Tuesday, January 22, 2019

A Little-Known Secret That Can Make You Successful at Damn Near Anything!

How 1 Simple Change in Your Decision Making Can Make or Break You


There's a lot of secrets to success, but one surprising secret has little to do with how much college education you have, and a lot to do with your thought process and behavior.  


Have you ever:
  • purchased something only to later have buyer's remorse?
  • made a bad business decision based on fear?
  • gambled your funds on an exciting business venture, that lead you into debt?
  • gotten so overly keyed-up and excited that you did something crazy that you later regretted?
  • purchased one of those money making systems when you were down on your luck, only to discover that it would take a lot more effort than you thought? 
  • stayed in a relationship with someone who makes you unhappy?
  • taken on a business that failed, but you kept beating it like a dead horse trying to make it work?

If you said yes to any of these, don't feel like the lone stranger in this. Most people go through this and it's one of those life lessons that most people can't quite put their finger on, but they know something's not right and something needs to change, but what?

First, we need to take a step back and look at two key components that we use to base our decisions and actions on.


Emotion & Logic


Before we get into this, we need to look at the meaning of both:

Emotion:  A mental reaction (such as anger or fear) subjectively experienced as strong feeling usually directed toward a specific object and typically accompanied by physiological and behavior changes in the body

Logic: A science that deals with the principles and criteria of validity and inference and demonstration: the science of formal principles and reasoning.


When it comes to matters of love, shopping, business, and other areas of life, most people base their decisions on emotion-- without even realizing it. 

Marketers know your emotions drive you to purchase things, and they use this to their advantage. 

Emotion has a lot of power and (aside from people with personality disorders and mental issues who freely walk the streets and get in positions of power) it's the reason the world is so messed up today. Emotions have caused unnecessary fighting, whereas if logic was used, the outcome could have been a win/win compromise. 

Logic can also have a lot of power, but you have to know when and how to use it. 

Now, emotion in itself isn't bad, but it can cause an undesired outcome if you're basing major life decisions on it. 

People vote with their emotions, buy things they don't need with their emotions, take on extra things they can't handle with their emotions, jump into business ventures that aren't right for them because of emotions. People will jump into a relationship with someone despite red-flags... or they'll continue to go back to toxic relationships over and over, even though the everyone else around them tells them that it doesn't make logical sense to go back to that unhealthy relationship .... You're getting the picture, right?


The key to changing your
outcome is balancing your
 emotion and logic.

But how do you do this? 

First, we need to look at things objectively- focus on just the facts.

If you've ever spoken to a judge, attorney, or police officer, they ask you for just the facts. They don't want to know how upset you are or what a person may have done to hurt your feelings. They focus on what actions occurred and what law was broken. They don't want to know how you felt, because feelings are a grey area that isn't written into the law. Different things trigger different types of emotions with everyone. Some people are better at handling their emotions than others. Your emotions are not their responsibility, nor are they anyone else's. 

A mortgage lender, credit card company, grocery store, or any other business doesn't focus on emotions. If they did they'd be out of business. So it's up to you as an individual to keep your emotions in check and focus on just the facts in your life.

The reason wall street tycoons and business gurus become so successful is because they use logic:


  • Successful stock investors don't get emotionally attached to the stock-- they focus on the numbers and they know when to buy, when to sell, and when to hold. 
  • Successful Real Estate investors don't get emotionally attached to the properties-- like stock investors, they focus on the numbers. 
  • Successful CEOs focus on what's going to make the company better-- they don't care about office drama... they care about making the business successful. 
  • Successful Marketers don't care if anyone likes how an advertisement looks-- they care about if it's going to convert to customers. 


So to be more logical, you have to think like a detective or successful business guru and focus on just the facts. Use logic and reasoning to weigh the possible outcomes or consequences before you jump into any decisions. Research the data. Find out as much factual information that you can about something, and then infer if it will be a good decision. 


Ask yourself, am I basing
 this decision on how
 I feel, or what I think? 

Exercising your mind to think this way, will help to condition your brain into thinking in a more logical and rational way, instead of allowing your emotions to take you down the rabbit hole. 

Now, I'm not telling you to completely drop emotions... By all means, be kind to others, and don't be cold and distant. However, you can get your emotions in check, and you'll have to, if you expect to have any form of success. Focusing on logic will bring the balance that will allow you to make better life decisions. 


In order to find this balance, we have to be more self-aware and consciously focus on looking at things more factually. Self-awareness is critical for success!

Look at your life as if it were a non-fiction book. What facts do you want to go down in your historical legacy. I can guarantee you that your successors won't be talking about how great you were at emotions. Look at your challenges as if they were a math problem at school. If you get the answer wrong, you don't get emotional about it, you just study harder and try until you get it right. Treat your life the same way. If you screw something up, don't get emotional about it. Just work on doing it right the next time.






Emotions come from our subconscious mind; it's that thing that drives us to act. Ever done something kinda crazy and not realized why you did? Emotion...

Logic comes from our conscious mind, where we think things out, and we may write them down. We rationalize and make a careful decision. Ever advised a friend who was crying because he or she was struggling with a problem, in which you can see the solution clear as day, but the friend can't? Logic...


This is why journaling can be helpful. You write down your thoughts and emotions, then when you go back and read it later, you view it more objectively, instead of how you felt when you originally wrote it.

Throughout my life, I used 90% emotion and 10% logic to base my decisions. I wasn't even aware of it. That's how my whole family thought... and that's why we were always broke; that's why we always struggled. 

I'm also a creative and an artist by nature, and with that comes a lot of emotion. Since I've started being more self-aware and consciously basing making decisions using logic, it has allowed me to reach many goals. 


The bottom line is: Keep your emotions out of your business. Focus on the facts and statistics. Not how you feel about it or how much you like something. 


If you master this, you'll indientify, not only how emotions affect you, but how it's affecting others too.

This has been one of the big secrets to success for a long time. Now it's up to us to incorporate it in our lives. 

I hope this has been helpful for you. I know that this simple principal has been life-changing for me. 


If this principal has had an effect in your life, let me know in the comments below! 

Have a fabulous and productive day!