Yo yo yo. Welcome back to the Further your Lifestyle podcast conversations on lifestyle passions and hustles. My name's Chris, I'm your host and I'm super excited to be back here having the conversation with you. Episode 205 today, and we're talking about a topic which is actually from a statement or a quote that I heard from Simon Beard. It was about probably a bit more than a year ago at a retail fest in 2024, and he was talking about how people buy with emotion. Then they justify it with logic. Now I want to take that and I want to apply it to life, because I feel, like so many things, that we take action with emotion and then we try and justify it with logic, when really sometimes, we need to put the logic first. Actually, most of the time, we should logically think about things before we react with emotion, and that's what I really want to talk about today. It's been something that always resonates with me, whether I'm dealing with customers, whether I'm making decisions just a whole bunch of different things. Now, if you are new here, I really do appreciate you being here. If you enjoy these episodes, hit the thumbs up, make sure you like subscribe so you don't miss out, but if you want to continue the conversation. You're more than welcome to leave a comment down below and we can continue the conversation, whether it's you putting a question or leaving a comment during the episode or maybe at the end of it. But most of all, if you do enjoy these episodes, please do share them. It really does help grow the podcast.

Now, before we roll the intro, I want you to just for a moment think about all the major decisions that you've made in your life, where you live, what job you've done or doing or would like to do, who you spend your time with all those different things. But more often than not, your initial pull wasn't based on cold hard facts. It was based on feeling feeling of excitement, curiosity and belonging, maybe some fear and maybe some desire. But because we don't want to admit that we're led by our emotions, we create these logical reasons after the fact to back up why we made the choice in the first place. So I want to break that down today and help you understand why that happens, how it does actually affect our lives and maybe we don't realise it and maybe what we can do better to make more intentional decisions. So if that sounds like something you're interested in, buckle up. It won't be a long episode, but we'll be able to go through. I think we're going through five or six points from memory when I wrote the notes for this one. Let's dive into it, roll the intro. Let's dive into it, roll the intro. So diving straight in.

The first thing that I want to talk about is emotion is the driving force behind almost every decision. Now, whether you believe it or not, we're rational creatures, right, we are like that. But there's a level of truth around it, right. There's this logic, sorry, there's this idea that logic is slow, calculated and requires too much effort, whereas emotion, we can react with it fast, it's intuitive and it's powerful. So, when we're faced with choices, we feel first. Then we find a way to explain it logically.

Some good examples of this might be relevant for you is when we buy a car. You might say you chose it because of the fuel efficiency. But deep down, maybe you just loved the way it made you feel. It was cool, it was the color of it, or it was fast, it was zippy, but you justify it to other people it's oh, but it saves so much money, it's fuel efficient. All these different things, right? What about choosing a job, you might tell people it had better career prospects, but maybe you really just vibed with the people in the interviews. Maybe it just pays better right Falling in love. You might justify it with shared values and compatibility, but at the start it was all emotion, right.

So things I mean, I think that one's self-explanatory right, but I think what we forget about is how much we actually rely on emotion to dictate our actions, our decisions, how we go about doing things and just even the way that we interact with other people. It's and it's something that's really relevant. In life's big moments, but also in life's small moments as well, we move toward what makes us feel something. Then our brain tends to play catch up. Now, this can be a good and bad thing, but the problem with justifying and this is point number two the problem with justifying everything with logic, is there's a whole bunch of things right, but the first thing is, even though emotion is necessary, we want that to be really good individuals. You know it helps us be kind and helps us have empathy and helps us understand who we are and also, you know, the people around us.

But sometimes our logic tricks us into believing. You know, probably believing a decision was right when really it wasn't actually right in the first place, and we can get ourselves into maybe some sticky situations. This is where I guess it becomes a bit of a problem, and I've got three examples here. Number one is you buy into an idea or dream because it feels right, but don't stop to analyze if it's actually right for you. This happens all the time. I see it, I've experienced. Why do we fall in love with TV shows? Why do we fall in love with watching other people succeed or pursuing goals and dreams? We feel part of it and we get this idea and this rush and excitement that maybe we could do this too. But we get sold on the emotion around the idea and the dream and it feels good, but it's not actually the thing that's right for you. The other one is we justify staying in places or staying in jobs or staying in situations, staying in relationships longer than you should, because you find a way to rationalize it or it's just easier, makes you comfortable, but usually because you find a way that just makes more sense. And the third one, which is really really key and it probably plays up to all the others as well is you avoid risks that could change your life, because fear kicks in right and we actually spoke about that just a couple of episodes ago but fear kicks in first. So you come up with this logical, I guess excuse of how you're going to stay safe and avoid going through that risky moment or feeling discomfort or stepping out of your comfort zone.

