There are three ideas that are at least partially responsible for every bad decision you have made since you bought that timeshare in Tampa.

These three things drive us to react when we should wait, wait when we should react, and generally make decisions that are exactly opposite of what a sensible, rational (see: imaginary) human being should.

If the title of this article didn’t tip you off, those three things are Fear, Hope and Greed. Today I will briefly explain how they are ruining your life.

Let’s start by talking about Fear.

Fear is an absolutely essential tool. It keeps us from stumbling into cages with large, vicious animals, from chasing five dollar bills into traffic and from a host of other mistakes that would quickly end our time here on this planet. Unfortunately, the type of fear that keeps you sitting alone in your basement scratching out idea after idea as you try to find the one that is guaranteed to turn you into a millionaire goes beyond survival into a place that can only be described as fanaticism.

When you let Fear of consequence keep you from action, you are ignoring the most important point that anyone who fashions himself an entrepreneur needs to keep top of mind — no matter how good your plan or how perfect your idea, it’s going to go completely wrong more often than not.

Good business is about accepting the possibility of catastrophic failure and being prepared for it, not about predicting the future and trying to hedge away all risk.

It’s important to learn to live and work with you fear, let it be that little, whiny voice in the back of your head that helps you make better decisions, not the Bogey Man that keeps you up at night shaking under your comforter.

What about Hope then? Wouldn’t that help?

Hope is not the opposite of Fear. In fact, they are kissing cousins. Like Fear, Hope is a belief in a world that may or may not actually exist. In small doses, Hope is absolutely critical to remaining sane. It’s Hope that gets us over those catastrophic failures I keep talking about and Hope that allows us to understand that we have the power and ability to do anything we put our minds to.

Unfortunately, Hope can also convince us that we are super heroes without forcing us to actually do anything to prove it. It can help us justify ridiculous, irrational and reactionary decision making while whispering to us that obvious risks don’t really exist.

If you don’t allow yourself to see risks, you can’t prepare yourself for them. If you think jumping out of a plane is perfectly safe, why bring a parachute?

There is a delicate balance between giving Hope a place in your life, and letting your life be ruled by it. When Hope is keeping you from changing and growing, you may want to look closely at just how much control you have ceded to it.

Finally, I’d like to tell you that, “Greed is good.”

Gordon Gecko wasn’t wrong when he said this. Without a touch of Greed, you won’t get anywhere as an entrepreneur. You need to desire things or you will not be able to ask for them. Knowing how to ask is one of the biggest road blocks that those of us in the business of selling things need to overcome.

For those of you who think you are above Greed, don’t fool yourself. Greed isn’t necessarily about money. Most commonly, in fact, it’s not. We want people’s time, attention, consideration, praise, and recommendations and we want them for ourselves. In any given day you can point to hundreds of tiny instances of Greed in your life and that’s a good thing. This kind of Greed motivates and drives us to try harder, and is critically important for just about anyone with a pulse.

The problem arises when you start to desire things like Granny’s Pension fund, and when you are driven to get more at the expense of reason and judgment. This is gamblers greed, that voice in the back of your head that says that it doesn’t really matter if you’re already up $1000 and the house has an 8% statistical advantage, you’re on a roll and if you just keep playing you’ll be a millionaire by dinner time. It’s also the voice that tells you the exact same thing when you’re down by $1000 and you’re hunting around for an ATM in the middle of the night.

Greed is easy to ignore, until you start making money. At that moment you need to pay special attention to whether or not you are making decisions that will benefit you in the long run, or trying your best to run up the score no matter what the cost. Make rules, strategies and plans to manage the fact that there will be times you will not be able to trust yourself to be sensible. Stick to those plans, have your team stick to them and recognize that while winning a few spins on the roulette wheel feels good, you are in this for the long haul.

You can’t overcome suffering from a little bit of unnecessary Fear, pathological Hope and excess Greed. If you can, What you can do is accept the fact that these emotions are a part of what make you, and recognize when you are making decision based solely on their tug.

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