The intensity of the entrepreneur's emotions

Emotion management

The goal of emotion management for entrepreneurs is to learn to use their emotions as a driving force and not as a brake.

Let's see what you think of the following story that reflects the intensity of the daily emotions faced by an entrepreneur.

You wake up with a feeling of anxiety because you know you have a meeting with an important client who could represent a positive change for your business, and you want everything to go well.

As the meeting time approaches, the anxiety turns into fear: fear of rejection, fear of failure. You start to feel insecure about what you have to offer.

When the moment arrives, your main partner comments on how solid the proposal you're going to offer looks. Your confidence returns. You feel more secure and calm.

The fear lasts only for the few minutes it takes you to start speaking. Once you begin, you are in your element. You feel confident.

The potential client is delighted with your presentation and promises a response for the next day, but you know deep down that it will likely be positive. You are euphoric and satisfied with the day's success. You feel proud of your decision to have started your business.

Shortly after finishing that meeting, another client calls to discuss an issue they had with your service due to a mistake made by one of your employees. You feel anger towards your employee for the mistake and embarrassment towards your client because it was an avoidable error. After all, it's your business, and the ultimate responsibility for the mistake is yours.

You feel powerless and frustrated because it's an error that could have been avoided if you had trained your employee differently.

You feel disheartened and distrustful that your employee can resolve it on their own. However, after some intense and heated back-and-forth with your employee and client, you manage to resolve the situation, satisfying your client.

You are tired but more serene. Ready to close the day and end another daily chapter of your entrepreneurial adventure.

Does the previous scenario sound familiar to you?

In a single workday, entrepreneurs go through a wide range of emotions. The intensity of an entrepreneur's emotions is immense. We go from the lowest lows to the highest highs, and back down again. We feel anger, joy, fear, confidence, distrust, pride...

At one moment we feel invincible and the next we think we are destined for failure and made a huge mistake by choosing the path of entrepreneurship.

Recently, I read a book that inspired me to write this article. It’s “The Entrepreneur Rollercoaster” by Darren Hardy. In this book, the author likens the experience of entrepreneurship to riding a roller coaster.

What are emotions?

Emotions are defined as intense and short-lived alteration of mood, pleasant or painful, accompanied by some somatic commotion.

This tells us two things about emotions:

1. They are temporary, short-lived. (Unlike feelings, which are the consequence of emotions and are longer-lasting sensations towards people, events, or objects).

2. They cause reactions, which can be physical (physiological), psychological (mood), or behavioral. They are alterations of your mood, short-lived, and affect your behavior.

My husband has always said that there are two types of partners, “anchor” partners and “sail” partners. “Anchor” partners are the ones who prevent you from moving forward, keeping you in the safe and unchanging. “Sail” partners are the ones who stimulate your growth and progress in all circumstances. They help you develop both professionally and personally.

I think this reasoning applies to how we manage our emotions as entrepreneurs. The same emotion, fear for example, can be an “anchor” if it paralyzes us and prevents us from moving. But the same fear can be a “sail” emotion if it forces us to move and seek adjustments to overcome the threatening situation.

In this sense, emotions per se are neither bad nor good. The environment in which they occur and how we manage them determine whether they are positive or harmful to us and our business.

The emotional life of an entrepreneur is intense. Possibly more intense than that of the average employee. If we want to successfully navigate this emotional intensity, we must learn to manage ourselves. To manage our emotions.

What are the main emotions of an entrepreneur?

There are various theoretical positions on which and how many emotions exist. After reviewing different sources, I have learned that authors define anywhere from 4 to 8 or 10 basic emotions.

There is agreement, however, that emotions can be of two types:

1. Primary or basic emotions, which are the emotions we are born with and naturally appear in humans as a response to their environment, serving as a natural tool for adaptation and survival. These primary emotions are: Fear, Sadness, Anger, and Happiness (the four that all authors tend to agree on), and some add Surprise and Disgust (also defined as Aversion or Distaste).

2. Secondary or complex emotions, which appear later with development and are produced by the combination of basic emotions and interaction with the environment. Among these are: Pride, Shame, Enthusiasm, Guilt, Remorse, among many others. In any case, the purpose of this article is not to determine the theoretical classification of emotions, but to understand how they affect the entrepreneur's day-to-day life.

Emotional management for entrepreneurs

You cannot (nor would you want to, believe me) avoid feeling various emotions throughout the day. The intensity of an entrepreneur's emotions is a fact and is inherent to our activity. However, you can learn to recognize and manage them.Many of the emotions we have been taught to see as negative actually prepare us for the challenge.

The goal of emotion management for entrepreneurs is to learn to use their emotions as a driving force and not as a brake.

How to properly manage the range of emotions that overwhelm you every day?

You must recognize the emotions in order to face and manage them:

• Learn to recognize your emotions. The more you know yourself, the more you will learn to identify the emotion you feel at any given moment. Often, what you think is anger towards a situation is really frustration or disappointment for not knowing how to face it or not having the right tools to do so. What you think is enthusiasm for doing something may be admiration for someone who also does it, but not really what makes you happy. The more you make the effort to know yourself, the easier it will be to identify the emotion you feel and act accordingly.

• Accept your emotions. Once you have identified the emotion you feel, accept it. There is no point in resisting the fact that you feel anger, fear, or insecurity in the face of a situation in your business. Accept what you feel. And then, let it go. Overcome it. Do not judge your emotions.

• Use your emotions to improve your situation or circumstance. Once you know what you feel, have identified it well, and accepted that you feel it, decide what behavior will help you enhance the emotions that are positive for your business or change the negative ones, turning them into a springboard to attract new ones.

Accept and let go

The longer you hold on to emotions that hold you back, the harder it will be to move forward.

Let go of emotions that do not work in your favor.

Understand them, be grateful that they have presented themselves to help you on your daily journey and let them go.

Don't get stuck on things that cause you stress, fear, anger, or frustration. The tendency to keep going over the same negative emotions is known as “rumination” and besides making you feel bad and causing anxiety, it prevents you from acting.

You've seen that throughout the day, every day, you face many different emotions. If you stay stuck in each one of them, the day will pass without you having done anything positive and productive for your business. So, accept and let go.

Strategies to manage your emotions Although you cannot (nor do you want to, I repeat) avoid feeling the varied emotions of each day, there are some habits that can help you in the process of identifying and managing them:

1. Mindfulness or full awareness. This refers to the ability to be consciously in the present moment. It involves experiencing situations without distractions. Accepting experiences as they come in the present moment, whether we like them or not, without getting distracted by thinking about what could have been or what will be. Practicing full awareness helps us more quickly identify the emotions that overwhelm us at any moment.

2. Meditation and relaxation. The regular habit of meditation can help you have a better connection between your body and mind, and help you avoid being dominated by your emotions, allowing you to take charge and consciously control your behavior.

3. Planning. A large part of the emotional variations of entrepreneurs is related to the anxiety generated by uncertainty. The less you know about what might happen, the less prepared you will be to face it. Although you can never eliminate the uncertainty factor and cannot completely avoid being surprised by emotions, to the extent that you manage better planning and organization procedures for your time, tasks, and objectives, you will have better tools to face the emotional ups and downs of daily life. You can read a previous article on how to plan properly at the following link: Do you have your daily list ready?

The roller coaster of an entrepreneur's emotions can be exciting. If you manage your emotions well, you can enjoy not only the arrival at your destination but mainly the journey. Learn to know and manage your emotions as an entrepreneur so that you can enjoy each day of your adventure on this path of entrepreneurship.