Welcome to my second post of the most influential wisdom that I have gained (so far!).  I want to also stress that although I feel that I possess the wisdom that I shared last week, and will share in future posts, know this, the struggle is real.  As John Maxwell is fond of saying, “the hardest person you will ever lead is staring back at you in the mirror” (I am paraphrasing the master here!).

For those that know me, you won’t be surprised when I say that I am an emotional guy.  The highs can be really high and the lows can dive deep.  Add in the emotional roller coaster of entrepreneurship and I knew I had to learn a way to manage my emotions if I was going to build the companies and the life that I wanted.

The biggest single mind shift that has helped me personally is to realize that I feel the way I feel because I have chosen to feel that way.  No matter what is going on in the world, how I feel is how I chose to feel in that very moment.  If I don’t like the way I feel, it isn’t the fault of someone or something out there.  I have chosen to respond to whatever is impacting me in the way that I am responding.

I am not sure exactly where I came upon this phrasing, but the best known source that I can attribute it to is Eleanor Roosevelt, who said, “No One Can Make You Feel Inferior Without Your Permission”.  For me it isn’t about feeling inferior (not something that I personally struggle with), but more about any feeling that you have.  This ties heavily into Daniel Goleman’s work on Emotional Intelligence and is supported by many others in the field of personal and professional development.

We all know that familiar feeling when our heart starts to race, our cheeks get flushed and the adrenaline starts pumping through our veins.  Fight or flight.  It is in that moment where, we CAN make a choice.  Once we realize that we are in control, we can pause, and choose our response more wisely instead of letting the evolutionary cocktail of hormones take control and take us somewhere we may wish we never ventured.  

Whenever I feel my emotions trying to exert too much control (damn lizard brain!), I try always to push this thought to the front of my mind –  that whatever I feel is how I have chosen to feel.  It doesn’t always work, but it does usually help to stem the tide.  If I “let myself” I can let anger, disappointment, or frustration highjack me more that I would like to admit.  Recognizing that I can control my response has been huge in helping me not sabotage relationships or make bad situations worse.

Although this is mainly an issue with negative emotions, it is also beneficial for positive emotions as well.  Although I don’t think you can really be “too happy”, I do find that just as you don’t want the lows to be too low, you don’t want the highs to be too high in a professional setting.  The biggest issue, in my mind here, is complacency (more on that in a future post).  

The flip side of this is playing the victim, which is unfortunately where I used to be.  When I would get over “being mad” about a situation, I tended to look for someone (other than myself to blame).  If that person did say/do that, I wouldn’t have reacted that way.  That is the easy answer.  The hard answer is to take responsibility and accountability for YOU.  

The next time you feel yourself “losing control” of your emotions, take a moment and look in a (real or metaphorical) mirror and make sure you want to go in the direction you are headed.