While I certainly agree that everybody's actions must comply with their own, unique system of beliefs – I have to take issue with the idea that decisions are not emotional. To say that decisions, or actions, are not emotionally based flies in the face of just about every bit of research done over the last 50 years on the brain. If the headline of this article is just your way of provoking our attention so we'll read the article, then that's fine. If you're actually saying our decisions and actions aren't emotionally based, I'd love to know where you get your support from.

The very beliefs that you refer to are emotionally based. That's one of the reasons that people are so unique. Emotion is based in the interpretation of personal impact – that interpretation, by definition (because of where it is made in the brain) is emotional.

Now, I completely agree that salespeople often use the term "emotional" in a pejorative, demeaning context (as you share in this post). My read as to why someone should do what I think they should do in a selling situation is as emotionally based as is the decision that I disagree with.

People are emotional (it's what makes them so much fun). Now, they're not emotionally blind, and the brain does, in fact, have important rational components as well. Effective communication, sales and any effort on influence connects to the entire mind – both the emotional centers and the "logic/rational" centers. Our goal should be to understand and communicate to the entire mind/person.

I often say emotions are the decision accelerator, rationale logic is the break. Effective sales addresses both.