Even When We Know the Truth, Emotion Paralyses Us (Part 2 of 3)

Last week I wrote about the rationality myth - how we lie to ourselves and refuse to confront brutal truths even when they're staring us in the face.

But there's a second barrier that's even more insidious: even when we finally accept reality, emotion dominates us and stops us acting.

I discovered this in the most unexpected way.

Earlier this year, I wanted to understand what was happening in labour markets - how generative AI and automation were affecting people's livelihoods. So I went on LinkedIn and offered free coaching to anyone going through job transitions.

I built frameworks around self-awareness: personal constraints, cognitive style, environmental preferences, values, skill sets, passions, drivers, lifelong ambitions. The plan was simple and rational - help people understand themselves holistically rather than fixating only on their existing skill sets, and they'd find roles where they could truly thrive.

I thought I'd be providing technical solutions to help people move forward logically.

That's not what happened.

What shocked me was that the vast majority of those dozens of coaching conversations were dominated by emotion. Not logic. Not rational assessment. Emotion.

There were two types, and they consumed everything:

Backward-looking emotion: The negative environments they'd worked in. Frustration at not getting opportunities they felt they deserved. Anger and resentment at seeing their prospects dry up. Hindsight about their professional paths - people hollowed out by years in finance or big corporate life, wishing they'd followed their passions instead. All of it laced with resentment, frustration, and a sense of being cheated.

Forward-looking emotion: Fear of uncertainty. Paralysis of choice. Imposter syndrome so profound it stopped people from even trying. This was especially acute for people who'd been made redundant or young mothers returning to work after maternity leave - the fear of what the future might hold was suffocating.

Until I could hold space for people to work through those emotions - or at least reflect back to them how much emotion was dominating their thinking rather than logic - it was impossible for them to see what actually mattered or what they needed to focus on to change their situation.

What I discovered in those conversations changed how I understand change itself. But I'll come back to that.

This is what I see in business turnarounds too.

It's easy to assume you can turn up to a company in financial difficulty with structural problems and weak leadership, armed with technical solutions, and solve everything.

But business leaders are emotional beings just like everyone else, dominated by what goes on inside their heads. They carry historic baggage - the weight of past decisions, failures they can't let go of, shame about what's happened on their watch. And they carry fear of the future - responsibility for employees whose livelihoods depend on them, ego wrapped up in the business, self-worth tied to success, status they're terrified of losing.

In a crisis, all of that gets amplified tenfold.

The emotion consumes their bandwidth. It clouds their vision. They become inefficient, circular thinkers, unable to see clearly or act decisively even when the path forward is obvious.

Most turnaround specialists focus on the financials - the restructuring, the cash flow models, the operational fixes. But I've learned something from 12 years of living through crisis myself and from years of coaching people through transitions: there's a missing piece that changes everything.

So if we're not rational and we're emotionally paralysed, how do we move forward?

I discovered something powerful through this coaching and my Samaritans training. I'll share that next week.

This is Part 2 of a 3-part series:

Part 1: The rationality myth - why self-deception is the first barrier to change
Part 2 (this post): The emotional bottleneck - even when we know the truth, emotion paralyses us
Part 3: The power of being heard - and why it matters in crisis