“The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time, and still retain the ability to function.” - F. Scott Fitzgerald
208 SECONDS
On January 15, 2009, US Airways Flight 1549 struck a flock of birds shortly after takeoff from New York. Both engines lost thrust. Captain Chesley Sullenberger and First Officer Jeffrey Skiles had approximately 208 seconds to figure out how to save 155 lives.
Air traffic controllers suggested runways. Checklists listed procedures. Dashboard gave them information. None of them could make the final choice.
Sullenberger judged that the aircraft could not safely reach an airport, so instead, he landed it on the Hudson River. Everyone survived.
Decision like that are often described as heroic intuition, but it was also judgment: the ability to weigh incomplete information, conflicting risks, limited time, and irreversible consequences…all without certainty.
Creators face less life-threatening versions of this moment every day.
Which idea deserves the budget? When should a film end? Should the flawed prototype be repaired or abandoned? Is criticism exposing a weakness or revealing that the work is ahead of its audience?
Sometimes, the hardest part of making something isn’t figuring out what you can do. It’s deciding what you should do.
DECISIONS WITHOUT RECEIPTS
Let’s get clear on what judgement is.
When a decision has a clear right answer, you do not need much judgment. You really just need information.
Judgment becomes necessary when you can defend several answers. One path may protect quality but delay the launch. Another may reach more people but weaken the idea. One collaborator may possess extraordinary skill but damage the emotional health of the team. One opportunity may increase income while quietly stealing the years needed for your most meaningful work.
These decisions don’t come to us with clear evidence pointing to a correct answer. Their consequences unfold slowly. Mixed with luck.
That creates a dangerous illusion. A good outcome can make a reckless decision look smart. A bad outcome can make a thoughtful decision look foolish. If you judge every choice only by what happened, randomness becomes your teacher.
Strong judgment evaluates the process before the result. What did you know? What didn’t you know? Which values mattered? Which risks were reversible? What evidence did you ignore? What trade-off were you accepting?
The goal isn’t to become right all the time. The goal is to become less accidentally right.
PRINCIPLES BEFORE PRESSURE
A lot of creators like to work under pressure. They say pressure creates diamonds. But the best part of pressure, to me, isn’t what it creates what it reveals. Pressure doesn’t create your principles. It reveals whether you have any.
Imagine a film director who knows that making the audience feel something matters more than making every shot look beautiful. When a difficult decision comes up on set, they know what to prioritize.
Or a business owner who refuses to sacrifice people’s trust for money. When an opportunity comes along that could make them rich but break that trust, the decision is easier.
Or a writer who cares more about being understood than sounding intelligent. They can delete a beautiful sentence if it makes their message harder to understand.
When you know what matters most, you spend less time wondering what to do. Michael Porter once said, “The essence of strategy is choosing what not to do.”
But there’s a danger here, too. Sometimes we become so attached to the way we’ve always done things that we forget why we started doing them in the first place.
