115. Annie Duke – How to Decide: Better Choices, Better Life

Annie Duke is the author of How to Decide: Simple Tools for Making Better Choices and Thinking in Bets: Making Smarter Decisions When You Don’t Have All the Facts. As a decision strategist and consultant, Annie coaches on the behavior of decision making, decision fitness, and emotional control. She is also Co-Founder and Board Member of the Alliance for Decision Education, a Philadelphia-based non-profit organization dedicated to empowering students with essential decision-making skills. Before her work as an author and consultant, Annie was a professional poker player who won more than $4 million in tournament poker before retiring in 2012. Annie joins me today to explain why making a pros and cons list is an ineffective method to make decisions and outlines her six-step process for powerful decision-making. She discusses why people get stuck in analysis paralysis, describes how we can move past it, and defines the “resulting phenomenon.” She also emphasizes using happiness as a tool to measure the value of the choices we’re weighing and illustrates how the quality of our decisions impact the quality of our lives. “There are two things that determine the quality of life: luck and decisions. Focus on the quality of your decisions; they’re the only ones you have control over.” – Annie Duke This week on The School for Good Living Podcast: How setting and following finite goals lead to existential disappointmentWhy most people are bad at making decisionsHow biases play into the decision-making processThe reason social media is a fertile breeding ground for misinformation and fake newsHow long the average person decides what to eat, watch, and wearThe relationship between our quality of life and the decisions we makeIncreasing the frequency of luck through decision-makingThe resulting phenomenon and the importance of being aware of itWhat the “resulting phenomenon” meansAnnie’s six-step process for making better decisionsThe two dimensions a pros and cons list lack that make it an ineffective decision-making toolWhat motivated reasoning is and its relationship with assessing a decisionUsing the happiness test to weigh decisionsThe importance of teaching decision skills in schoolsAnnie’s weakness as a writer, how she overcomes them, and her writing processHer advice for people who want to writeResources Mentioned: How to Decide: Simple Tools for Making Better Choices by Annie DukeThinking in Bets: Making Smarter Decisions When You Don’t Have All the Facts by Annie DukeThe Dynamics of Faith by Paul TillichThinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel KahnemanSuperforecasting: The Art and Science of Prediction by Philip TetlockThe Psychology of Money: Timeless Lessons on Wealth, Greed, and Happiness by Morgan HouselThe Biggest Bluff: How I Learned to Pay Attention, Master Myself, and Win by Maria KonnikovaCatch-22 by Joseph HellerConnect with Annie Duke: Alliance for Decision EducationAnnie Duke WebsiteAnnie Duke on FacebookAnnie Duke on TwitterAnnie Duke on YouTubeAnnie Duke on LinkedInSubscribe, Rate & Share! Thanks for tuning into this week’s episode of the School for Good Living Podcast, with your host, Brilliant Miller. If you enjoyed this episode, please head over to Apple Podcasts to subscribe and leave us a rating and review. Don’t forget to visit our website, like us on Facebook, and follow us on Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn. And be sure to share your favorite episodes with your friends and colleagues on social media to inspire others to improve their lives and reach their full potential.The post 115. Annie Duke – How to Decide: Better Choices, Better Life first appeared on School for Good Living Podcasts.