The Most Dangerous Decision
About three-quarters of the way through a season of this whatever it is, I usually write the last one so I know how the season is going to end. Then I can work toward that and also it seems less daunting to just have to fill in the empty slots in between two known points rather than keep plowing ahead into the unknown.
So I did that and all was going according to plan until the other day when there was only one empty slot left, but I couldn’t think of anything to fill it with. And as the deadline for when that slot needed to be filled neared, I got busy with other stuff and my stress level increased, neither of which are things conducive to the creative process.
Fortunately, our new Director of Technology Bryce had, as a side of desk project, built an Assistant in Chat GPT that could generate one of these on demand (because it was trained on them) to help me out of just such a pickle and all it needed was a title. So I opened my notebook where I jot down ideas and looked for the clickbaitiest of subject lines and asked it to generate something called “The Most Dangerous Decision You Can Make.” After all, I warned you that it would probably be AI that got us to Memorial Day and here we are…
Somehow I ended up in an airport last week speaking about improv comedy to a bunch of accountants. A few interesting points came out of those exchanges, but the most important was the idea that you need to make mistakes in order to improve.
Now, there are some absurdities inherent in how that might be interpreted (don’t go have more experiences that suck or clear your calendar of fun stuff), but it’s the absurdity of advocating for making a bad decision that makes the advice difficult to actually follow. Because see, to do that, you need to know how a decision might turn out and be comfortable with the bad outcomes in order to do it anyway. But that’s also not a good way to make a decision.
That’s a problem because one of the biggest advantages you can have in business and in life is a higher tolerance for failure than others since failure is essential to learning and the person who learns the most wins. But if you’re always failing you’ll eventually run out of tolerance and end up in ruin.
So how do we learn while staying solvent?
The answer is to avoid long-term commitments (the crux of improv is to…improvise) and instead live an open-ended life such that if something happens that you didn’t know was coming you can still respond appropriately. Because that way you’re keeping your head above water and adapting even as you make mistakes, so why on earth wouldn’t you do that if you have the chance? Because ultimately it’s accountability that’s key to keeping anything above board, responsible, and successful.
Chances are I won’t see you next week. I’m telling you that because see that last point. Until next time…
Some of this is gobbledygook (Bryce asked that I make clear it’s a very early prototype), but it delivers on the title, the lede is bussin’, and the idea that one of the biggest advantages you can have is a higher tolerance for failure than others is actually pretty profound and I don’t think I’ve ever thought about it quite that way.
Wild. See you Friday.
– Tim
