Celebrate decisions, not results

Sometimes, bad things can happen when we make good decisions with good intentions. And other times, good things happen based on a bad sequence of events.

To understand the best path to successful entrepreneurship, we have to acknowledge the role of probability — most often named luck or chance. We can describe it as the chaotic effects that exist within the chains of cause and effect.

An essential yet underrated skill of entrepreneurship is in the preparation for successful and unsuccessful outcomes.

When Thing A yields Result A or Result B, what do you do with each of these?

It is good practice always to take some time with your decisions to estimate the probability of events happening. Where there is no empirical evidence, such as data, to support these estimations, it is essential to calibrate your intuition.

Knowing whom or where to ask when you lack knowledge or experience is crucial.

According to our estimated probability for Results A or B, we can allocate a proportional amount of time to our preparation efforts relative to the outcome of the result.

We spend x hours preparing for Result A and y hours preparing for Result B.

Because results are often not binary, you can often consider a midway point where your work (preparation) overlaps between the results.

The best path forward in the long-term can be one akin to a safe path, depending on your risk-taking ability.

Because entrepreneurship is a risk in itself, it is good practice always to estimate well where it makes sense to take on other risks.

However, because entrepreneurship is often a game of limited resources, of which time ends up being the largest, it is necessary to use time very wisely.

Play the short- and long-term game, and everything in between. In the short term, we can take on larger risks that rely more heavily on probabilistic results. However, in the long term, we are almost all victims of mathematics, and consequently, the compounded average of all the decisions we make.

Celebrating our decisions also means that we acknowledge and congratulate our own role in creating success, rather than that of the environment and circumstance. Furthermore, it helps us understand the role of uncertainty that exists within our own decision-making, and with reinforcement, strengthens our intuition.

We can be extremely happy and joyful with results, but our pride should lie with our decisions.