Pod Insights LifeBlood 2571: The Feeling Machine About this episode Most people believe they’re rational decision-makers.
They’re not.
In this episode, we explore the idea of the “Feeling Machine”—how your emotions drive your decisions, your actions, and ultimately your life.
Drawing on insights from Daniel Kahneman and real-world experience, you’ll learn how to recognize, separate from, and choose your emotional states.
Master this, and you unlock one of the most powerful forms of self-management available.
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Transcript 0:00 Speaker 00 OnDeck is built to back small businesses like yours. Whether you're buying equipment, expanding your team, or bridging cash flow gaps, OnDeck's loans up to $400,000 help make it happen fast. Rated A+ by the Better Business Bureau and earning thousands of 5-star TrustPilot reviews, OnDeck delivers funding you can count on. Apply in minutes at ondeck.com. Depending on certain loan attributes, your business loan may be issued by OnDeck or Celtic Bank. OnDeck does not lend in North Dakota. All loans and amounts subject to lender approval.
0:43 Speaker 01 There's a lot of really interesting things about the human condition, about being a human. And some of them are certainly features and some of them are bugs, but none of that's necessarily clear because a lot of what we are just is. So if you want to assign value to it, if you want to say, "That's good, that's bad, that is a feature, that is a bug." Obviously, we're all entitled and able and capable to do that. But there's one strange thing about being human for sure, and it's that we like to think of ourselves as thinking creatures. And we are. We've got these beautifully, wonderfully developed brains that have kept us, put us and kept us on the top of the food chain.
1:28 Speaker 01 It's awesome. We have the ability to engage in ration, or rationale, or logic, and we can be very, very, very measured. We have artificial intelligence that now builds us new spreadsheets. We can make plans for just about anything, and with our thumbs, we can then bring those plans to work. And we say things like, "I just need to think this through. I need to noodle on this a little bit." But if you watch closely, like really closely, I think that you will observe and notice something else entirely. It's that people do not do what makes sense. They do what feels good, what feels right.
2:12 Speaker 01 And we all do. We all do that. There's a brilliant man, there was, rest in peace, Daniel Kahneman. He wrote this book, Thinking Fast and Slow, and it's work that won him the Nobel Prize in economics. Daniel was a psychologist, and it was the first time that a psychologist had won a Nobel Prize in economics. But he became fascinated with why and how human beings make decisions around money. And his findings were very, very, very surprising and shocking. And he found that most of his, most of the decisions we make, most of the financial decisions we make
2:50 Speaker 01 are based primarily on emotion and not logic. And I'm not talking 10%. I'm not talking 30%. I mean, 90% of the decisions we make around money are based on emotion. I remember the first time I heard that, it's like, there's no way that 90% of the decisions I make around money are emotional. I'm a financial advisor, for goodness sakes. How could I do that? And then I thought about it, I'm like, oh, yeah, totally true. In fact, everything I do is based on how I feel about it, how it makes me feel, or how I want to feel. So that's interesting, isn't it? What do you think about that? Do you think? Does that make the hair on the back of your neck stand up? Does it make, does it make you bristle? Or maybe you kind of nod along, you're like, yeah,
3:35 Speaker 01 I'm an emotional person. And I like that. I like to pay attention to my emotions. So,
3:43 Speaker 01 maybe you think it's true, maybe you don't, but look at why, or rather, how you're interacting with your finances. Why did you buy the last thing that you bought? From a conversational standpoint, why are you avoiding certain conversations? Is it out of logic?
4:00 Speaker 01 What are some things that you said yes to, that you should have said no to, and why did you say yes? I think that the answer rarely is, because I thought it through, and it was the optimal rational decision to make at the time. No, not for the nuts, because how I felt, how I feel about it. So.
4:24 Speaker 01 You and I, we have the capacity to think. We do. It's true. You may be doing it right now.
4:36 Speaker 01 But more so than that, I think that we are feeling machines. Or at least, we have access to a feeling machine. And this is a machine that's always running.
4:50 Speaker 01 Doesn't have an off switch, just constantly running. It's always producing, and it's always influencing. Steering, nudging, pushing, pulling.
5:02 Speaker 01 There's a stimulus, leads to a feeling, which leads to an action that creates a result that reinforces the feeling. And most human beings live inside that loop without really knowing it. It's an unconscious thing. They feel, they react, they justify. Feel, react, justify. And that is superhuman right there. Our ability to rationalize everything. Why I did what I did. Well, this is the reason. If I really do think it through, I could come up with a great reason for why I didn't do what I thought I was going to, or what I said I was going to, or wanted to do, or that I had to do.
