For many people, making good decisions seems as unattainable as higher mathematics. They put off the decision-making process, get lost in endless lists of pros and cons or fall back into the automatic mode of the familiar. Without good decisions, life stagnates. That's why the decision refugee needs a different strategy to move forward.
The plane climbs continuously. Where is it going? To the moon? The first few minutes of the ascent were hell. But now you breathe yourself into an amazing calm. You say to yourself: "I don't have to do it. I can stay seated." And in the next sentence of your inner monologue, you turn this possibility into a certainty: "I will stay seated." Then that little devil appears, the shyster who manages to make every bad decision, every non-decision look good. "If I stay seated," you continue your train of thought, "then I am brave. I stand by my weakness. I don't have to prove anything to myself." From this point on, you are at peace. The plane climbs and climbs. You look compassionately at the others, who are full of fear, struggle and excitement. You even doze off under these impressions.
Decision above the clouds
At an altitude of 4,000 meters, reality catches up with you. A door opens in the flank of the plane and you stare through time and space at the back of the planet. Oh my God, that's high! The first madmen are already standing on the edge of the void, diving down. You feel like you're losing a friend with every jump. And suddenly you're sitting alone in the plane with the trainer. And "Yes," you hear yourself say, "the tandem jump was great. But it's a different story in freefall." The instructor switches to the voice level for difficult cases. You feel him place his hand on your forearm. And suddenly you no longer feel brave for staying seated. Up here, at an altitude of 4,000 meters, you decide for yourself whether your life will take a turn for the worse. You feel very lonely.
Let's leave the hesitant free-fall jumper in his existential limbo for a while. His example illustrates a decision in crisis. Perhaps the skydiving coach is a good decision-making coach. Perhaps he helps the hesitant person to make the right decision. Generally speaking, the decision not to act, to stick to what is comfortable and familiar may also be a decision - but in most cases it is not a valuable one. It is the stubborn course on the path of least resistance. And by far the most expensive in the long run. Because it gradually erodes life until there is hardly any substance left.
Schorsch eats pizza
We switch to everyday life. Imagine life as a circular diagram. Then that extreme situation on the plane is a tiny segment, a sliver in the circle of life. The remaining 99 percent is filled by your everyday life. And in this everyday life, you constantly have to make decisions. And every decision, every postponement of a decision does something to you. Let's take a look at Schorsch. Everyone knows Schorsch. A bit past the midlife crisis, on a leisurely professional decline towards retirement. The children are grown up, the marriage consolidated. You're stuck in the "troubles of the plain", as Brecht called it. And that's how it feels for Schorsch too. Schorsch does the same thing every day to minimize these hardships. And his free time also runs according to plan. For example, when they go out to eat. Always to the "Italian restaurant on the corner", always pizza quattro stagioni. The other day, the children came along. His son ordered a saltimbocca. It looked great and Philipp offered him a taste. But Schorsch refused. No experiments ...
Synchronized life paths promise security. Routine carries you through the day without any upsets or mishaps. It's like a body of water without wind, without waves, without tributaries, without precipitation, under a consistently average climate. Algae forms, the water becomes cloudy, the clear, lively mirror of its surface goes blind. This is how Schorsch feels. His decision not to decide brings annoyance and depression into his life. Perhaps he externalizes his dissatisfaction and becomes a grumbling old man for whom everything used to be better. It was, Schorsch! Because you used to be more alive. What you need is a decision coach. Start with the pizza and slowly work your way up to decision master! Or gradually lose your mind and soul.
Saltimbocca and Zen Buddhism
Most truths are banal. Imagine Schorsch orders a saltimbocca the next time he goes to a restaurant. Then, having become bolder, he no longer goes to the "Italian on the corner", but to the Greek. Finally, he tries out the famous sushi bar in the neighboring state capital. There he meets a man his age who has spent many years studying Japan and Zen Buddhism. The two of them embark on a journey together to the land of the rising sun ...
This is just one example of a positively reinforcing chain of decisions. Every decision coach, every decision master knows that big changes start with small everyday decisions. The Brazilian butterfly triggers a Texan hurricane. Schorsch orders a saltimbocca and travels to a Japanese Zen monastery.
Jumping means being born
Let's go back to the plane. You're still sitting on the bench, the jump coach has put his hand on your arm and is looking at you with that "hard case" look. If he's a mediocre jump coach, he'll tell you that you don't need to jump. If he's a bad jump coach, he'll reassure you that the jump isn't as difficult as it seems and that you'll feel great. But you're in luck. In front of you is an excellent jump coach. A real decision master. He begins to talk about himself. Because a few years ago he was in exactly your situation. His stomach sank, his throat constricted. He smelled his own sweat of fear and stared like a man possessed through the hole in the side of the plane. Everyone was gone, just him and the trainer sitting there. Escape forwards through the gigantic fear or escape backwards into a dull life of non-decision. Yes, on this edge of his existence he saw his life narrowing or branching out into new living orbits as clearly as planet earth. Stay seated and you lock yourself in the cage of your fears. Jump out and the gigantic tailwind of that decision will propel you to new exciting destinations. He had ducked away for so many years. He didn't want to feel that way anymore. The jump was a rebirth.
Jump! Have the courage! The Decision Master was born out of this existential experience. Being able to decide, to make good decisions means being free. I myself once sat in a plane at an altitude of 4,000 meters, almost died from inner conflict and finally jumped. I then worked as a skydiving coach for several years, as a decision-making coach above the clouds. I kept in touch with my students and experienced time and again how positively this jump influenced their lives. I thought about it again and again: What makes a good decision? Can decision-making be trained? What qualities does a decision coach need to have in order to act as a catalyst for a good decision? I looked at these decisions from all sides and made every effort to bring a system to the matter. A guide for the long, exciting path that begins with the first step.
Become a decision master yourself!
And now it's time for you to take the plunge. If you want to learn to make good decisions for yourself, if you want to be a stable, reliable rock of decision-making security for others, then come to the Decision Master. Here you will learn to set the course for new horizons. Decide to take the first step and make contact. Everything else will follow.
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