Joe describes developing a set of personal principles as the most powerful way to automate decision-making. When a hard decision arises, instead of agonizing, you ask “what would my principles do?” and follow them. This initially requires discipline, but quickly becomes effortless because the principles consistently produce good results.
“I have a set of principles and I’ve thought about those principles a lot. I’ve played with them a lot. I’ve iterated on them a lot.”
The key is that principles must be discovered through experimentation, not adopted dogmatically. You test them, iterate on them, and validate them through lived experience. Joe’s own principle of “embrace intensity” started as willingness to feel discomfort but evolved into capacity for greater joy and pleasure — the principle taught him things he couldn’t have predicted.
When principles are working, decisions become choices. The deliberation disappears because you already know what to do. Life becomes a series of effortless choices rather than agonizing decisions.
Related Concepts
- Embrace intensity for transformation
- Experimentation makes knowledge embodied
- Focus on few high-leverage principles
- Unconscious principles already run your life
- Principles make decisions for you
- The process of wrestling with principles matters more than the principles themselves
- Changing behavior is the most efficient way to change consciousness
- Principles drive action; values describe morality