Half Rational

They say that people buy things rationally, but that’s only half true.
They say that reason alone can help you make good decisions, but that’s only half true too.

The other half of rational is, of course, the whole realm of feelings, of intuition, of gut and impulse. Impulse needs to be controlled, and emotions need to be discounted.

That, too, is half the story.

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People end up buying on impulse, on reason, on indecision, on struggle, until at one point, there isn’t a way to describe the process precisely, other than to say that it was all of the above. Even in the rational person, there was doubt, there was weighing, there were shortcuts taken, there was an internal push, and the decision was made to buy. It was messy.

People make all kinds of decisions from the effortless parts of their brains. No effort was spent, or not for long periods of time, because the effortful part of the brain is expensive to run. A decision-making model, when you use it, feels rational, but it registers into your intuition the more you use it. It becomes automatic, almost emotional. A gut decision. Hardly rational anymore.

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And so, the nuanced truth looks more like this: decisions are a messy, tentative, economical ordeal. People go back and forth, they use rational models until they no longer can, they switch on emotions until “enough is enough”. And then, a decision is made.

The goal isn’t to be full rational. The goal isn’t to be half and half either. The goal is to be fully versed in how people make decisions.

It’s your job to see this in yourself so you can see it in others. And then, (and then), you realize that helping people make decisions is a special skill to have. Because decisions are where progress happens, and you’ll be helping people make progress, to others’ benefit, and to your benefit too.