The Art of Clear Thinking for Decision-Making

It is impossible to isolate the ribcage from the body, but it is possible to cool the brain before concluding a reasoning process or making a relevant decision. 1) Extremes distort reflection. - The temptation of an all-or-nothing mindset is always present. What is omitted does not materialize. What is done, happens. Thoughts are intrinsic to the individual's rationality. First, they exist in the mind of the person who produces them, and second, when they are shared with one or more third parties. Be it an idea, doubt, or concern, it emerges in the mind triggered by the most unsuspecting stimulus. They perish in the instant of disqualification or forgetting. What is not often said is that people cannot control their first thoughts, but we can control the second ones. And just as words can be chosen and actions can be weighed, the great learn to think very well in order to decide better. Those who know say with frequency that everything has two moments. Extremes invade and distort analysis. One can aspire to much, but one cannot win it all. Having access to the thoughts and emotions of your close ones, your clients, or your competitors. I have heard more than one executive say that they would like to read other people's minds. Facts are just that, facts. Any event requires being read, interpreted, and evaluated by its causes, effects, benefits, or impacts. Here are 3 concepts for reflection: 1) Events are neutral, interpretation is not. - What happens, happens. Decode how you think about what you examine. Discern the speed of your analytical comfort and, in its best possible expression, be able to reconfigure your abilities to think by design, in an optimal balance of your inevitable emotionality and the much-needed reflective serenity. Emotions are consubstantial to humanity. Most do not reach their second moment. In the mind and in language. Wanting to win it all or fearing to lose it all are two examples of how a calculation can be contaminated. One may want to avoid complex problems, but one should not fall into the naivety of pretending they do not exist. Discovering that you are thinking in extremes nurtures neutral, balanced, and constructive reflection. If it bothers you, you reject it. Nourished with more or less information, vague or of high quality, thinking grows when we can examine something with intentional attention to form a judgment and, if necessary, a course of action or a necessary response. How to sharpen any thought process for business decision-making? And I will not deny sharing that theoretical curiosity that has led to more than one comedy in Hollywood. The most difficult thing, however, is to read your own mind. Whether that is beneficial and plausible or terrible and costly is a function of the relative position of your interests and the context in which you are. When something happens, the way you read and think about it is the first step towards a possible new arrangement. 2) Feelings are not facts. - There are those who believe a fact depends on the emotion it produces. If you like it, you applaud it. If it reinforces you, you pursue it. An event to react to or a problem to solve is not a function of your emotions but of the reality in which it materializes and of what is at stake. If it makes you nervous, you evade it.