How to Avoid Emotional Decision Making | Elite Performance Podcast #56

00:00:00:00 - 00:00:14:23
Itamar Marani
A lot of times there's a problem we know we should be solving. While we go to actually solve it an emotion pops up and all of a sudden, instead of just doing the thing that would solve the actual problem, there's an emotion we don't want to feel. And all of a sudden, our brain says, "Let's prioritize solving that."

00:00:14:25 - 00:00:24:12
Itamar Marani
The simplest way of being able to get it across is asking a simple question, "Are you problem-focused or are you emotion-focused?" And usually, they just have a blank stare when I tell them that.

00:00:24:15 - 00:00:29:11
Alexander De Fina
Do you have a way of helping someone gain awareness of when the problem is focused or?

00:00:29:15 - 00:00:32:24
Itamar Marani
Yes.

00:00:32:26 - 00:00:46:23
Itamar Marani
So on today's episode, we're going to talk about one little question that makes a giant difference for people as far as their performance. It was something that you're already familiar with. A lot of the guys in there, we talk about it and it was actually something, anything, you know, but that the head of psychology, the massage taught me.

00:00:46:25 - 00:01:00:02
Itamar Marani
And it's a simple question, and we're going to follow that up with a simple tactic at the very end. But are you problem focused or emotion focused? So before we get started, first off, welcome. Thank you. Thank you. Any questions about the security familiar with the subject?

00:01:00:03 - 00:01:05:10
Alexander De Fina
I'm familiar with the concept, but yeah, I'm very interested to go deep and to understand it.

00:01:05:12 - 00:01:21:08
Itamar Marani
All right, so let's break it down. The reason this is so important, so a lot of time to see all of the guys coming to the arena. And we can number one, they get really clear on what they want from a logical perspective, whatever. Rationally, this is what I want to accomplish. Then in week number two, they break that down, say, okay, these are the things I need to do.

00:01:21:10 - 00:01:46:17
Itamar Marani
I know that in this specific situation, this is the problem. This is how I need to address it. But before they able to do that, they sometimes struggle. So on the simple things that are, let's say, emotionally challenging, like, Oh, I know I should be putting my phone away before 9 p.m. that they do. But on the more emotionally challenging things like I need to have the hard conversation with my employees, or as soon as I know that something's bothering me, I need to break it up, bring it up with the team.

00:01:46:19 - 00:02:04:27
Itamar Marani
They don't do it and we try to break it down for them. And the simplest way of being able to get it across is ask them a simple question Are you problem focused or are you emotion focused? And usually they just have a blank stare when I tell them metaphors. So that's why I want to break it down, because once people actually get it, it's been immensely helpful.

00:02:04:29 - 00:02:09:21
Itamar Marani
So before we get started, any thoughts on it?

00:02:09:23 - 00:02:21:15
Alexander De Fina
Do you have a way of helping someone gain awareness of when the when the problem focused or like what's what's the sort of cheat code of identifying?

00:02:21:18 - 00:02:24:16
Itamar Marani
Yeah. So before we get into that, let's talk a little bit about what it is.

00:02:24:19 - 00:02:24:28
Alexander De Fina
Sure.

00:02:25:05 - 00:02:45:12
Itamar Marani
So the reality is, a lot of times there's a problem we know we should be solving for the business. We need to grow the marketing team. We need to let go of someone who is not performing whatever. And B, there's an actual problem at hand. Now, while we go to actually solve it, an emotion pops up and all of a sudden, instead of just doing the thing that would solve the actual problem, there's an emotion we don't want to feel.

00:02:45:14 - 00:03:04:18
Itamar Marani
And all of a sudden our brain says, Let's prioritize solving for that. So instead of me having the uncomfortable conversation, solving the actual problem, how do I solved me feeling uncomfortable and all of a sudden we gravitate towards that through that emotion and we're emotion focused all of a sudden. And instead of having the conversation with the employee, I'm just like, You know what?

00:03:04:20 - 00:03:34:00
Itamar Marani
I don't feel comfortable because I feel like people might judge me because who am I to say these things? So I can solve that by simply not having this conversation or by being so nice and around the bad about or whatever it may be that everybody feels good, even though nothing get accomplished. And it's a very interesting thing that I think naturally we gravitate towards being emotion focused instead of actual problem, because again, we're emotional creatures and if we're not aware of it, it's usually what happens first because something gets triggered there.

00:03:34:02 - 00:03:36:01
Itamar Marani
So does that make sense, that explanation?

00:03:36:03 - 00:04:10:24
Alexander De Fina
It does. So maybe if I tried to summarize it, you can sort of correct where I'm wrong. If I'm if I'm thinking strategically or if I'm problem focused, I can almost communicate it via math or the very simple explanation, you know, dot my eyes cross my TS if I'm sitting in sort of emotional thoughts or just trapped in the emotion of the thing, that's where, you know, I'm dealing with stress, anxiety, you know, betrayal, whatever the emotional states are.

00:04:10:26 - 00:04:22:06
Alexander De Fina
And I'm trying to maybe I'm not conscious of it, but I'm trying to actually solve an emotional feeling, not actually just do the practical steps in order to solve the issue or to move forwards without that.

00:04:22:06 - 00:04:39:04
Itamar Marani
BE Exactly. So let's put it this way. If you would have done that, what would is likely happen afterwards? You would say to yourself, like, Why did I do that? I didn't make any sense. I didn't actually help me. That's because it didn't actually help you with the problem. It helped you solving it emotionally. You want to feel in the moment, and that's a big deal.

00:04:39:04 - 00:04:56:07
Itamar Marani
Like another example I can give one of the guys who's recently gone through the arena. So he was having a hard time having the tough conversation with his business partner and he knew what the problem was in the business they had to address. But at a certain point after the conversation, like he would say would drag on, it would take a long time.

00:04:56:07 - 00:05:13:03
Itamar Marani
It would get a bit heated, He said. Every time I just like I don't the point I was like, You know what? It's not that important. I just kind of throw my hands and be like, Whatever, okay. And they wouldn't solve the actual problem. The reality was, though, that at a certain point in the conversation also, because it would drag on so long, he would get tired, he just felt this emotional discomfort.

00:05:13:08 - 00:05:33:10
Itamar Marani
So I was like, okay, instinctually, even though he's he's a stud, he would just end up optimizing for how do I not feel this emotional discomfort? Okay, what's the what's the solution to that? Stop having the conversation to say, okay, it's not that big of a deal, but the problem is still there and it's something I see so often that we know what we would tell somebody else to do in this situation.

00:05:33:12 - 00:05:45:07
Itamar Marani
But in the heat of the moment, we don't do that because we get an emotion. So instead of solving the actual problem at hand, we actually say, How can I not feel this emotion anymore? And where emotion focus instead of actual problem focused, perfect.

00:05:45:08 - 00:05:47:24
Alexander De Fina
Is that clear? It is cool.

