It was literally true that my mother had taught her children that emotion should play a major role in making decisions. That generally meant identifying wants and then pursuing them, regardless of whether we should.

I led my life with that approach until I had an epiphany about 10 years ago. It was inspired by my exposure to 2 people[0].

Between 2009 and 2012, I encountered several people who were very smart, but expressed their intelligence in a different way than I was familiar with. One I met personally, the other through media (YouTube, etc.) I realized at one point that what they had in common was this: their explanations and reasoning were precisely sufficient. They expressed themselves with exactly the right amount of evidence, logical flow and correct reasoning such that virtually everything they claimed was unassailable. I found myself strongly attracted to this type of thinking and in a short time, started second guessing all of my analysis and decision making and discarding any points that were not clear thought. It wasn't just emotional wants that were discarded, but in many cases, incorrectness as well.

One area that benefited quite a bit from this was in my investments. The best performing investments I've made were executed since that epiphany.

[0] (I prefer not to name them, lest I be disregarded as a fanboy, but the clues are in the comment)