If you don’t already know, you’ll quickly figure out that emotions don’t mix well with business. It doesn’t matter if you are sad, happy, or even angry, you always need to make decisions based on logic.
I know it sounds simple, but even after being an entrepreneur for ten years, I still find it difficult to control my emotions at all times. For the most part, I keep my emotions under control, but every once in a while, I slip up.
If you want to start making better decisions and start doing what’s best for your business, here is what you can do to control your emotions.
Lessons #1: Stay grounded
Have you heard the saying: being an entrepreneur is like riding a roller coaster? There are ups and downs, and although there are the bad times, there are also the great times.
Although roller coasters may be fun, they cause your emotions to go from one end of the spectrum to the other. Ideally, you want to keep yourself grounded by keeping your emotions right in the middle.
When I was younger, my business partner taught me a little trick that helped me keep my emotions grounded. Here’s how…
If something bad happens to you or if you get some bad news, don’t get depressed. There is always someone out there who has it much worse than you, so cheer up and keep pushing forward.
And when something good happens to you and you feel like getting excited, don’t bother. Although you may think you have it good, there are lot more people out there who are doing much better than you. So, instead of focusing on the win you just achieved, keep pushing forward so that you can experience more wins.
By using this simple trick my business partner taught me, you can stay grounded and keep your emotions from swinging from left to right.
Lesson #2: Don’t hang out with emotional people exclusively
At the start of this year, I was living in San Diego. During that month, I went through more emotional mood swings than I have ever experienced in my life.
I was surrounding myself with people who were very emotionally unstable and had tons of drama in their lives. There is nothing wrong with surrounding yourself with these type of people, but like with everything else – moderation is important!
This is one of the reasons I moved back to Seattle. I didn’t want to surround myself with people who weren’t in an emotionally healthy state. By doing this, I grew my business, and I was able to focus on my work instead of being distracted. Seattle is a hard-working town, and while San Diego is full of successful entrepreneurs, there are definitely way too many distractions.
If you have a tendency to hang out with emotional people, start separating yourself from them. And, no, this doesn’t mean you should cut them out of your life. Just create a greater level of separation.
Lesson #3: Stop bullshitting
One thing that my assistant showed me over the past few months is that a lot of emotional mood swings occur due to bad communications with friends.
If you want to reduce the number of emotional swings you have, you need to stop bullshitting. Messing around when you are hanging out with friends is fine, but you need to separate that from business.
By cutting back on useless conversions, you’ll drastically reduce the amount of bullshit. People will get the hint that you are busy, and they’ll stop bothering you unless they have something important to discuss with you.
Lesson #4: Don’t count your chickens before they hatch
As a business owner, you’re prone to bouts of excitement when you hear great news. You’ll want to celebrate by partying, and you’ll probably go all out and blow a lot of cash.
Even though you know about lesson number 1, which is to stay grounded, you’ll happen to break it every once in a while. But what usually happens when you get super happy is that you have a huge crash at the end.
The crash doesn’t happen because you partied too hard. It happens, in my experience, because the good news that you thought you had just went away. For example, if a customer says he or she is going to do a million dollar deal with your company, don’t get excited until the deal is sealed. What I mean by this is that the contract doesn’t matter. All that matters is that you have the money in your bank account.
Be careful about counting your chickens before they hatch as it will bite you in the butt. If you want to take it to the next level, train yourself to not even count them once they hatch.
Conclusion
It’s tough taking emotions out of business. Whether you feel bad because you got screwed over or happy that you closed a big deal, emotions can easily get the best of you. But if you are able to control them, you’re likely to make logical decisions and take your business to the next level.