How I Approach the Toughest Decisions

It’s not always clean and straightforward. But as my mother would say to me, “The world is complicated, Bar. That’s why it’s interesting.”

Many of us tend to work relentlessly — whether it’s at our jobs or taking care of our families. It can feel like there just aren’t enough hours in the day to take time out. But it’s actually vital. One thing I learned as president was that the decisions I had to make were so weighty and consequential, the pace so unyielding, that it was easy to fee... See more

You also want to create space to think. Remember that dinner and haircut break I took during that marathon economic session? That mattered, too. That was part of making the decision. Even in situations where you have to act relatively quickly, as was frequently the case during the financial crisis, it helps to build in time to let your thoughts mar... See more

But the point is, in just a few short weeks on the job, I had already realized that because every tough decision came down to a probability, then certainty was an impossibility — which could leave me encumbered by the sense that I could never get it quite right. So rather than let myself get paralyzed in the quest for a perfect solution, or succumb... See more