Ep 166 | How "Emotional Default" Clouds Your Thinking

Thank you for joining me today. It's Brian Gubernick, and welcome to the No Days Off podcast, where we believe that every single day brings a new opportunity to get better. Let's get into it. Today I want to talk about the emotional default way of thinking and how this way of thinking is actually an enemy of of clear thinking, of clarity. Now this concept comes from one of my new favorite books written by a guy named Shane Parrish, who we've discussed on this podcast in the past. The book is actually called Clear Thinking, and Shane is well known for the various mental models that he writes and speaks about, you know, ways to process information, ways to solve for challenges. He's got a great way of articulating the various methods we could use, the mental models that we can use. And, and that's really what this book is about— mental models that lead to clearer thinking. And he talks about default ways of thinking, one of which is in fact the emotion default. The emotion default is when your emotions overwhelm facts and logic. I'll give you some examples. Let's say you make an impulsive purchase because this purchase creates, you know, excitement or happiness or sparks joy in your world, even though you can't really afford to make the purchase. So, you know, it's illogical to make the purchase, but you do so anyways because of the emotional component of it. The emotion overwhelms the facts and logic. Maybe you get into a spirited debate. My guess is you've probably been in one. And while you know that it makes a lot of sense to pause and then choose your words carefully, instead you fire back and it's emotionally charged. And when the dust settles, You're disappointed in yourself because you put your foot in your mouth and you knew, you know, that what you said was not constructive. Emotion in that case overwhelmed facts and logic. As Shane explains in his book, anger at a rival prevents you from doing what's in your own best interest. Fear of losing an opportunity pushes you to cut thinking short and act impulsively. Outrage at a criticism causes you to lash out in defense. The list goes on and on. Here's the bottom line. Emotions can multiply all of your progress by zero. I want to call your attention back to episode 97. This was an episode we did on multiplicative systems and what that, what that episode was about is that anything multiplied by zero is in fact zero. So I think the example I may have given in that episode is you can have the most amazing product as a company or the most amazing service that you provide as a co— as a company. You can have the most efficient financial practices. You could have the best pricing. You could have the, the, the, the most amazing marketing, but if your customer service is absolute garbage, all of those amazing things I just mentioned are then multiplied by zero. And as a result, your company will not win. Now, why do I talk about multiplicative systems here? Why do I talk about multiplying by zero? Emotions can multiply all of your progress by zero. Essentially what I'm saying is when you look at, you know, all that you do, all that you accomplish, all that you're experienced in, and you're making progress in these areas, all it takes is one emotional outburst or one decision driven by an emotional default way of thinking that clouds your clarity. And as a result, creates a zero And that zero multiplied by all the progress you made equals in fact zero. So it doesn't matter how much you've thought about or worked at, at something, it can all literally be undone in an instant. You know, Shane tells a great story about an Olympian, this Olympian rifle shooter, competitive rifle shooting. And the guy that he's describing gets to the finals and, you know, he makes this particular shot and he is going to win gold. So he lines up, he pulls the trigger, and lo and behold, he nails the bullseye. However, the bullseye that he nailed was in fact on the wrong target. As a result, this guy that would have won gold ended up finishing 8th. Now, what does that have to do with this discussion? Well, when interviewed after the fact, this particular, uh, rifleman had said that he was so caught up in the hysteria that was the final shot. He was so concerned about getting his mind right and calming his nerves. In other words, emotion entered the equation. That in spite of his amazing ability to take aim and be insanely accurate, because of emotion, he ended up not taking certain steps that he takes, that he usually would take. He rushed himself, he shot at the wrong target, and even though he nailed it, it was wrong. It multiplied all of his progress by zero. So I'm talking about this today because I think it's an awareness exercise for us. I think many of us, all of us, I should say, have reacted with emotion from time to time. And that emotional reaction, that default reaction, it clouded our vision. It caused us to maybe undo certain progress we've made. And so My question for everybody today, the focusing question is, if you could do something over again where you found yourself reacting emotionally, what would you have done? How would you have handled things differently? My guess, not to plant too many seeds as to what you should be responding with or how you should be thinking about this, but I think it's just the reality. My guess is that you'd probably say, damn, if I could go back in time, I would have paused. I would have taken more time. I would have calmed myself. I would have recognized my emotion. I would have feel— I would feel it like bubbling up in me and I would have put a lid on it instead of reacting. And I would have taken more time. And as time went on, my emotional levels would have, would have, you know, decreased a bit and I would have more clarity and I would have probably responded in a different sort of way. If that's in fact your answer, which I'm guessing you probably have some variation of that, great. Today's again an awareness exercise. Today, as you get into the office or you get into your life, you are going to be faced with something that's going to make your blood boil to some extent. I'm not saying you're going to get outright angry, but you're going to feel some sort of visceral or emotional response. And today I would love to see you push pause on that. Remember this episode, remember what you're hearing here today and calm yourself. Give yourself a moment to kind of get your mind right and respond differently than you would have had you not taken this step. On that note, I want to encourage you to share this episode today. With somebody that you think might benefit from it. Somebody that you think, you know, be careful how you go about doing this, but share this with somebody that you think might have a tendency to react a bit more emotionally from time to time. Again, I just want everybody thinking about this. In future episodes, we'll talk about more, you know, strategy around how to handle this. But today it's a, it's about awareness. And I think that's, that's probably number one in the battle. To making certain we react differently. That's all we have for today. The No Days Off podcast. Thank you so much for listening. And remember, every single day brings a new opportunity to get better. So let's get after it.