Annie Duke: preference

Transcript context

…It is a good example of resulting, but all my kids have turned out fine and they're all very different, but yeah. But as far as decision-making is concerned, which is a totally different thing, I'll actually quote Danny Kahneman on this one. Nothing is as important as it seems when you're thinking about it, that's a really important one. One of the things that I used to try to do with my kids all the time was mental time travel, which is actually a very good decision tool. So they would be really upset about something and it could be something that happened at school or it could be like they were grounded for something or whatever. And the thing is when you're in the moment, it just feels like so big. And the thing that I used to say and they say all the time now is this is going to be so great for you when you're 40 at Thanksgiving. You're going to be able to tell these stories to your children and it's going to be the best, like you should be thanking me so that you can talk about your crazy mother at the Thanksgiving table. And it allowed them to get some time and space from it to realize this is going to be funny at some point. At some point, it's going to be a hilarious story that you tell people. No matter how horrible it seems now, it's going to be a hilarious story at some point when you're older. And it sounds like a fun thing I was doing with them, but it's actually a really good decision-making tool for us in general, right? Look, there are absolutely things that 20 years from now are going to matter, for sure. But most things, no. If you think about most things that ever happen to you, like you're 21 and your girlfriend breaks up with you or whatever and you just think it's the end of the world and you're never going to recover and all these things, but if you could get yourself like, well, how do I really think I'm going to think about this in 10 years? Am I still going to be heartbroken in 10 years? Probably not. And I think that we need to get that perspective of time so that we can get out of the moment because in the moment it just feels so important and the feelings are so big. And it's like the focusing effect on this second and the feelings you're feeling right now are so huge that we forget the scope of time. And I think that that's absolutely one of the best things you can do with your kids, and you can do it in small ways too, right? You can choose to play this video game or you can choose to study for your task. A week from now when you get that test back, how do you think you're going to feel about those two choices? Right? So that was a tool that I used a ton and it's just generally an amazing decision-making tool, just generally for people. It's one that I happen to use with my kids all the time. And then I would say that the other one was using the word nevertheless, which is this is a great leadership skill, the word nevertheless. So let's say my child got caught doing something wrong. time. And then I would say that the other one was using the word nevertheless, which is this is a great leadership skill, the word nevertheless. So let's say my child got caught doing something wrong. I don't know, I found a bag of red solo cups in my backyard that they forgot to throw out after a weekend that I was away. That's hypothetical. So I'm grounding them and it's a lot of argument back, right? So they think this is a debate and they're giving me all of their input and their opinions on why it's unfair and all the other kids do it and the other parents don't get mad and whatever, whatever the argument is. You have to have the balance between them feeling heard, which I think is incredibly important that your children feel heard, and following through on what you know or believe is right. So it's I hear you. Nevertheless, you're grounded for two weeks. I hear what you're saying and I understand. Nevertheless, this is what's going to happen. And obviously, the words that you can use for that might be different. You have so much more authority obviously over your children than you do in other places. But in the workplace, this is very good because employees gripe all the time at decisions that you make in leadership because they think they're right and they want their way. And to have the ability to say, I heard you and your input, trust me, was incorporated into the decision, nevertheless, this is the path we're going to take. Right or wrong, that's what we're going to do. So I think there's a lot of things that basically you can say. These are good things to do with kids, but they're actually just generally really good decision strategies. I'm taking notes on all these things. These are going to be extremely useful.…

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