A way to make hard choices: picture yourself at eighty and ask which option you would regret skipping more.
Example
You are deciding whether to enter a school art contest. Picture yourself at eighty looking back. The version that entered and lost is fine. The version that never entered keeps wondering. The regret-minimization pick is usually the one your eighty-year-old self prefers.
How it fits in
Bezos used this exact tool to leave his Wall Street job and start Amazon. The trick is not predicting the right answer. It is changing your time horizon. Choices that feel terrifying in the present often look obvious from forty years out, because the long view filters out the things you only feared because they were new.
Where this is taught
Entrepreneurs who exemplify this
Related terms
A way to sort how someone tries to affect another person's choice, from giving information to taking away a fair choice.
Giving someone information without trying to steer their choice.
Trying to change someone's mind with honest reasons while leaving them free to choose.