident decision-maker.

Ready to become a Super Decider? Check out the archive. Start at the beginning and listen in order, because each episodes builds on the last.

Today’s Topic: Framing

In today’s post, I’m going to share some tips and advice about framing your decision. Think of every choice you make as a question. The way you word that question can change everything.

Example: Paint Colors

Let’s say you want to paint your home office, but you don’t know what color to paint it. You could frame your choice like this:

”What color should I paint my home office?”

That’s a choice, and it’s a question. But, you could also frame your choice with a different question, such as:

”What color can I paint my home office?”

Note the difference between “should” and “can.” I’ll talk about this difference more in later episodes, but it can be an important mindset shift.

There’s also:

”What color would I like my home office to be?”

”Should I paint my home office, and if so, what color?”

”How many colors should I paint my home office?”

”What colors will make my home office look more professional and feel more relaxing?”

“How can I make my home office look more professional and feel more relaxing?”

“Will Yellow or White make my home office feel happier?

The list could go on and on. I’m not saying that you need to think of every possible way to frame your decision. But, the question you ask will have a lot of influence on the answer you come to.

How?

There are two reasons that the exact question you ask matters so much. The first is psychological.

Here’s an example:

Can of soda A is labeled “95 percent sugar-free!”

Can of soda B is labeled “Only 5 percent sugar!”

Which can of soda is healthier, can A or can B?

Research shows that many people will pick Can A because 95 is a bigger number, even though neither can is healthier than the other.

Psychologists and marketers call this the “framing effect” and it is a lot more influential on the choices you make than you might realize. Marketers use this type of psychological trick all the time. They’ll offer you 10% off of a 10-dollar item because they know that 10 percent off sounds better than offering you single-dollar savings. At the same time, for items over 100 dollars, the effect reverses.

Marketers would rather offer you 50 dollars off of a 500-dollar item than ten percent off of the same item. It’s how our brains work (especially mine, because I had a pretty mediocre fourth-grade math teacher).

The framing effect can be a big problem for political surveys. Researchers Matthew Feinberg and Rob Willer found that Republicans and Democrats respond differently to questions about environmental regulation. No surprises there. But, their responses varied depending on how researchers framed the questions. Republicans, for example, were more likely to support regulation to keep American land pure from pollution. Yet, they were less like to support the same legislation when the researchers framed it in terms of protecting the environment more generally.

The other reason that framing is so important is that it can change your options and your end goal.

Take these two questions from earlier:

“How can I make my home office look more professional and feel more relaxing?”

“Will yellow or white make my home office feel happier?

Those are completely different questions! You are likely to arrive at very different answers depending on which question you start with.

If you start with question 1, you might decide to move your office to a different room, or decorate it differently. Maybe you’ll put up pictures. Maybe you’ll decide to go with 3 gray walls and a blue accent wall.

If you start with question two, you might feel drawn to yellow, because it’s a happy color.

Ok, so how do you decide how to frame your question?

I’ll answer that question in a second. But first, I want to ask you a question.

A man goes out to the bar and gets drunk. He decides to take a foolish and illegal risk and drives home. Luckily, he makes it home in one piece and does not get in a car accident.

Now let’s imagine a different scenario. A man goes out to the bar and gets drunk. He decides to order a taxi instead of driving home. On the way home, the taxi gets hit by a drunk driver.

Which man-made made a better decision?

Even though the second man got hit by a car, he made the best decision. It’s never a good idea to drive drunk.

The point of this example is that a good decision and a good outcome are two different things. Just because you have a good outcome does not mean you made a good decision. A bad outcome doesn’t always mean you made a bad decision.

Keep that in mind as you follow along with Super Decider. As I’ve said before, Super Decider is not a show about getting the perfect outcome. It’s about making decisions quickly, that you can stand behind even when things don’t turn out as planned.

Alright, anyway, back to what I was talking about: how do you figure out how to frame your decision?

Number 1: Decision Mapping

List all the possible options, and think about the possible outcomes for each option. Sometimes, a mind-mapping tool can help with this. For example, if I’m thinking about what color to paint my office, I might include all the colors on my list that I like. I might add the option to not paint the office at all, or to paint it in multiple colors.

