My Favorite Mistake — 67: Believing Her Boss Who Said a “Safe Space” Was Indeed Safe: Nika Kabiri

Co-author of the book Money off the Table: Decision Science and the Secret to Smarter Investing.

Show notes: https://www.markgraban.com/mistake67 (go there to enter to win a free signed copy of her book)

My guest for Episode #67 is Nika Kabiri, who describes herself as a “forward thinking, science-loving entrepreneur, author, public speaker, teacher, and researcher.” She’s a decision scientist, who has her firm Kabiri Consulting, is on the faculty at the University of Washington Department of Communication, and is co-author of the book Money off the Table: Decision Science and the Secret to Smarter Investing.

Nika has a PhD in sociology and, while she earned the JD degree, she’s not an “attorney” (that was my mistake in the episode — oops!!). She has over twenty years of experience studying how people make decisions in a variety of contexts, from business to politics to relationships, and she’s an active writer with a lot of great insights to share. You can also find her at YourNextDecision.com.

Questions and topics include:

  • What do mistakes even mean?
  • Was law school a mistake?
  • What’s your favorite mistake?
  • Was it a mistake in thinking that the “Safe space” at work was really safe? But she was TOLD it was!
  • How does a decision scientist decide whether she should speak up or not?
  • Minimizing regret vs. maximizing possibility of good outcomes
  • Helpful to delay a decision when you can?
  • Forecasting the probability of outcome.. can’t predict the future… but we’re craving certainty
  • Broader themes on misinformation… what do you trust? Stories? Data?
    As people decide should they wear masks? Should they get vaccinated?
  • You’ve written about solutions to conspiracy theories… what can individuals do, what must society do?

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