You can reverse almost any decision you make in business. A trade, a hire, a product bet, a strategy — if it isn’t working, you exit, you take the loss, and you move on.
You can’t reverse what you said in the moment.
Have you ever said something out of frustration, anger, humor, or even habit that you later regretted — and found the apology didn’t erase it? That asymmetry is the whole problem. We manage our reversible decisions with care, and our irreversible ones on instinct.
We are living in a period of heightened sensitivity to hurt feelings. Whether it’s politics, kids in school, or even in business … it’s clear that emotions and detection sensors are high.
What do you think it means? Has something fundamental changed, or is it just the natural result of stress and high expectations?
Happy people tend to find reasons or ways to be happy. Frustrated people are good at finding what frustrates them. Meanwhile, people naturally notice and avoid things that hurt them.
Of course, a little conflict is normal (or even beneficial). But perhaps the pendulum has swung too far?
Let’s be clear, some people intend to hurt others. However, it doesn’t take “intent” to hurt someone’s feelings (or to have your feelings hurt). Hurt feelings can arise from a simple disagreement, a fixed perspective, a careless remark, or even a look.
Effective strategies can sometimes trigger conflict, too. Why? Because people generally prefer winning to losing. It reminds me of angry kids on a playground. As a result, people often dismiss or excuse minor outbursts with phrases like ‘I was angry,’ ‘I’m only human,’ or ‘There’s no room for emotion in business.’ Nevertheless, we should strive to be better.
Lessons From the Nail In The Fence Parable
To drive the point home further, here is the story of “The Nail in a Fence.” I share it every few years, but as we look to finish the year strong, I think it’s worth revisiting.
Nail In The Fence
There once was a little boy who had a bad temper. His Father gave him a bag of nails and told him that every time he lost his temper, he must hammer a nail into the back of the fence.
The first day the boy had driven 37 nails into the fence. Over the next few weeks, as he learned to control his anger, the number of nails hammered daily gradually dwindled down.
He discovered it was easier to hold his temper than to drive those nails into the fence.
Finally, the day came when the boy didn’t lose his temper at all. He told his father about it; and the father suggested that the boy now pull out one nail for each day that he was able to hold his temper.
The days passed and the young boy was finally able to tell his father that all the nails were gone.
The father took his son by the hand and led him to the fence. He said, “You have done well, my son, but look at the holes in the fence. The fence will never be the same. When you say things in anger, they leave a scar just like this one. You can put a knife in a man and draw it out. It won’t matter how many times you say I’m sorry, the wound is still there.”
A verbal wound is as bad as a physical one.
This story reminds us to be mindful of cause and intent. Hope it helps.
How Technology Can Amplify (Not Replace) Our Humanity
As a technology entrepreneur focused on amplified intelligence (which means making better decisions, taking smarter actions, and continually improving performance), I recognize that we’re not using technology to replace humans. Instead, we’re automating activities that humans used to do – so that humans can focus on things more important and more in line with their unique abilities and tendencies.
On the other hand, one of the main reasons for automation is to avoid certain tendencies that are baked into human nature – like these little outbursts. I say that because, as much as the world has changed in the last several thousand years, human nature has remained stubbornly the same.
Here’s the connection I keep coming back to. A bad decision inside a system leaves a record you can study. A bad word leaves a hole in the fence. One of them compounds into a better process; the other just compounds. That’s why I’d rather hand the repeatable things — the ones where fear, greed, and discretionary mistakes do their damage — to a process that doesn’t have a temper, and save human judgment for the decisions that actually need a human in the loop.
Making Best Practice Common Practice
It’s hard enough to change yourself … so, it’s unrealistic to expect to radically change others. Instead, if you want to increase the likelihood of certain actions, it makes sense to rely on technologies that are simple, reputable, consistent, and scalable to make your best intentions and best practices more common. This is why I say that amplified intelligence has an automatic advantage … because it eliminates the fear, greed, and discretionary mistakes that humans naturally bring to a process.
The Power (And Limits) of Forgiveness
Inflicting pain on others is harmful — but holding on to anger can be just as damaging to ourselves.
Feeling and stoking anger is like taking poison and hoping the other person suffers. It isn’t efficient or practical.
So, what about “Forgiving”? It doesn’t have to be synonymous with forgetting.
Forgiving removes the valence (or charge) from a situation or memory. It serves you even more than it serves the person you’re forgiving.
It only takes a moment to create an emotional trigger (think about how you felt when you saw a high school bully in the hallway). It is simple: evolution and natural selection favored species that remembered and avoided danger. It is in our DNA. But avoidance isn’t always a great strategy … especially when it is blocking the attainment of something beneficial.
Forgiveness is a way to disable or mute the emotional trigger (this is called “collapsing an anchor” in NLP). It’s also a choice to move forward.
Forgiveness is also a release of “claim”. When we are wronged, we expect an apology, retribution, restitution, or recognition. And until we get it, we are stuck, waiting for it. In a sense, forgiveness releases the stuck energy, making it available for something else (hopefully, something better).
Forgiveness changes the route and allows you to move forward.
And I’ve found that good things happen more often when you are in motion.
As you look ahead, ask yourself: Who or what do you need to forgive?
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