The mind is very powerful, but it doesn't always work in our favor. Our minds can do amazing things, but they can do really silly things when we allow that to happen, because our brain doesn't want to have to deal with things that it's never dealt with before. If you don't know, you don't know. Therefore, if the brain's comfortable with what it knows, why would it want something to? Why would it want to do something else?

Part number three of this is where does all of this show up in life? Now, we've kind of spoken about that a little bit, but I want to give a little bit more real life context. The first one is like big life decisions. There's huge emotional drivers all throughout our life as we make decisions, as we change who we are. But you're unhappy where you live and moving somewhere new excites you. That's a huge emotional driver, right? But there's this logical justification, you tell yourself it's because there's better job opportunities or maybe it's a lower cost of living, when really you just need a fresh start. Now the interesting part is and we'll talk about this a little bit later when we flip it around is maybe if we just take the logical approach first, before we get into the emotions, it might actually reveal a lot more about ourselves.

Number two is around relationships and friendships. The emotional driver here is we don't feel appreciated in our relationship anymore. And the logical justification is you tell yourself but we've been together for so long, or it's not that bad, instead of admitting it's no longer serving you or it's no longer working, again, avoiding that confrontation. And number three is chasing dreams versus staying safe. This is very relevant for myself. The emotional driver is you feel pulled to start something new, your own business, a creative pursuit, a side project, a hustle, whatever it may be. But the logical justification is you convince yourself now is not the right time or I need to save money first, when in reality, fear is what is holding you back in the first place.

Do any of these sound familiar? Now, for me, there's some really close to home ones there, especially with stepping out and pursuing my own dreams and goals. That was scary, but I originally weighed it up to if not now, then when. I can always make excuses. There's always another. I will just wait a bit longer. There's always something else. So you just have to reprioritize you and decide what's best for you. Anyway, I can talk about that for hours.

So the next part of this is so how do we actually make decisions that actually serve you for the better? So, instead of letting, I guess, emotion run through or letting logic keep us stuck, what can we do? I think the first thing we need to do is we need to pause and identify what is the actual emotional trigger. You can ask yourself what's the real reason I want to do this, or what's the real reason why I'm trying to avoid this. Is it excitement, is it fear or is it comfort? This is where it's okay to take some time to think, it's okay to not quickly rush into things, but really just understand what are the main key drivers behind all this.

Then we can separate as point number two, we can separate the emotion from the logic and you can start to ask yourself are you, I guess, are you justifying something that feels good in the moment but might not be smart long term. Or are you avoiding something that feels scary but is actually right for you? A lot of the time, we avoid the scary stuff, and it's not even that scary, it's just because we're uncomfortable. We've never had to do it before and it's easier to just do what we know works than to try something different and potentially either know, potentially, either get really great results or be disappointed. And then the third one is we can use both emotion and logic to decide right. Using emotion helps us take bold action and using logic helps us ensure it's sustainable. So when we put the two together and we have a bit of a thought pattern, they can actually be really, really powerful, and together they help us create better decisions that align with your true values and your true self Really important.

Now an interesting thing here and we're almost at the end, this is short and sharp, but number five an area that I want to kind of play back to you is like people would judge you based on their mood and not their logic. So imagine this you walk into a room, you say something completely normal and someone gives you a weird look. Right, instantly you start overanalyzing. Did I say something wrong. Did I offend them, you know? Did I mess up? What did I do? But here's the truth. It's probably got nothing to do with you at all.

People don't actually judge things fairly or rationally. They just feel their way through their own decisions like a cat chasing a laser pointer, right Convinced that they're onto something real. But actually they're just reacting to the immediate environment that they're in. If they're hungry, maybe they're going to be a little bit meaner. Now, I am generalizing here, but hear me out. If they're tired, maybe they won't care about your joke. They just don't have the energy for it. Are they in a good mood? Well then, they might pretend that you're hilarious. They might be the complete opposite. Be overstating things, and it's not just the casual stuff as well. Right, there's actual science behind all this. Judges give lighter sentences after lunch. Yes, literally, and look, I don't have the fact or figure, I've just looked up a whole bunch of different examples to go with this. But they say that judges are more likely to give a lighter sentence after lunch because they're no longer hungry, they're comfortable, they're relaxed, so therefore they're just in a happier mood. Parents are more patient after they've had their coffee. That sounds like a bit whatever.

