Don’t Let Your Emotions Run Your Business
Earlier I wrote about the top reason entrepreneurs fail, however there are an abundance of reasons that we will touch on in depth in separate articles. The next one we’ll tackle is the emotional aspect of being in business for the first time. It is much like falling passionately in love for the first time: with Brad Pitt. It’s exciting, overwhelming, scary, and often times you’ll pinch & ask yourself if this is for real.
So you can either appreciate the situation for what it is, accepting it and knowing that you’re in unknown territory and working towards learning everything you can to be successful in this new relationship (with your business) or, you can let your own neurosis sabotage the hard work you put into it.
Don’t Let Your Emotions Run Your Business
As you may have noticed, these first few articles about being a new entrepreneur are not about the nuts & bolts like advertising budgets and how to lay out your printed materials for best distribution or where to advertise, it’s about you. You are the foundation of this business and if you don’t have your shit together or if you’re not willing to put your ego aside and be willing to learn from others and their mistakes, then you will assuredly group yourself with the 80%+ that will fail before the end of their 1st year in business.
But since you’re still reading this, then I know that you have a chance of making it. If you’re willing to put aside what you think you know about business, then you’ve got a better shot at this than most.
Have you ever been in a fight with someone that you are in love with, and while you are being a completely unreasonable jerk, you know you’re being a completely unreasonable jerk, yet you can’t stop yourself from being a jerk? Have you ever wondered why you behaved that? Were you angry, jealous, insecure, uncomfortable, offended or a variety of any other emotions? Did you acting like a jerk help your relationship or hurt it?
The difference is, when you behave like that in businesses, you don’t get to kiss & makeup and explain your side of the story and even beg for forgiveness. Strong emotions like the ones described above are what put us in a reactive mode when it should trigger a more reflective mode. However, when you are in business for yourself, you have to treat your relationship with your business like it is a computer: it has many algorithms in place to make it function effectively if you input the right information, however if you throw a tantrum or make decisions based on pure emotion that doesn’t compute, then it very quickly sends you error messages then ultimately crashes.
Examples of Emotional Actions/Reactions
If you don’t hire a perspective employee because they’re prettier than you are, smarter than you are, have more hair than you, or whatever reason that makes you uncomfortably insecure about yourself yet without basing it on their true attributes and talents, you are making harmful decisions based on your emotions. If the candidate is highly qualified for the position, yet you hire someone with less matching attributes for the position because you feel less threatened then you are not going to be able to grow your business or yourself as quickly and efficiently.
If you decide not to contribute your thoughts and ideas to a group because you feel inferior, or you feel the group treats you that way, then you need to clear that up with the group so that you don’t have a crutch to hold onto. Remember, speak your mind intelligently, but speak it nonetheless.
If you act like a teenager and try to speak to your employees like they’re your best buddies, then when they don’t show you or each other the level of respect you think you deserve, you will be hurt, but don’t feign ignorance. If you go out drinking with them and wonder why they’re talking to you like you’re their best buddy during a staff meeting or if they’re late to work because they think you would understand because you were at the same party, then you’re letting your need to be liked override your your boundaries as an employer. Never mind the legal implications.
If your means of getting what you want is to try to manipulate people individually, then your insecurities are rearing their ugly heads again. It shows that you don’t feel you have the talent or leadership abilities to get a group to move your direction so you revert back to high school methods of manipulation. The funny thing is, that manipulative people are very easy to spot. They often times forget that the people they’re trying to manipulate actually talk to each other.
If you don’t call or email someone back regarding business matters because you feel like you’ve been slighted or insulted, then you are not being professional. Again, pull yourself together and figure out the difference between business & personal matters.
If you have that ball of emotion stuck right around the center of your chest, have tunnel vision or hear a ringing in your ears from the blood pumping too quickly as you are about to make a decision or take action, then you probably shouldn’t be doing it right then. For example: if you feel right this second that you need to fire someone because that person has pissed you off or you found them sitting a little too closely to your spouse, then you need to step back. Unless you caught them stealing, vadalizing, or comign to work on drugs, then you’re letting the wrong organ make your decisions for you – your heart.
Remember that behaving like a petulant child or making decisions that make you feel a certain way are things that you need to avoid. Give yourself some distance and perspective before making hasty decisions or even long, drawn out emotional decisions. Bounce it off someone you trust in businss, not just someone you trust to back you up. Ask someone’s opinion that you know will tell you the truth and not someone who you keep around to stroke your ego.
The Truth
It takes a lot of practice to understand that cannot behave as you have all your life when you open up a business for the first time. It takes people who love and care about you to help you see this at times, but it ultimately takes you making the final decsion & effort to be better than an emotional basketcase. This is easier said than done since it feels so personal when you’ve tied a couple hundred thousand or better into this new business venture. It gets emotional to think that your children’s college fund, your 401k or that 2nd mortgage you tapped into might be slipping through your fingers. However, the alternative of running your business through your emotions is chaos. And though I’ve known many new business owners to thrive on chaos (ok, if we’re being honest, I’ve known many of my friends to be addicted to chaos and emotional turmoil, including myself at certain points of my life), it’s ultimately destructive.
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