About the author
I'm Jason Conley.
I created The Stoic Strategist to help professionals and managers make difficult decisions with clearer judgement.
My work brings together Stoic philosophy, intelligence analysis, and strategic thinking. The practical question is how to use them when information is incomplete, people disagree, and a decision still has to be made.
Experience behind the work
Three decades of analysis and decision support.
My background is in intelligence analysis. Over more than three decades, I’ve worked as an analyst, instructor, team leader, and planner across military and government contracting roles.
My U.S. Air Force service included intelligence analysis, supervising instructors, and developing training. Later roles involved leading research teams and briefing senior military leaders, including commanding generals.
Much of that work required turning incomplete reporting into an assessment someone else could use. What does the evidence support? What remains uncertain? Which assumptions could change the conclusion? How do you explain all of that clearly enough to support a decision?
I’ve also built databases and analytical tools to make information easier to retrieve, examine, and use. That practical work informs the resources I develop for The Stoic Strategist.
The book, workbook, and tools bring this analytical background together with Stoic philosophy and strategic thinking. My aim is to help professionals and managers examine difficult situations, explain their reasoning, and act with clearer judgement.
Why I built this
Good reasoning has to survive the moment of decision.
A recommendation can be carefully researched and still be pushed off course by urgency, frustration, or pressure to agree. You also need to notice what is happening to your own judgement.
Stoic philosophy provides a way to examine your response and keep your responsibilities in view. Analysis helps you assess the situation. Strategic thinking connects your next action to the outcome you are trying to achieve.
I brought these disciplines together in The Stoic Strategist: Thinking Clearly in Chaotic Times, with practical exercises and tools for applying the ideas at work and in life.
For this site, the focus is the workplace: competing commitments, difficult recommendations, disagreement, and decisions made before the evidence is complete.
What you can expect here
Reasoning you can examine and use.
Make uncertainty visible
Say what the evidence supports.
Keep facts, assumptions, and unknowns distinct. Explain the limits of a recommendation and what would justify changing it.
Show the work
Use examples to make ideas concrete.
Follow the reasoning through a decision. Fictional examples are identified as such so you can distinguish illustration from reported experience.
Keep responsibility clear
Use the tools with your own judgement.
A framework can help you ask better questions and record your thinking. You bring the context, check the evidence, and remain responsible for the choice.
A place to begin
Try the approach on a decision you recognize.
Read a practical example
How to Decide Before Certainty Arrives
Work through defining the decision, separating evidence from assumptions, choosing a proportionate action, and setting review conditions.
Read the article →Use the free resource
The Decision Brief
Download a reusable printable brief and a completed workplace example. Start with one decision you need to make.
Get the free Decision Brief →For more instruction and practice, explore the complete Decision Toolkit, including the book and 38-drill companion workbook.
Contact
Get in touch.
For questions about the work, feedback on a resource, or a professional inquiry, email me directly.