(Rose thinks it’s funny that I have to solve Calculus Problems)

If you’ve ever laid out what seemed like a solid plan, only to have reality refuse to cooperate, this session is for you.

In this talk, I focus on the most critical part of effective decision-making and problem-solving: how we make sense of what’s really going on before we commit to a path.

this is critical the Orient step; but in this session I strip away most of the jargon and concentrate on what it means in real life: slowing down just enough to interpret the situation accurately and generate better options.

Most of us don’t do that. Our brains love the first idea that pops up. Research shows that 85% of important decisions are made after considering just one option. Yet when we consider three or more, our chances of success jump dramatically. The gap isn’t about intelligence; it’s about mindset, it’s how we frame the situation and expand our choices before we act.

My own plans blew up when I was building online high school courses and got stuck reviewing calculus problems—material I hadn’t touched since my high school days. At first, my “plan” was simple: whenever I hit a wall, I’d hand the problem to my daughter Rosie, who was taking calculus at the time. She helped once, but when I brought the second problem to her, she looked at me and said, “Dad, I have a lot of faith in you. I know with hard work you’re going to figure it out… You go back and work on this.”

My first approach collapsed. I had to re-orient: what resources did I really have? What were my options beyond “Rosie does it”? That led me to a new combination—relearning enough myself and bringing in a math teacher for quality assurance. Not glamorous, but it worked. And it only appeared when I stopped clinging to my initial plan and consciously re-examined the situation.

Tired of reacting, blaming, or giving up when things don’t go as expected? This session will give you a practical way to pause, reframe, and design better options—so your actions become experiments that move you forward, instead of failures that shut you down.