My mother loves to talk about growing up in Brooklyn, New York. “I'm a New Yorker!” she still reminds us from her home in Maryland. That it's been 70 years since she last called New York home is another matter. According to Mom, once a New Yorker, always a New Yorker.
Visiting Mom this week, I popped into a local bakery for some fresh bread and couldn't resist buying her a black-and-white cookie. This cookie — a sweet, cakey, delectable disc coated in vanilla and chocolate frosting — is a classic New York treasure, even when it's baked in Maryland. Black-and-whites have been stocked in bakeries, bagel shops and bodegas for over a century. Some even stock them by the check-out, tempting shoppers with an impulse buy, a regular cling-wrappered-delight.
According to an article by William Grimes that I dug out from the New York Times, “Technically, the black-and-white is not a cookie but a drop cake. The batter resembles the batter for a cupcake, with a little extra flour so that the dough does not run all over the place…”
So is it a cake or a cookie? Maybe it's not so black-and-white after all.
All of this talk about black-and-whites has me wondering how you make decisions. You might even say I'm hungry to know more.
When considering a big decision, professional or personal, how do you separate the facts from the feelings? Is the desire to keep up with others clouding appreciation for what you already have, or maybe fear of failure is preventing you from applying past success to future prospects?
How do you differentiate the story in your head from data that's in front of you? The subjective opinion from the objective facts?
As your coach, I'll work with you to see the facts more clearly, and compare those facts to the narrative in your head. Together, we'll dive into patterns around your behavior and decision making so you can decide what information is helpful to you and what is not.
My job isn't to tell you what to do or how to do it; it's to help you assess available information so that the decisions you make are sound.
And when you do? That's the real treat. Positively delicious!
Ready to get started?