Beware of taking this too far. There are several traps you can run into when you try to map out all your options. You might end up with a long list. You’ll also discover that every choice leads to more choices. You’ll end up with branching paths. Let’s say you start with yellow. What shade of yellow? Should you do all the walls in yellow? What about the door? The hallway is already yellow, so you should repaint that some other color now…

It’s also very easy to start projecting too far into the future. “What color should I paint my office” can easily become “maybe I should redecorate... but I might move if I get a new job and then it won't matter anyway... Do I want a new job... Maybe? Buuuut I’ve also been thinking about starting a family…” Pretty soon the color you're painting your office has turned into a big life decision. Watch out for this trap.

If you decide to map out your decision paths, use it as a way to identify blind spots. Use it to cross off paths you want to avoid, and see if any options stand out. You’ll probably notice that your path loops back to the same pivotal decision or decision each time.

Try not to project too far ahead or become bogged down in choices. If that’s happing, journey mapping may not be for you.

Number 2: Work Backwards

Start with “why?” Why are you considering this decision, to begin with? And, how do you define success? What is the outcome you want?

If you can identify the outcome you’re aiming for, you can frame your decision in terms of that outcome.

For example, if you want to paint your office because the current color looks unprofessional, you might say,

“What color or colors will make my office look more professional?”

That’s far better than “What color should I paint my office.”

You can also think about what your minimum requirements are. This is an important concept we’ll talk about more later, but if you can say that your choice must be a bright color, then you have an even easier time.

“Which of these bright colors will make my office look more professional?”

Of course, it’ll also be important to know what you mean by professional. But, we won’t go too far down that rabbit hole because this episode is getting a little long.

I’m going to stop here, but the next couple of episodes will tie back into this one. I’m going to talk about a logical fallacy called a “false dichotomy.” It can cause you to frame your choice in a way that might cause you to miss out on some good options. I’ll also talk about how and why to think about what you have control over. The best way to make sure you get those episodes is to subscribe to the show.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit superdecider.substack.com

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Preview: In my last post, we talked about some of the unnecessary pressures that can make big decisions more difficult. Be sure to check it out if you haven’t yet. This time, we’re going to talk about some of the practical considerations you should always think about before making a big decision. Then we’ll dive into a bonus tip to help people-pleasures set boundaries and get some much needed ROI.

When you have to make a big decision, it’s easy to get stuck on big questions. Let’s say that you have a good friend who’s starting a business. He wants you to go in as his co-founder. But being a co-founder means you'll have to quit your job. At the same time, this could be a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to be your own boss... and make a lot of money doing it.

Faced with a life-changing decision like this, you might start thinking about questions like:

“How much do I trust my friend? Can our friendship survive doing business together?”

“Do I want to be an entrepreneur? Can I handle long hours and lots of uncertainty?”

Today’s tip is really a checklist. Before you worry about anything else, you need to make sure that your choices check all the right boxes. If any of the options you’re considering don’t pass this test, you should drop them from consideration right away.

Use this checklist whenever you have a big decision to make. It will save you a lot of unnecessary stress if you can eliminate bad choices without overthinking them.

Some of these checklist items might seem obvious when you read them. But, you might be surprised by how often we forget about them when we’re faced with a big, life-changing opportunity. It’s easy to let overthinking get in the way of practical considerations.

So here’s the checklist. Ask yourself these questions every time you have a big choice to make.

Practical Considerations

1. Are all my options realistic?

Are there any choices I should remove from consideration because they are not achievable? In the example I gave, it would be important to know whether your friend’s business has a chance of working out. Does he have investors? Does he have any clients lined up? Does he have previous business experience or technical know-how? Or have you gotten caught up with enthusiasm for a pie-in-the-sky fantasy?

1. Are all my options affordable?

Though there are exceptions, such as medical expenses, if you can’t afford something you usually shouldn’t buy it. That means you need to know your budget. You also need to think about how much something might cost you. And, you need to know how you might pay for it. There’s no point in considering whether to buy a Ferrari if you only have the budget for a pre-owned Chevy Cobalt. I know it sounds obvious, but take a look at the average person’s credit card statements. We often forget to consider affordability when we make big decisions.

1. Do I have the time and resources for all my options?

Many decisions, like choosing to go back to school or joining a gym, come with a time commitment attached. (Plus you’ll need books or equipment.) No matter how much you might want to do something, be sure that you can make time for it. For example, let’s say you have a good job offer, but it’s a three-hour commute. You can’t move closer, and you can’t work from home. There’s no point in agonizing over that decision — there’s no way you can take that job.

1. Do any of my choices make me compromise on a deeply held personal value or put a much more important goal at risk?

If a choice puts something more important to you, like your health, your integrity, or your family at risk, that’s usually a good enough reason to skip it.