00:05:47:26 - 00:06:08:22
Itamar Marani
So first off, any question around that? Nothing in particular on that. Okay. So what I think the most important thing is, first off to understand, that's the thing that we all do that every one of us, like myself included, you included it. We all do it. And to ask ourselves in a lot of situations, am I being problem focused right now or am I emotion focused and emotion focused?

00:06:08:22 - 00:06:35:19
Itamar Marani
For some people, it's running away from, example, a tough conversation or people pleasing or even just like people eating junk food or bingeing or whatever it may be. It's like these are things to soothe your emotions. Now, the main thing, thing to catch it, to make sure that you can say like, how do I catch this? How am I aware of it is if basically you're doing something in a more complicated way or in a longer way than you should be.

00:06:35:21 - 00:07:02:08
Alexander De Fina
How would someone have a or have a preconception of what a optimal time period was? So if we're doing things in a longer way than necessary, how would we have our equivalent of a Google Maps to say, look, the path to where you want to go is X, you're taking three X, because I think a lot of people might struggle with not knowing how long a resolution would take.

00:07:02:15 - 00:07:23:06
Itamar Marani
Yeah, that's a great question. And it's actually the answer is embedded in your question. So if you were to externalize it and say in order to get this thing accomplished, what would somebody else do? What would be the simplest and most direct path to do it that might be emotionally difficult and uncomfortable? If you're not doing that, then by default you're probably not doing that because of emotions.

00:07:23:09 - 00:07:39:01
Itamar Marani
Like, you know, okay, this is the thing, I should be doing this, the actual problem, but along the way to solving the problem is doing the things, doing the steps. Emotions pop up. So instead of going from A to B, you deviate because of this emotion popped up. So all of a sudden I need to detour. I need to solve that emotion first.

00:07:39:01 - 00:07:54:19
Itamar Marani
Okay, Then I can come back to B and then the way to be to see how I feel. Another thing again, and I'm focused on that all of a sudden instead is going direct to C. So if you can see that this would not be the path, you would recommend somebody else to take. Like you say, this actually takes X, Y, Z shrink.

00:07:54:19 - 00:08:03:26
Itamar Marani
This whole amount of times is do these simple things, but it's taking you a lot longer. That's probably because you're taking detours to solve your emotions instead of just the problem at hand. To some extent.

00:08:03:28 - 00:08:34:11
Alexander De Fina
It does make sense. Maybe I could share one or two examples and you can tell me how close to Mike I am. So let's say in health someone wants to lose weight. There may be a question you could ask is nutritionally your decision is being made based on sort of taste or convenience or price, or are your decisions made based on what the right amount of macronutrients or calories in order to get the outcome you wanted.

00:08:34:17 - 00:08:35:17
Itamar Marani
100%.

00:08:35:20 - 00:09:00:00
Alexander De Fina
Or in business could be a situation where an entrepreneur is focused on something they believe might be moving the needle for the business but actually isn't. So it could be. I want to grow the social media following from my business to X visual outcome to have a huge following as you outcome come to actually generate a profit. Or you want to build an amazing team.

00:09:00:02 - 00:09:17:11
Itamar Marani
So let's let's stop back because that's a really big one. So what you're saying is basically is your what's the actual problem? Is the problem your solving? Actually, I want to grow the business's bottom line as far as revenue profits or is a problem that I want to feel emotionally validated because I have a big following. Yes. And those are two different things.

00:09:17:11 - 00:09:31:24
Itamar Marani
And I think that's the biggest thing is the problem actually real world problem. That is a problem to be solved in the real world is an internal ones is how you feel. And again, I'm not saying that you should never be emotion focused like some parts of life. We do want to feel good, you know, positive, whatever it may be.

00:09:31:26 - 00:09:46:16
Itamar Marani
But just to be aware of what you're doing, because a lot of times people will think they're solving a problem in their business, like you just said. But they're not. They're just filling an emotional void that they want to have felt. And I'm not saying there's anything wrong with doing that, but it's that awareness of what are you actually doing?

00:09:46:16 - 00:09:50:24
Itamar Marani
That way you can actually be in control and say, what do you want to accomplish? Does it make sense like that?

00:09:50:24 - 00:10:28:18
Alexander De Fina
It does, yeah. So, well, I've noticed that sort of play out in businesses is where people are focused on emotional problems, thinking that the emotional problem is the actual business constraint. Yeah, So it's actually their need for status, it's their need to be seen as something it's a need for connection. It's any number of underlying emotional needs, but it's not as simple as I need to decrease my cost of customer acquisition to X, I need to increase my throughput of this stage to this stage by why that to me sounds like a relatively objective analysis of a business.

00:10:28:21 - 00:10:41:04
Alexander De Fina
That's very rarely the case. Often it's more so I need to build a great team, to build a great culture and a bigger audience. And so there's underlying emotional needs, not actually what the business needs.

00:10:41:06 - 00:11:01:28
Itamar Marani
Yeah, I think like we said earlier, a great way to separate that and clarify that is so let's be honest, we don't care as much about other people's emotional needs as we do about our solutions, right? So if I can tell someone like, listen, if you want to grow your business is what you need to do, but I'm doing something different, then I'm probably the the filter there is my emotional needs all of a sudden get in the way.

00:11:02:00 - 00:11:30:27
Itamar Marani
Like instead of saying, Listen, my you don't need to grow your following. You don't like, I don't care, so to speak, if I'm a business, I don't care about your social validation. Right now we're trying to get you to a bottom line. Then they'd be like, Okay, but if someone's doing something else and actually optimizing for that, for that feeling of safety, that feeling of acceptance, social status, whatever you want to call it, I think it's really important for us to understand when am I being problem focused versus when I being emotion focus, because if we can't understand that, if we can't stop ourselves when we're about to lose and it's emotion, folks, when we

00:11:30:27 - 00:11:51:22
Itamar Marani
shouldn't be and we're just wasting a ton of time and a ton of energy and things that don't actually get us a result, like, sorry. And again, the result that we actually say that we want. If you want to say that right now, I want to focus on my emotions. That's what I'm doing. Great. But if that's not what you're saying, because you're saying actually you want to solve a problem on a scale, the business, whatever it may be, but your focus on your emotions, that's a problem.

00:11:51:24 - 00:11:53:14
Itamar Marani
To some extent it does.

00:11:53:14 - 00:12:22:04
Alexander De Fina
It doesn't of experience that myself at times I've seen it in other people where we're hoping that professionally in our business we can solve was probably more personal problems. So we're trying to there's that social validation. Something else we're looking at, we're trying to use that business as a tool, probably subconsciously to actually solve personal problems. And that's why growth is constrained or things are more complex or more difficult than they need to be.

00:12:22:06 - 00:12:24:19
Alexander De Fina
It's actually playing their own game.

00:12:24:21 - 00:12:36:14
Itamar Marani
Do you think they purposely try to use a business as a tool or is it just kind of like, Well, that's what they happened to be doing seven, 8 hours a day and their emotional needs just happen to be coming out, so to speak?

