How to Avoid Emotional Decisions | Elite Performance Podcast #21

Itamar Marani 0:00
The thing is, if you can keep figuring out what are the paths that is the most simple to get from point A to point B, no matter how good mostly difficult it is, and you can actually walk that path, you can see success a lot faster than most people, you can really compress a lot of time, because they're taking much more complicated routes to get there because it's trying to avoid emotional difficulty, because they can deal with it.

Itamar Marani 0:21
Welcome to today's episode, guys, today, we're going to be talking about how to choose the path of least resistance. And why I think so many people don't do that, because they're stuck in this kind of no man's land where they're not sure. Is this a valid concern I have about this being the right or wrong thing to do? Or is this just an emotional worry, a fear I have around this. And people's lack of ability to differentiate between the two is a lot of time it caused them to get stuck, and not just do the simple things that get the results. And it says they got all these kind of roundabout ways. Because you just don't have the confidence to say, You know what, this is the right thing to do. I just have an emotional issue around this my own insecurity, my fear, my self doubt. And that's why I'm not doing it. So today, we're going to make it very, very clear for you guys to know when is this actually a valid logical concern where you should not take action? And when is this such an emotional word? And what to do about that. So with that said, welcome Dr. Emil, thank you for joining us.

Dr. Emil 1:13
Thank you for having me. Looking forward to this one.

Itamar Marani 1:16
Cool. So here's the deal. A lot of times what I do with a lot of the guys in the arena and arena elite ongoing, is we figure out what is the simplest way for you to get from point A to point B, the most straight line not a zigzag around the beltway where you avoid this, you avoid that because of procrastination because you feel uncomfortable, because blah, blah, blah. But what's the simplest point from A to B? Because what happens a lot of times is that people create technical complexity to avoid emotional complexity. They have emotions that cause them to overcomplicate things. And what happens is a lot of times that we figured out a really clear technical path for someone to take. But then they don't do it, there's still a little bit of resistance. So what I figured out is how can we help them see very clearly, what should they be doing? And is this the voice in their head telling them not to do that? Is that a valid voice to listen to? Or is it not? Before we get going, do you have anything to say about this or any questions in general, I think I said a couple of big things here.

Dr. Emil 2:14
None of this less deep. And I think some stuff will start to be explained and unraveled. And then we can clarify. Awesome.

Itamar Marani 2:21
Alright, so first off, we're going to cover how to get clear on what the path of least technical resistance is. It might be the path of most emotional, difficult, there might be a lot of emotional resistance there. But we want to figure out what's the path of least technical resistance, because that means you're probably going to accomplish your goal as fast as possible, with as least friction as possible to call technical friction. But it just might be mostly difficult. Now the thing is, if you can keep figuring out what are the paths that is the most simple to get from point A to point B, no matter how good mostly difficult it is, and you can actually walk that path, you can see success a lot faster than most people, you can really compress a lot of time, because they're taking much more complicated routes to get there because it's trying to avoid emotional difficulty, because they can deal with it. So first off, we're going to understand how can we do that, we're going to ask two questions that can really help you figure that out. Then we're going to talk about emotional resistance versus technical resistance. And how you can differentiate the two by talking a lot about risk and stress testing concerns. Is this understanding is the danger of feeling here this discomfort of feeling or is it valid? Or is it not? And we're differentiating between a logical concern, and an emotional worry, which are two different things. So we'll get started last fall. So and again, please feel free to interrupt me during this one, cuz I know this is I'm gonna be talking about some, some more complex things. So please feel free to interrupt me if there's anything needs to be clarified. Okay. Yeah. Awesome. So the first two clarifying questions asked when someone figured out, okay, this is what I want. This is the standard that I have. These are my goals is, first off, what would you recommend somebody else do? In your exact situation? If somebody else wanted to achieve this? What would you tell them they should do? And it's a really interesting question, because all of a sudden, it takes you out of your own emotions, your own fears, your own discomfort. The classic example is when people talk about cold calling, hey, if you make 100 cold calls a day, you'll do this, but nobody wants to do it. Everybody finds a different way around this. That's on a really small level, but a high level with the business owner doesn't actually have to do that kind of stuff anymore. He's still avoid certain things. And asking him that simple question. What would you advise someone else who wants to achieve what you want and has everything that you want at his disposal to do? It changes things? Because also they have to look at the truth. Like I would advise him to just do this. This is really simple.