1. Is there a return on investment, or ROI, for the choices you’re considering?

We sometimes agonize over decisions that don’t have an upside either way. It may sound selfish, but it’s often worth asking “what do I get out of this? What will make this choice worthwhile?” If there’s little-to-no Return on Investment for a choice, that is often a good reason to give it a miss, or a least, don’t overthink it. Of course, ROI doesn't have to be financial. Your ROI can be as simple as a strengthened relationship. But whatever it is, it should be something identifiable.

Whenever you have a big decision to make, be sure to consider these five items. Don't stress yourself out or waste your time considering options that are truly unaffordable, unrealistic, unethical, or pointless.

Bonus Tip: ROI vs. People-Pleasers

Thinking about ROI can help in a lot of areas in life and work — not just decision-making. It can help you to set boundaries and become more assertive, especially if you're a natural-born people-pleaser. (And, in my experience, many indecisive people are.)

Do you often find yourself doing favors for other people? Have you stayed late at work or skipped lunch because someone asked you to, even though you didn’t get paid overtime for it? Do you volunteer for chores or assignments that you don’t want to do?

If you're not a people-pleaser or you have strong boundaries already, you can skip this one. But, if you’ve ever felt like a pushover or people-pleaser, this is a good technique to practice. If that’s you, here’s today's exercise:

Next time someone asks you to do something that you don't want to do, think about how you can ask them for something in return.

“I’ll do X for you, but can you do Y for me?”

For example, if your boss asks you to stay late at work, you might be able to say,

“Sure, I can stay a couple of hours late this time, but I have some errands I need to get done, so if I stay late today, I’d like to leave early tomorrow.”

Of course, you'll need to tweak this language to fit how you'd normally speak to your boss. But, thinking about ROI, or asking yourself "what do I get out of this?" can help you build better relationships and make better decisions.

That may sound selfish, but by asking questions like this, you'll be able to be more upfront about what you need. And, when you're upfront about what you need, you will feel more authentic. If you do it right, you will come across as more honest and genuine, and most people will appreciate that.

Being a people-pleaser can make you feel stepped on. It can lead to bitterness. But, when you ask for ROI for your time and effort, you will feel more excited and motivated. You'll be able to do what you agreed to with more enthusiasm, because you get something out of it. You will be happier with the choices you've made, and that's what Super Decider is all about.

Ready to become a Super Decider? Check out the archive. Start at the beginning and listen in order, because each episodes builds on the last.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit superdecider.substack.com

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I posted the pilot intro episode to this show yesterday and it’s already getting some downloads! (If you haven’t yet, give it a listen.) Before I dive in to todays Super Decider strategy tip, here’s a quick rundown of how the show is going to work.

But first… What to Expect from the Super Decider Podcast

I’m planning to start with a decision-making boot camp of about 20 to 25 episodes that I’ve already planned out. Each episode will center around a tip, lesson, or technique to help you become a better, faster, more confident decision-maker. I’ll also try to provide exercises at the end of each episode. If anything you’ve learned is helpful, you can practice it until the next episode comes out, which should be about once a week.

I’ve structured each tip so that they correspond to steps in a unique and comprehensive decision-making process. At the end of the first 20 or so episodes, I’ll put everything together in an ebook or download. Whenever you have a big decision to make, you can pull that out and run through each step to get clarity for almost any difficult decision. After that, I’m going to ask you, as listeners and readers, to contribute questions and topics. I’ll run through some of the most common life decisions we all face, and I’ll bring on some guest speakers. So, be sure to stay tuned, and feel free to comment or reach out if you have a big decision or question that we can cover on Super Decider.

Now that I’ve gotten that out of the way, on to…

… Super Decider strategy tip #1!

Have you ever bought a car?

If you’ve ever bought a car, a salesman has told you “there’s a lot of interest in this car. If you don’t buy it now, it may be gone tomorrow. I can only hold onto it for one more day. This model is flying off the lot!”

He knows the car will still be there tomorrow, and there are others like it. But, you’re sitting in his office, and he’s bombarding you with sales tactics. He’s telling you he can give you a “special price,” but only today.

Stressful situations like this make you less rational but more anxious, right? So here’s super decider tip #1:

When you have to make a big decision, stop and consider whether you’re in the right frame of mind. If possible, take yourself out of any stressful situations. For example, you can tell that aggressive salesperson you’re going to grab lunch, and you’ll be back in the afternoon.

When possible, you should usually wait till later to make a big decision if:

You feel sleep-deprived, hungry, intoxicated, or impaired in some way.

