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Quotes about Decisions

    “Leadership decisions are inherently challenging and take practice.  Not every decision will be a good one: all leaders make mistakes.  No leader, no matter how competent and experienced, is immune from this.  For any leader, handling those mistakes with humility is the key.  Subordinates or direct reports don’t expect their bosses to be perfect.  When the boss makes a mistake but then owns up to that mistake, it doesn’t decrease respect.  Instead, it increases respect for that leader, providing he or she possesses the humility to admit and own mistakes and, most important, to learn from them.” ~ Jocko Willink, Extreme Ownership (Page 287)

      “There is no 100 percent right solution.  The picture is never complete.  Leaders must be comfortable with this and be able to make decisions promptly, then be ready to adjust those decisions quickly based on evolving situations and new information.  Intelligence gathering and research are important, but they must be employed with realistic expectations and must not impede swift decision making that is often the difference between victory and defeat.  Waiting for the 100 percent right and certain solution leads to delay, indecision, and an inability to execute.  Leaders must be prepared to make an educated guess based on previous experience, knowledge of how the enemy operates, likely outcomes, and whatever intelligence is available in the immediate moment.” ~ Leif Babin, Extreme Ownership (Page 254)

        “We are all fighting the same battle.  All of us are torn between comfort and performance, between settling for mediocrity or being willing to suffer in order to become our best self, all the damn time.  We make those kinds of decisions a dozen or more times each day.” ~ David Goggins, Can’t Hurt Me

          “The universal truth is beyond question – the only people who excel are those who have decided to do so.  Great doctors or speakers or skiers or writers or musicians are great because somewhere along the way, they made the choice.” ~ Seth Godin, Whatcha Gonna Do With That Duck?

          The Road Not Taken

            Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,

            And sorry I could not travel both

            And be one traveler, long I stood

            And looked down one as far as I could

            To where it bent in the undergrowth;

             

            Then took the other, as just as fair,

            And having perhaps the better claim,

            Because it was grassy and wanted wear;

            Though as for that the passing there

            Had worn them really about the same,

             

            And both that morning equally lay

            In leaves no step had trodden black.

            Oh, I kept the first for another day!

            Yet knowing how way leads on to way,

            I doubted if I should ever come back.

             

            I shall be telling this with a sign

            Somewhere ages and ages hence:

            Two roads diverged in a wood, and I –

            I took the one less traveled by,

            And that has made all the difference.

             

            ~ Robert Frost

              “I know people who have been stuck in doubt their entire lifetime.  Each of these unfortunate individuals – some of them my very own friends and family – came at some point to a crossroads.  They came to this crossroads and found themselves rooted there, with one foot firmly planted on each side of the intersection.  Alas, they never moved off the dime.  They procrastinated.  Dithered.  Finally, they put a folding chair smack in the center of that crossroads and lived there for the rest of their lives.  After a while, they forgot entirely that there even was a crossroads – forgot that there was a choice.”

              Stephen Cope, The Great Work Of Your Life

                “When you know what’s most important to you, making a decision is quite simple. Most people, though, are unclear about what’s most important in their lives, and thus decision making becomes a form of internal torture.” ~ Anthony Robbins, Awaken the Giant Within