Dr. Emil 4:49
Do you have an example of the big one like the cold calls? Very easy to see?

Itamar Marani 4:54
Yes. So part is though it's interesting. It's a lot about outreach. Usually. It's sometimes It's about outreach, it's about creating joint ventures I've seen a lot of people have really big opportunities they're just sitting on, and not taking advantage of, because they're not reaching out to the person they can have an amazing partnership with. And it can be a big win win. A lot of times, it's actually about cutting things. This really prevents sunk cost fallacy. So if you have a project that you've been working on for two years, you put a lot of effort into it, and also led by an employee that you really, really like on a personal level. But it just a wrong project for the business. If you look at it from an objective perspective, you'd be like, this is something the business needs to cut. It doesn't make sense. And if I saw this on somebody else's business, I was sitting in front of him in the conference and lunch, whatever it may be, and he told me, Oh, this event, we just need to cut this out. This doesn't make any sense.

Dr. Emil 5:47
So the issue here then is people getting caught in the reads and not having or denying themselves clarity of the bigger picture, because if you were to sort of look up above the reeds and gain clarity, it would be a no brainer. So gone.

Itamar Marani 6:06
It's beyond by cutting into read, you mean just cutting the wheat in small stuff, right?

Dr. Emil 6:10
Yeah, we're just not being able to see and see what's going on. Because

Itamar Marani 6:15
it's beyond that. I think we have a really hard time seeing ourselves. My mom used to tell me that there's an expression that if somebody came to me with my exact set of problems that I've never been able to figure out, I'd set him straight 30 minutes. Yeah. And it's just that sometimes we just can't see ourselves because our emotions sometimes blind us, our fears distract us. And it's a big thing. As soon as we see we externalize the problem, we can figure out much more like in solutions. And especially if we say, well, with somebody else doing this not even well, it's externalized our problem with somebody else do because then that also removes any emotional biases we can have about, I don't even want to come up with that solution, because that will have to do something I don't want to do to free entirely externalize this as what would I advise somebody else in a similar situation to do? It makes a big difference. And it's amazing how many times I ask people this question. They're like, Oh, okay. I know exactly what to do. That was ridiculous. I know exactly what.

Dr. Emil 7:12
Yeah, yeah. Yeah, the grid. It's just interesting that it's there. As long as you're kind of looking for the first that sort of a next step, you can kind of bullshit yourself. But if you either say What would someone else do in that situation, or kind of zoom out and say, well, to get to the, the big end step, and this is a no brainer, then you can kind of start to take those those actions.

Itamar Marani 7:37
Yeah. And away, like I said, also people like Carson, is to get you to a certain goal. So sometimes, if people are still stuck with this, I say, Okay, let's imagine you invested money into a company that's identical to yours. And you were talking with its CEO, and you wanted to get a really positive return on your money. Because the point of that business is to be profitable. What would you tell that CEO to do? What would you advise him that he needs to do? And then it really puts them on the hook, because they recognize the point of their business, again, obviously, within the values, and so on, and so on, is to be profitable and make money. So they're like, Okay, this is really what we need to do. Adding that little tweak sometimes what takes people over the edge?

Dr. Emil 8:18
Yeah, yeah, I like this, this kind of this framework of taking you out of your own heads, essentially. And one thing, which is a requirement for this, a prerequisite would be clarity on the bigger picture and the goals as in, you need to know what you want to achieve. And I think most people in business probably have that. But in this situation, reviewing it so that you have these two points to be able to say, Okay, now I have context for this smaller decision. If I want to achieve x, then I need to get rid of this project, cut this out, create some outreach, whatever.

