10x Decision Making

I only believe that 1% of decisions matter. The rest of them are irrelevant. The difficulty is understanding which is the 1% and which isthe 99% ~ Naval Ravikant

Most decisions don't matter, but some have an outsized impact. Let's call these decisions 10x decisions.

Getting these decisions right can make your life 10x better, getting them wrong can be disastrous.

So, it's crucial to understand when you are facing a 10x decision so you can take the right decision for you.

Let's look at the opposite of 10x decisions, what I am going to call 0x decisions. I call these 0x decisions because they are the sort of issues that people often spend a lot of time on, but really have very limited impact.

For example, many people spend a lot of time thinking about a new $THING they are going to buy. This is generally a waste of time. First of all, a new $THING is going to have minimal impact on your life. You might enjoy it for a while, but eventually you will take it for granted. It will lose it's shine, it will get scratched, and a new and better version will come out.

The second reason you don't want to spend too much time on such a decision is that it is usually reversible. You can change your mind. You can almost always take the thing back if you don't like it.

If the decision you are taking is low impact and reversible, decide quickly and move on.

Now back to 10x decisions.

It's important that these are areas that you can actually take a decision. There are many areas that impact our lives by 10x that we have no control over such as; where you are born, how rich your parents are, whether your brother becomes a successful holywood producer.

10x decisions will have an enormous impact on your life. These decisions include things like; switching career, whether to become a heroin addict,  starting a business.

So first it is really important to notice when you are taking a 10x decision.

Begin by avoiding 10x decisions in the negative sense; developing a gambling habit, losing your temper and lashing out violently, becoming a lawyer etc. As Charlie Munger said, “It is remarkable how much long-term advantage people like us have gotten by trying to be consistently not stupid, instead of trying to be very intelligent.” I think that applies nicely to life. You can have a pretty good life by just avoiding being very stupid.

But to really have a great life you also want to seek out decisions that could make your life 10x better. Many of these decisions might not exactly work out as planned, but come in the category of 'asymmetric bets'. What that means is if they don't work out, it's not usually a huge deal - maybe you lose 1x - but if they go well they could make 10x or 100x or 1000x on what you have invested. These decisions include things like investing in Bitcoin in 2014, starting a business, reading a book.

Like I say, not all these decisions will make your life 10x better, but if you keep seeking out and swinging for 10x decisions, some will.

So what 10x decisions could you take today?