Reptilian
Threat & scarcity reflexes
Panic, deadlines, 'only 2 left', fear of loss. The brain that says act now and think later.
Decision guide · founders & business ownership
Selling your business
Selling your business can look like one choice, but several systems vote on it at once. A deadline is present. The useful move is not to silence instinct or feeling; it is to notice which signal is being given too much authority.
Run this on my situationWhat usually drives it
Rational
Logic traps & false certainty
Confident reasoning built on unchecked premises. Being smart is not the same as being right.
Mammalian
Belonging, status & authority pull
Who else is doing it, who approves of you, who you'd disappoint. Social gravity beats spreadsheets.
Pressure to notice
anchoring
anchoring can narrow the frame until one option feels more inevitable than it is.
time pressure
A clock narrows attention and makes immediate relief feel more important than the eventual result.
flattery
flattery can narrow the frame until one option feels more inevitable than it is.
Red flag
An LOI's headline number is an anchor; the earn-out is the actual deal.
About to selling your business — and there are signs you haven't named yet? Run it through Decision IQ before you sign the LOI.
Three questions to ask yourself
- 01Who set the deadline on selling your business, and what actually happens if you miss it?
- 02Which consequence of selling your business cannot be repaired, and whose evidence have you used to judge it?
- 03Are you choosing for your present life, or for the version of you that other people expect at this stage?
A starter plan
- 1Write down the real deadline, who benefits from it, and the consequence of asking for one more day.
- 2Ask one person with no stake in the outcome to challenge the strongest assumption behind the choice.
- 3For each pressure in play—anchoring, time pressure, flattery—write one sentence separating the signal from the decision.
One decision idea a week
One useful idea. No daily drip, no pressure.