Itamar Marani 8:50
And that's a great point that I should have, I should have made clear. So a couple of prerequisites are not a couple, just that one that you know what you want. Yeah, this is a part that we do first, we figure out really what you want out of life in general, and so on and so on. And then we figure out, what's the standard? What's the goal for the next year? And then we can assign, okay, if someone's trying to achieve this, and they're currently where you are, what would you advise him to do? So those are prerequisites. And I appreciate you bringing that up. So that's question number one. Is that clear? Yeah. Awesome. Question number two is what's the simplest technical path that you have what you want? That's probably emotionally very uncomfortable. And we just put it out there, straight balay look at this, honestly. Let's accept that something's going to be probably very uncomfortable. Even if you were willing to deal with that. If we don't say you have to right now, just if you were open to doing that, what will be the simplest technical path? And by not making someone feel like they have to commit to doing that right now by saying, what should you do? We're saying if, yeah, that's it. If you know, if you're open to do that, well, hypothetically Isn't hypothetical world. It's interesting because you have a little bit of levity and humor to it that like, I know, this would be the simplest.

Dr. Emil 10:07
It's breaking it down, right? Because it's like, you know, taking an emotionally difficult action is a big step. But if you say, look, let's just lay out the map, let's put it in front of us, let's move it down, let's just look at it, we don't have to do it. But let's just at least identify this path.

Itamar Marani 10:26
I'll break it down a bit differently. I think it's, we first dissolve them of the fear of them, possibly not being capable of doing it. So there's actual hatching of the plan. And then there's the fulfillment of the plan. A lot of times people, they fail to plan correctly, because they have a belief that they're not capable of pulling it off anyway. And they let the howl interrupt the truth of what they should be doing. And that way, we don't have that how interrupt them. Because we're saying this is what you should what someone should be doing that if you're capable of this, if you're good enough, if you're smart enough if you can employ enough leverage whatever it may be. And by doing that, it's a very crafty workaround, because it takes away the personal the personal aspect of the human factor out of it. So

Dr. Emil 11:11
why is that? How can human psychology, right?

Itamar Marani 11:15
That's basically what I do for a living. So Yes. Cool. Is that very clear, though?

Dr. Emil 11:21
Yep. And just for that, second, that second question, what's the simplest path again, that clearly requires a clarity on the endpoints to define a better path?

Itamar Marani 11:31
And also, even if there's not just Ultra pristine clarity, people still know, when you ask these kind of questions, what I found is people still know. And so then kind of moving forward, we get to the point where they know now what they should be doing, they figured out okay, this is the simplest path is what I would advise somebody else to try and achieve what I want to achieve. People usually have two reactions. One is they're like, awesome. Let me do it and then take action. Option number two is that they're, what they have is voice in their head. Like, I know, this sounds like the right thing to do. But and that's the point where we have to understand is this a logical concern? Or an emotional worry. And we have to differentiate, because it could be that there is something that we didn't understand about the situation, then articulate, that is still going to be an actual valid issue of why this isn't the simplest path. Why this isn't the correct path. Or it could just be an emotional thing. They have a bit of resistance to it. So the way we figure out, which is which we first try to falsify we say, let's assume this actually could be a valid concern. Let's stress it. Let's see. Because if we could say this actually not a logical concern, we stressed it says, We stress tested it, sorry. And we forgot it's not a valid concern. Exactly. This is an emotional word. And then we'll deal with that after that. Is that part clear?

Dr. Emil 12:55
Yeah. Can we can we do an example?

Itamar Marani 12:59
Let me take one off the top of my head. And try to think about a real world example, not just a general one. So for example, I was working. Sorry, good.

Dr. Emil 13:09
Yeah, I was just gonna say I think it would be very helpful because it brings it to reality versus the abstract.

