It’s not difficult for many of us to agree, the majority of our decisions are based on the aggregate of our prior experience, combined with some sort of physical observation. “That looks hot, I once was burned, don’t touch it.” A rather simplistically calculated decision to a situation, correct? Modern philosophy has a enormous amount explanations of this phenomenon, of which I have no desire whatsoever to regurgitate. However, the idea of understanding, evaluating and augmenting our decision making structure, is quite possibly one of the most effective methods of good business.

The argument follows: (and I’m sure many of you will most likely remember this from high school) a priori knowledge is that which we have completely free of experience, a posteriori knowledge is dependent on experience or empirical evidence. As entrepreneurs, we are often confronted with decisions, both minute and large in scope that will severely affect our bottom line one way or another - I know it’s true for Carbon Copy Pro. Further, these decisions usually carry with them some sort of emotional contingency that is equally important (we are not robots after all…not yet at least).

With that said, we clearly exercise a bit of both in the decisions we make. However, the nature of the entrepreneurial attitude puts us in unprecedented situations constantly. Circumstances that we have no frame of reference or prior knowledge of. How do we make sound decisions here?

Mentally, what me must do is not as difficult as it may seem. It only requires for us to step beyond the notion of relativism, and embody an objectivist stance. This does not mean that we divorce our prior experience from our decision making. But we, as human beings, are highly capable of doing turning these situations into opportunities for mental growth. It simply requires us to cease projecting, or interjecting our personal bias, or past experiences upon the current dilemma. We must digest the situation logically and objectively, and then act accordingly.

This doesn’t require any special faculty or intelligence. We all have a natural intelligence within ourselves that is only hindered by, well, bad habits. Bad habits can be changed. Many of us are introspective by nature anyway, use that time to facilitate the habitual changes that you seek. Learning something new can seem daunting, but the reality is when you engage yourself mentally you usually discover something you already know.