Omar Usman – Decisive Deep Dive Attain Distance Before Deciding WRAP Framework

The third step in the wrap framework is

a, attain distance before deciding. In the book

Decisive, the authors talked about this long web

series called Confessions of a Car Salesman, and

I've linked to it in my deep dive

post, which is in the description down below.

What that was is someone that went and,

you know, worked as a car salesman for

a little while to learn the business, and

he one of the things that he found

out was basically people when they came, they

didn't want

to even talk to a salesman because they

were afraid. And actually what's interesting is I

live near a car dealership,

and if I drive home at night after

the dealership is closed, you'll always see people

at the car lot walking or looking at

cars because they want to be there

when there aren't any salesman there, and the

reason is because we know. We're afraid

that we're gonna end up buying a car

that we shouldn't buy. We're gonna end up

buying a car that we can't afford, and

because we don't wanna give into that emotion,

we try to stay away from it. We're

scared of dealing with the salesman.

And you can see a car salesman, they

also play on that short term emotion. So

when you go to a car dealership they

don't ask you what features you need in

a car, they'll ask you what color do

you like best? Do you wanna take it

for a test drive? Do you wanna establish

a connection with this car?

I remember some years ago when Lexus first

came out with the car that parallel parked

itself,

the salesman was showing us hey, this is

the car that parks itself,

and I looked at the sticker and I

said how come it only gets 18 miles

a gallon? He got really upset with me,

like why are you paying attention to the

gas mileage? This is a car that can

park itself. But that's they want you to

get connected and wowed so that that thinking

makes you act right away.

So how do you counteract that short term

emotion?

You have to attain distance before deciding. One

of the strategies that they give in the

book is the 10, 10, 10 framework. How

would you feel about this decision 10 minutes

from now, 10 months from now, 10 years

from now? And that helps you also to

understand the magnitude of the decision that you're

making. If you're buying a piece of gum,

that's not a decision that requires a lot

of foresight, but buying a car,

maybe you do need to see how will

I feel about this decision 10 months from

now. Am I gonna be happy making the

payments? Am I gonna be happy with what

we've got? And so that's a way of

kinda taking yourself out of that immediate situation

and saying okay, well 10 years from now

how am I gonna look at this? How

is it gonna affect me? How is it

gonna, how is that decision gonna play out?

Another strategy for

attaining distance

is pretend that you're giving a friend advice.

See, one thing that happens when we're making

a decision for ourselves

is we get caught up in the particulars

and the nuances and the details of our

situation

which lets us rationalize

away good advice and allows us to kinda

keep the status quo or keep what we're

attached to. If we pretend that we're giving

advice to a friend, we're often able to

cut right through all of that, see the

issue for what it is, and give them

sound advice. So always pretend if my friend

was in this situation,

what advice would I give them? It tends

to bring a little bit more clarity to

the situation.

Again, you're not gonna eliminate emotion,

but attaining distance

allows you to try to minimize its effects

a little bit.