Itamar Marani 13:14
Yeah. So one of them I worked with one of the guys recently, he we already figured out that the simplest way for him to do things was partnerships. To get the business to the next level, he had a he had a SaaS product, and we figure out a couple partnerships, you do five of those within the certain parameters, it's going to take things to the next level. Things like and I'm not sure about the smell. And what I saw, I was like, I think you have an emotional resistance to it there. But let's figure out everything that could actually be making a valid concern, and stress tested. So what we did there in order to stress if it's a logical concern or not, we listed out all of his concerns. So one of them was, if I join people into this partnership, and I actually don't want to go this route, I'm stuck there. So I said, Okay, first off, that's not logically true, you can always make contracts that we're going to try this out for a quarter for two quarters. And if it's not a win win, we can back away from it. He was afraid it was going to dilute the brand and said, Okay, we can also figure out ways around that correct? Yes. And he kept having these kinds of objections, almost to that idea. And we just stress tested. Is this true? And this is actually a no go thing because it's not going to work for you and what you want or is there an elegant solution to this? Is that clear? Is that a good example?

Dr. Emil 14:33
Yeah, that's great. It's essentially the the emotional blocks manifest as these abstract subconscious obstacles walls and what you're doing is making them visible and like kind of clarifying and like, you know, shining a light on them rather than allowing them to be these murky miss the hidden things which she like, oh, there's 10 of these Misty things. This couldn't possibly Be a good idea. Okay, well, let's bring them all out and look at actually what they are. Okay? This is actually a good idea when examined.

Itamar Marani 15:08
Yeah, that's a very good way of saying, we just we flush everything out. And then we say, are these things actually valid or not? And I liked what you said about sometimes when there's let's say, for example, 10 things, that each of them is just a level two concern. Together, we think in our mind that it's a level 20 concern, we should actually leave. It's a 20 out of 10 concern, it's not okay to do it, when you really break things down. And you can say, Is this a yes or no thing? For example, the partnerships and saying, I'm just gonna get stuck in this? Is this a binary thing? That yes, you will get stuck on this or no, you just shouldn't do it? What if there's a middle ground there? What if you say, Guys, we're going to try for six months? Will this work for you? If we hit these metrics, at the end of the six months, we know that it's a win for you guys, we know that it's a win for our company, and we keep going forward. And the more you can do that, again, the more you can dissipate and understand a lot of this stuff, it's not a logical concern. It's an emotional work. Does that make sense?

Dr. Emil 16:04
Very much. And that analogy of the, you know, two out of 10 concerns like the fear is a 20 out of 10, by the time you stack them up, and that is life or death, that is saber toothed Tiger and jungle level, even though when you actually shine a light is just a little Pussycats, right? It's just like, okay, but the fear is fear. Fear is chemicals like the these are the same chemicals that hit us back in the day back in tribal land. So you know, it's very valid. Yep.

Itamar Marani 16:38
Now, some of these things, you can very clearly assess, this is not a valid concern. Now, a lot of times, though, I've had, we've had situations with clients where that this still feels a bit risky. The potential upside versus the potential downside, and I don't know how to weigh this. And I recognize that for me, this was always a bit easier, because actually learned risk assessment very early on my career in special ops world, and then in the agency, this was a big part of how we operate. And I shared with a couple people the risk framework that I kind of took away from it, how he developed it, and so on, I also shared in that conference, we were back in Croatia back in the day. And I want to share that as well, because I think it'd be very helpful for people to understand, it's a framework for me to know if this is a logical concern, or an emotional worry. So please stop me anytime. If this is getting a bit too long winded or something isn't clear. So when you look at risk, on a really high level, there's two main components, there's danger and your ability to control that danger. If the control is greater than the danger, this is not a risky situation. You probably have an emotional worry about this, but it's not a logical valve of concern. However, if the level of danger eclipses, your ability to control it, this is a logical concern. This could lead to ruins so to speak. And that's something you shouldn't go forward, you should figure out a new plan a more elegant solution. Is this part clear so far?

