Good Game Plan

The Executive's Guide to Love

In a world obsessed with optimizing everything from our careers to our sleep cycles, we often leave our most crucial life decision to chance: choosing a life partner. Yet research consistently shows this approach may be our biggest strategic oversight.

Today’s topic is responding to a request by readers. While we may think these reflections are mostly relevant for the under-35, let me reveal that I get asked most about the science of dating for those 40+ or 50+. With longer timeframes for education and starting up professionally, and longer life expectancy, the urgency to marry has abated somewhat. People are marrying later and have been doing so for several decades.

We have discussed the vision for ourselves, and where and how to invest in our dreams. Many of us hold the dream of finding a compatible, supportive, loving life partner. What kind of investment is this and what does it take to invest wisely here?

Less is More

The science is clear: our sophisticated decision-making system, which serves us so well in boardrooms, actually breaks down when confronted with too many romantic options. Robert Kurzban et al.'s groundbreaking study on speed-dating revealed a counterintuitive truth – having more options often leads to poorer partner selections and decreased satisfaction. It's decision fatigue at its most personal.

When our brains face too many choices, our typically reliable decision-making framework collapses. This explains why many successful professionals, particularly those dating in their 40s and 50s, find themselves stuck in a paradox of choice.

It could be transformative to move from a hope-based strategy to an evidence-based one. Recent research on mate selection seems in favor of having clear, predetermined criteria to significantly increase the likelihood of finding a compatible match. Think of it as your personal due diligence process – you wouldn't acquire a company without a clear checklist of requirements, so why approach potential life partners less conscientiously, at a minimum?

Objective Filters

The key lies in establishing "binary criteria" – clear, evaluable markers that align with your life's mission and core values and that can be answered with Yes or No. Limit yourself to five non-negotiable criteria that can be assessed within the first few dates. This approach, supported by decision science research, helps prevent the common pitfall of letting opportunities, rather than preferences, drive your choices.

This isn't about reducing love to an algorithm. Rather, it's about creating a framework that allows genuine connection to flourish by filtering out incompatible matches early. Just as Dr. Travis Bradberry advocates for strategic decision-making in business, the same principles apply to personal relationships.

Similarly, Cass Sunstein and Olivier Sibony show in Noise that having objective filters can eliminate bias and noise in decision making. Your selection criteria must be both meaningful and measurable. For instance, if global mobility is crucial for your life project, this may be a non-negotiable criterion. The wish to have children, or not, also merits evaluating early. It is important to focus on the essential, following Greg McKeown 's wisdom.

The investment in developing your personal criteria pays dividends in saved time, reduced emotional wear, and ultimately, a higher probability of finding a truly compatible partner. After all, as the research shows, the path to meaningful connection isn't through endless swiping – it's through strategic clarity about what you truly value.

Yours sincerely,

Rebekka

PS Know an executive who needs to hear this? Tag them below!