One Decision by Mike Bayer

Bayer is a life coach and shares his insights on living life. The one decision he encourages is for us to be authentic. It is a decision we need to make day after day and he gives us a framework to help us do that.

While there are many good points in this book, the one that stood out to me was whether we make decisions using emotional reasoning or evidence based reasoning. It explained so much of the behavior seen in the U.S. after the 2020 presidential election. “If we're making decisions that are based on feeling, that is emotional reasoning, whereas if we are making decisions that are based in actual, verifiable evidence, that is evidence-based reasoning. When we are reasoning with emotion, we believe that feelings are facts. When we are using evidence-based reasoning, we are able to recognize and then set aside the emotions and lean primarily on the evidence when making decisions.” (208) “Decisions made as a direct result of emotional reasoning are often rash decisions that don't come from or serve our Best Self.” (220) That can cause problems.

Moving from emotions to evidence in making decisions is just one of the strategies Bayer presents in this book to help each of us be our best self. It is the E in his FORCE acronym for issues in making decisions related to our Best Self. This is a good book for those who want to better understand how to make good, life building decisions.

My rating: 4/5 stars.

Mike Bayer is a life coach, a New York Times bestselling author, podcast host, popular speaker, and founder and CEO of CAST Centers. He is the host of Stage 29 Productions' Always Evolving with Coach Mike Bayer podcast, writes a regular column in Psychology Today, and is a frequent contributor on Dr. Phil. He lives in Los Angeles, California. You can find out more at https://coachmikebayer.com/.

Viking, 304 pages.

(My star ratings: 5-I love it, 4-I like it, 3-It's OK, 2-I don't like it, 1-I hate it.)