Dr. Emil 18:07
Yeah. Can I just give you an example? Because I these abstract terms, I think they can kind of just wash over. So my interpretation of this is the control versus risk, an example would be

Itamar Marani 18:21
control versus danger. Control or control says, Yeah, manager danger equals the level of Yeah.

Dr. Emil 18:27
So So an example would be walking on the top floor of a skyscraper with a glass floor, that would be potentially high danger, but much, much higher control, because there's walls on the sides. Whereas if it was a, like a tiger edge with with no no walls, then the danger would be equally high as the skyscraper, but the control would be significantly lower. So that would be an example of the difference. Yeah.

Itamar Marani 18:50
So the way you would look at us give you another example for like, and say, like, in a counterterrorism example, if you're going through a very dangerous area, but you're, and that's a high level of danger, but you're in a bulletproof car, and you have a convoy protecting you, your level of control is pretty high, you should be okay. It's still a risky situation on some level, because you're engaging with danger, you still be okay. on a business level, let's say you're making a big hire. And there's a lot of potential upside. But there's also a lot of potential downside because you're paying somebody that you don't fully know yet or whatever, it might be a big sum. So one way to mitigate that danger is by having some control over it, having some kind of probation period or whatever it may be. And doing these things, you can kind of mitigate the risk that you need to take in order to grow. Does that make sense?

Dr. Emil 19:43
Yeah, that's, that's good sense. Good example. Great.

Itamar Marani 19:47
All right. So let's break this down further. Let's talk about what dangerous danger is. It factors in three main components, okay. And they kind of multiply each other so and if Any one of these is a complete zero. That means you're no danger whatsoever. Dangerous zero. So the first component is the magnitude of possible harm. This means on a scale of one to 10, how devastating could this be? Is this going to completely demolish your business? If it goes south? Or is this going to be a bit of annoyance? And okay, let's figure out the next rock the next project. On a counterterrorism level, is this something that's going to kill a lot of people? Or is it just going to be an annoyance? Whatever it may be? Because magnitude of possible harm? What's the severity of the consequence? Number two, is immediacy. How immediate is this threat? Is this danger? Is it something that's going to happen in five minutes or in 1000 years from now? Because if it's gonna happen, 1000 years from now, it's not really that relevant, it's not dangerous. It's not really going to affect us. And then finally, you have the probability, what's the likelihood that this is actually going to happen? Is this a surefire thing that we know happens every once in a while? Or is this one of those moonshots? This dark, radical black swan events? And when you can calculate all three of those on a one to 10? What's the magnitude of possible harm? On a one to 10? What's the immediacy? And on a one to 10? What's the probability you're going to attend the level of danger you're facing? And obviously, if any of these are zero, it nullifies the whole thing. Because I could have an immediate threat. It's about to happen in five minutes, and I'm sure of it. But the magnitude of possible harm is zero. So that's actually not a threat. It's not relevant. Same thing, if I know the it could be have catastrophic consequences. But the probability of it happening or zero, or it's just not going to happen for another million years. danger level zero. Does that make

Dr. Emil 21:48
sense? Yeah, yeah. This is great.

Itamar Marani 21:51
Awesome. Cool. And now we're gonna talk about control. Control, this is really important. We had a saying, and agencies, the only guaranteed way to come out of an attack on harm is by avoiding it altogether. This really big, the only guaranteed way to come out of an attack on harmed is by avoiding all together. So with the control methods, there is a hierarchy where first you basically want to avoid that attack, and then how can you at least engage the danger in some way, so that you can hopefully mitigate it or nullified. So the first thing you want to do is distance management. If you can distance yourself from the danger, you can be safe, because it doesn't affect you. And this is where a lot of times in business people talk about creating moats around their business. If you can have a really strong moat around your business, all these dangers on the outside, they're not going to affect you at least you're going to have such a big heads up that you can maneuver and you can win. Does that part make sense?

Dr. Emil 22:49
Yeah, I was gonna say, let's get to the business examples of how this relates. And the motor is a great one yet.

