It’s fairly easy for most of us to agree, that the bulk of our decisions are based upon the summation of our previous experience, combined with some sort of empirical observation. “That looks hot, I once was burned, don’t touch it.” A rather simplistically calculated decision to a situation, correct? Modern philosophy has innumerable explanations of this phenomenon, of which I have no desire whatsoever to regurgitate. However, the idea of understanding, evaluating and augmenting our decision making structure, is quite possibly one of the most effective methods of good business.
The argument follows: (and I’m sure many of you will most likely remember this from high school) a priori knowledge is that which we have completely free of experience, a posteriori knowledge is dependent on experience or empirical evidence. As entrepreneurs, we are often confronted with decisions, both minute and large in scope that will severely affect our bottom line one way or another – I know it’s true for Carbon Copy Pro. Further, these decisions usually carry with them some sort of emotional contingency that is equally important (we are not robots after all…not yet at least).
With that said, we definitely exercise a touch of both in the decisions we make. However, the edifice of the entrepreneurial attitude puts us in unknown situations constantly. Circumstances that we have no background or prior knowledge of. How do we make sound decisions here?
What we must do mentally is not as difficult as it may seem. It simply requires for us to suspend our notion of relativism, and embody an objective stance. This does not mean that we divorce our prior experience from our decision making. But we, as human beings, are highly capable of doing turning these situations into opportunities for mental growth. It simply requires us to stop projecting, or interjecting our personal bias, or past experiences upon the current dilemma. We must assess the situation logically and objectively, and then act accordingly.
Special skills, faculties or intelligence are not necessary. We each have natural intelligence within ourselves that is only hindered by, well, bad habits. Bad habits can be altered. Many of us are self-evaluating by nature anyway, use that time to spark the habitual changes that you seek. Learning something new can seem daunting, but the reality is when you engage yourself mentally you usually discover something you already know.
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