You’re experiencing temporary high stress or anxiety — especially if it’s caused by the people or environment around you.

Someone is pressuring you, especially someone like a salesperson, who wants you to make the wrong decision and spend too much.

You are under an artificial time constraint.

A Quick Story

I recently called a local company to ask about installing gutter guards around my roof. I wanted to keep leaves and other debris from clogging up my gutters. A company salesperson came out to my house and offered to install the gutter guards for a mere (get this) 12,000 dollars. But, he said it was the end of the month, aaaand they had excess inventory, so he could offer me a special deal. They’d install the gutter guards for only 8,000 dollars, but only if I signed a contract right there and then.

It was a tempting offer. The gutter guards would be under warranty. They’d be professionally installed. And I wouldn’t have to climb up a long ladder to my roof. I said no thanks.

I bought the materials online for 50 dollars, borrowed a ladder, and did the work myself in a few hours. Afterward, I was shocked that I’d even considered spending 8000 dollars on a project like that. But, the salesperson had created an artificial time constraint. He’d attempted to create a stressful situation that would cause me to make a poor decision.

What to do Instead

If you have a big decision to make, try to make it at a time and place when you are not facing unnecessary pressures or distractions. It’s not always possible, I know. But, if you feel a lot of stress over a decision, ask yourself if someone or something in your environment is creating unnecessary pressure. What could be making your choice more difficult?

Of course, sometimes you can’t change your situation. And, you don’t want to use this as an excuse to run away from a challenge. But, if you can recognize who, or what, is making your decision harder, see if you can step away from that person or situation for a bit.

At Work

Have you ever been in a meeting at work and someone asks you a question that you're not prepared to answer? Maybe you don't know the answer, or maybe you do know the answer but you just weren't ready to speak about it.

Maybe you're missing data or maybe you're still deciding what you want to do.

We've all been there. You're asked a question you're not prepared for, and you start stumbling around trying to BS your way to an answer. Your ramble on for ten minutes semi-incoherently, and then afterwards you're kicking yourself. You're worried you looked incompetent and unprepared.

This is exactly the sort of situation where it can help to step back and say "let me get back to you on that."

I'm one of those people who thinks through things by talking about them. I don't always know what I think until I've talked to someone. Unfortunately, that means that sometimes, I ramble a lot. Learning to say "let me think about it" or "let me get back to you" as helped me save face in a lot of situations.

"Let me get back to you on that."

It's one of my favorite phrases to use in any situation like this. When I feel unprepared to answer a difficult question at work, I will often say,

"That's a great question. I'd like to think about it for a bit and get back to you when I have an answer."

Or I might say "I don't want to give you the wrong information, so let me doublecheck and I'll get back to you."

Sometimes, I'll offer to put together a report or send information over via email.

I'll say something like, "Great question. There's a lot of information to go over, and I don't want to take up the rest of the meeting. Let me email over a report, and we can talk through it next time."

Bonus Tips

Two more quick tips about your decision-making frame of mind:

Bonus Tip 1: Decisions often feel different in the morning than in the evening.

Have you ever heard that you should “sleep on it?” That can be great advice because our minds work differently in the mornings than in the evenings. We’re often more emotional at night, but feel more practical and rational when we wake up in the morning. That’s why sometimes we make big commitments at night like “I’m going to wake up early tomorrow and hit the gym!” but then the morning rolls around we sleep in instead. Some sleep on it” is the best advice.

Bonus Tip 2: Use your calendar.

Have you been agonizing over a decision all week? Are you feeling anxious about an upcoming choice you know you’ll have to make? You keep picking up your phone to ask for advice or Google things. Or, you keep trying to distract yourself or focus on something else, but you can’t get this one decision out of your head?

Try scheduling time to worry about it in your calendar. Select some time that you know you’ll be free, and block it off. Give yourself a few hours when you know you’ll be able to focus your full attention on the problem. Commit to dedicating that time to worrying about your decision. By scheduling time in your calendar to worry later, you can help calm your anxious mind now so you can focus on other things.

Homework Assignment

Take some time this week to notice what people or environments trigger indecisiveness or stress for you. Think about how might be able to take yourself out of that situation next time you have to make a decision. And of course, if you liked this episode, please share it.

Thanks for reading Super Decider! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit superdecider.substack.com

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We all want to be more calm, confident, and assertive. Wouldn’t it be great if there was a Google Maps for life, so you always knew what direction to turn without having to think about it?

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit superdecider.substack.com