Itamar Marani 22:54
Yeah. So then we've got a barrier, if I can create some kind of barrier between me and the danger. So in the counterterrorism world, is what I said about having an armored car, a bump of car, and the business world, this slot has about having a patent. Because if I have a patent on my IP, that's a block for somebody who's trying to copycat it or whatever it may be. Clear? Yeah, great. So those two things are a way for me to avoid actually engaging with the danger. These are the highest priority. Now, if I can't utilize those two, then I gotta go lower down the chain. And option number three is deterrence. With a deterrent, I'm still not engaging with the danger. But I'm hoping out of its own kind of decision making framework that danger won't want to engage in me. So this is basically sending a cease and desist letter. Someone tries to infringe on my pen, I'm sending them a cease and desist letter. I'm hoping to deter them to say, Listen, if you keep doing this, I'm going to sue you. And hopefully that stops things in his tracks. And the final way is countermeasures. That's the final method. We don't ever want to get to that, because that means we're literally engaging with the danger. And we're compromising ourselves. But an example that would actually be taking somebody to court. Does this make sense?

Dr. Emil 24:20
Yeah, yeah. And just another example of countermeasure, would that also be like direct competition, like going head to head with someone on Amazon, for example? Yep. Ideally, you wouldn't want to do that. But yeah,

Itamar Marani 24:35
yeah. Then again, the only guaranteed way to avoid it to come out of attack on harvest by putting it all together. Yeah. That's just what it is. So we take those measurements, we first off, we have the danger, we figure out what's the magnitude of possible harm? What's the immediacy? What's the probability that we can say on a scale of one to 10? How dangerous is this is a one is this a 10? And then we'll figure out okay, in regards to this specific situation, what's my ability to control But can I just distance myself from an entirely nullified and have a 10? out of 10? Control? Can I block it out entirely? Have a 10 out of 10? Control? Can I create some kind of return at least? Or am I going to be able to count and have some kind of countermeasure if push comes to shove? And then I can understand what is my ability to control your how risky is the situation? And then I can say, okay, is the upside worth this risk? You know, this is on a scale of one to 10. It's just the level two risk, but the upside is a level 1000. Maybe you go for it. If it's a 10 out of 10 risk, and the upside is a five, this is one of the things you don't do.

Dr. Emil 25:46
Yeah, and this is my position

Itamar Marani 25:47
is also sorry, I was gonna say this, if it's also a nine out of 10 risk, and a nine out of 10. upside. Don't do it. There's enough opportunities out there. I think one of the easiest ways they said is to really succeed is by avoiding ruin. And having this framework was very clear. These are things you shouldn't be doing, even though it might be tempting. Yeah,

Dr. Emil 26:15
yeah, that interrupted you that comfort. The other bit, you said about an infinite upside with a tiny risk when you have all of these two out of 10, abstract fears. These are all small risks, which come together to feel overwhelming. But when you examine them, the risk is actually small, and the upside is huge. So then it becomes a no brainer. But you only realize that when you actually bring them to light and assess them in a very practical way, like you've described here.

Itamar Marani 26:44
Yeah, I think you said it very well, that a lot of small, logical fears, can feel really big, when they're put together and they just don't shed light of them and actually figure out in breaking down what's going on. Yeah, I think it's really important that friendship logic, they get into this illogical concern, or is this an emotional worry caused by a lot of different things? There's a bit of overwhelm, or whatever it may be?

Dr. Emil 27:06
Yeah. Because fear has a tendency to feel like it's life or death until you actually stop and like, Well, look, we're in the modern world, I don't know that it actually is.

