Bad decisions…

I just finished the first draft of my new book, Extraordinary Tales of an Ordinary Salesman.  In Chapter 5, I Quit, I relate the story about the worst business decision I made in my entire career. A bad decision that literally cost me millions of dollars.

It was an emotional decision.  I let my ego take over.  I broke all of the rules: 

Rangnekar's Modified Rules Concerning Decisions 

• If you must make a decision, delay it.
• If you can authorize someone else to avoid a decision, do so.
• If you can form a committee, have them avoid the decision.
• If you can otherwise avoid a decision, avoid it immediately. 

The outcome served its purpose I suppose.  I learned to change from arrogant to grateful.  Oh I kept my competitive edge. I was still hungry; still a sales “hunter”.  But that one bad decision contributed to changing the course of my entire life.  There were other contributions.  A diagnosis; a couple of accidents; a few bad phone calls.  Before I knew it I became more grateful; less win-at-any-cost, egotistical. 

It took a while, but I finally learned how to make a good decision: 

The single most significant decision I can make on a day-to-day basis is my choice of attitude. 

Charles R. Swindell 

Today, I choose to look for the positive.  That is, until my emotions and my ego hijack me.  That one reckless driver who cut me off.  That one political post full of vitriol.  That one-too-many criticisms.  Happens to us all, true?  Those emotions put me on the path of making bad decisions.  And when I find myself on that path I try think back to Charles R. Swindell: 

I am convinced that life is 10% what happens to me and 90% how I react to it. 

So here’s to overcoming the hijackers; here’s to avoiding bad decisions; here’s to the 90% vs. the 10%; here’s to the peace and power of a positive perspective. 

GAP 

When life gets tough we could get a helmet… or… we could leverage the peace and share the power of a positive perspective.