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The President of the United States Barack Obama gave revealing interview about his decision making.

 “You’ll see I wear only gray or blue suits....I’m trying to pare down decisions. I don’t want to make decisions about what I’m eating or wearing. Because I have too many other decisions to make.”

“You need to focus your decision-making energy. You need to routinize yourself. You can’t be going through the day distracted by trivia.”

He quoted President George W Bush who described the President as 'a decider'.

 “Nothing comes to my desk that is perfectly solvable. Otherwise, someone else would have solved it. So you wind up dealing with probabilities. Any given decision you make you’ll wind up with a 30 to 40 percent chance that it isn’t going to work. You have to own that and feel comfortable with the way you made the decision. You can’t be paralyzed by the fact that it might not work out.” [My emphasis.]

Note that President Obama believes that 'comfort' doesn't come from the outcome of the decision. It comes from 'owning' the way that the decision was made

The President added that 'after you have made your decision, you need to feign total certainty about it. People being led do not want to think probabilistically.'

“One of my most important tasks is making sure I stay open to people, and the meaning of what I’m doing, but not to get so overwhelmed by it that it’s paralyzing. Option one is to go through the motions. That I think is a disaster for a president.'

"There are times when I have to save it and let it out at the end of the day.”

 

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