# 164 Ravi Gupta — the Realities of Success  ## About - Author: The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish - Title: 164 Ravi Gupta — the Realities of Success - Tags: #podcasts - URL: https://share.snipd.com/episode/23923a13-d1c6-47c6-9770-5e041a80de19 ## Highlights > Common Traits of Great Decision Makers Transcript: Speaker 2 Keep going on the great decision makers. You hang on, well, you work with a lot of them as a profession. You're exposed to a lot of different types of people from a variety of different backgrounds. I'm curious if there's common traits you see amongst the best decision makers that apply to decision making. Speaker 1 Totally, yes, yes. I very much, I'm excited that we're talking about this because I think it's a big deal. And I take pride, I hope in being somebody who is a good decision maker, right? So I think that the good ones, one, I think a lot of them use writing, just like you said. I think a lot of them write and they kind of write for themselves. It exposes the weaknesses of their process. And so one trait that I found for a lot of the good ones is you'll ask them something, they'll be like, let me show you this memo I wrote. And the memo won't have been distributed to anyone. It'll just be for them. And so I think that's one trait that is pretty interesting, that is relatively consistent amongst people that I really admire is that they test their thinking for themselves. So they're very honest with themselves about where it's strong versus where it's weak, right? The second thing is they're actually pretty good at figuring out whose advice they want and whose advice they don't want. I think a lot of great decision makers, they are not polite when it comes to the decision. They just decide whose opinion they care about and they're super targeted and thoughtful and it's different people for different topics, right? Maybe there are some people whose council they keep for everything, but it's not a lot. And I'll give you an example of someone I work with who I think is a very good decision maker. Max Rhodes is the CEO and co-founder affair, this B2B wholesale marketplace that we're involved with. Max is extremely good at asking each of his board members or advisors a specific question that he thinks they will be useful on. He doesn't ask the whole board when he's making certain decisions. He goes and decides who is the right person to go ask. He goes and spends real time with them on that. And even in the board meeting, he's thoughtful about the order in which he asks for people's feedback, right? Because he's like, look, on this topic, this person is the one who I want to hear the most on, whereas on this one, somebody else might be the topic. And he's not worried if it's been three questions and he hasn't asked somebody something. You're on the board, you obviously are somebody, he was opinion, he values, cool. So that's another one I think. They're very thoughtful about whose council they keep. I think the third one is they are aware of when they're decision making, they're aware of concepts like decision fatigue and they work around it, right? So they say, okay, look, I'm sure you've read the Bezos stuff. If Bezos's point was like, my job is to make two or three good decisions a day. Well, what that means is I should structure my entire day around making sure that I'm in the right state of mind to make those decisions. My meeting should be at a certain time. I think the point of this is they don't confuse activity with insight. They don't just go do stuff, right? They do things that they think will help them make the right decisions, you know? And then the last one, Shane, I think, is they are very thoughtful about what uncertainty they're willing to live with and what uncertainty they're not. So I'll be more specific here. Every good decision maker is good at making decisions in the face of uncertainty, right? Otherwise, it's not a hard decision. One time Michael Lewis wrote an article about the presidency and effectively what he described, it was he's like, look, it's a series of 51, 49 decisions or 50, 50 decisions, oftentimes they're life and death because otherwise they would have been made by somebody else. So they're like really hard, you know? But the thing that I think really good decision makers do is they know how to get all of the available information by asking the right questions. And when someone's just sort of like, it's a hard decision, here's what we, here are the two options. They don't just accept those are the two options. They'll be like, well, wait a second. On this one, let's go deeper. Did we evaluate this? Did we evaluate this? So they're almost good at like efficiently getting the information they need so that yeah, there's uncertainty, but it's the only, it's uncertainty that can't be solved in the time period they got it. So those are some things that come to mind. ([Time 1:18:49](https://share.snipd.com/snip/7eb4a1b9-30d6-4383-bfe0-917a792e6725)) --- > Structuring Your Day for Better Decision Making Transcript: Speaker 1 So they say, okay, look, I'm sure you've read the Bezos stuff. If Bezos's point was like, my job is to make two or three good decisions a day. Well, what that means is I should structure my entire day around making sure that I'm in the right state of mind to make those decisions. My meeting should be at a certain time. I think the point of this is they don't confuse activity with insight. They don't just go do stuff, right? They do things that they think will help them make the right decisions, you know? ([Time 1:21:35](https://share.snipd.com/snip/c806c2f6-a621-4507-b523-5c62928e4feb)) --- > Respecting Time and Decision Making Transcript: Speaker 1 They go as long as they go. And that, I think, is a really thoughtful, small thing. They start in the morning because the same point we all think we're better in the morning. And they go as long as they need to go. And sometimes if we're not getting to an answer, we won't be like, well, we gotta make it today. We'll be like, guys, we're not getting somewhere. Let's break and let's meet again tomorrow morning on it. And I think the point of sort of realizing that you're not like a slave to your calendar, but your job is to make a good decision, that is one example that I really like because there's a real respect. ([Time 1:24:49](https://share.snipd.com/snip/b520f522-764d-4488-8c80-d5eb2015358e)) --- > Balancing Assertiveness: When to Speak Up Transcript: Speaker 1 The other ones, I am actually more interested in velocity as much as anything else. And there are occasionally things that I care about, in which case, you know, I will. But I also think that you are more likely to listen to me if I don't always push for my way. And I am kind of like, there are three things a year I really care about, please listen. I am telling you now, this is one of them, you know. And I also really believe in this idea of like, reasonable minds can differ, you know. That is fine. But on like really important ones, I want to, you know, have a voice that matters a lot. ([Time 1:28:39](https://share.snipd.com/snip/1b6f429d-0eb4-4940-ab18-65ac865a3ae0)) --- > Choosing the Right Thing for Long-Term Success Transcript: Speaker 1 Because every leader I've ever really respected, every single one, I know why they're choosing what they're choosing. I know what the North Star is and it doesn't change. And I think that, like you said, unsuccessful people, I think that sometimes they, that to me is a version of choosing appreciation or choosing affinity in the moment rather than choosing the right thing, the obligation for the long term. ([Time 1:36:44](https://share.snipd.com/snip/6bc6869e-cf42-433d-b7bf-9fc431066917)) ---