00:12:36:17 - 00:12:55:09
Alexander De Fina
Good question. I don't I don't know. But the soundbites that often terrify me when people are looking at starting a business is, well, it doesn't matter if it doesn't make that much money because I'm just passionate about it. I'm like, well, guaranteed, don't make my day. That's how you starting it. And that passion will wane real quick once, once things get difficult.

00:12:55:11 - 00:13:18:23
Alexander De Fina
So, you know, I just want to build a great team, so build a great team to do something or just build a great team for the sake of having a team. Yeah. So if we've got a good understanding of what is your strategic thinking or focusing on a problem, what is focusing on the, on the emotions, Is there a process that you've found to actually catch on?

00:13:18:23 - 00:13:27:13
Alexander De Fina
Because my, my concern is that people who are trapped in the in the problem and the emotion don't realize they're trapped in the emotion.

00:13:27:16 - 00:13:50:03
Itamar Marani
Yeah. So this is a common theme for for so many of these things to be able to catch an emotion. I think it's very hard to to be aware of it as if a belief is holding you back or if there's certain emotions taking over. If you haven't focused on the work to clarify what you should be doing, what someone else in your situation should be doing, because then you can use that as a measuring stick, like, am I doing the thing?

00:13:50:03 - 00:14:06:18
Itamar Marani
I'm not doing this thing. If you haven't done that, it's extremely, extremely difficult because you can always like, we all have our biases, we can always bullshit ourselves. Now if I've done the work and say, You know what, like we said, like we can number one, they write down what they want. We can number to exactly how to do it.

00:14:06:20 - 00:14:25:16
Itamar Marani
Then they have this measuring stick. The guys in their reading, they're like, Oh wait, why am I not doing that? What's going on now? We can figure it out. And I think that's the key thing. If you don't have that, it's very, very difficult to do it. Like unless you're hyper, hyper aware all the time of your main emotional biases and needs and all that kind of jazz, it's hard to catch.

00:14:25:22 - 00:14:40:22
Itamar Marani
I think it's too big of an ask, but just like honestly taking an hour and figuring out, okay, for this project, what should I be focused on? What actions should I be taking, What actions should they not be taking? He said. What are not, what are the bottlenecks? What are the things that don't actually matter? Then you can say, okay, am I doing this way?

00:14:40:23 - 00:14:57:10
Itamar Marani
Okay, That means I'm emotion focused because I'm doing this thing or trying to grow my social media following because I want more validation because it'll make me feel good about myself, thinks it's cool, whatever it may be, then okay, if I'm doing these things, I'm emotion focused and it's basically having a stock problem. This is effective, this is problem focused, this is ineffective.

00:14:57:14 - 00:15:04:16
Itamar Marani
In this context. Again, it's emotion focused. Oh, I'm doing these things. Okay. The emotion focused on a stop go to.

00:15:04:18 - 00:15:28:01
Alexander De Fina
If I want to communicate that visually on a piece of paper. And it was sort of point in point B and the arrow represents getting from point A to point B, make more money, you know, get more market capture, whatever the outcome is of the would a series of prompts serve as a toolkit that we could use? So if I said, you know, what should I be doing, I might point I want to go to point B, what should I be doing?

00:15:28:04 - 00:15:43:06
Alexander De Fina
Well, I could probably only start to hypothesize that once I clear that zero point B as a destination to finish, you know where I'm going to go. Yeah, the chances I'm going to magically land there pretty small. So defining the actual objective is probably step one. Now what the what?

00:15:43:08 - 00:15:43:18
Itamar Marani
Yes.

00:15:43:25 - 00:16:19:28
Alexander De Fina
And then now I can start the process of the eternal Y. So. Well, now that No, the what I should do this y for this, y for this. And eventually I think this is a tool that I try to use for myself to think through first principles and to think of it like an engineering problem, to find out where the constraints, where can I add more, or working out, delete things to avoid the emotional traps because they can be so clouding, they can cloud judgment so much that I think when we're in that emotional state, the biggest challenge is we don't even realize we're in that emotional state and we're more likely to react emotionally

00:16:19:28 - 00:16:40:19
Alexander De Fina
to other people trying to prompt us. So, you know, if you're if you're trying to grow your social media following, what we really should be doing is optimizing client retention. The last thing if you all your energy is focused on building a social media following, which is the wrong problem to be solving for the last thing you want to hear is someone saying, Hey, stop crying about your social media following and focus on client retention.

00:16:40:19 - 00:16:43:10
Alexander De Fina
That's almost like the painful truth, maybe even a subconscious level.

00:16:43:14 - 00:16:44:06
Itamar Marani
Yeah.

00:16:44:09 - 00:17:10:15
Alexander De Fina
So trying to have a tool kit to assist people because I think the biggest challenge is that they just the so ignorant of the fact that they're in an emotional state and it can be very, very challenging to, to recognize and to get out of it and to think strategically. That's where I would like to try to think visually to road map things, because the more I need to draw the problem, the more I need to sort of actually get down to the truth of myself, closer to the truth of the problem.

00:17:10:15 - 00:17:11:08
Itamar Marani
To externalize it.

00:17:11:12 - 00:17:12:25
Alexander De Fina
Yeah.

00:17:12:27 - 00:17:39:13
Itamar Marani
So can I add something to that, please? Are you open to the idea that you're playing this on hard mode? So I'll put it this way. Like even what you're saying right now, first of all, I think what you mentioned is, is absolutely right. And it was it wouldn't this wouldn't have worked if you wouldn't have said, like first we understand what a target is, because if you don't have an end goal, then you can reverse engineer and figure out what's actually problem, what you're actually solving the problem, what is the actual problem to be solved versus what are your emotions?

00:17:39:16 - 00:17:57:15
Itamar Marani
That I think is like first off, I'm very glad that you out of that and it's crucial now what you said, okay, I have this target, so what should I do here and why? That is already adding a layer of difficulty because you're saying, what should I do? But instead of it just saying, okay, if somebody had this target, what should they do?

00:17:57:17 - 00:18:14:03
Itamar Marani
Mm hmm. Because again, like, I don't I might have certain emotional needs, but this fictional person that I've never met before, I don't really care about their emotional needs as much. I'm a strategic. Is this what someone should do? That's why it's so much easier to give other people advice and to take our own or to give ourselves even advice.

00:18:14:05 - 00:18:33:23
Itamar Marani
So the simple math is to always, always externalize it as much as we can to why we did the whole person X thing so many times. Like what would somebody else with these kind of targets, these kind of levers at their disposal, assets, whatever it may be, what should they be doing? And all of a sudden we can figure out, Oh, this is so simple, this is probably what they should be doing because it takes out all our emotional stuff out of the way.

00:18:33:26 - 00:18:48:09
Itamar Marani
And like you said, even if we try to be aware of our emotional stuff, like it still has a very, very strong pull, right? So instead of trying to like, fight against that pool, if we can just completely sidestep it by saying not about me, what should I do, but what should somebody else do? What advice would you give them?

