You Are What You Decide:
Eight Keys to Better Decision-making
Every day, you make — or avoid — decisions.
Every day your choices determine who you are.
You are what you decide.
Whether twenty- or thirty-somethings grappling with career choices, fifty year-olds in major life transition, septuagenarians struggling to make a major purchase, octogenarians facing late-in-life dilemmas, school district teams dealing with difficult trade-offs or CEOs making complex business decisions, the reader testimonials and Amazon reviews are clear: the Eight Keys are simple, accessible, immediately useful and effective at improving your decision-making.
Want to make better decisions? Spend a few hours with the Eight Keys today!
Matthew J. Salanger, President & CEO, United Health Services:
“I found Sean Brady’s You Are What You Decide to be both useful and insightful. I am glad I gave it a full read! Sean does a great job building the decision-making framework and simplifying even the most complex tasks. The easy-to-use tools for completing a trade-off and a cost-benefit analysis are especially useful. Finally, I loved the way he blends stories about his family and career to illustrate his points about the Eight Keys. This book is an easy and enjoyable read that is packed full of practical ways to make better decisions.”
Sherm Bodner, President and Publisher, Gannett Central New York Media:
“You Are What You Decide is a concise book that distills complex ideas into a straightforward, highly readable framework. Sean Brady combines personal history, business anecdotes and management theory to create an actionable approach to decision-making that will be useful to veteran leaders and novice managers alike.”
John Sipple, Associate Professor, Cornell University:
“You Are What You Decide is a great book. While I am typically suspicious of leadership and self help books as a quick diversion and money grab, this is a remarkably insightful and useful book that provides a depth and grounding for your own personal and professional decision-making. Filled with Sean’s own insights and experiences, I find the book immensely relevant and poignant without being preachy or condescending. I look forward to reading it a second time.”
Andrew Tait, Chief Technology Officer, Decision Mechanics Limited:
“Sean Brady distills twenty years of experience helping people make decisions into the Eight Keys that you need to improve your decision-making. While books like Daniel Kahneman’s Thinking Fast and Slow bring theoretical ideas to a mass audience, they are still relatively technical and abstract in nature. You Are What You Decide takes a big step towards real-world decision-making showing how anyone can improve their decision-making capability by adopting a few simple behaviors. Highly recommended.” (Read Andrew’s full book review here.)
Marc Baiocco, Principal, Alexander Hamilton High School:
“You Are What You Decide is a magnificent book. It is clear, concise and to the point as a road map for improving your decision-making. Each year as we embark on the journey through continuous school improvement, we use the Eight Keys to develop our strategic plan, set goals and determine our in-process measures.”
Greg Zlevor, President, Westwood International:
“Decision-making is one of — if not the most — critical skills for effective leaders. Knowing how and what to decide is essential in all leadership positions. As a matter of fact, people often become leaders based upon their decision-making skill — it is that important. Thankfully Sean Brady has taken the time to share his abundant wisdom and experience with decision-making in You Are What You Decide. If you are a leader or if you want to lead well, please read about the Eight Keys. You and the people you work with will be glad that you did.”
Michelle Bradley, Superintendent, Lockport City School District:
“You Are What You Decide presents complex ideas simply in a very engaging, rapid read. While reading the book, I focused on how the Eight Keys could help Lockport City School District’s leadership teams advance their work for improving student achievement. We will use this outstanding resource as we continue to perfect our leadership skills and the use of our data driven inquiry cycle at the classroom, building, and district levels.”
About the book
Life is a cascade of challenges. Sometimes the flow trickles and sometimes it roars. How well you navigate determines who you are and your quality of life. Do you embrace the flow or avoid it? Does a torrent motivate or immobilize you? Do you look to the future with hope or fear? Your answers to these questions probably correlate to your decision-making skill.
From our first months as infants, we are hard-wired to want to choose. Why then do we often struggle with decision-making? Avoid it? Fear it? Why are we occasionally abysmal at it?
The answer is simple. Most of us have never been taught formal decision-making processes. (Well, my mother always did tell me to make a list of the pros and the cons!) Without a set of decision tools and techniques to draw on, anyone can become overwhelmed by weighty decisions.
Decision-making is not just about the fork in the stream, the moment of choice-making, the selection of the final option. Decision-making is a process that requires commitment, exploration, ideation, courage, self-reflection, evaluation, action and continuous learning. Further, decision-making involves more than critical thinking. Indeed, it is an inherently creative act.
Eight Keys to Better Decision-making
The Eight Keys will help to improve your deliberate decision-making:
- Commit resources commensurate with the weight of the decision.
- Know explicitly what you are trying to achieve.
- Consider all possible options.
- Conquer your fear to make a mistake, to fail or to take a risk.
- Know and question all your key assumptions.
- Be acutely aware of and root out cognitive biases and fallacies.
- When making important choices, be deliberate: decide how you will decide.
- Act decisively, monitor closely and learn continuously.
With practice, the Eight Keys will enable you better to navigate life’s cascade of challenges.
The stakes are high. There is no avoiding life’s still waters or its raging rapids. Every day, you make — or avoid — decisions.
Every day your choices determine who you are.
You are what you decide.