Episode Transcript.

Hey what’s up guys? What’s up? What’s up? What’s up? Welcome back to THE a.m. Welcome back to five minute rants. I’m your host, Michael Abernathy. Welcome back to the show predicated on the journey of life and business. I appreciate you guys tuning in. Thank you for listening to me for like a little less than five minutes every day about some random topic I want to talk about, I hope it’s helpful, part of the process. And part of this is really just documenting the journey and things that I’ve learned along the way, lessons I’ve learned along the way that have helped me be successful in life and in business.

So today, that being said, I want to talk about decisions and making better decisions. And one of the skill sets that goes hand in hand with making better decisions is problem solving. And the way you problem solve is through better logical processing, mentally. So step one of problem solving is What I would call observation, where you just literally look at data, there’s no judgment, there’s no sentencing, you go outside, you look up and be like, Oh, the sky is blue, you don’t say it’s a great day or bad day, you just the sky is blue, the clouds are white, those are rain clouds. That’s a tree, those are birds, and you take in all the information you have. And then you come to a conclusion in assessment, which is What I call judgment, like your judgment, judgment literally just means decision, you make a decision.

The problem is oftentimes when we’re processing, we are horrible. At observation, we’re horrible at just looking at a situation and observing, we automatically input our feelings into things like oh, I don’t like that, Oh, I like this. None of those matters. It doesn’t matter What you like, or don’t like, the solution to the problem has nothing to do with What you like or don’t like. It is outside the bounds of your emotions. Think about that. Two plus two equals four, that whole equation. And even the answer four is outside the bounds of your emotion. Who cares? If you like the fact that the equals four or don’t make the fact that equals four doesn’t matter has no impact on that equation, no impact on the outcome, no impact on the mathematical formula used to even get that result. Do you see What I’m saying?

And I think it’s very important, because when we oftentimes make decisions, we allow our emotions to come into play. So the better you can process, the better you can think and ask yourself questions to gather and collect data and information. without inserting your emotions and judgments and opinions without doing any of those things yet, the better you are going to be able to make decisions and problem solve. And oftentimes, the reason why we have to make decisions is because there is a problem that is either occurring or that we are trying to avoid. Or there’s something we want there’s only one of those three pieces in the decision making process. It’s a problem that is currently happening, a problem we want to avoid, or something we want. Does that make sense? Like a goal or an objective we are trying to achieve something we want.

To give you an example of this. I want to go buy a new shirt. Okay. What is my problem? I’m 14 years old. This is all hypothetical. I can’t drive. I only have $20 Is the shirt I want within my price budget. And then you begin taking all this information, how am I actually going to get to the mall to purchase a shirt because if you grew up when I grew up, Amazon wasn’t a thing. And you’re not just ordering stuff left and right like that. The internet was dial up and you have the And all that sound right? When you pick up the phone, and then you know, that’s right, you just got kicked off their because your mom was trying to call her friend. Anyways, the point of all that is those are normally the three pieces when it comes to problems. I mean, when it comes to decision making, there’s either a problem I have in my life, a problem I want to avoid or something I want. And then the next stage is really the processing taking information, right.

And I often think that we fail at decision making because we insert our likes and dislikes our emotional reactions too soon, into the observation. It’s important to know What you think and feel about things it is. But thinking and feeling are radically two different things. I think of emotions very much as a internal internal nervous system, right? They tell me when something’s wrong, they tell me when something’s right. But they’re not always truth, even though they’re valid. I may feel them. But just because I feel something doesn’t mean that it’s true. Right? Just because I feel that somebody doesn’t like me or is judgmental towards me, doesn’t mean it’s always true. Like that has legit happened many times in my life. I thought somebody didn’t like me. And then it turns out they love me and they’re just very, they’re just very like close personality.

And so the point of What I’m trying to say is this when you’re making a decision, you the stage one is really observation. And then the stage two is like okay, how am I using this data to achieve whatever it is I’m trying to teach, achieve, avoid a problem. To solve a problem or get something that I want, and that is really how decisions break down and if the better you are at processing and observing, the better you’re going to be at making decisions.

Anyways guys, I’m out of time. I’m actually way over so I’ll catch you later peace