Clear Thinking: Turning Ordinary Moments into Extraordinary Results

Our tendency to equate the quality of our decision with the outcome is called resulting.

Time is the ultimate currency of life.

safeguard: Keep a record of your thoughts at the time you make the decision. Don’t rely on your memory after the fact. Trying to recall what you knew and thought at the time you made the decision is a fool’s game.

the process principle: When you evaluate a decision, focus on the process you used to make the decision and not the outcome.

Good judgment is expensive, but poor judgment will cost you a fortune.

the transparency principle: Make your decision-making process as visible and open to scrutiny as possible.

One of my exemplars is Charlie Munger, the billionaire business partner of Warren Buffett. He raised my standard for holding an opinion. One night at dinner, he commented, “I never allow myself to have an opinion on anything unless I know the other side’s argument better than they do.”

I’ve known many successful people whose lives I wouldn’t want to have. They had intelligence, they had drive, they had opportunity, and the wherewithal to use them all. But they were missing something else. They knew how to get what they wanted, but the things they wanted weren’t worth wanting.

Rarely are you making decisions that have a 100 percent chance of success. And the kind of decision that has a 90 percent chance of success still has a bad outcome 10 percent of the time. What matters are results over time and ensuring that 10 percent of the time won’t kill you.