5:48 Speaker 01 Feel, react, justify.
5:51 Speaker 01 But there's a big opportunity that's here. I think we can step inside the machine. We can observe this thinking machine, and then we can learn how to operate it. We can learn how all those lights work, what they mean, what all those levers, what do those do? Look at all those buttons.
6:13 Speaker 01 And if we're able to do that, there's an idea that I think can really make big change here. Because we're not just experiencing feelings.
6:25 Speaker 01 We can be active participants in creating them. And once you realize that, or you see it, then you realize you don't have to wait to feel motivated. You don't have to act on or obey fear. You don't have to indulge your anxious feelings, your anxiety. You can choose, and it's not a perfect choosing. It's not an instant thing, but it is a little bit at a time. It is, it is done progressively.
6:56 Speaker 01 Emotional mastery has different levels to it. Number one, it's the recognition of how it is that I'm feeling right now. What am I feeling right now? Not, "God, I'm sure stressed out right now." No, it's recognizing and it's identifying, "What is it that I'm feeling right now?"
7:18 Speaker 01 It's not that I'm stressed. It's, "I'm feeling uncertainty about this, and that is manifesting and showing up as, as a feeling of tension."
7:30 Speaker 01 And when we're able to do that, I think that we're taking away the power from that feeling that leads to anxiety. And then the next step is to separate. So I am not the feeling. I'm experiencing the feeling. I am me, they are them. It's such an important differentiation. It's such an important separation.
7:56 Speaker 01 My feelings are them. I am me. I choose how I interact and how I feel my feelings. I think that that is such a key thing. Because if you become the feeling, or you consider yourself to be that feeling, you're a prisoner to it. You're stuck.
8:16 Speaker 01 If you're experiencing it, you have options. You can choose, you can select. That's one of the most profound things that I've learned over the course of the nine years of doing this podcast is that you have choice. You get to choose how you feel, or what you want, or how you choose to feel about everything and every moment of your life. How am I feeling right now? How would I like to be feeling right now? I'd like to be happy. I'd like to be energetic. I'd like to get pissed. Well, go ahead and do that then.
8:51 Speaker 01 So simply because a feeling comes across, you know, comes across the screen, appears on your phone, just because a feeling happens, it doesn't mean you need to, to act on it, to actually feel it.
9:07 Speaker 01 What would I like to feel instead?
9:11 Speaker 01 And if you're sitting there thinking, well, I can't choose how I feel. GLP-1s are changing weight loss.
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9:45 Speaker 00 OnDeck is built to back small businesses like yours. Whether you're buying equipment, expanding your team, or bridging cash flow gaps, OnDeck's loans up to $400,000 help make it happen fast. Rated A+ by the Better Business Bureau and earning thousands of five-star TrustPilot reviews, OnDeck delivers funding you can count on. Apply in minutes at OnDeck.com. Depending on certain loan attributes, your business loan may be issued by OnDeck or Celtic Bank. OnDeck does not lend in North Dakota. All loans and amounts subject to lender approval.
10:16 Speaker 01 You're wrong because you already do. Because every time you reframe a situation, every time you you change your posture, every time that you take action despite the resistance that you might be feeling, every time you choose your attention or focus your attention differently, you are shifting your state.
10:36 Speaker 01 So you think about everything that you do on a daily basis, whatever that might be. You know, if you are in a customer building endeavor, you need to identify new potential customers. You need to be reaching out with them. You need to be following up with addition with with current or existing customers. You need to be asking your your your current existing customers to do business with you again, or maybe to give you introductions to others. You need to be having potentially different difficult conversations with people.
11:14 Speaker 01 So what is it that stops people? It's not a lack of knowledge. It's not that you don't have the ability. It's how it feels.
11:22 Speaker 01 People experience fear. We experience rejection. We experience discomfort. We experience uncertainty. And when that happens, what do people do? Sort of inherently, well, they they want to avoid those.
11:37 Speaker 01 And then they rationalize the avoidance. So instead of asking, what should I do? Start asking, what am I feeling? And is that current feeling useful to me? And then it's what would be a more useful feeling? If I'm fear, if I'm experiencing fear, you could reframe that as curiosity or anger as curiosity.
12:02 Speaker 01 Instead of getting pissed off at your spouse or your kids or your business partner or your friends or the person in traffic, just get really immensely curious. What in the world could have led them to be acting the way that they're acting? Instead of feeling anxious, shift to focus. Instead of feeling experiencing feelings of resistance, shift to commitment and then ask, what action would that version of me take? The next best move. The person who is focused. Instead of facing anxiety, the person who's curious. Instead of angry, what's the next step that that version of me would take?
