A thought about making decisions

“High achievers spot rich opportunities swiftly, make big decisions quickly and move into action immediately. Follow these principles and you can make your dreams come true.”
- Robert Schuller

How do you respond to the countless opportunities that pass your way each day?

Do you wait to get all of the data and make a detailed business case for each one, or do you act on impulse, spreading out all of your energies until you keel over, exhausted? I hope that you integrate the best of these two options...

Us humans tend to first decide on emotion, then justify the decision by cherry-picking the facts that fit the choice. And this goes for those of you who call yourselves "analytical"... you also are guided by your unconscious emotions, because they filter out from your consciousness any facts that don't fit.

Effective leaders master the art of making instantaneous decisions, based on imperfect information. By developing a finely-tune sense of intuition, they interpret their emotions through the prism of conscious values, well-examined experience and explicit intentions.

To win in business, you have to be open to possibility, guided by a crystal-clear mission, vision, value set and motivations. You must be willing to continuously re-examine yourself, and get constant feedback to improve your decisions and your actions.

This is why professionals who must make split-second decisions do so through simulation: police, firefighters, paramedics, soldiers, pilots, air controllers, etc. By putting themselves through simulations, they can do a post-exercise analysis to better integrate lessons learned and therefore hone their prism of values, experience and intentions. They develop a sixth sense, that of intuition, that allows them to make fast decisions, with confidence.

Preparation, simulation, decision, execution and integration, these are the steps of the action cycle that allow you to power your passion into tangible and profitable results.

When you face an opportunity, ask yourself the right question: instead of asking "is this the best option?", ask yourself "does this option move me in the right direction?"

The natural choice, the one that puts you in the flow, is also the one that ignites your passion, that fires up your energy, your smile, and makes you stand up straight and proud. You want to leap to action right here and now. It's the decision where your soul is shouting YES! YES! while your head, properly clear and focused, says "OK, I'll go along with this..."

The "right" choice for you, as leader, is ultimately the opportnity that summons the conviction of your values and the courage of your vision.

You swim through a sea of opportunities, all with varying degrees of possibility to move your vision forward. Are you ready to recognize which ones to immediately act upon, with clarity, commitment, confidence and courage?

What would you do if you were ten times bolder?