00:18:48:11 - 00:18:56:01
Itamar Marani
It resolves that need to to like try to work through it, so to speak.

00:18:56:03 - 00:19:23:28
Alexander De Fina
Do you think that there's a is there something just based on how our media sort of works that leads us to maybe pivot when we should be pushing through a problem or take the wrong actions and is coming from, you know, some sort of primordial evolutionary sort of fear mechanism? Because I just see this playing out in business a lot.

00:19:23:28 - 00:20:03:27
Alexander De Fina
And you could even take a very established brand or a product like Coca Cola and have the big wigs of Coca Cola said, you know, we want to increase revenue next year or profits by $1,000,000,000. There's a million things they could do. They could launch new products or they could just go, okay, based on our distribution, you know, brand loyalty, whatever else, we could increase the can the cost of a can of coca Cola by 0.1 cent and based on like 50 years of history, that's going to be the fastest path because we're very clear that increase bottom line by one $1 billion if they're trying to do that, plus grow an amazing company culture,

00:20:03:27 - 00:20:40:09
Alexander De Fina
plus trying to take all the boxes with diversity and inclusion plus trying to do those things now gets very convoluted. And now they're probably in an emotional state where they're trying to avoid the pain of failure or public ridicule because they weren't hiring enough people from different sort of genders or whatever. So the more they can just get really clear on that target, the target is make extra money by what deadline, by how much, and now they can have a more objective analysis of what lever is most likely to yield that result.

00:20:40:12 - 00:20:56:04
Alexander De Fina
And that's a process I think very few entrepreneurs can go through because we're juggling so many balls in the air. At one point in time, we were highly likely to go into that default emotional state.

00:20:56:06 - 00:21:22:19
Itamar Marani
That's true. I think it's also they put it this way, that person, Coca-Cola, there's some CEO there. He's a person, he's a human being. He has his emotional wants. However, he also has a board that doesn't give a shit about his emotional want. It needs like this is the bottom line you need to fulfill. And I think there's a lot of most entrepreneurs, I think before they get to a certain level, certain size in business, you don't have that.

00:21:22:22 - 00:21:42:23
Itamar Marani
And a lot of times you steer the ship for good or bad. And if you don't have people that are basically saying, I do not care about your emotional needs right now as a human being, this one is right for the business. You're not really do things that are for your incentives, your emotional incentives, and what you were saying about how we're wired, like we're absolutely wired to survive, not to thrive.

00:21:42:23 - 00:22:04:11
Itamar Marani
It's cliche, but it's true. It's like our brains are not wired to see reality for what it is. The reality they're wired to help us see reality for the way we can survive the most. So they overexaggerate a lot of the fears, a lot of our feelings. And whenever there's a sense of somebody might not like me, or that immediately goes, okay, I'm going to get excluded from the tribe, then I'm going to be left alone and dead.

00:22:04:15 - 00:22:24:24
Itamar Marani
And this isn't just like 100,000 years ago, even 500 years ago, if, like your neighbors and like you, you were left out, you're probably going to die by yourself. Sure. And a lot of this stuff ends up coming because, again, we're creatures that are wired for survival and we struggle to contextualize the fact that in this day and age, that shouldn't weighs heavily on our decision making than it does.

00:22:24:24 - 00:22:41:04
Itamar Marani
And it feels so a lot of times we're about to do something that we know logically would get us get somebody else the outcome that we say we desire. However, along the way, there's a certain fear that pops up. What will people say? What will this mean? Oh, I have this whole I have this lack. So you know what?

00:22:41:04 - 00:22:59:10
Itamar Marani
Actually, this is more important. And that little part in us, that's emotion focused. It's focus on survival, pops up and takes over because it's more primal, it's stronger. It just it's the default way we react if we're not aware of it. Like the whole reason we're emotion folks that are problem folks, you know, it doesn't make sense because we're creatures that don't always make sense.

00:22:59:11 - 00:23:13:23
Itamar Marani
And that's the thing. We're emotional creatures, but if we're not aware of that, then it's one of us goes on a rampage. That's when it takes over. Yeah. And this tool, the main purpose of it, is just to give people a sense of control. Like, Oh, okay. Can be aware of what's going on right now. Who's in the driver's seat?

00:23:13:23 - 00:23:24:14
Itamar Marani
Is it the more logical me that's focused on the problem or the emotional me Which one of them we actually want to listen to right now and give you that position of power? That's it?

00:23:24:17 - 00:23:25:11
Alexander De Fina
Mm hmm.

00:23:25:14 - 00:23:26:13
Itamar Marani
Does that make sense in that way?

00:23:26:13 - 00:23:53:23
Alexander De Fina
It does. Would you see benefit in trying in having, say, three stages? I'm almost thinking about like the stages of competency, right. From your unconscious incompetence all the way through. Would there be a a tool kit that the listeners can learn from, say, you know, in box a write down what needs to happen? So I obviously need to define the objective first, then box what needs to happen.

00:23:53:25 - 00:23:57:01
Alexander De Fina
Okay, If I can't work out the what needs to happen.

00:23:57:03 - 00:23:59:20
Itamar Marani
Start there and not proceed and not pass. Go that I can do it.

00:23:59:21 - 00:24:30:17
Alexander De Fina
And then the second box would be do do we have the capabilities either individually or as a team, whether that's funding technology, whatever, to actually execute on what needs to happen. And if it's like no, it's like we'll revisit box one. So do you know what needs to happen? Are you capable of doing what needs to happen? And are you willing because you might be you might know what to do, might be capable of doing it, but the emotional constraint or that comes in at the are you willing to do it?

00:24:30:17 - 00:24:41:15
Alexander De Fina
Because it's more important than I do. Everyone likes me than actually these low performing staff or it's more important that I'm seen to do these right things even though I want to be doing something else.

00:24:41:17 - 00:24:44:09
Itamar Marani
Define willing. What do you mean by that?

00:24:44:12 - 00:24:57:09
Alexander De Fina
Like literally pulling the trigger. So like committing to the actions. So you know what need to happen? You're capable of doing them and then you actually make the commitment to actually execute upon those actions.

00:24:57:11 - 00:25:17:00
Itamar Marani
So let's talk about this. I think this is really big. This is we're jumping a little bit ahead, but we got to this. Okay. So I think and this was something I thought about later, but like, as far as that checklist, one of the biggest kind of like hacks to overcome this stuff. So it doesn't just blindside you, it's actually preemptively understand what you're going to bump into.

00:25:17:03 - 00:25:31:03
Itamar Marani
So like I always like to give that ice bath analogy, like if you want to just walking down the street, all of a sudden your skin turns red, you get very cold, you get goosebumps, you see what's going on, you're going to freak out, you're going to stop, you're gonna stop whatever you're doing, and you're just going to focus on that because like, something here must be wrong.