Itamar Marani 27:18
Yeah, but beyond that, what I was alluding to is that fear lives in ambiguity. So if you're not clear on what's actually going on, we usually again, because of that primal encoding, we go back and we revert to worst case scenario thinking, the saber toothed Tiger, like you mentioned, and all that that's

Dr. Emil 27:31
what I mean, the baseline is intense. Like, if you're unsure if the baseline is that it's an intense this

Itamar Marani 27:37
is a process. Yeah. And so this is a process of clarifying what's actually going on and breaking things down, removing the ambiguity. Okay, what would I advise somebody else to do? What is the status path? Great, but it doesn't feel comfortable? Wait, what? Is it an emotional thing or logical thing? Wait, let me actually figure out what are all my logical objections? And then let's figure out if they're valid or not. And those that I'm still not sure about, let's run through this risk framework and understand actually, what is the danger? What is the control? What is the risk that I can have? Because if I can put all that together, again, it becomes much more clear. And with clarity, usually comes confidence.

Dr. Emil 28:11
And action. Cool. Yeah. And winning

Itamar Marani 28:13
at exactly. So we got to tell that and basically, let's say you get to all this, you're clear on what you want. You were a bit concerned about it. And you ask yourself this illogical concern, emotional worry. And you realize that all the logical objections that you thought you had are not valid, then okay, you got to recognize is an emotional word. And this is we've done enough podcasts that this we can do more about them. But that's when you really got to go into your emotional fortitude toolkit. And first thing you got to do is also understanding what is the belief that's causing you to think this is more dangerous, or more uncomfortable than it actually is? Because that's gonna dissipate a lot of discomfort. And then the second part, you got to accept that it just also might be uncomfortable, and that's okay. That's not something to run away from, for example, doing cold calls, you know why it's uncomfortable, because it's an uncomfortable thing. That's just how it is. And it's not a signal that you should run the other way. But I think this is it's, it's an almost like a very simple and basic thing to say, but I think gets overlooked a lot of times. You being able to sit and manage an emotion that doesn't feel comfortable for you and not just thinking, Oh, this is an indicator that I should run away. It's such a powerful tool. If you can do that, recognize this is going to be uncomfortable. But again, that's not an indicator that something's wrong. And that's okay. You can succeed so much more and so much faster than most, because people think they have to wait until for things to be perfect or whatever it may be. us recognize, you know what, some things are just uncomfortable. And that's okay. It doesn't mean anything's wrong.

Dr. Emil 29:46
Yeah, I think we'll mosey or someone said one of the key things that super successful people have is ability to control their emotions, ability to manage their emotions.

Itamar Marani 30:00
Yeah, so first off, yes. What I was saying, though, is that it's beyond the ability to control it, just an ability to sit with it. And not run away from that discomfort recognize, oh, I'm going to feel a fear of judgment here. Because I'm doing this, I'm going to feel when out to fire, I had to cut off that product line that we talked about with the employee that I really love as a human being, I'm going to have to deal perhaps with him being angry at me someone being angry, and judging me that I'm not a good leader, whatever it may be. And if you can accept those emotions and say, Okay, this is how I'm going to feel at that time. But it doesn't mean that something is wrong, it's just a part of the process, then you're free to not be affected by them as much. Because you're not trying to run away from them and avoid them at whatever cost. And again, what I said at the beginning that most people create technical complexity to avoid emotional difficulties. That part, they're trying to avoid feeling that feeling. Because they don't recognize it's okay to feel this. It's okay for me to feel ah, what if someone says no, to me? That's like, going to feel nice. Yes, I'm gonna feel nice, but doesn't mean anything bad about you. I think that's a really important part, if that makes sense.

Dr. Emil 31:08
Yeah, maybe regulate emotions sit with emotions are like that, actually.

Itamar Marani 31:13
Yeah, it's just that not all your feelings are things to run away from? Yeah, just because you have a feeling doesn't mean you need to run the other way. And having the mindset and the awareness that that's the thing. It's so freeing, because then you know, you're going to do this thing, you know, it's going to be uncomfortable when you actually meet that emotion. You don't get to turn you say, Oh, I was expecting to meet you here. Great. You're not my favorite visitor, so to speak. But let's keep moving forward. And I think just that it's extremely powerful. Because it again, and powerful in the sense that it allows action. It enables the key. Yeah. Yep. Cool. So one last thing about all this, the way I ask is the final question, if this is all kind of things that say need to move really, really fast, and you don't have the time to run everything through the frameworks. A great question that I've heard is, if the upside is worth it, and I can stand the downside, then I had to do it. Not a question more like a razor, I have to go either left or right to if the upside is worth it, and I can withstand the downside. I got to do it. And it's recognizing that because it's saying I gotta do it, I'm gonna meet those emotions. They're gonna be there. But it's, I got to do it. That's what it is.

