The Guppy Fish Paradox: How to Make Better Decisions When You Don’t Know Enough
In the first Guppy Fish talk, I shared a simple behavioral story that explains a huge amount of human behavior.
Female guppy fish prefer the brightest male. But when all the males cluster together, it becomes hard to distinguish who’s actually brightest—so the female starts watching what other females choose, then copies the choice.
That’s social proof.
Humans do the same thing all day:
- What to buy
- Who to trust
- What career move to make
- What “normal” looks like
- What business tactics “work”
Sometimes social proof saves time. Sometimes it quietly ruins your life.
So the question people asked after the first talk makes sense:
How do you tell whether the thing you’re choosing is actually good… or just popular?
Here are two decision frameworks that help.
The first decision is whether you’re choosing at all
You have two options:
- Choice
- No choice
That sounds obvious—until you remember this:
Not choosing is still a choice, because a choice gets made for you.
A lot of people wake up and think, “How do I get through the day?”
A better framework is:
“What can I get from the day?”
That one shift moves you from passive drift to intentional living.
Framework 1: Identify your “decision engine”
Most decisions come from some mix of four engines:
- Emotion
- Math / logic
- Reflex / speed
- Other people’s opinions
None of these are automatically “bad.” Each one is useful in the right context:
- Emotion matters when values are central (meaning, relationships, identity).
- Math matters when tradeoffs are real (money, time, risk, business decisions).
- Reflex matters when you have no time (driving, emergencies, split-second moves).
- Opinions matter when the advisors are credible and diverse.
But if I had to pick the engine that most consistently improves decision quality—especially in business and life architecture—I’d pick:
Math (even rough math)
Because it forces clarity.
And clarity beats vibes when the cost of being wrong is high.
A funny way to see it: imagine boarding a plane and hearing,
“Welcome—this plane was built with the best gut feeling we had.”
No thank you.
Gut instinct doesn’t build engines. Engineers and numbers do.
“But I’m not a math person.”
This belief is one of the biggest tragedies in modern culture.
Math isn’t a personality type. It’s a practiced skill.
And you don’t need perfection. You need direction.
It’s better to be roughly right than precisely wrong.
You can even quantify subjective things:
- “This option makes me ~60% happier.”
- “This decision increases stress by ~30%.”
- “This move has 2x upside but 1.5x risk.”
Are these numbers scientifically exact? No.
But they make you compare tradeoffs instead of floating in ambiguity.
Framework 2: The four-box filter that simplifies almost everything
This next model is brutally simple—and that’s why it works.
Almost every recurring habit, opportunity, or commitment fits into one of four boxes:
1) You like it + it’s good for you
Easy wins. Keep them.
2) You don’t like it + it’s good for you
This is where growth lives.
Reading. Exercise. Saving money. Practicing a skill. Learning math. Having hard conversations.
3) You like it + it’s not good for you
This is where self-sabotage hides.
Time sinks, cheap dopamine, distractions, “fun” that steals tomorrow.
4) You don’t like it + it’s not good for you
Cut these as fast as you can.
Now here’s the key:
The leverage lives in Boxes 2 and 3.
If you want to make better decisions, you don’t need to become a different person.
You need to do two things consistently:
- Do more of what you don’t like, but is good for you.
- Do less of what you like, but isn’t good for you.
This alone eliminates a huge percentage of bad decisions.
Why “other people’s opinions” can quietly trap you
Social proof is efficient—but it’s also dangerous.
If your main decision engine becomes “what everyone else thinks,” you’ll tend to stay at the level of your environment.
There’s an old idea: go to war with a multitude of counselors.
Yes—get input.
But be careful who you model.
If you want Ferrari outcomes, don’t treat Toyota advice as final truth.
(No offense to Toyota. The metaphor still works.)
A practical example: hiring and the committee model
One place this shows up clearly is hiring.
Many organizations hire like this:
- One manager interviews you
- One manager decides
Predictable result: homogeneous teams—same personality type, same preferences, same blind spots.
A better approach is closer to a committee model:
- multiple perspectives
- shared evaluation
- better probability of diverse strengths
Strong teams aren’t clones. They’re complements:
- creative + analytical
- big-picture + detail-driven
- high-energy + stabilizing
- intuitive + operational
Time value is a decision framework too
One of the simplest ways to use math in daily life is asking:
- How much time did this take?
- What is my time worth?
- What could I be doing instead?
That’s how you start seeing leverage.
You stop doing low-leverage tasks not because you’re “too good,” but because:
every role matters—and you should play the one you’re best suited for.
Outsourcing can be a team decision, not an ego decision.
The point: don’t copy the herd by default
Sometimes the herd is right.
Often it isn’t.
The goal isn’t to reject social proof. The goal is to notice when it’s running the show, and have tools to override it.
If you:
- identify your decision engine (and use math when appropriate)
- run choices through the four-box filter
…you’ll still make mistakes (we’re human), but you’ll make fewer expensive ones.
That’s how you become a smarter guppy fish.
FAQs
What is the Guppy Fish Paradox?
A simple example of social proof: when female guppies can’t distinguish the “best” male, they copy what other females choose—similar to human herd behavior under uncertainty.
Is social proof always bad?
No. It can be helpful when the group is informed. It’s harmful when you outsource thinking to popularity.
What are the four main ways people make decisions?
Emotion, math/logic, reflex, and other people’s opinions.
Why is math useful for decisions if life is subjective?
Because even rough numbers force tradeoff clarity. It’s better to be roughly right than confidently wrong.
What is the four-box decision framework?
(1) Like + good, (2) Don’t like + good, (3) Like + not good, (4) Don’t like + not good. The biggest gains come from doing more of (2) and less of (3).
How can I stop making herd decisions?
Notice when social proof is driving your choice, quantify tradeoffs where you can, and filter recurring habits through the four-box model.
For consulting support around strategy, systems, and execution: [email protected].
More essays on decision frameworks and systems thinking live here: https://gabebautista.com/essays/systems/