But at the same time, when you think about yourself, you go have your coffee or your morning ritual. How much better are you ready to just hit the day or hit your tasks? Movie reviews, apparently, are more positive when the weather is nice because you're not coming out to a gloomy day, you're coming out to a positive day. So you come out, you feel fresh, you feel alive, you feel good or going into it as well. So all these little things. It impacts their mood, their emotions, which then has an impact on how they go about you know, taking action or doing things which can have impacts on other people. So when someone suddenly decides to, this is a bit hard, like to hate your entire existence out of nowhere. Maybe that's what you feel. The chances are it's probably not actually about you, it's probably about them. The moral of the story is just remember you can't let someone else's mood dictate your self-worth. You need to keep doing your own thing.

Now the final thought that I want to wrap up for this whole episode is what if we flipped the script? What if we turned things around a bit? Instead of waiting for emotion to hit us and then justifying our choices, what if we started with logic in the first place and then let emotion follow? So what if you mapped out your ideal future, then chased what actually fits into that vision? Huh, right, what if you made decisions based on what truly aligns to you and I've done episodes on this, about your own alignment, your own values. So what if you made decisions based on what truly aligns with you instead of what just makes you feel safe? And then the third one is what if, instead of justifying fear, you justified possibility? The reality is here, right, we're always going to struggle with these things, but we will buy into something, whether it's an idea, relationship, careers or personal growth. We're always going to do it. The question is, are you buying into the right things? And if we can flip the script and focus on the logical approach before we dive in with the emotion, we can really really start to change up our lives and we can further our lifestyles.

A good way to compare this is if we do play it back to when you go out and buy something as a customer. A lot of people say, okay, let's say you want a Nintendo Switch. Let's say you walk past it. You see it, you're so excited to buy it, wait 30 days. Would you have time to play it in the next 30 days? How many times do you even think about it in the next 30 days? If you were too busy, if you didn't think about it, did you need it? Was it relevant? Then maybe it was just an emotional reaction, right, and logically it makes sense not to do it. In this case. It's a good thing. So, logically, when you go to buy, it's like logically it doesn't make sense, but emotionally it makes you feel good. So then you can start to weigh up these different ways of looking at it in terms of, okay, rather than us reacting and just quickly buying something and then trying to justify it yeah, but I need to rest, right, I need to have some downtime. But if you go then for the next 30 days and don't even rest and don't even have downtime, well, it doesn't even make sense, right. So there's lots of different ways we can look at it from that perspective, but a lot of the time we get so fixated on.

I think a big key characteristics of all this and this is my own opinion, of course is FOMO Seeing what other people are doing, keeping up with the Kardashians, right, seeing how other people are living their lives, their highlight reels and us not wanting to miss out. So, therefore, because we've got stuck onto other people's ideas, inspiration, influence, we want to feel that same emotion of what we feel when we see them experiencing it right Now. That's a projection and that's not always the case. That might not be you, but there's probably some other things here that I think has hit home and maybe challenged you. If you would like to continue the conversation, if maybe you want to share your own story, maybe there's things that you've struggled with in terms of, you know, buying with emotion and then trying to justify it logically share it in the comments below. I would love to hear from you, you know, and there's no pressure to do it's more so. If you just want to share your thoughts, I'll be more than happy to continue that conversation.

All right, that's it, folks, Very interesting, and I do encourage you to spend some time. Think about this. Challenge your family members, challenge your partner, challenge your friends and see if actually here's a good one for you. Think back about when you've purchased things and see what other people call out about it. Some people might say you just want it because it's a fast, car they might say it as a joke and you're like, ah yeah, that's cool too, but really, what's the reality behind that? What are we hiding behind this emotion wall? What are we hiding behind these justifications? All right, that's it from me. Have a think about it. Appreciate you being here Again. If you did enjoy this, please subscribe. Share it with someone that you think maybe needs to hear around emotion versus logic when making decisions and we'll be back here next week doing it all again, and you have a wonderful day. Cheers.