12:43 Speaker 01 So, step one, pause. Interrupt just the way that we're automatically looping. We're on autopilot all the time. Interrupt that. Say, what is it that I'm feeling right now? What am I feeling?
13:00 Speaker 01 And accept it. Of course, I feel this way. Okay.
13:04 Speaker 01 Great. I'm sad. I'm elated. I'm bummed out. Feeling a little melancholy today. Fine. No problem. But then, we get to choose. What would be more useful right now? What would a more useful feeling be to me right now? And if it's to stay bummed out, well, then stay bummed out. That's great. Do that. But if you're in a position where being bummed out is not really serving you, well, then choose the emotion, the feeling that would be serving you. And then act. Take an action that's aligned with the state or the feeling, the emotion that you're choosing. A curious person would ask a question instead of lashing out.
13:50 Speaker 01 Instead of telling somebody to go pound sand, say, is there anything I can help you with?
13:56 Speaker 01 Is there something that I can do that would make your life easy right now?
14:01 Speaker 01 So, what we're really talking about here is a form of self-management. And I think that self-management is such a critically important thing. We're talking about emotional regulations and our ability to regulate our own emotions.
14:19 Speaker 01 Who is responsible for your emotions? Who is responsible for your frame of ref- for your state of mind? Who's responsible for your attitude? Who's responsible for your effort? You are.
14:33 Speaker 01 So why wouldn't we want to get as good at that as we could be? That's really what I'm trying to get at here. Self-management. Managing my own attitude, which is your emotions and your own effort level. And oftentimes with the wrong emotions, I'm not getting the kind of effort that I need. Certainly true for me. I need to have the right headspace. I need to have the right attitude in order to do the things that I need to do in order to do those things well. And that's what I'm interested in doing. I'm interested in doing everything I need to do and as well as I possibly can. And I'm not saying I need to do this 100% all the time.
15:16 Speaker 01 I'm not advocating for some kind of hustle porn. Just keep going, not at all. Because there are times where I feel super burned out. And I don't need to shift to just doing more. It could be. I need a break. Need to go lay down. Need to go watch TV. I need to go have a cup of coffee, whatever. Whatever. You get to choose. You get to choose. I don't want the tail wagging the dog. I want to be the dog that's wagging the tail. I am me, feelings are them. So self-management is the difference between living a disciplined life
15:59 Speaker 01 and living a life where you're just drifting through. It's a life defined by intention versus reaction. And it's a life that is by design versus just some default life. I don't want that. We can create great plans. You could have the best strategy. You could know everything that you need to know. But if you can't manage your emotions, you're not going to effectively execute it. So that's the idea is how do I understand my feeling machine well enough so that I am using it to my benefit as much as I possibly can all the time? And sometimes to my benefit, that means I need to take the afternoon off. Great. I'm in charge. Me.
16:44 Speaker 01 I am me, my feelings are them. I choose. You choose.
16:50 Speaker 01 People are not controlled by their circumstances. They're controlled by their reaction to those circumstances. And so they spend their lives waiting. Waiting to feel ready. Waiting to feel confident. Waiting to feel certain. They wait. They wait. They wait. And they think that they're thinking. But they're not. The truth is much more brutal than that. Because if you don't know how to operate your feeling machine, you're going to spend your life being operated by your feeling machine.
17:25 Speaker 01 And a life that's governed by and run by emotions run amok is not a life chosen. It's just a life that you drift right into.
17:38 Speaker 01 Waiting until I feel ready. No, just hit the button on your on your feeling machine that says, I'm ready.
17:48 Speaker 01 Waiting to feel confident. Pull the confidence lever on the feeling machine. You want certainty?
17:56 Speaker 01 Dial that one up on the feeling machine.
18:00 Speaker 01 It's possible. You are you. Your emotions are them. Embrace it. Lean into it because it's true. And I know that if you do that, you will be doing your part by doing your best.
18:18 Speaker 01 GLP-1s are changing weight loss.
18:20 Speaker 02 My sister had amazing.
18:21 Speaker 01 The ideal treatment is.
18:23 Speaker 03 Seems like everyone's a GLP-1 expert these days. But when it comes to your health, it pays to listen to someone who actually is. Orderly Meds makes it easy to get started with personalized support along the way. And with your first month's order, we're giving you the second month free. Visit OrderlyMeds.com. Bringing orders to the chaos of GLP-1s. Individual results may vary. Eligibility and prescription required, not medical advice. Visit OrderlyMeds.com for details. Compound medications are not FDA approved.
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