Dr. Emil 32:33
Yeah, it sounds like one of those points where you have to make the easy choice or the hard choice, and committing to making the hard choice in those moments. And that is, what will create the steps to win.

Itamar Marani 32:47
So that's what I wanted to cover today. Do you have any questions about or any insight, because you had some very interesting points here that I would have overlooked?

Dr. Emil 32:54
No, I think we covered it. We took it as it came to be honest, with some good examples as well. I always like to bring it to reality and make it clear what we're talking about.

Itamar Marani 33:07
Yeah, that's appreciate and I suddenly is talking a bit too much of a conceptual level. So I appreciate it. Yeah, so to wrap things up, it's, it's not that complicated of a thing. If you're not sure on what to do. Two big questions. One, what's the simplest path to achieve this? That's probably emotionally very uncomfortable. You don't have to do it. Just ask yourself on a theoretical level, what would that path be? And then to? What would I advise somebody else in a similar position to do really externalize yourself? And then if you have the answer, and you're, you're just ready, you're ready to take action, beautiful, take action, do what you got to do. If you still feel this resistance. This sounds like a good idea. But then you ask yourself, Am I having an emotional worry here? Or is this a valid logical concern? And the way to figure that out is by first nullifying or stress testing what everything you think is a valid concern. So you list down your objections, why you think this is a valid concern, and why you shouldn't do with this. And then you try to figure out is there an option C, because we usually fall into binary thinking, if I do this, then this is going to happen. And we don't recognize, you know, there's probably a way for me to do this by doing this and that that can be a win win. And this thing that I was afraid of, actually won't exist. Now, if you figure out there are some things that are valid logical concerns, that's when you got to stop. You got to figure out your answer again. But if you forgot, this is all just emotional worries are not valid, logical concerns. That's when you got to go into the emotional fortitude toolkit. And really first understand why you so afraid of this one, what's going on there? What's the belief structure, and to all his accepting you might have to set a fruit with a feeling might have to meet a certain emotion on the way discomfort Fear, whatever it may be, and just accept that and expect it. So when you do need it, you're gonna say, Hey, I was expecting you to be there, this isn't a sign for me to retreat, that something is wrong, this is just a part of the process. And doing all that that is going to enable you to take action, find the smoothest path, the most direct path from A to B, and really achieved a lot of success very fast.

Dr. Emil 35:24
Just a closing remark for myself, it is worth documenting this process, because you might decide that you go ahead or not based on a logical concern, those fears that these emotions will keep coming up again in the future. And you don't want to have to go through this process for the same example fresh each time just because you forgot what conclusion you reached, or you doubted your previous conclusion. So if you document it, you can save yourself a lot of time, stress, emotion and effort by just following it and say, Okay, what I thought before was valid. I don't need to do this, again, I can reassure myself. And again, this is from my experience, where I found I get stressed about something, I go through the process, I make a decision. And then I wake up a week later, I'm stressed about it again, and I'm like, I'm back went through this, but when I decided it was okay. But what was the process? I enjoy? I trust myself. And then I'd have to do it again. So that makes sense. Interesting.

Itamar Marani 36:24
It does. I didn't think about that. But that makes perfect sense. I think it's great advice. So here's what we'll do. Aside from that, I'm gonna put the picture of this flowchart, of basically getting clear on what you want, and that in the show notes below, you'll find a link for it. And aside from that, this was a bit of a different episode, but I thought was very impactful because I've actually run a lot of people through this exercise and it's really been helpful, so I wanted to share this. And aside from that, we will see everybody next week.

Dr. Emil 36:51
See you next week, guys. Bye.