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In his the much-publicised move from Arsenal football club to Manchester United, Robin van Persie could have chosen to sign for the wealthier club Manchester City. In making this difficult decision, he produced a quote which will appear in future sporting anthologies, and maybe even in a business textbook or two.
“I always listen to the little boy inside of me in these situations – when you have to make the harder decisions in life. What does he want? That boy was screaming for Man United”.
Don’t forget the little adult
This is part popular psychology, part from a life-skills manual for personal development. The idea offers one way of dealing with dilemmas or hard-to-resolve decisions. ‘Listening to the little boy [or girl]’ allows us to escape from the tyranny of a logical “either or” . In this case it might have been Either go to a weathier club, or to a club I find more attractive but which has fewer resources to buy top players
The approach overcomes decision paralysis. Hoever, it tends to work better when combined with ‘listening to the little adult’.
To follow
A post examining how the arrival of van Persie was in a week which saw Manchester United’s stock rise among its fans and fall on the New York exchange.
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Listening to the little person inside of you is also another way of trusting instinct rather than relying on sole logic… after all we are animals in the beginning, and become robots to keep the lights on and the water running
Fair point. Bit of shame that geek-terminology at present seems to equate monkey with robot or mindless execution of programmed orders.