Fear of Missing out: Practical Decision-Making in a World of Overwhelming Choice

What are you really missing out on? You're home on a Friday night, scrolling through Instagram, ready to go to bed. You see pictures on your timeline of a party you were invited to, but didn't go to. You were confident when you said no, but now you can't stop thinking about it, and you start feeling worse. You have FOMO, or, Fear of Missing Out. Coined in a Harvard Business School article, FOMO has become a global term to describe the decimating anxiety when thinking other people are having better, more fulfilling, experiences than you are. It's a natural, biological response, but that doesn't make it feel any better. Amplified by the rise of social media, #FOMO has become a cultural crisis—so what's the cure? Patrick McGinnis, creator of the term FOMO, has been thinking about for seventeen years—and he has a solution: decision-making. Learning to weigh the costs and benefits of your choices, prioritizing your decisions, and listening to your gut are central to silencing FOMO and its lesser-known cousin, FOBO: Fear of a Better Option. After all, don't you want to feel comfortable and confident in your decisions? Written with self-evaluations throughout the book, Fear of Missing Out: Practical Decision Making in a World of Overwhelming Choice helps you ascertain and eliminate the parts of your life that are causing more anxiety than happiness. So give this a read, and then go to that party, start that new book, create a new goal—or don't. Make that decision, and be confident in it: it's the first of many of its kind.

About the Author :
Patrick J. McGinnis is a venture capitalist and private equity investor who has invested in leading companies in the United States, Latin America, Europe, and Asia.

Review :
"Fear of Missing Out is an indispensable handbook for anyone who wants to spend each day actually living their life instead of wasting precious time on indecision. Patrick is both generous and genuine, which is a rare gift in this world." -- Cathy Heller, creator and host of the podcast Don't Keep Your Day Job "A useful guide for choosing what you actually want in an age when doing so is increasingly difficult." -- Tony Hsieh, New York TImes bestselling author of Delivering Happiness and CEO of Zappos.com, Inc. "After first coining FOMO, McGinnis invented FOBO (Fear of a Better Option) to describe an even more destructive set of behaviors. Now he's back with a clear, step-by-step, and powerful approach to help people stop looking over their shoulders and instead embrace the real and exciting possibilities before them." -- Jamie Metzl, leading futurist and bestselling author of Hacking Darwin "As the creator of the term FOMO, Patrick J. McGinnis is uniquely positioned to lead the fight against this very modern affliction. In his powerful new book, McGinnis shows us how to take back control of the way we live and work. It is a must-read for all of us who want to escape the anxiety of indecision, live with more intention, and thrive." -- Arianna Huffington, Founder & CEO, Thrive Global "Fascinating, liberating, this could inspire FOMO in all who choose to leave it on the shelf." -- Booklist "In Fear of Missing Out, Patrick J. McGinnis dives deep into the underlying reason behind [FOMO], shows us why we have FOMO, and helps us discover what we actually want so we can say yes to the things that we really want to be a part of. Because if you know what you want, you aren't really missing out, then, are you?" -- Dr. Will Cole, leading functional medicine expert, IFMCP, DC, author of The Inflammation Spectrum and Ketotarian, and cohost of the Goopfellas podcast "It took me nearly dying five times to learn what Patrick so eloquently shares in this must-read book: we must find the power to choose what we actually want and the courage to miss out on the rest. Patrick McGinnis does a brilliant job providing concrete guidance for how to do this (without needing to have the near-death experiences!). This book has an urgent message for anyone living in 2020: You don't have to live with regret. Step one is to read this book." -- Dr. David Fajgenbaum, author of Chasing My Cure and Assistant Professor of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania "Patrick is a true innovator when it comes to helping you identify how (shockingly) much FOBO [Fear of a Better Option] messes with your relationships, business, and routine tasks...then he trains your anti-FOBO muscles. FOMO may get all the meme attention, but FOBO is the real enemy of choosing what shirt to wear, developing friendships that have value, or scaling your dream startup to an exit." -- Jack Kramer and Nick Martell, cohosts of Robinhood's podcast Snacks Daily "Patrick J. McGinnis has written the right book for our fraught moment in time. Smart, careful, and a pleasure to read, Fear of Missing Out shows the reader not only what FOMO means and does but how we can learn to escape its clutches and pursue lives of meaning instead." -- Debora L. Spar, MBA Class of 1952 Professor of Business Administration, Harvard Business School "The author outlines a decision-making model that helps them home in on what really matters by tuning out distractions and leveraging technology, thereby living comfortably with the decisions they've made...superb advice. " -- Library Journal "This is a useful one-stop shop for those looking to take a decisive stand against the fear of what could have been." -- Publishers Weekly "Timely, practical, and insightful... In Fear of a Missing Out, McGinnis addresses one of the greatest barriers to happiness, unpacks why we feel FOMO, and chronicles how it can hijack both your personal and professional lives. Then he shows you how to live life on your own terms instead of letting life happen to you." -- Shawn Achor, happiness researcher and New York Times bestselling author of Big Potential and The Happiness Advantage "We live in an age of unprecedented choice. That makes the thousands of the decisions you face each day more complex than ever before. Using the frameworks of FOMO and FOBO, McGinnis gives you a set of user-friendly tools to make smarter, better choices." -- Nir Eyal, bestselling author of Hooked and Indistractable "Whether it's life's trivial details or its major crossroads, decision-making can be stressful and all-consuming. In this timely and essential book, Patrick J. McGinnis shows you why it doesn't have to be that way." -- Kerry Kennedy, president of Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights and New York Times bestselling author "Whether you're managing a Fortune 500 company, an entrepreneurial venture, or your day-to-day life, you will need to be resolute if you're going to succeed. This book provides easy to use yet powerful strategies to push past indecision and focus on what matters." -- Dorie Clark, executive education faculty, Duke University Fuqua School of Business, and author of Entrepreneurial You and Reinventing You