00:25:31:06 - 00:25:46:15
Itamar Marani
This doesn't fit the expectation that I have. When I usually walk down the street, everything is chill. Something must be wrong. I need to stop and figure that out. Right. But if we're going into an ice bath, I tell you, like, Listen, man, there's a lot of benefits here for you. Another side of it, All right? However, you're going to feel cold.

00:25:46:15 - 00:26:07:23
Itamar Marani
Your skin's in a red and you're going to get these goose bumps. So when it happens, it's okay. Just breathe. Go through it. It's part of the game, okay? It's like the ice might be cold, but you don't have to suffer. It's all right. It's target. When it happens, you say, okay, it's okay. It's the same thing when we're like, let's say you said you figure out your target, then you figure out what needs to be done in order to get there.

00:26:07:25 - 00:26:32:15
Itamar Marani
The third layer, in my opinion, is what emotions do you need to expect that are going to arise in you while you do that? Like, Oh, I'm going to solve this bottleneck, but I'm also going to have this. Like, how are people going to think I'm good enough? Because my social following isn't that big and it's going to give me this self doubt because if I can preemptively extend, oh, that's going to happen when I'm in a calm, collected space and recognize, you know, this is just a feeling I need to feel and I need to be okay feeling it.

00:26:32:15 - 00:26:48:29
Itamar Marani
It's not something I actually have to address. It's not an actual problem when I do the thing that I'm supposed to be doing. And as that feeling arising back, yeah, this is not comfortable. That would be nice if I had all that validation or whatever it may be, but all right, this is something I expected to feel that I recognized ahead of time.

00:26:48:29 - 00:27:04:16
Itamar Marani
It's not a problem solution for you. Pleasant. Let's move on. However, if I don't anticipate that ahead of time, when I'm just doing my thing and all of a sudden I get blindsided by this emotion of like, wait, wait, or even are we good enough? Is this okay for us to do that? I'm going to get you know, maybe I need to stop everything.

00:27:04:19 - 00:27:25:27
Itamar Marani
Maybe I need to figure this out first and then I think this giant detour. And that's why I think it's so important. Like the wife said, are you willing to what I've seen that helps people be willing to do something more than just a kind of let's call it the dissing with a certain sort of resilience, Like I'm willing to I will do what it requires, but actually accept and expect you're going to feel certain things and to be at peace with that.

00:27:26:00 - 00:27:30:16
Itamar Marani
Okay, This is just a part of it. It's okay. Something that I need to stress out about. Does that make sense?

00:27:30:16 - 00:27:51:26
Alexander De Fina
It does. So if if I was to try to understand it, you know, anticipating the friction. Yes. That you're going to be up against, what do you think would be required from skills, experience, perspectives in order to accurately anticipate that friction?

00:27:51:28 - 00:28:10:16
Itamar Marani
It's a great question. I'm not sure that a lot is required. Honestly, I think it's just taking the time and visualizing. I like when I'm about to do that thing, like visualize myself, I'm going to do that thing. I'm about to have a hard conversation. What comes up, what I feel. Yeah, what do I tell myself? What goes on in my head?

00:28:10:18 - 00:28:26:23
Itamar Marani
I think a lot of the times these aren't things that are like, you know, magical and like, mystical and secret. We can figure it out, but it is about actually spending the time to do so. Most of the guys that I work with and they're super successful, like some of them are like eight, nine figure guys. They're just not a way.

00:28:26:23 - 00:28:42:25
Itamar Marani
This is the thing to do. So like once you just give them this a little electric, they're like, Oh, I can do that. I can spend before I go to the meeting. I can spend like 3 minutes figuring out what possible emotions might arise in me, should I listen to them or should they not listen to them? Is that like part of my gut that I should trust or not?

00:28:42:27 - 00:29:04:05
Itamar Marani
And then also when they come much more prepared? Yeah, I think I think we were talking about the podcast before we recorded about Chris Williamson. I think he said somewhere that like 20 minutes of preparation gives you 20 more IQ points. It's just that. But in this format that just like five more minutes of just emotional awareness gives you all of a sudden an ability to be more calm and collected tenfold.

00:29:04:07 - 00:29:35:07
Alexander De Fina
Got a reasonable allowance and the accuracy ability to predict the friction is I can draw stories where I have been inaccurately reluctant to do something because my my read of the friction was more extreme. It actually was. So, you know, I thought it was going to be more like I was going to feel more challenging emotions. But actually, once I started that process of like, Oh, this is not that bad.

00:29:35:10 - 00:30:01:02
Alexander De Fina
So my expectation was grossly over what I actually felt by doing the thing. Yeah, but I've also had situations where I thought something was going to be frictionless and then you embrace the frictionless and there's always this shock. So there wasn't there wasn't a strong ability to accurately predict that friction. So it might be like in a sports analogy, would be someone who's got a striking background coming across to jiu jujitsu, anything.

00:30:01:02 - 00:30:24:01
Alexander De Fina
Okay, I feel pretty confident sparring. You know, most guys my, you know, height, weight, whatever experience of going to the floor and you go, oh, no, nothing. I thought I was good at fighting. I'm just being sort of slowly killed. So that would be probably inaccurate confidence. Yeah, I'm good at one thing. This looks kind of like that thing.

00:30:24:01 - 00:30:37:19
Alexander De Fina
So how hard can it be? Because I see that happening in business a lot where people have had some success. I would say a solopreneur, you know, I make X amount of money, like I just build a team. I just tell me what to do and I just always do it, like.

00:30:37:22 - 00:30:40:29
Itamar Marani
Make sure it would be nice.

00:30:41:02 - 00:31:00:26
Alexander De Fina
And then they start realizing that it's not that simple and they go through that process. And I wonder if that starts to actually cause almost like a subconscious trauma that they become very that they lack confidence in their ability to predict the future.

00:31:00:28 - 00:31:19:22
Itamar Marani
And I think that's true. I think what's more true is it's just expected to be easy to not have to feel a feeling like, oh, this is just easy. Business is just easy. Like if you go in with an expectation, like, I'm going to get punched in the mouth, a lot and that's okay, that's supposed to happen. It's very freeing.

00:31:19:24 - 00:31:35:16
Itamar Marani
And it was actually something that I wanted to also talk about this that, like I said, how do you figure out the friction? What if instead of just figure out this friction period, it's going to be some kind of friction and that if you can just learn, there's going to be friction and I can be okay with that.

00:31:35:19 - 00:31:56:12
Itamar Marani
That's it. I can keep solving problems even though I feel these certain things. Like I talk to another client and it was and I love him, first off, like, awesome, dude, great dude. But it's a very common thing I see with a lot of especially the guys that are like early thirties or a bit younger. It's this whole like, okay, before I do something really hard, I need to get myself in a positive mood.

00:31:56:18 - 00:32:15:20
Itamar Marani
I need to just f myself up, get it done. It's like, No, you don't expect some things are going to be hard, you know, like if you can be okay feeling a feeling regardless of what that feeling specifically is and how you can forecast exactly what it is. But just accept that like along the way from you doing A to getting to be, there's going to be a lot of feelings there and that's okay.

