Suzy Welch on How to Make a Sound Decision

Illustration Terry Allen for TIME

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10-10-10 By Suzy Welch Scribner; 226 pages

As a top-notch financial journalist, Suzy Wetlaufer knew a good business story when she saw one. Unfortunately, the biggest story of her career turned out to be a tabloid-ready bombshell starring Suzy herself--specifically, her relationship with corporate titan Jack Welch. "Jack and I gave the press a magnificent cocktail," she told TIME recently. "You couldn't have made it up. Here we have a very famous CEO who's married, who has just written a big, best-selling autobiography, and he runs off with this mother of four who [is the editor] of the Harvard Business Review." TV trucks camped outside her home; paparazzi pursued her. Before long, Suzy, then 42, had been fired, and Jack, then 66, was in court with his understandably angry soon-to-be ex-wife. Seven years later, Suzy is happily married to Jack, and she is willing--nay, eager--to discuss the love affair that cost her a prestigious job and cost her paramour more than a reported $75 million settlement. Suzy and the former General Electric chieftain "work together 24/7," write together and raise her children (and their profile). And she pens smart self-help books cum memoirs to boot.

The author writes with messianic zeal about a life-management technique that she invented a dozen years ago and for which she has successfully proselytized ever since. To 10-10-10 a decision means to analyze the issue from the perspective of 10 minutes hence, 10 months and 10 years. "The process invariably led me to faster, cleaner and sounder decisions," she writes. You can apply her technique to decisions as life-altering as whether to leave your job or as mundane as whether to attend a child's soccer game or stay at work.

The 10-10-10 approach is like a catchy tune you keep humming after hearing it on the radio. When applied, it immediately cuts down on foolish impulses. But the author, whose husband famously wrote the best seller Straight from the Gut, isn't discounting intuition. That's what governed her decision to dive--joblessly--into a new life with Jack. "I failed 10-10-10 because I was overwhelmed by events," Suzy admits now, with a touch of authorial embarrassment. "I was sort of standing in the middle of a field, and suddenly the skies opened up, and the skies fell down on me, and I didn't stop and say, O.K., '10-10-10.'" Maybe Mr. Straight from the Gut won that round.

The Richest Man in Town: The Twelve Commandments of Wealth By W. Randall Jones Business Plus; 242 pages

Being an RMIT (alas, there are very few RWITs) is a good thing, reports the author. He spent two years studying the most successful self-made person in each of 100 U.S. towns. The poorest of these folks is worth more than $100 million, and half are billionaires. Does money buy happiness? Well, yes, Jones reports: "RMITs love the lives they have created for themselves." He crunches the numbers and gives his advice about joining the élite club ("Get Addicted to Ambition," "Fail to Succeed"). But most important, keep thy day job.

Fool's Gold: How the Bold Dream of a Small Tribe at J.P. Morgan ... Unleashed a Catastrophe By Gillian Tett Free Press; 293 pages