In or Out: A Practical Guide to Decision Making

By A. I. Shoukry

Do you have trouble making decisions in all areas of your life? Discover a practical system for making decisions quickly and effectively to achieve everything you dream.

Do you feel like you have one foot in and one foot out of your jobs, relationships, and social engagements? Are your big and small life decisions weighing you down in equal measure? Author and podcaster A.I. Shoukry spent years looking into the decision-making process. He's helped hundreds of people figure out how to make the smallest and the largest decisions in their life a breeze. And now he's here to help you do the same.

In this book, you'll get exclusive access to his toolkit, with decision tools for balanced decision making, a balanced life equation, a balancing matrix, and personal balancing matrix scorecard.

Inside "In or Out," you'll:

·        See how to easily make decisions that affect your daily life and your work.

·        Understand the philosophy and motives behind your decisions to achieve your dream life.

·        Make wise decisions based on your values and principles.

·        Discover a simple, smart decision-making process.

·        Explore more than 15 decision tools that help you make decisions.

·        Know how to make decisions during a crisis, under uncertainty, and in groups.

·        Recognize and overcome your brain's limitations when making decisions.

·        Have an exit strategy and start making decisions proactively.

·        Stop procrastinating and make your decisions become a reality.

Making decisions can be stressful, time-consuming, and lead to missed opportunities or disastrous outcomes. "In or Out" will help you handle decisions with ease and control your future, making decisions that align with your goals and objectives. You'll learn the meaning of a balanced, happy life, and how to make decisions that create your happy life.

"In or Out" is a landmark book for making the important decisions in your life. If you like expert advice, easy-to-follow instructions, and a down-to-earth teacher, then you'll love A.I. Shoukry's fantastic resource. 

Buy "In and Out" to make the best decision of your life today!

BONUS: Get instant access to Decisions In or Out Companion Workbook​

• Language: English
• Publisher: A. I. Shoukry
• Release date: Apr 1, 2018
• ISBN: 9781386952602

Book preview

In or Out

A Practical Guide to Decision Making

––––––––

By

A. I. Shoukry

First published by A. I. Shoukry in 2018

Copyright © A. I. Shoukry, 2018

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be

reproduced, stored or transmitted in any form or by any means,

electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning, or

otherwise without written permission from the publisher. It is

illegal to copy this book, post it to a website, or distribute it by

any other means without permission.

A. I. Shoukry asserts the moral right to be identified as the

author of this work.

A. I. Shoukry has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy

of URLs for external or third-party Internet Websites referred to

in this publication and does not guarantee that any content on

such Websites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate.

Designations used by companies to distinguish their products

are often claimed as trademarks. All brand names and product

names used in this book and on its cover are trade names,

service marks, trademarks and registered trademarks of their

respective owners. The publishers and the book are not

associated with any product or vendor mentioned in this book.

None of the companies referenced within the book have

endorsed the book.

First edition

Paperback ISBN: 9781976702044

Dedication

I dedicate this book to my beautiful wife Heba, the best decision I ever made. To my lovely kids Aisha, Mohamed, and Malak, who were the best decision my wife and I ever made.

To my inspiring mom, Dr. Mona, former dean of the Faculty of Economics at Cairo University, who taught me to read and encouraged me to write. And to my father, the legend surgeon, who taught me discipline and how to be a surgeon.

I pray to have a small place in your hearts—I know I was a very tough decision for you to make. However, tough decisions always come with rewards.

May this book be a little present for you.

-  Ahmed, Cairo, Egypt, December 2017

Contents

Dedication

PREFACE

What This Book Is About

Section One Pre-decision

Chapter One Pre-decision

Why Do We Struggle to Make a Decision?

Who Makes Decisions?

Summary

Chapter Two   Hard Internal Decision Factors

The Two Cognitive Systems

Motivation

Moral Theories

Moral Principles

Religions

Core Values

Summary

Chapter Three  Soft Internal Decision Factors

Intentions

Interests and Harms

Objectives and Goals

Personal Vision and Mission

The Body

Summary

Chapter Four   External Factors

Communication with the World

Time

Activity

Resources

Location

Summary

Chapter Five  Our Limitations

Big Decisions Influenced by Others

The Limitations We Encounter

How to avoid our limitations and biases

Summary

Section Two  The Decision Process

Chapter Six  The Process

What is the decision-making process?

Stage 1: Identifying

Stage 2: Exploring

Summary

Chapter Seven  Decision-Making Tools

Leap Forward

Think Goals

Positioning

The Pull Perspective

SWOT Analysis

Two Axis Matrix

The Pareto Principle

Payoff Table

Decision Trees

Balance Sheets

Consequence Table

Summary

Chapter Eight  Balanced Decision Making

A Balanced Life

Balanced Life Equation (BLE)

Exploratory Balanced Decision-Making Tools

Quantification Balanced Decision-Making Tools

Chapter Nine  Special Situations

Decision making in crisis

Group decision making

Uncertain situations

Summary

Section Three Post-decision

Chapter Ten   Decision Execution

Tips for Executing Decisions

Procrastination

Follow up

Conquer

The Morning After

Summary

Chapter Eleven  The Decision Maker

How to make decision making a habit

Proactive Decision Making

Happiness

Final Words

Appendices

Balancing System 1.0 Software

Decisions: In or Out Companion Workbook

Decision Making Process Sheets

Acknowledgments

About the Author

References

PREFACE

Are you in or are you out? How many times have you asked yourself this simple question? Do you get a straight answer? Probably not—that’s why you’re holding this book. In or out of a relationship? In or out of a job? In or out of the next outing? Plenty of the decisions we make are simply in or out choices. The Brexit question was in or out. Trump’s election was an out of the system vote.

