Are your DECISION MAKING processes driven by strategy, or by a primal need for a "quick win"? This episode exposes Immediate Gratification, Temporal Myopia, and Present & Instant Return Biases—a psychological conspiracy that causes smart leaders to prioritise short-term spikes over long-term dominance. We call this the "Boardroom Marshmallow Test."

We expose the four cognitive forces that hijack your judgment and analyse how these conspirators turn business leaders into short-term thinkers, leading to the "painkiller effect" and sacrificing sustainable business strategy for temporary relief.

Key Insights:

• The Primal Scream: Why your brain demands "revenue now" at the expense of profit later.
• Present Bias: The cognitive flaw that treats your future self like a stranger you don't care about.
• The ROI Delusion: How we use "business logic" to justify impatience.
• The Painkiller Effect: Why we choose flashy marketing campaigns over deep strategy.

Every time you choose the immediate reward, you aren't just making a decision; you are training yourself to be shortsighted, giving up sustainable growth for short-term relief. It's time to stop burning your future to warm up the present.

The is Part 1 of the RATIONAL DECISION-MAKING series.

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IN THIS EPISODE

00:00 The Boardroom Marshmallow Test (Intro)

01:35 The Three Conspirators: Robbing Your Future

01:37 Conspirator 1: Immediate Gratification (The Primal Scream)

02:38 Conspirator 2: Present Bias (The Cognitive Sleight of Hand)

04:18 Conspirator 3: Instant Return Bias (The ROI Delusion)

05:25 How The Cycle Works

06:30 Monday Morning in the Boardroom

09:49 When Your Brain Catches Fire: The Results

11:20 The "Painkiller Effect": Solving the Wrong Problems

12:12 Organisational Contagion: When Bias Becomes Culture

13:32 The Deeper Game: How This Bleeds into Life

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Time to set yourself free!

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UNBOUND MIND confronts the prisons of our own making: Stress, Struggle, Suffering, and Stuckness.

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