00:32:15:22 - 00:32:39:03
Itamar Marani
I don't have to have a detour. I can just sit with that. I can accept that while I do this thing. It's going to feel uncomfortable. It's going to make me question myself. I'm going to feel inadequate. If I can just accept those feelings along the way, then I can move forward. Like when we had our Tom coming to the Officer General program, we talked about that cycle like whenever you go into friction with reality, we'll feel an embarrassment because it'll show you in some way you're not good enough.

00:32:39:05 - 00:32:54:24
Itamar Marani
And if you can accept, that's okay, that's supposed to be there. There's nothing wrong. It's just an emotion that you happen to be having. You can still focus on the problem. Yeah, but if you don't accept anything. Okay, If I have an emotion, something wrong here, it's an indicator that something's wrong. My safety is at stake here. Then you'll focus on that.

00:32:54:27 - 00:33:11:20
Itamar Marani
But again, like you said, if you can just recognize this is the target, you want to get to where you are right now. The path of there's actually no real danger, no mortal danger to you. And you're okay with the risk of whatever you going to take. You've preemptively made that peace. Then you accept it like you're going to have feelings along the way if you're going to be okay.

00:33:11:20 - 00:33:14:04
Itamar Marani
Having that feeling that's that.

00:33:14:12 - 00:33:33:16
Alexander De Fina
Yeah. Yeah. That forces model really helped me understand that. We'll put a framework around that, that you make a commitment to doing something feels good for a second. And then if that's a new arena for you, you're probably going to be terrified. The second documented commitment, like I'm going to leave the corporate job and start a business, it feels great.

00:33:33:16 - 00:33:59:15
Alexander De Fina
And then it's like, Shit, now, now what do I do with that? Now you're in the coverage zone because you don't have the capabilities. You might be a brilliant analyst for KPMG, but now you're starting e-com, you know, closing business. You have no idea how to do that. And that's one of the things I've seen play out with people where I think we all have like a useful curiosity when we're kids because we know we don't know everything.

00:33:59:17 - 00:34:00:03
Itamar Marani
Yes.

00:34:00:05 - 00:34:19:21
Alexander De Fina
But we get these false bits of data that just because I'm good in one area, like the career changes that people will come across to, say, the fitness industry or different coaching businesses, often they've been, you know, at a high level in something else and they transit across, I think, well, you know, I'm already at this level in my current domain.

00:34:19:21 - 00:34:21:28
Alexander De Fina
I'm probably going to be at that level in my next and no, I.

00:34:22:01 - 00:34:22:17
Itamar Marani
Deserve.

00:34:22:17 - 00:34:41:01
Alexander De Fina
That. I deserve to be. Whereas if we looked at that like I could be a great shot putter throwing a metal ball, that doesn't make there's very little carryover to how fast I can run 100 meters. You know, if I think just because I'm kind of good at this athletics thing, I'm going to be good at this next athletics thing.

00:34:41:03 - 00:34:58:28
Alexander De Fina
So when we hit that friction, things don't go according to plan. That sales campaign didn't work, that new high didn't work out. That's where I think that because I had an inaccurate expectation of what was required and the capabilities, they feel an overwhelming sense of emotional discomfort from that. And they start to question.

00:34:58:28 - 00:35:00:05
Itamar Marani
Everything you know.

00:35:00:08 - 00:35:21:23
Alexander De Fina
Like, you know, I'm I'm not good at this. This is a big mistake. So this is sort of other like a pendulum swing emotional state. Whereas just looking at it objectively and saying, I'm doing a new thing, I know nothing about this new thing, I'm far more likely to get it wrong and get it right. I can either try to accelerate my learning split test things and I'm just going to learn, iterate and eventually I'll get to good.

00:35:21:26 - 00:35:29:20
Alexander De Fina
But. But believing that I'm good just because I want to be good is probably going to cause more pain than is going to protect me.

00:35:29:27 - 00:35:46:03
Itamar Marani
Yeah. And in a way I would like to summarize that as just are you getting constantly punched in the mouth? If you're doing things that are costly above your skill level, like if you're sparring with someone is above your skill level because you want to get better, you're going to be constantly punched in the mouth. If every time you get punched in the mouth, you're like, Well, wait, something must be wrong here.

00:35:46:03 - 00:36:03:08
Itamar Marani
This doesn't feel nice. You're going to stay at that level. But if you say, okay, this is part of it, give you that ability to perceive very fast and it's easier, I feel, to do that when we're brand new in something because we tell us to look, I'm supposed to like, suck at this right now. It's okay if I feel like stupid or whatever.

00:36:03:08 - 00:36:20:06
Itamar Marani
This is part of it. Well, we oftentimes don't remind ourselves, even when we're really good at something. If we're trying to go to the next level, we're also going to feel that as well. And a lot of times that's what I see confuse people. They're like, I'm already really good. Like, why does this feel so frustrating? Because it's above your current capabilities and that's what you want.

00:36:20:09 - 00:36:33:29
Itamar Marani
So just recognize that and recognize that you're going to feel a feeling along the way. But don't let that emotion confuse you to think that's what you actually need to focus on. It's just part of the game. And if you can focus on the actual problem, that's how you win. Perfect. That makes sense.

00:36:33:29 - 00:36:34:26
Alexander De Fina
It does.

00:36:34:28 - 00:36:38:02
Itamar Marani
Cool. And the last thing is for you to summarize this.

00:36:38:04 - 00:37:04:23
Alexander De Fina
Not really is really helpful. Some of which I try to use in my business frequently is just trying to nut out what problem you actually really trying to solve here. Yep. And I'm okay with that seeming like it's more complex or time consuming, but identifying the right problem is the best way to actually solve the problem. Just eat, know, almost vomiting out the problem.

00:37:04:25 - 00:37:07:21
Alexander De Fina
A lot of business owners, I think, are too reactive and too impulsive.

00:37:07:24 - 00:37:09:27
Itamar Marani
Which is an emotional response usually.

00:37:09:27 - 00:37:17:20
Alexander De Fina
Yeah, because it feels bad things aren't growing or you know, things are going bad. So I just want to take any action. Any action and cause action is good.

00:37:17:22 - 00:37:34:20
Itamar Marani
Can I? I know we were going to wrap it up, but what I've noticed a lot of times is the opposite is that it causes inaction. So this is the biggest thing. So I was in a mastermind with somebody and he was saying that the business was kind of going all right, but it stalled for a while and then is, okay, what's the next thing we got to do here?

00:37:34:22 - 00:37:55:01
Itamar Marani
He's like, I know I need to let go of some of the stuff I need to change. Kind of the the way we operate, the culture that it. And he was like, but man, it's like, I feel very uncomfortable. I don't know if I'm if I want to do it. And I had to be like, Dude, culture of excellence is inclusive, You know that, right?