When I was in third grade, I had to make a tough decision: what to wear for the costume party the next day in school. Yes, at that time it was a difficult decision to make, as I had to choose between two characters. As a child, I wanted to do both, which is impossible—you can’t wear two costumes for two characters at the same time.

When I think back today, that decision had a significant impact on my life. I was very stressed; I even cried, but the tears didn’t solve the problem, and I had to make a decision.

My mom said, Honey, you must choose one, the one that you want most, and the other you can do the following year. Case solved, I was a pirate that year, and the next year, Superman.

A couple of years later, I still had this confusion whenever I had to choose between two outings. Should I stay at home and order pizza or go out with my friends? Should I play football this weekend or go to the family gathering?

Later, in middle school, I thought of solving this process forever and making my decision process faster and more efficient. I started to search for books and resources to read on the process of decision making.

Egypt holds an annual international book fair, and back then there was no internet and no e-books, so it was the only way to get up-to-date books. I went there searching for a book on psychology and how the human mind works. I found The Psychology of Judgment and Decision Making¹, and thought I have found my solution!

I started to read the book to understand the process of decision making. I learned about mind delusion, selective perception, memory and hindsight biases, context dependence, and many other things.

Later, in high school, it was 1995, and the internet was on the rise. We had an Apple Macintosh computer with a dial-up modem and 2.4kb/sec speed attached to it. I started to learn the HyperTalk language to program HyperCard stacks, a program for Apple computers. I decided to write a software program to help me in the decision-making process for daily life problems. I called it Balancing System 1.0 as version number 1.

22 years passed, and I resumed my life, became an academic, surgeon, politician, writer, and podcaster who makes decisions while taking breaths in morning runs.

I am now 40 years old, the age of wisdom as they say, the age when you are fully matured. One day, I was reflecting, pretending to be wise, thinking about my decisions over the last 4 decades. I took a pen and started to write down my lost opportunities and the decisions that I should have made.

The thought suddenly came into my mind: what happened to those decision-making programs I had uploaded when I was 18 years old? I searched the internet and was surprised to find a program on archive.org—it was my decision-making tool. I was proud and happy and immediately blogged about it. A couple of days later, I thought why not write a small e-book about it?

It all started as 5k e-book trial, which turned my life upside down in the last couple of months. It felt like the book sabotaged me. I woke up at 6am every day to write, I wrote at work, and I wrote before sleeping. I started to do research into decision making and found that many of the books I already owned were in fact on decision-making tools, psychology, behavior science, statistics, and algorithms. It turned out that these years I had been obsessed with how humans behave. I had read tons of bestselling books, research papers, and textbooks on decision making.

I was glad that as an associate professor, I knew how to do proper research, and on the other side as a politician, I understood real life experience, and together this showed me how and why people behave and decide the way they do.

What This Book Is About

There are many books on decision making, many of them written by esteemed psychologists, managers, behavior scientists, statisticians, and even Nobel laureates; however, these books are written from a specific angle. They are dry on the personal side and sometimes too complicated even for academics.

This book is a personal journey through the process of decision making and a practical guide to help you understand:

On what basis people do make decisions?

Why do we prefer one choice over another?

Why and when do we choose in?

Why and when do we choose out?

Are you having difficulty making decisions? This book will guide you through the decision-making process. By the end of this book, you will know what factors you should consider while making any decision and be able to evaluate the outcomes and overcome your limitations.

You will learn how to make balanced decisions, and how to make a great decision based on your principles and values, not someone else’s. You will get tools, tables, and examples to help you make decisions in your daily life, relationships, work, and investments.

The book is formed of three sections and 11 chapters:

Section one will discuss the pre-decision stage and is formed of five chapters.

Chapter 1 will explain why we struggle to make decisions, and which parts of us are involved in making the decision.

Chapter 2 will explain the hard internal factors that determine our decisions.

Chapter 3 will explain the soft internal factors that determine our decisions.

Chapter 4 will look at the external factors that determine our decisions.

Chapter 5 will tell you about our limitations as human beings when making decisions.

Section two will discuss the process of decision making and is formed of four chapters.

Chapter 6 will guide you through the decision-making process and explain its stages.

Chapter 7 will give you more than 10 decision tools to help you make any decision easily and effectively.

Chapter 8 will tell you how to make balanced decisions and live a balanced life using the balanced life equation and the balancing matrix decisions tools.

Chapter 9 is on special situations where we have to make decisions in unconventional conditions.

Section three will discuss the post-decision and is formed of two chapters.

Chapter 10 is about the execution of decisions.

Chapter 11 will help you become a decision maker. You will see how to make decisions proactively and learn the meaning of happiness.

So, are you in? Or are you out?

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Section One

Pre-decision

Chapter One

Pre-decision

In this chapter, we’ll look at what happens before we make a decision, before we say, in or out, why we struggle to make a decision, and who is actually making the decision. In the next chapter, we’ll walk through the factors that precede and determine the decision-making process.

Why Do We Struggle to Make a Decision?

We often struggle to make what appears to be a simple decision on the surface. So why is it so hard for us to decide these things? What’s going on under the surface? To understand this better, let’s look back at my Superman or Pirate dilemma. As simple as the decision was, why was it so hard for me to decide?

Firstly, when we make a decision, it’s important to realize that we are comparing things.   So,

Reviews for In or Out

[Aisha Shoukry · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Excellent book I enjoyed reading it really much ,very helpful