Since all decisions are fundamentally emotional — as demonstrated by Antonio Damasio’s research showing that removing the emotional center of the brain destroys decision-making capacity even with intact IQ — the key to great decisions isn’t logical rigor or emotional detachment. It’s the willingness to feel any emotional state.
We make decisions to feel what we want to feel: loved, successful, safe. And critically, the avoidance of negative feelings is even more powerful in shaping decisions than the pursuit of positive ones. When we’re scared to take risks because we might fail, scared to speak truth because we might not be loved, or — more subtly — scared to succeed because the joy might be overwhelming and taken away, our decisions become distorted by emotional avoidance.
“The key to great decision-making isn’t logically thinking it through or being non-emotional — it’s actually being completely willing to feel any emotional state.”
Being willing to feel everything also increases sensitivity to one’s own emotional context. Joe describes how embracing intensity makes you aware of the emotional backdrop driving your logic: “I’m afraid of my business failing, I’m afraid of being perceived as a failure.” Recognizing this context allows entirely different decisions to emerge.
Related Concepts
- All decisions are emotional
- Bad decisions come from fear of emotions
- Suppressing emotions impairs decision-making
- Every decision is an attempt to avoid an emotion
- If you think you’re making a decision, you’re in fear
- Confirmation bias protects us from emotions we won’t feel