00:37:55:04 - 00:38:24:21
Itamar Marani
It's culture. The accents are harsh. Like I got kicked out. I always talk about I kicked out of a unit, and rightfully so. It's like sometimes these things do not feel nice to be excellent. Like whether it's the culture you set or you and yourself personally. Like, I think there is this fallacy that if you're doing the things to make your business grow, you just feel like you're on fire and it's like, I remember there was some analogy, some like artists who were saying that I a writer, like whenever I write, I feel like a armless, headless, like schmuck or whatever it may be.

00:38:24:24 - 00:38:40:25
Itamar Marani
And I think that's what separates a lot of elite performers from the mediocre ones, that people have all the potential in the world. They'll be performers, except there's a price to pay, an emotional price to pay for excellence. You're going to feel stupid, you're going to feel uncomfortable, you're going to feel inadequate at times. I'm saying that for myself as well.

00:38:40:27 - 00:38:53:26
Itamar Marani
If you can be okay having that feeling and recognize that when an emotion pops up, you do not need to focus on it. You can just have it and sit with it and still do the thing and actually solve the actual problem. That's how you get a lot more problem solving. You get a lot more the results that you want.

00:38:53:29 - 00:39:24:24
Itamar Marani
And beyond that are really deep level when you actually finish solving the problem, that emotion of fear, discomfort or whatever that you're going to solve, it dissipates anyway and it gets filled with pride instead, because you're like, I'm really proud of myself that I felt this thing and I didn't let that control me. And I think if anyone's at home listening to this and that I caught up with like, Oh, this feels like this or that feels like that, if you can learn to be okay, having that feeling and push through it on the other side, beyond the success that external results and all that, there's such a great feeling of peace, of pride, knowing

00:39:24:24 - 00:39:36:24
Itamar Marani
that, oh, when these things happen again in the future, they're not going to hold me captive. This is a skill of learning to be able to have a feeling and move forward with it. I think that's the ultimate freedom to not be bound by these emotions all the time.

00:39:36:29 - 00:40:19:17
Alexander De Fina
Yeah, one last one last thing for the audience would be I think that as you develop your skill at thinking strategically, thinking on the on the problems and how to solve it, it's a it's an art form, but it's also an art form of how to actually communicate that to your peers. Because if they're not thinking through the same perspective, there's a bit of a misalignment here and example of how that might add some sort of color to this was recently I had a situation where two key staff resigned almost like one one day, one the next day in a very personality centric business.

00:40:19:19 - 00:40:40:20
Alexander De Fina
And now I'm obviously I'm geographically removed from that business, so I don't suffer the same emotional, you know, challenges that save my my management team do. And I could tell that the immediate reactions of, you know, to key staff resigning overnight was, you know, just sucks. You know, how are we going to replace them? It's all doom and gloom.

00:40:40:20 - 00:40:57:28
Alexander De Fina
Everyone's going to leave. And so rather than me, just try to like, say this exactly what's going to happen? I just sort of coach them through it, just trying to get us all more or less on the same perspective. Because if you're on the same perspective, then there's going to be a lot of friction in terms of executing upon the actions required.

00:40:58:01 - 00:41:12:14
Alexander De Fina
Yeah, So to sit down with me said, okay, if we had to lose to stuff, this is a game show. We had to lose to stuff out of the team. What would be the two that would be okay with leaving out the same to a resigned? Okay, so if we had to lose to stuff, we kind of got lucky.

00:41:12:17 - 00:41:33:18
Alexander De Fina
There was a to stuff. If there was a time of the year that we had to lose to stuff, when would that be like seasonally? Are there any trends in our. Oh, right now. Okay, so like best time of the year in terms of our business life cycle, when would be the best time maybe say like peak peak customer base, but newest, there's like a culty sort of vibe right now.

00:41:33:20 - 00:41:52:14
Alexander De Fina
And so I could keep going on, but there was a series of prompts. I have them sort of, and I could literally see it in their body language, in their faces, from a very almost shell shock. Like what do we do? I don't know what the future holds, but it's probably bad to like you, actually. We kind of won the lottery here, but like, I didn't want them to leave.

00:41:52:14 - 00:42:09:10
Alexander De Fina
But if we had to lose two people, that was the two stuff they had to do. A this is the best time of the year at the best stage of the business life cycle. So now actually we've kind of got the destination, know the path towards helping them exit on good terms and getting new recruits. And that's all we need to work out.

00:42:09:12 - 00:42:28:05
Alexander De Fina
And it brought us straight down to really practical steps in terms of, okay, how do we help the staff exit on good terms but not, you know, kill the business? How do we get new people in to fill those spots? And we could look at it much more objectively because we could see it outside of the emotional state of feeling like we've invested so much into these people.

00:42:28:05 - 00:42:42:18
Alexander De Fina
And, you know, how could they do this to us? And we really want to grow together forever. I still feel those same emotions, but I've just been through that, through the fires more than enough times to get out of there very quickly. So I've got ability to recognize it and then to move beyond it.

00:42:42:20 - 00:43:03:19
Itamar Marani
Would you say to recognizing that externalize it? Yes, I think that's what I heard from you. Yeah. I think the biggest thing is that these guys that you have there, they were shell shocked. They were like in their feelings, Oh, we just lost I'd lost these two people in my not good enough, and I know this. And you were like, okay, let's look at this actual like, imagine there was this business would be the best season and you externalize that.

00:43:03:19 - 00:43:17:12
Itamar Marani
All of a sudden they were able to focus on the problem, not just their emotion. Yeah, and I think that's why it's a great tool. Like we also had Julian on the podcast back in the day and he was very open about this thing. He had a 70 person company and I was like, You need to let go of a lot of your staff.

00:43:17:12 - 00:43:33:28
Itamar Marani
You know, that They're like, Because you don't have a culture. Like when he got started here, it was a bit less comfortable leaving people the right way, like in a more clear and defined. Like if you're not performing, you're not performing. And he just boiled down to a spreadsheet for himself. He didn't even just as others. And once he's had a spreadsheet and all the data, he's like, okay, this is just a math problem, like you said.

00:43:34:00 - 00:43:43:29
Itamar Marani
And sometimes, like, again, this goes back to you said in the beginning, if you can just put it down on paper in some way, it's not about how did this feel to me, but like, what does the data show? What could somebody be doing with this kind of data?

00:43:44:03 - 00:43:49:27
Alexander De Fina
Yeah, I think that's why Elon Musk rubs people off the wrong way. I just very much a first principles thinker.

00:43:49:28 - 00:43:50:20
Itamar Marani
Yeah.

00:43:50:22 - 00:43:56:02
Alexander De Fina
And so when he bought Twitter you know now X when he walked in and said, okay we're going to.

00:43:56:03 - 00:43:56:20
Itamar Marani
80%.

00:43:56:27 - 00:44:06:09
Alexander De Fina
Shave the head count, you know the media go up in arms and there's a lot of pushback. But he could just talk about it very, you know, objectively and say to do what? So, yeah, but.

