I'm in my early 60's and live in Northern California about an hour North of San Francisco in Sonoma County. I have a lovely wife and two grown daughters. I'm active in my community, enjoy hiking, physical exercise, natural beauty, meditation, friends, fun, wine, old cars, typical stuff.
What is your professional background?
I practiced law in Houston for 25 years. In 1997 I started coaching and I am a Professional Certified Coach - I help clients achieve their personal and professional goals. I also taught a university course in Critical Thinking for several years. I'm a licensed California Real Estate Broker.
How did you get interested in Decision Making?
My first wife died of leukemia in 1996 - it was tough. And, by around that time, I had become pretty tired of practicing law. I felt I needed a major change in my life. I decided that if I was going to do it, I'd better get going so I gave the situation a lot of thought, did my due diligence and decided to move to California and become a coach. Brave or stupid, I don't know. I just did it.
My decision process started me thinking about how important our decisions are and that we really don't know very well how to make them. Also, in my coaching practice, decision making kept coming up. People often hire coaches to help them get through a major shift or change in their lives. Well, I kept getting clients that needed to think through a situation and make a major life or career decision. I could identify. Because I wanted to hone my coaching skills and just out of curiosity I began to research decision making. I read a number of books and spent a lot of time researching on the internet. It was fascinating.
So what have you actually done in the Decision Making area?
After getting down the basics I wanted to share. I wrote an article: "How to Make Better Decisions," and started giving speeches to civic clubs, associations and a couple of times to conferences.
I knew about the Critical Thinking movement and, when I had a chance to go the national conference, I went. That got me interested in teaching Critical Thinking because its a necessary component of making wise decisions. I applied and was approved to teach Critical Thinking at The University of Phoenix in Northern California. I did this for several years and had a ball. In addition to the official course work, I made sure that my students learned how important decision making is and the 5 steps to making wise decisions.
Of course I continued my coaching and just got better and better in guiding people through important decisions. I became interested in teaching young people decision making skills and designed a curriculum. I have now taught two three-part courses in decision making skills to high school students.
Why did you create this website?
I'm really passionate about teaching and helping people make better decisions. Making presentations and showing a small number of high school students how to do it just wasn't satisfying enough. I wanted to reach more people. As I'm pretty busy with my work, the internet seemed to be the way to go.
My goal is to give visitors the nuts and bolts, the most practical advice about how to make a wise decision. I'm confident that anyone, of any level of knowledge or education, will receive value from stopping by and reviewing the material. As you may have observed, many apparently intelligent people in high places make dumb decisions. We can all learn.
I'm also interested in making contact with like minded people who share my interest in decision making, especially teaching young people decision making skills.
What's your contact information?
My phone number is (707) 570-2227
My email address is: dan@wisedecisions.com
dan@wisedecisions.com
(707) 570-2227
