Weekly Success Tip

In 2000, psychologist Gerd Gigerenzer and economist Andreas Ortmann teamed up and took part in an investment competition run by Capital magazine. The contest spanned over 6 weeks and in the period entrants were given a list of 50 stocks they could buy, hold or sell in the endeavour to gain the most return on investment.

While not necessarily the highest profiting team, Gigerenzer and Ortmann received considerable attention for their highly unorthodox, yet highly effective, approach. One which placed them in the top 10% of the competition and allowed them to generate a gain in the middle of a significant market down-turn.

So what did they do?

They took to the pavements of Berlin stopping 100 pedestrians (50 men and 50 women) and asked them which of the 50 companies they had heard of. Then, as if acting on the 'gut feelings' of this snippet of the population, they purchased the 10 most recognised and held them for the entire 6 weeks of the contest.

In fact to take Gigerenzer's theory one step further let me provide the following example: When you attempt to catch a ball coming towards you, your brain is required to proceed any number of complex mathematical calculations. Once (hopefully) you've caught the ball, it would be impossible to ask you to retell the calculations and workings you just considered in consistently determining the speed, angle and distance from your hand to the ball.

This is your subconscious automatically working based on the sum of the many hundreds of experiences you have had of trying to catch a ball, all you need to do consciously is keep your eye on the ball! This is why a small child will allow a ball coming towards them to hit them in the face, because their subconscious is limited in its experiences of having an object thrown at them.

I guess what I'm trying to highlight is that this is the theory behind the notion that 'MISTAKES are actually a good thing!', unfortunately mistakes in business are often costly and sometimes a small handful of (and sometimes even just one) poor decisions can be detrimental. 

So here's my solution...

Read, re-read and then read again the quote above! Allow yourself only the amount of time you need to fully understand (or understand as much as possible) what the catalyst is for making this decision. Once you're aware of why you need to make this decision, your intuition (and subconscious) will do what it's designed to do… It will provide you firstly with the most suitable, simple and effective solution to the issue at hand based on all of your prior experiences, whether or not you can consciously recall them.

Spending lengthy amounts of time deliberating over the sometimes hundreds of decisions you need to make per day could be the blockage before the breakthrough you need for yourself, your job or your business.

I see so many individuals on a weekly and daily basis struggle with all sorts of decisions; Do I bother reading that long looking email? Do I commit 2 days to come along to a ThinkAndGrowRich event? Do I invest in taking my self-eduction further?

ACTION STEP:

My suggestion is this… For the next week, document as many of your decisions as possible. With this write down the decision you actually made, and if it's different, write down the decision 'your gut gave you or the one you came to first.

After a week spend some time to look over these decisions and try to imagine a world with the consequences of you having made you 'Snap Decisions' rather then your long-thought-out, rational ones!

Most importantly, let me know how you go and if you would have been better served to follow your instincts more often than not!