00:44:06:09 - 00:44:18:14
Itamar Marani
Let's be no, let's speak to that. So if he was focused on how are people going to perceive me or what will this make me feel if people say this or that about me in the media, He can't do that. But he was problem focus. His problem was like, how do we get this thing to be profitable? Not emotion focus.

00:44:18:14 - 00:44:27:20
Itamar Marani
How do I care about like people think about me or how does this feel? And that's it. Like if you can have that, like, you know, my scouts, it is a superpower if you can adopt it as well. Good. Thank you. Very long.

00:44:27:22 - 00:44:49:18
Alexander De Fina
That's what I think those three buckets help you understand. It is. He knew what had to happen. Okay. I've got a very inflated head count that doesn't need to be there to to serve the functions of the technology. So I know the what do other capabilities. Well, yeah, I'm the decision maker, so I can just kind of have some a lot of painful conversations or someone email how it happens, bring a bass, the sink into the office.

00:44:49:20 - 00:45:01:16
Alexander De Fina
So I know what to do. I'm capable of doing it. Am I willing to execute? Yes. Because for him, he wasn't clouded by the emotions. What would people say? What people think? It's just like that's the thing to do.

00:45:01:18 - 00:45:20:23
Itamar Marani
And I'll say this I think Elan is unique. Obviously, he's obviously unique. There's no way around it. Most people don't have that innate like, I just don't care. Most people do care. But if you can recognize, okay, this is something that's going to like feel a bit and for him, it might not even feel uncomfortable, but if you can organize this, might feel comfortable for me, but I can be at peace with that.

00:45:20:29 - 00:45:36:17
Itamar Marani
That's how you can win. Like, that's a trick to get to that level of prep, that exact level of performance. But those kind of capabilities, most people don't have that. So they know what they should. They know how to do it. If they're capable of it. They think they commit to it, but they commit just doing it, not actually feeling the pain that's going to be associated with it.

00:45:36:19 - 00:45:44:07
Itamar Marani
And if you can apparently understand this, I'm going to feel some kind of discomfort, some pain, whatever it may be. Alongside that, that's how you can win.

00:45:44:10 - 00:46:09:26
Alexander De Fina
Yes. It doesn't suffer from that optional emotional tax. Yeah, that's that's how he credits, you know, half a dozen unicorn businesses at the same point in time. And so if you're trying to grow a small lawn mowing service and having friction, someone else can be growing. This Unicorn Enterprises shaping the future of the world. Maybe the difference is because that one person as unique and capable as he is, doesn't cloud himself with all the emotional and unnecessary friction.

00:46:09:26 - 00:46:11:25
Alexander De Fina
He just does what's required.

00:46:11:28 - 00:46:39:25
Itamar Marani
Yeah, I go. So I go to a lot of conferences, right? And I drive with a lot of people. And what I've seen be a very common denominator about people success levels is not how intelligent or hardworking they are, but how much access they have to their intelligence. And what I mean by that is that a lot of entrepreneurs that I meet, especially like when people come to me, they're like just at six figures or below that.

00:46:39:27 - 00:46:56:18
Itamar Marani
They're very confined because they have all these emotions of like, I can do this, I can't do this. What will this mean? So they can't access their abilities. The guys above that, they start shutting that onwards and onwards. And I was like a different levels. But it's really just an access issue. Like if you can be okay having a feeling like you're not going to do certain things.

00:46:56:21 - 00:47:12:21
Itamar Marani
If you're not going to do certain things, you're not going to get certain things, and that's just what it is. Perfect. So I want to wrap it up with that. Something new want to do with the with the pod, basically a concept summary, then a tactical summary for people. So the concept summary is ask yourself how you focus on the problem or on how you feel.

00:47:12:23 - 00:47:32:26
Itamar Marani
Most people instinctually prioritize their feelings over solving actual problems. If a problem at work stresses them out, the things we look for a way to not feel the stress perhaps are really themselves with alcohol or drugs or food or whatever. Maybe if they face a complex problem, they look for a way to stop feeling overwhelmed, perhaps again by avoiding it or pretending it doesn't exist.

00:47:32:29 - 00:47:46:01
Itamar Marani
They focus on how they feel instead of the actual problem. And the issue here is that when they're done venting or dealing with that emotion, the problem is still going to be there. And that's the biggest thing. So you have a choice. Whenever a problem pops in our lives or businesses will usually have an emotional reaction to it.

00:47:46:06 - 00:48:01:05
Itamar Marani
Again, I'm as you're Elon Musk, unless you're on that spectrum, most of us will. However, you get to decide what you'll focus on. This is the big thing. You get to have that position of power. You can focus on how that problem makes you feel or you can focus on actually solving the problem and know how you feel is not the actual problem.

00:48:01:07 - 00:48:18:08
Itamar Marani
It's more often than not just a side effect, even though it's not nice to say or whatever it may be. So the next time you're feeling yourself getting emotional and want to shift your focus towards impactful actions, simply ask yourself, Am I emotion? Focus. Right now, I'm a problem. Focus. Which one is taking me in the wrong direction?

00:48:18:10 - 00:48:34:08
Itamar Marani
And just that one simple question give you clarity on what you need to focus on and what you don't need to. If you want to be effective in solving your problem. That's the context. So the tactical summary would be where do you commonly find yourself not doing what you're supposed to be doing? Because we usually have it in one area.

00:48:34:08 - 00:48:53:14
Itamar Marani
For some people it's management, like you said, for other people just doing their own planning, whatever it may be. So would stopping and asking yourself, am a motion focus or problem focused help you snap out of it? That's one and even more powerful than that. When you're making a plan, preemptively accept it. Try to anticipate What emotions am I going to feel?

00:48:53:14 - 00:49:07:13
Itamar Marani
If you can figure out when exactly going to feel that sense of like, I might not be good enough, I need more social proof, whatever it may be, great. That's the best. If not, though, you just figure out, you know what this is going to suck, though. There's going to be some suck in it and you can just make peace with it.

00:49:07:15 - 00:49:26:09
Itamar Marani
It's going to feel uncomfortable, just that. So when an emotion comes in like, Oh, this feels uncomfortable. Yes, that was supposed be here. Nothing is wrong. It just feels uncomfortable. If you can do that, you can get on with it and you can see so much more success. And honestly, like I said, I think this is this is a bottleneck to so many people being early performers.

00:49:26:13 - 00:49:38:24
Itamar Marani
They just haven't made peace with the fact that you're going to feel emotions and that might drag you away from actually solving the problem. So if you can be okay with the feeling, a feeling, and you can actually solve the problem instead of focusing on your emotions, you can get so much more done and so much more accomplished.

00:49:38:28 - 00:49:40:02
Alexander De Fina
100%.

00:49:40:05 - 00:49:42:18
Itamar Marani
Cool. And on that note, we wrap it up for today.

00:49:42:22 - 00:49:43:10
Alexander De Fina
Perfect man.