Episode Transcript

What’s up everybody. Welcome back to THE a.m guys. Welcome back to five minute rants.

So guys today I want to talk about taking a step back in a high intent situation or in a really in a big decision making moment and just taking a step back and just looking or observing. And the reason why I want to talk about that is earlier this morning, my wife and I, were just talking about a case she has and she owns and runs her own law firm.

And there’s just this big case on the board and there is, you know, hard fights coming up, different things. And one of the things we were talking about, I was talking about with her this morning is when really intense situations occur, one of two things happen with most people. Most people either just generally like react like, here’s my knee jerk reaction and act emotionally and off of muscle memory. And they just do stuff or they’ll take a step back and begin looking and observing and just looking at the data, looking at the current situation, just observing and taking a small moment.

And it’s interesting because a lot of books you read about warfare, a lot of books like the Art of War and just a lot of books you read about like fighting and different things like that. And when you get into intense situations, one of the number one disciplines that comes out of that is remaining calm and just taking a moment to take a breath and then to pause yourself and just look. Look and then begin thinking and processing.

And I’m saying this because oftentimes when we’re in a big decision making moment in our lives, we just instantly do knee jerk reaction decision making. We do muscle memory. And muscle memory is this is what happens, this what I do. I just go into unconscious mode and I’m just doing stuff.

As a result, we actually normally end up creating more messes and more problems and I think one of the more better principles to operate out of in life and one of the more better more powerful disciplines to operate out of life is taking a step back and just observing and you’ve heard a lot of people say this like hey if You know somebody, you know makes you angry ticks you off. You have a bad situation Wait a day wait 24 hours. Hey, you got an emotional email to send wait 24 hours come out of that emotional state, right?

And really what they’re talking about is taking a step back from the situation, pausing, and then looking at the situation. Okay, what’s really going on? And the thing with observation is this, we do not observe well as human beings. Normally we are very biased and judgmental, but if you can stop that, if you can look at a situation and remove yourself from it, in other words, remove the outcome you want, remove what you want from it, and just look at raw data, right? Don’t have feelings one way or the other.

You talk about having clarity on next steps. You talk about seeing the path forward and the journey ahead. And if you can do that, and it requires some emotional intelligence to do that, especially when things are near and dear to your heart and things are on a personal level. But if you can do that and you can step back and be calm and actually be objective, you talk about all that situation resolving itself peacefully and resolving itself well, and normally in your favor because you’re able to stop, step back, and actually process out the next steps and moves you need to take, which are beneficial.

The other thing about doing that is normally, not only do you resolve the situation, but you set yourself up for success five steps ahead, or a couple steps down the road because you’ve thought long term. And the problem though that we have as people, and that I’ve had, and other people have had, and even what my wife and I were talking about this morning because it was stressful for her. One of the things that we have problems with is just reacting emotionally. And we’re unable to let go of what we want and pause and step back and look at the data. And this is what I mean. You just go outside. look, the sky’s blue. no, it’s raining. Like, instead of blue, it’s just like, look, it’s raining. Rain good, bad, doesn’t matter. Versus, it’s raining and I don’t want to get wet. Man, I just washed my car and it’s like remove all that stuff that you just did and all your thoughts and feelings go, it’s raining.

And that’s what observation looks like. You have no emotional attachment either way. And you have no you have no objective either way. It’s like, wow, it’s raining. How hard is it raining? it’s like a mild drizzle. You know, how long has this been going on for? 30 minutes. And you’re just collecting data. You’re not judging. You’re not making decisions. And if you can do that in high stress situations, or big decision making moments, you’re gonna be able to process better, think better, you’re gonna be able to have clear action steps.

Because here’s the thing, with good information, you can make a good decision. Doesn’t mean you will make a good decision, but you can. But if you have bad information, and all your information and data is clouded by what you want, judgmentalism, selfishness, all this stuff, you will always make bad decisions.

So anyways, the moral of today’s rant is to take a step back, breathe, and just look.

Anyways guys, I’ll catch you later. Peace.