Suppose you have an important decision to make, and your thoughts are jumbled and muddled–like your living room after you’ve hosted a playgroup of 15 four-year-olds with ADHD and poor manners. You’re confused. You don’t know what to do.

Imagine yourself as the CEO of a fortune-500 company (SerenityNow.com?) who has just called a board meeting. Each voice or thought or opinion has an opportunity to plead its case before you. Once all the perspectives have been heard, you can make your decision.

For example, the woman who doesn’t know whether or not to pursue a better-paying but more demanding job needs to call a meeting in her boardroom. She must consider the opinion of the person testifying that she has a low threshold for stress based on her last job. She should hear from the man who says her home life is currently in turmoil and requires some extra attention from her. She ought to listen to the person who testifies that her spending habits might factor into the equation. She even needs to listen to the control freak throwing out 85 reasons why she is underperforming in her current position and would most likely suck at every other job too. Then, after processing all the opinions of her board of directors, this CEO makes her final decision.

Come to think of it, the procedure mimics the way the wimps, loners, and losers are voted off of “Survivor.”

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