Hasard LeeThe Art of Clear Thinking: A Stealth Fighter Pilot's Timeless Rules for Making Tough Decisions

Hasard has written an amazing book with clear and easy to follow methods to improve the way you solve problems with great historical storytelling and insights from his own career and famous historical events.Starting with Page 1 we see how experienced airline pilots crashed a perfectly good aircraft killing all onboard due to a combination of poor decision making ( The infamous Air France 447 flight)From there Hasard shows us how this and other situations could have been better assessed and delivers a great chapter on power laws- why things increase exponentially and why our minds are programmed to think in linear terms. For example how increasing your speed from 40 to 65 MPH will save about 6 minutes every 10 miles but increasing your speed from 65 to 90 will only save half the time even though the MPH increase is the same.. He explains the why of this in the chapter and introduces us to non-linear thinking concepts and why thinking in non linear terms is so important to assessing and making decisions ( Power laws)He then goes on to give us simple fast forecasting tools to help improve our decision making. He uses a flying story here from his time in Afghanistan that was amazing to read. Throughout the decision making process of analysis, choosing and execution ( ACE as the pilot world calls it) He gives insightful examples from his own career and draws on some great historical stories from D-Day to how Google almost never came to be. In fact not since the 48 laws of Power or the 33 Strategies of War ( Robert Green) have I seen such concise and gripping story telling. Some of his flying stories increased my heart rate – which is pretty hard to do since I was an F16 pilot myself- Yet the way he retells his combat experience with lessons learned and how he arrived at his decisions was really thoughtful. Hasard drew on some of his own failures and shows us how he could have made better decisions in the cockpit and also why he made the decisions he did at that time ( most of them of course worked out but the point of his story was to show us how he did his risk analysis with lives on the line)From there we get a great chapter on creative thinking- And this uses some great story telling from the Gulf war on how they completely disregarded current military doctrine to come up with a new way to plan the invasion of Iraq. It was page turning storytelling, in fact I was so gripped that ( like most learning) it was not until the next morning that I realized I really gained some deep knowledge on creative thinking . Hasard points out that “creativity is one of the few resources that can provide an exponential advantage to those who are able to harness it. “ And introduces us to effects based approach that works on the battle field and in life.We then jump to some mental toughness skills – Many of these are about calming down the mind and positive self talk as well as visualization.. While you may think I have heard this before the author brings this alive with real examples from pilot training- Hasard brings this to life and shows the statistical benefits of doing all the above and more importantly the why behind it. Hasard also has more lessons on mental toughness and shows us how more experienced pilots then him did not make it through pilot training because they were not able to harness these and other skills he teaches.I have just hit the highlights of the book and it was so exciting that I found myself finishing it in 2 days.This is the best book on decision making I have ever read and I highly recommend this for everyone to help improve their ability to analyze and make decisions in daily life

I had mediocre expectations of this book, but was easily drawn to it because of my interest in flying and military aircraft (especially fighters). I am, however, happy to say this book exceeded my expectations in several ways.First, Lee introduces nothing new in terms of decision-making paradigms and thought processes, instead focusing on mostly well-defined concepts that have been around and discussed in other books. The thing I love about this is that he doesn't try to reinvent the wheel. He talks briefly about the concept and expands on it with gripping anecdotes - some based on personal experience and some not. These anecdotes were not only great stories, but the way he told them in regards to making choices under pressure, developing clear goals and calculating risk made every anecdote surprisingly relatable. I can confidently say there are many things that will stick with me from this book, and I can see myself revisiting it in the future.Second, I have different expectations from a fighter pilot than I do for a seasoned author when it comes to writing quality (as I'm sure most people do). That being said, I was pleasantly surprised with how well this book was written. I found myself learning new things more from the way he conveyed the information than the information itself. His writing is succinct and on topic, but with the occasional flourish to keep it interesting and unique to him.I would be happy to read more books by Hasard Lee based on this one alone, and highly recommend it to just about anyone - especially those with a soft spot for flight.

Hasard Lee has written a true classic. Weaving exciting stories from both training and combat into clear concepts and lessons learned - this book represents a sum of knowledge and insight that, just like the promotional blurb states, can be applied to every day life by everyone. Regardless of your background, career or age, you will find this to be an engaging and fruitful read. Taking the time to absorb what is on these pages may even represent a landmark shift in the trajectory of ones life by giving them the tools to make optimal decisions every day, large or small.This one will always have a spot on my library shelf and is already special to me. Cover to cover, it is already one of my favorite books of all time. "The Art of Clear Thinking", as Hasard states himself, isn't a simple dogma to live by, but it's one hell of a good starting point. The real works starts after you turn the final page.

Lee has written a book that is NOT a how to book. Though the use of history and his own memory, he illustrated for us, how to think clearly and critically. Some areas of the book do have a how to feel to it, others don't. I like the book.