How much space do you give on your pros and cons list to relationships, spirituality and meaning?

Founders make a lot of decisions.

We learn how to be data-driven: measuring, evaluating, and projecting.

What happens when these skills spill over into decisions in your private life?

While building a successful startup, you develop frameworks for data-driven decision-making: what is enough data, when to take a decision, how to decide among alternatives, how to effectively follow up on a decision, and much more.

There is a good chance that this mindset gets ported to your own life outside work.

However, these tools will give you a false sense of security and completely discard everything you cannot measure.

How much space do you give on your pros and cons list to factors related to relationships, spirituality and meaning?

Most probably much less space than any financial argument.

When deciding on major life decisions, go for what you cannot measure first and listen to your inner voice.

It does sound reductive to decide to be a parent, starting with a "pros and cons" list focused on the financial impact, right?

A tool that I often use to get into value-focused mind space is this one:

I picture how I would like an ordinary Tuesday in 5 years to look in as much detail as possible. From when I get out of bed to the last thing I see before closing my eyes. Who is with me? What gave me joy and meaning? What first concepts and words resonate deeply, instinctively?

That is the starting place. That is what your decisions should have as a north star to chart the course. Data-driven tools can help work backwards and define the most probable and efficient way to get there.