Welcome to Impact Thinking.

Hi, I’m Peter. I’m a full-time solopreneur. I’ve run a one-person strategy consulting company since 2019. Before that, I worked in finance & strategy at Harvard. This newsletter distills helps you become an impact thinker. Ditch the noise, spot the signal, and think with impact.

Read time: 4 minutes

The Ultimate Framework I Use To Make Great Decisions

That title might be a bit egotistical, but the truth is I want great results.

(I’m not sorry about that)

If there is one thing burned into my brain, it’s: great results come from making great decisions.

I’m not talking about one lucky outcome…I’m talking about a consistent string of them over the course of years.

The problem is I have been given conflicting advice from the world’s top decision-makers and influential people.

• Some say, “Trust your gut; rely on intuition and emotions to guide you to the right decision.”

• Others tell you to “Remove all emotion and focus on rationality to guide you to the right decision.”

Thinking (rationality) and feeling (intuition) are the ends of a decision-making spectrum, so then…

Who is correct?

Relying on one solely is a fool’s errand. As Richard Feynman says, “The first principle is that you must not fool yourself – and you are the easiest person to fool.”

So I learned to look at it another way.

We make a decision based on a desired future result.

The future result is our perceived future value.

But there is a present value we crave: certainty.

There are 3 levels of certainty:

• I think it’s the right decision

• I feel it’s the right decision

• I know it’s the right decision

Each requires a different input and relies on different parts of the brain.

• Thinking requires logic and rationality

• Feeling taps into deep intuition

• Knowing demands both

Knowing it's the right decision is the highest level of certainty.

That’s the goal. To know you’re making the right decision in the face of uncertainty.

How?

The simple answer is to use both thinking and feeling to make any and all decisions.

Use one as the primary driver of the decision and the other as the indicator to test that driver.

• When it’s time to decide by thinking, lean on rational analysis, but use feeling as an indicator to test your thought processes.

• When it’s time to decide by feeling, lean on your intuition, but use thinking as an indicator to test your emotional responses.

The key is that thinking and feeling must remain independent of each other.

If you influence your thought processes with your emotions because “you feel so strongly,” or visa versa…it defeats the purpose.

This means you should practice creating a dual-operating system for the decision-making process.

It will solidify and ground your understanding.

Understanding is a prerequisite to making great decisions.

Which do I choose as the primary driver: thinking or feeling?

It’s all based on experience.

Thinking and feeling have an inverse relationship with experience.

• Use thinking as the primary driver early when you lack experience in a particular decision area.

• Use feeling as the primary driver once you build knowledge and experience.

This is because rationality provides the foundation of intuition over time.

Thinking is slow and takes conscious effort, while feeling is fast and effortless because it’s a biological response.

The more wisdom, intellect, and experience you build through conscious effort, the more heavily you rely on intuition.

Intuition is tricky because you can fool yourself.

• If you have been doing something for 1 day, you are guessing.

• If you have been doing something for 1,000 days, you are intuiting.

Even when your experience is at its peak, relying on intuition can get you into trouble. There is always new information, new processes, and new technology. And new inherently means you are inexperienced, even if the topic itself is old to you.

This is why you need to use thinking as an indicator even when experienced.

Never judge a decision on the outcome; instead, judge it on the inputs.

The decision is merely the commitment to the next step: action.

And action is full of factors that are way outside your control: timing, luck, market, etc.

Focus on getting great at the decision process because that’s where you have control.

This is so important; it needs a short recap:

• Use both thinking and feeling in decision-making because when they align, you know the decision is right.

• Lean on one as the primary driver and the other as the indicator.

• Rely on thinking more when you have less experience and feeling when you have more experience.

• Never judge a decision on the outcome; instead, judge it on the inputs.

End of rant.