(2023-08-15) Miller The Best Decisionmaking Is Emotional

Jonny Miller: The Best Decision-Making Is Emotional. In my work as an executive coach...

without our “irrational” emotions, we would be unable to make even basic day-to-day choices.

Famed neuroscientist Antonio Damasio was one of the first to figure this out in the late twentieth century. He studied a patient with a tumor that compressed the frontal lobe tissue in his brain and had to be removed.

his emotional capacity had been severely limited to the extent that he was unable to make basic decisions, like prioritization of tasks and scheduling.

This and other similar cases became the foundation for Damasio’s so-called “somatic marker” hypothesis. It posits that emotion registers in the body through phenomena like a racing heart

We then make choices based on what we think will allow us to feel good in the future.

emotions are a fundamentally biological phenomena and emotional experiences are co-created by our minds.

They are how you make sense of what’s going on inside your body in relation to the world

Lisa Feldman Barrett believes that our brains follow the scientific method.

Researchers worked with two different groups—West European and Taiwanese—and found that “consistent patterns of bodily sensations are associated with each of the six basic emotions.” (They’re shown in the top row in the image below, although it’s worth noting that these six basic emotions are still being debated.)

If we’re resisting (consciously or unconsciously) a certain emotional experience, then we’ll make intentional choices to avoid feeling that way

One of my mentors, Joe Hudson, goes a step further with what he calls the “Golden Algorithm.” It’s the idea that any problem you’re experiencing has a corresponding emotion you’re trying to avoid. By evading that feeling, you’re actually more likely to amplify it.

To gain more awareness of your emotions and how they’re shaping your decisions, I recommend cultivating your perception of your interoceptive senses—the conscious and unconscious signals

Below is a simple journaling practice