Chapter 1Marginal Improvement, Significant Impact
Decision‐Making as a Skill
What we do as human beings is make decisions. Whether we are investment managers, athletes, parents, or students, the one true commonality we share is the decision itself. Regardless of the implications, who is making the decision or the field in which it is being made, the decision‐making process always has the same basic components and should always follow the same path.
Decision‐making is a skill. In fact, I would argue it is the skill that we humans possess. However, it is rarely understood to be the underlying source of all other more readily identifiable skills. Instead, we look at a tennis player and think, he is skilled at swinging a racquet or chasing down balls. We look at a politician and think, she is particularly adept at negotiating or salesmanship. We think of successful fund managers and attribute their success to their ability to identify patterns or steel their nerves under pressure. In reality, steeling your nerves is a decision, a skill that can be taught and learned. Swinging a racquet properly and influencing others are decisions as well. They can be taught and learned. They can be practiced and improved via the decision‐making process. When you truly grasp this concept, and are able to properly frame everything by the decision, to view the world through the lens of the decision‐making process, you come to realize that in order to truly excel at anything in life, both personally ...