Jamie Dimon Reveals the Most Valuable Career Secret He’s Learned and Has Had to Relearn: ‘I Still Make This Mistake’

JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon’s latest career secret is simple: never make big decisions when you are exhausted, especially at the end of the week. 

“Making big decisions on a Friday when you’re tired is a really bad idea,” Dimon said in a recent interview with NPR, when asked to reflect on what he wished his younger self had known.

During the interview, Dimon also framed emotional discipline as crucial to leadership. “Anger doesn’t help,” he said, talking about the kinds of emotions that can throw off a leader’s judgment and another lesson he learned. 

Dimon, who turned 70 last month, has spent over two decades running JPMorgan, the largest U.S. bank. He said he has “learned and relearned” those lessons over time and admitted that he isn’t perfect: “I still make some of those mistakes, unfortunately,” he said.  

The dangers of decision fatigue

Thomas Roulet, who teaches organizational sociology and leadership at the University of Cambridge, told Business Insider that Dimon is right — ”decision fatigue,” or a deteriorating ability to process information, can be dangerous. He added that a CEO might feel pressured to make a quick decision as the week wraps up, which can lead to doing so without all the facts or without checking in with the right people first.

“As a CEO, if you have taken decisions throughout the week without time to recharge, cognitive resources — a CEO’s ability to juggle and process all information they have to make the right decision — are depleted by Friday,” Roulet told the outlet.

Roulet also pointed out a structural problem many executives and ambitious professionals face: as the week ends, they face pressure to “just decide” so teams can move forward, even if they are faced with incomplete data or they haven’t consulted key advisers. Dimon is essentially arguing for pushing back against that tempo and accepting a short delay to avoid a poor, highly consequential decision. 

Have a life purpose

Dimon said in the NPR interview that his life purpose was “to make the world a better place.” He said he was raised to have a life purpose, to “treat everyone well” and to “do the best you can,” and “that hasn’t changed.” 

Dimon argues that purpose, not fleeting happiness, is what actually sustains people through the hard, unglamorous stretches of work. Earlier this year, at the Female Quotient lounge in Davos, Switzerland, he reminded younger workers that every job has a “grunt part” you have to “get over,” and that chasing constant excitement or instant gratification can derail a promising career.

“Do not get a new job,” Dimon said at the event. “Some people are always thinking, and they’re ruining their lives because they should just enjoy what they’re doing.”

Dimon added that there is no substitute for hard work when it comes to building a successful career. 

“Work hard. There’s no replacement,” he said. “I still see a lot of people who think they can make a shortcut to a heroic ‘something.’ It’s almost never true.”