Communication & HR Expert

"Past decisions" is a component of our Model of the World. The first piece is "values." The second piece is "beliefs." And the third piece is "past decisions," or what has been learned.

Now it can be either your own experience or others, and it can be either correct or incorrect. You say to yourself, well, okay, the last time I was in this situation, what happened. The last time I made a decision...

I know people who are afraid to go to the car lot, they’re afraid to go out and buy a car. Now, to me, I love going to the car lot because I consider it a game to play with the salespeople. I’m in the persuasion influence business, so to me it is a game. In fact I’ll go to multiple car lots just to play with them, and I really like it when they bring out the sales manager. Oh yeah, that’s a great time for me!

But most people don't like going car shopping, right. Where I live they’ve started up these lots where it’s one price. You go in and they’ve got the price clearly posted on the window, and that’s what you're going to pay, period. For me, I don't go there, because there’s no sport involved in that. I want to go where they’re going to negotiate with me.

But some people have learned, based on their past experiences, that they get ripped off when they buy a car, right. So their past car decisions have been bad. And that becomes part of their Model of the World. That’s why we have car lots where it’s one price. You don't have to negotiate if you come here, our salespeople aren’t on commission.

How about this one. Now I’ll tell the other side of the car story. I am so clueless when it comes to car repairs. Being a man, somehow I’m supposed to inherently understand how motors work. Like I have no clue at all. If it’s making a noise and my wife says to me, honey, the car’s making a noise. I’m like, yes, and what do you want me to do about it.

I take it to the garage and they say, well, it’s the humdinger thingamajig, and that’ll be $600. And I’m, okay, because I don't know. So I make past decisions on cars...for a while I was buying a new car every two years so I wouldn’t have to take it to the garage.

It was still under warranty, I could just take it down to the car dealer and they’d fix whatever was wrong with it. Well that wasn’t a very good financial move because eventually the cars were worth less than they were...oh never mind, we don't have to go into that. My past decisions influenced what I was going to do currently.

Remember, each person's Model of the World is made up of five components:

Do you now understand "past decisions?" Would you like to discuss it further? I'm available to discuss your questions about values via e-mail.